Rob Alvarez Bucholska
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Role-Playing for Real Growth 🎭 with Kathrin Fischer | Episode 383

 

If you’re struggling to keep people engaged and loyal in your product or business, check out my FREE gamification course to learn how to do just that: professorgame.com/freecommunity-web

What if playing pretend could unlock real-world skills? 🎭🎲 We explore how Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs) are transforming education and therapy. Through structured yet creative gameplay, Kathrin helps students and therapy patients develop communication, teamwork, and confidence—while having fun. She shares how even short, one-hour sessions can lead to long-term behavioral changes, deeper engagement, and transferable skills that go beyond the game table. Whether you’re an educator, a product designer, or a community builder, this episode will inspire you to harness the power of play to boost retention, motivation, and meaningful learning experiences.

Kathrin Fischer is a teacher and learning therapist from Germany who focuses on applied ttrpg (tabletop roleplaying game) as a method in learning since 2019. With her Company EduTale she provides workshops and material for educators and therapists. She also works at the Bonn Lab for Analog Games and Imaginative Play of the University of Bonn.

Rob is a host and consultant at Professor Game as well as an expert, international speaker and advocate for the use of gamification and games-based solutions, especially in education and learning. He’s also a professor and workshop facilitator for the topics of the podcast and LEGO SERIOUS PLAY (LSP) for top higher education institutions that include EFMD, IE Business School and EBS among others in Europe, America and Asia.

 

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Lets’s do stuff together!

Looking forward to reading or hearing from you,

Rob

 

Full episode transcription (AI Generated)

Rob (00:00)
Hey, this is Professor Game where we interview successful practitioners of games, gamification and game thinking to help us multiply engagement and loyalty. I’m Rob Alvarez. I’m a consultant, I’m a coach, and I’m the founder here at Professor Game. And I’m also a professor of gamification and game inspired solutions at IE University, IE Business School, EFMD, EBS University, and other places around the world. And before we dive into the interview, you’re struggling.

with engagement in your business and are looking to find out how to make your users stay with you. You will find a free community full of resources, quite useful. You can find it for free in the links below in the description. So, Engagers, welcome back to another episode of the Professor Game Podcast. We have Catherine with us today. So Catherine, we need to know, are you prepared to engage? Yeah.

Kathrin Fischer (00:52)
I am here, so I am prepared.

Rob (00:55)
Let’s do this. We have Catherine with us today. Catherine Fisher. Is that a good way to say it? Yeah. She’s a teacher and learning therapist from Germany who focuses on applying TTRPG. So tabletop role playing games as a method in learning since 2019. And with her company, EduTale, she provides workshops and material for educators and therapists. She also works at the Bonn lab for analog games and imaginative play at the University of Bonn. So Catherine, is there anything that we’re missing from that intro?

Kathrin Fischer (01:24)
No, I think that’s most of the things I am actually doing.

Rob (01:31)
Amazing, amazing. So Catherine, you know, we were before this chat, I know you were at a conference, today you were working in the morning, but in general, what do your days look like? What kind of things are you doing or maybe your weeks? I don’t know, whatever you want to go for. We want to be there with you.

Kathrin Fischer (01:46)
My days are actually really different. I have days when I am in the afternoon all the time in therapeutic settings with kids in occupational therapy and learning therapy. And I work together with other therapists and there I do about three hours each one hour. So three groups, one after the other.

in TTRPG, apply TTRPG to help them to evolve their skills they need at school to participate in a way that’s more fun for them.

Rob (02:29)
There’s at least in my mind before actually starting to learn a bit more. Again, I’ve said this several times. I haven’t done DT RPG yet. I want to, I want to. Yes, it is. agree. And I had opportunities when I was younger and had time. Now it’s a bit more tough, but I will find my chance. But there’s sort of myths when you say, well, DT RPG for one hour. Is it like, I know it is feasible, but how is it feasible? So when people say one hour, mean, one hour you could achieve it.

But one hour sounds like a TTRPGs are always like you sit down and spend the whole night doing.

