Dragons Nest Running Costs Fund

Dragons Nest is raising money to keep our inclusive and accessible Dungeons and Dragons group free for it's players. The group is a community group aimed at people who identify as learning disabled, neurodivergent or as having a hidden disability.

Dragons Nest's goal is to prove that tabletop roleplaying games such as Dungeons and Dragons can improve peoples social and communication skills, as well as introducing players to a fun game without making it too complex or expensive. We do this through volunteer led knowledge and experience.

Any donations given will go towards covering running costs, such as room hire, insurance and resources to make the games as user friendly as possible. The space in which games are run is an accessible artist studio purposely built for disabled artists, meaning players have step free access, free parking, effective public transport links and disabled friendly toilets.

Visit the Dragons Nest Website

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dragons Nest believes that the importance of learning through play should not end at childhood. As we age, the opportunities to learn can begin to diminish and a social stigma becomes attached to the act of learning. This makes it vitally important that we create opportunities to learn through recreational activities. We find the tabletop role playing game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) particularly suitable for this.

TTRPG’s (Tabletop roleplaying games) such as D&D, are interactive storytelling games in which the story is created by everyone together. Through game play, players can experience:

● Development of numeracy and literacy skills through the game’s mechanics.

● Empathy through character and world building whilst interacting with people/characters with different lived experiences as them (considering how a character thinks and feels).

● Teamwork and communication building through navigating a story together and working collectively to overcome challenges.

● Development of critical thinking through problem solving.

Dragons Nest believes games and spaces like these should be accessible to everyone. Recreational activities and hobbies are often expensive, can have tight knit but difficult to access communities and be held in inaccessible spaces. These can be a prohibitive barriers to many people, especially those who are LGBTQIA*, highly neurodiverse or those with learning disabilities. Home and work environments can often be a cause of stress, whether that's managing commitments, relationships with others or being socially isolated. Having somewhere outside of these spaces to have fun can help us decompress and enjoy ourselves comfortably in a space dedicated to this. Income, disability, gender or race should not prevent people from having a place to grow and play. Equality and inclusivity are vitally important to the kind of society Dragons Nest members wish to live in, and no-one should be excluded from communities because of who they are or what they can do. Everyone has a right to live a fulfilling life no matter their circumstances and Dragons Nest aims to support each other to enable this.

To deliver sessions that are as accessible as possible for our players, Dragons Nest works with experienced:

• ‘Dungeon Masters’ (or ‘DMs’) who run the games session.

• TTRPG players who help new players navigate character building and game play.

• Volunteers that have working experience of supporting neurodiverse people to support players in accessing the information in a manner that best suits them individually.