Storytelling games perspective taking: what the board actually teaches

The Oasis Health Journal · Submitted October 25, 2026 · 5:05 PM EDT

By Ray 'Sleeves' Okafor · Edited by Mona Trell

So they ran a real study. 286 kids, three countries, age eight to twelve. Published in The British Journal of Developmental Psychology, peer reviewed, the whole thing. And what they measured was whether storytelling games improve perspective taking in children.

Not imagination. Not creativity. Not whether the kid had fun.

Whether the kid got better at modeling what another person think, feel and know.

And the number went up. Went up significant.

Now I watch this engine run every Saturday at the shop. Kid walk up to the table, they got they character sheet, they got they backstory, they got they whole plan for the session. Then the dungeon master say something they did not expect, or another player take a turn that mess up the plan, and now that kid gotta stop and think: what does that person want? What do they know? What they gonna do next?

That ain't creativity. That is theory of mind. That is perspective-taking. That is the thing developmental psychologists measure when they trying to figure out if a child understand that other people got they own thoughts running.

And collaborative narrative tabletop games make you do it over and over, every turn, for two hours.

What they actually measured

The researchers built a mobile game called JOINclusion. Story mode, multiplayer mode, interactive scenarios about ethnocultural empathy. Kids played it, then the researchers ran two tests: one for empathic feeling and expression, one for cognitive perspective-taking.

Cognitive perspective-taking is the technical term for 'can you figure out what somebody else thinking even when you do not agree with them.'

That score went up. The other one, empathic feeling, went up a little bit but the statistics called it marginal. The perspective-taking number was solid. Significant regardless of gender, age or migratory background.

They used a pre-post design with latent change score models, which is a fancy way to say they measured before, measured after, and controlled for the fact that some kids start higher than others.

The study ran in Italy, Greece and the Netherlands. Same result in all three.

Now that is a mobile game, and I sell cardboard, so let me tell you why the same engine live in both.

The thing all narrative games make you do

You take on a role. Not your role. Somebody else role. A character with different knowledge, different goals, different problems. Then you make decisions from inside that situation while other people at the table doing the same thing with they own characters.

Which mean every turn, you gotta model what they thinking.

The rogue trying to steal something. The cleric trying to keep everybody alive. The barbarian trying to hit something with an axe. You the wizard. You got six seconds to decide if you gonna help, hinder, or stay out of it. And you cannot decide that unless you got a working model of what them other three people want right now.

That is perspective-taking under time pressure. And role playing games build social skills because they make you do it a hundred times a session.

The mobile game in the study used scenarios. Cardboard games use dice and a game master. The structure the same: you presented with a situation, you gotta figure out what another person thinking or feeling, you make a choice, you see what happen.

Experiential learning. Concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, active experimentation. That is the cycle, according to a 2026 paper in Journal of Intelligence about game-based learning and creativity. Same cycle apply here, except what you learning ain't creativity.

You learning how to think about thinking.

Why this matter more than you think it do

Perspective-taking is one of them skills everybody assume kids just pick up. And sure, most of them do, eventually. But a whole lot of conflict, a whole lot of misunderstanding, a whole lot of 'why would they do that' come from people who never got good at it.

I see it at the counter twice a week. Grown adult cannot figure out why the other player made the move they made, because they never stopped to model what that player actually know versus what they know. They assume everybody got the same information. They don't.

The study called it empathic perspective-taking, and it measured in the context of ethnocultural empathy, which is a specific frame. But the skill general. Can you figure out what somebody thinking when they situation different from yours? When they background different? When they goals different?

That apply to a fantasy tavern, and it apply to a classroom, and it apply to everywhere else two people gotta work together.

And cooperative storytelling board games drill that skill hard, because the game do not work if you cannot do it. You cannot collaborate on a story if you do not know what the other person trying to build. You cannot play your character if you do not know what the other characters want.

The game force the issue. That is the teaching engine.

The cardboard version been running for decades

The study used a mobile app. That is fine. Mobile scale, mobile cheap, mobile reach 286 kids in three countries without shipping a crate of dice.

But the tabletop version been doing this since the seventies, and it do it with more mess, more negotiation, more real-time adjustment. Because when you playing at a table, you gotta deal with the fact that the other player just decided something you did not expect and now everybody gotta react.

No save state. No undo. The rogue kicked the door. Now what.

I got parents come in here asking about the best storytelling games for kids perspective taking, and I tell them the same thing every time: get one where the players gotta build something together. Not compete. Build.

Because competition teach you to model the opponent so you can beat them. Cooperation teach you to model the partner so you can help them. And that second one the skill we short on.

The researchers who ran the JOINclusion study said the game offered a promising, scalable model for integrating empathy training into diverse educational settings. I agree with that. I also think the non-scalable version, the one where six kids sit at a table with character sheets and argue about what to do next, might teach it better.

Because the mess is part of it. The negotiation is part of it. The part where somebody say 'wait, I thought you was gonna do this' and you say 'nah, my character wouldn't do that' and now everybody gotta stop and figure out what your character would do, that is the lesson.

That is perspective-taking in a format you can hold.

What it do not prove

The study showed an increase in perspective-taking scores after kids played a narrative game for a while. It did not show the increase stuck around. It did not measure six months later. It did not compare the game to other teaching methods.

And it definitely did not prove that every tabletop game that teaches empathy work the same way. The game in the study was designed on purpose to build empathy. It had interactive scenarios, emotional recognition tasks, prosocial decision points. That is a serious game, built by researchers who knew what they was measuring.

A random storytelling board game off the shelf might do the same thing. Might not. Depend on whether it actually make the players take on different perspectives or just make them roll dice and move pieces.

The study also did not control for the fact that kids who like narrative games might already be better at perspective-taking. Chicken, egg, the usual problem.

But the number went up. And it went up in a controlled study with 286 kids and a real statistical model. So it ain't nothing.

The thing I see every week

Kid come in, age nine, ten, maybe twelve. They been playing video games they whole life, and they good at it. Fast reflexes, problem solving, pattern recognition, the whole deal.

Then they sit down at a table for they first role playing session, and they lost.

Because the game do not tell them what to do. The game master describe a situation, and the kid gotta decide what they character would do in that situation. And they character ain't them. They character got different knowledge, different skills, different personality.

First session, the kid just do what they would do. By the third session, they playing the character. By the fifth session, they modeling what the other characters thinking so they can make a plan that actually work.

That is the arc. And I seen it enough times to know it real.

The study in British Journal of Developmental Psychology just put a number on it. Empathic perspective-taking, measured with a validated scale, increased significantly after gameplay. Same thing I been watching, except now it got a p-value.

And that matter, because a lot of people still think games just entertainment. They ain't. Games is teaching engines. The question is what they teaching.

A game that make you shoot things teach you to shoot things. A game that make you model another person's mental state teach you to model another person's mental state. It ain't complicated.

We just spent fifty years building the first kind and acting surprised when kids got good at shooting and bad at listening.

The second kind been here the whole time. We just did not measure it formal until now.

This article is education and reporting on published research. It is not medical advice, and nothing here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Talk to your own clinician about your own situation.

Sources

1. JOINclusion: A serious mobile game for promoting ethnocultural empathy in schools, The British journal of developmental psychology (2026).
2. Games and Creativity: A Theoretical Framework, Journal of Intelligence (2026).
3. Exploring Serious Games in Supporting Postnatal Depression: Narrative Review, Interactive journal of medical research (2026).