Kathrin Fischer (03:01)
How it’s done in the hobby and a lot of people who play in the hobby say, okay, I play six hours and it’s nothing. It’s just how it’s done. I have to engage. I need my immersion and I need time for this. And that’s right. That’s how many people do enjoy it. But in the therapeutic setting, we have just one hour. That’s the hour that’s paid. And that’s also the hour they have.

in their free time or in the time they can use for this. And you can just think of it like you look a series. You can do a lot of cliffhangers. You can use the start of the session of the therapeutic session to ask, what did we do last time? And then dive in again. But we also, and that’s also a part that you don’t usually have when you play in a hobby.

you have to make a reflection face in the end to talk about how the session worked. If there’s something they want to talk about, what was good, what was not so good and where they want to go next time and what you have to think about. so, of course, it’s not so much time play for the playing, but it’s actually enough to

to play and to also have a lot of fun and to see progress.

Rob (04:34)
telling me it’s not only enough to have one hour, it’s enough to have less than one hour to do this and to get results and to get the therapy going and to get some results. know this is usually therapy is not one session thing, it’s over time, but in that one hour you actually get what you need from that one hour to then meet them again.

Kathrin Fischer (04:52)
Because

you repeat it every week and you have a lot of the same structures that you do again and again. And so sometimes it’s better to not play that long, but to do it frequently. that’s also how school works. And we can talk about that it’s not good that school is like this and that we should have longer periods.

look at one thing from different perspectives and all this, but it helps the kids to use this, what they learn in the sessions at school. And so we have that, that’s also a lot of kids that are there, have been in therapy before and performed well in therapy, but they couldn’t take this and use it at school. It was just okay in therapy, but not at school.

The groups now that we have in the occupational therapy, most of them can really transfer what they learned into the school setting.

Rob (06:03)
That’s amazing. And I’m sure you’re doing amazing work. That’s why you are on the podcast. That’s why you’re sharing your experience. Yet we also like to do something with our guests. And as you know, we get started with a fail question or a first attempt at learning. Of course it’s gone well many times. I’m sure you’ve been able to successfully pivot as well many other times, but oftentimes or sometimes things don’t go the way we expected it and we need correction or we just need to accept this happened and move on in a different direction.

Can you share with us, again, it doesn’t have, you don’t have to reveal any personal data or anything. In fact, please don’t. But can you share with us a story? We want to be there with you, of be there in that moment, see what happened and live that story with you and maybe you’ll learn a few of the lessons you also took away.

Kathrin Fischer (06:48)
Yeah. And the story I want to tell is a story that I think a lot of GMs, the people who run those games experience also in the Yeah, don’t really use this word. We say, yeah, different other terms.

Rob (07:01)
You like that?

No, I know of

us who were who were you know, not not not in the lingo of the DM and GM and that kind of stuff

Kathrin Fischer (07:21)
In Germany it’s even worse because master has another…

Rob (07:27)
It’s hierarchical as well.

Kathrin Fischer (07:29)
Yeah, really hierarchical. the thing I want to talk about is that in the beginning, mostly it was in the beginning, that I just thought of a story I wanted to play with the kids to make them experience a specific world and specific characters they should interact with. And then we started the game and I had written down all the things I wanted to do and

They just, when I started the game, they said, no, we don’t think it’s interesting. We don’t want it. And in the first sessions, I stayed at my plan, but that doesn’t make any sense because they have to listen to the kids and ask you, so, so who do you want to meet and where do you want to travel to and just do it and never stick to your plan. Never stick to your plan of the story. You can put their riddles inside and you can make them.

experience those things that you planned, but not the way you planned before. You can just do it in a reaction of when you see what they really want to do. And so this is the thing that mostly is a learning I did. And it’s also a bit of, yeah, it’s a bit different to that.

It doesn’t really work because I made a game with a written story and this is actually working and they play it and it seems to work. I think when you play with kids, you have to listen to them. And this is the worst thing. When you stay with a story, you want to tell and not listen to them.

Rob (09:15)
So what I’m guessing from this is one of those times or maybe the first time or times you tried to stick with this story. Is there any funny story, anything that happened during that period where you were just trying to hold on to things that maybe you should have let go?

Kathrin Fischer (09:31)
Yeah, just, you have this feeling of we’re not working together. Now we have a fight between me and them or between them and they’re not working with each other. And so yeah, they do all kinds of stupid things. And that’s actually really interesting what they do because they do everything just so you can’t go on with your plan.

And they are really cool ideas they do because when they’re just going into the other direction or they just try to ignore people that stand before them and turn around and they become extremely creative to avoid your path.

Rob (10:24)
Do they somehow know what your path is? Is there a way for them to have this preconceived idea of where they quote unquote should be going and they’re going against it?

Kathrin Fischer (10:35)
Yeah, of course, of course. And when you make a game out of this, it’s really funny when you play it this way and play with them. But when you don’t go, when in the first reaction you don’t go with them, then it’s not fun because then you just think, they ruined my game. I had so much work doing it. But actually they are playing, you’re just playing different things at the same time.

Rob (11:02)
Hmm. Amazing. Amazing. And how about a time when things did go well? Like let’s take a spin on this and say, look, of course this can go wrong. Of course it can go in a different direction or even again, a good direction, even though it’s different. Is there sort of a success story that you would like to share again? No need to share any personal data or anything if you don’t want to.

Kathrin Fischer (11:22)
Yeah, that was actually also a story that I led on because often I’m not the GM in the groups, I the kids be it and just play with them. But I had one group where I had a kid that wasn’t used or just couldn’t really interact with others, that did not want or did not…

wasn’t used to be part of a group and also didn’t often meet with other kids in the free time. with this group, I had a lot of really good experiences because I just asked them, who do you want to play? Who do you want to be? What do you want to experience to be? And after they chose their characters,

which was absolutely free. could be everything. I just built around them the world that fit together with their concepts. And everything I created was just in reaction on their moves. And it was like a symbiosis. It was a really good experience for all of them. And they asked me, and this is the really crazy thing.

They asked me, how do you know what we are going to do all the time? How could you plan this all so well? And then I realized I didn’t plan anything, but they experienced it as if I was leading them really through this. But they were walking on their own all the time, but they didn’t get it. And we reflected this after this, and it was a really good arc also of the story.

The story arc was peak. They fought gargoyles and controlled them after this and rode a giant snake of rock through Paris in the 1920s. And they had a lot of fun. And after this, the one kid that was not really in the group.

from the beginning and always tried to avoid cooperating, also slid into the group more and more, also because I had some experiences where the others needed the help of this one and so it felt that it had to help them and then they really became one and

play together and after this they also stayed as friends and yeah that’s really the happy story I have to share. There are also other little ones but this

Rob (14:24)
I’m super curious. You can share others if you want, but I’m super curious.

Kathrin Fischer (14:28)
No,

this is the most important for me.

Rob (14:30)
No, totally, totally. were saying that, you know, all these things that happen, when you were telling the story, it felt for me like this was like hours and days where this got to happen. Was this in a single session? 10 sessions?

Kathrin Fischer (14:45)
10 sessions of 1 hour.

Rob (14:50)
So it’s not that much if you think about in terms of school, right? If you think about it, it’s a couple of days maybe of school time. Of course, they wouldn’t run through all of this in a couple of days, but when you think about you, think 10 hours and it sounds like a lot it’s, and these kids are at school, it’s not really that much time in terms of school, right?

Kathrin Fischer (14:52)
But it.

Yeah, they also wrote letters and decoded a lot of riddles and evolved their characters and that’s also things they did. But they grew together as a group.

Rob (15:29)
Yeah. Awesome. That sounds fantastic. So Catherine, love, well, did you want to share any other, any other happy story that you have? This, I mean, it’s perfect timing.

Kathrin Fischer (15:39)
Yeah, are little other stories. There’s the girl that left the occupational therapy because she didn’t need it anymore. There are a lot of those, but she said, yeah, at the beginning I didn’t really understand that this was actually a serious thing, but now I’m not afraid of talking in class anymore, which was my problem. And now I talk a lot more.

And so my grades are better because the teacher realizes that I’m there. And now also have a boy who always was talking and not thinking about if he should talk. And he realized that, yeah, yeah. But in the game, when you say something and you didn’t think about it, it happens anyway.

Rob (16:21)
It’s a bit of a classic,

Yeah. You

did something. you say has a meaning. Yeah.

Kathrin Fischer (16:32)
And that’s the reaction from the world. And sometimes it’s not the one that you want. And then you think before you talk. And he also managed to control this better. it wasn’t that he didn’t talk anymore. But when he said something, had the impact he wanted to. And the others listened to him also because they knew he’s not just talking all the time. He’s…

really wanting to tell us something now. And that’s the difference.

Rob (17:05)
I know it’s a hundred percent super different, but you know, the other day I was telling my daughter, she’s two years old. To keep this in mind. I was telling her like, when you say something, it has a meaning. Like I believe you and I always will believe you. And I want to make sure that what do you tell me is what you want to tell me. She’s like looking at me like, okay. Absorbing this early on that your words have meaning for me. it was like a moment I realized I was telling her this. I mean, hopefully I’ll have to.

just say it only like 30 more times, but hopefully it’ll have an effect, right? But that whole thing of your words have meaning, I can’t think of a better example than you’re in a game and when you say something, it changes whatever is changing. So your words have meaning, consequence, and so on. I love that.

The game. Games being built as you speak, literally. So Catherine, if you were like, of course you use this in therapy, so you probably already have like a method to it. But if you were going to tell, maybe what’s that method, if you have one, I don’t know, wherever you want to guide us, but I’m thinking of either what your method, if you have any steps when you’re applying this or if somebody else were going to apply it. Or again, if you’re going to do something different using TTRPGs, how would you go about doing something like that? We wouldn’t basically get a bit into your mind.

and try to extract some of that for the benefit of the engagers.

Kathrin Fischer (18:28)
Yeah, the first thing is like every teacher or therapist, you look at what goals do you have. And if the goal is you want to make them experience something together or to become a group, to work as a group, then you choose a game that’s better for this. If you want them to experience or to train listening and talking.

one after the other. You use a game that trains this. If you want them to experience a certain kind of feeling or tone, then you take a game that’s for this. And if you would just want them to do different tasks, you can put them into the game, but you should also take a game

where this fits into and doesn’t appear like something that doesn’t really belong to it. a lot of things you can do. But the most important thing is that you should use the easiest game you can for this goal. Because if you have a lot of law and if you have a lot of rules,

Rob (19:33)
and doesn’t really fit, of course.

Kathrin Fischer (19:54)
That’s also something you have to match with until you can actually play. And when a lot of teachers, they just use the games that are there and don’t have to use names, but they are not always the best games for achieving those goals. And so if everybody likes them and if everybody knows them already, just do it.

Rob (19:57)
Yeah.

Kathrin Fischer (20:21)
But if you want to achieve a specific goal, then you may have to just take something easier or just make a new game or a new hack.

Rob (20:37)
Fantastic.

And Catherine, in this world of using TTRPGs for many different things, as you do, is there something that you would call perhaps a best practice? Not a silver bullet, not something that works for everything, but something that you say, well, do this and at least you will get better results than you would if you didn’t, essentially.

Kathrin Fischer (20:58)
Yeah, it depends on what you want to do. would say that you may… Yeah, I have so many different games and so many different times at the moment. for example…

If you look at the for the queen games that are games that are just storytelling games without a lot of rules there, they’re just talking. So I think if you use them to have specific experiences of maybe when you play against the monster, when you want to experience something about otherness and…

a fear of something that’s different and talk about this, then you can actually use this really good. And that’s an example that there are games out there that are not so complicated, but they’re also not so well known, but that really fit very well if you want to talk about fear from…

people or groups that are different to you and you don’t understand them, but you still want to approach them. And yeah, I think it wasn’t a good answer to your question, but…

Rob (22:33)
Yeah. You gave us some recommendations, so that’s all good. Fair game and very, very welcome for sure. So Catherine, you are definitely an expert on TTRPGs and using them with these purposes. There’s many things that you’ve done. I’m sure you’ve gathered a lot of inspiration from different people. Maybe one of those people or somebody else that you would think like, huh, I would be curious, interested, or wanting to get some insights from this person, perhaps answering questions like the ones we’ve, we’ve answered before.

on the Professor Game Podcast, a feature guest essentially.

Kathrin Fischer (23:05)
Yeah, most poop is-

Rob (23:06)
or past lives or whatever it is that you’re aiming for. Maybe AI at some point will let us talk to people who are no longer with us.

Kathrin Fischer (23:17)
Okay, but I think there are already, there are some living people I really think who could really say something here. And maybe he was already there. I’m not sure. Michael Low would be someone I would recommend who’s doing really cool stuff with TTRPG in California. And also just got to know Dr. Laura Lewald-Roman.

who is a German teacher who is making really interesting lessons, really progressive with her kids at school and is also doing research with those TTIPTs. I’m really in this bubble as you see, but she’s a really bright person, so I would recommend her.

Rob (24:15)
I’ll at the end, I’ll definitely ask you for the spelling because I, my German is not, not zero, but exactly zero. So I’m definitely not going to be very good at decoding that one for all by myself. Catherine, keeping up with the recommendations, is there maybe a book that you recommend to the engagers and why that book? of course, not any others.

Kathrin Fischer (24:37)
Yeah, if you want to deep dive into TTRPG, there’s this role-playing game studies transmedia approach. That’s really the role-playing science behind it. And there’s also a second version that was just released now.

But you want just to get a bit into TTRPG, there’s… But I don’t know if there’s an English version. I know this Abenteuer Gestalten, creating adventures. It’s a German book I really love because you can… In beginning there are questions on what you really want to do and then you just have to read this chapter if you want to make a game in this way.

There’s also a lot of tips for associating stories so you don’t sit there before a white paper. Although you don’t have to invent the stories because your players will do it anyway. But yeah, it’s a really nice.

Rob (25:57)
In fact, that one I’m seeing, if I’m seeing the right one, it’s by Sebastian de Turing. that? Sound right? Yes. Fantastic. Sounds like a great book.

Kathrin Fischer (26:02)
Yeah, that’s thing, yeah.

It’s a great and it’s a heavy book. Yeah.

Rob (26:11)
Well, Sebastian is a researcher and he does heavy thinking. So it makes sense that it, for it to be a heavy and, know, rich book in that sense. So in this world of TTRPGs, Catherine, and keep in mind, superpowers are not exclusive. Many can fly. Many have a lot of strength. What would you say is your superpower? That thing that you do at least better than most other people.

Kathrin Fischer (26:34)
I think one thing is that I have a lot of really, really fun playing and also when I’m in this applied setting and I’m there as the expert, I can still be a playing kid at the same time. And I think not everybody can do this. And I think it’s a superpower. Maybe others think she’s just…

crazy but but i really enjoy it because it makes my work a lot more

Rob (27:10)
I am sure it does and it’s very, very important. And I do think it is also like you. think it is very, very useful. So Catherine, now we get to the difficult question. What would you say is your favorite game? And of course, will you suggest staying away from your own games because it’s an easy way to get there? Or if you have many, it becomes difficult against.

Kathrin Fischer (27:39)
I always say the best game is always the one you invent with the group you’re playing at the moment. This is my scientific answer. But the game I’m playing the most and I played the most during the last year was For the Queen by Alex Roberts.

And it’s a really fun game. Maybe not for those really little kids. Maybe you should take some cuts out because it’s a bit psychological, but it is psychological and that makes it really good. And it’s about dependency and a toxic relationship. And yeah, you can experience this with this game and then talk about it and if it’s good or not.

You

Rob (28:37)
Fantastic fantastic Catherine. Thank you very much for all of your insights. think You know every now and then we do have people who are more sort of deep deep diving into TTRPGs And I enjoy it very much for two reasons I do think there is a lot of power There’s a lot of hidden potential there that is not being tapped into to be fair lately We’ve had a bit more than we usually used to have but it’s a big pleasure and the other one is that me personally I enjoy it because I know I have not yet benefited

As I know I want to from TTRPG. there’s a doubt, there’s definitely many, benefits for me as a podcast host. And I’m sure for the engagers as well. However, Catherine, all good things do come to an end. And even though we’ve been having a great time, it’s also time to say goodbye. And before we say goodbye, is there anything, any final words you want to say where we can find out more about you? This is, this is, know, your, your time to say whatever comes to your mind.

Kathrin Fischer (29:30)
Yeah, you can go to my website, edutail.de. It’s a German website, you can use Google Translate. And you can look, when you are interested into the scientific stuff, you can look at the Lagip Bon Lab of Analog Games and Imaginative Play, where I’m also working and where we do a lot of cool stuff.

Yeah, I also have a podcast, but it wasn’t there since one year, was no new things. It’s ungeheuer vernünftig and it’s also in German, but it’s also about TTRPG, so maybe somebody.

Rob (30:13)
We do have listeners from Germany. I’m sure many of them also are more than familiar with the German language. So hopefully you’ll benefit from that as well. Catherine, again, it’s been a pleasure having you on. However, Catherine and Engagers, as you know, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it’s game over. Hey, Engagers, and thank you for listening to the Professor Game.

I guess and since you’re interested in this world of creating motivation, engagement, loyalty, using game inspired solutions, how about you join us on our free online community at Professor Game on School. You can find the link right below in the description, but the main thing is to click there, join us. It’s a platform called School is for Free and you will find plenty of resources there. We’ll be up to date with everything that we’re doing, any opportunity that we might have for you.

And of course, before you go on to your next mission, before you click continue, please remember to subscribe using your favorite podcast app and listen to the next episode of Professor Game. See you there.

 

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