Roll for Notice!

I’m currently on a rather fast (and rather efficient) train from Beijing to Nanjing, so I have about three hours to throw down some thoughts before I need to get my head back into the family holiday again.

Game Night

Most Thursday nights, when any sensible school leader would be catching up on sleep or emails, I’m rolling dice and pretending to be an Elf. It’s become the most unlikely form of professional development, and serves as a cornerstone for my mental health.

There are five-ish of us.  We rotate who hosts, pile around a table covered in snacks, and descend into the world of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).  For those who don’t know, D&D is a role-playing game that is equal parts fantasy, strategy, and playful nonsense.  

We enthusiastically roll dice when the Dungeon Master (DM) tells us to, and somehow it all makes sense by the end of the night. Or it doesn’t, and we don’t care either way.  

I’m still not sure on most (actually, any) of the rules, unless the rules are to laugh at our nonsensical choices as our merry band of misfits (consisting of a wood-tracking elf who can’t track, a dwarf who will only fight by throwing rocks, a half-orc-bard-mage, and a skittish human-mage who thinks he’s a bat) gleefully attempts to subvert any and all of the DM’s plans. 

My understanding is that no two groups play the game in the same way.  Indeed, there are different ‘levels’ of play group who seem to get together to play D&D.  I’ve never been in any other groups so I’m not an authority on this one, but this is what I’ve learned from others who know things:

Level 1: Casual Play Groups

These consist of low-level nerds where the rules are loose, nobody’s quite sure (or cares) which dice need to rolled, or indeed when. The DM tries a voice now and then; dice go missing; laughter is more important than any progress.

I’ld like to think this is us.

Level 2: Committed Play Group

Here, everyone knows what’s going on. If the DM says you’ve got six arrows left, you’ve got six arrows left. Players track hit points on actual character sheets, and everyone owns their own character minis. Role-playing starts to get serious: voices appear, backstories intertwine, and arguments about spell ranges last longer than the combat itself. Snacks are categorised by initiative order, and there’s also a dedicated WhatsApp group where the highlights of the last evening continue to be shared during the week.

Actually, thinking about it, apart from the rules (which I’ve still never read or paid any attention to) there seems to be a lot we do here.  Perhaps we are a Level 1.5 group.

Level 3: Lore Lords

These are the stereotypical nerds.  Every rule, errata, and subclass variant is known. The campaign timeline spans generations (and/or dimensions), dice are metal, character minis are individually 3D printed and painted, and the maps are actually drawn to scale. Players cry when NPCs die and argue about canon between sessions. People sometimes get into costume. The DM has a custom soundtrack and they make AI videos to help create a more holistic experience for the players.

Ok, I do have my own printed character mini.  But that’s just because it was cheaper shipping if the group got them all done together.   And, admittedly, there is a little bit of music and a few AI videos (but that’s all mainstream now isn’t it?)…

Level 4:  Secret Societies

Who knows what happens in these groups, or even what it takes to be invited in…I think this is probably all the stuff our parents had nightmares about when they said no to D&D sleepovers back in the 80s.  

Honestly, this is well out of our league.

Entering ther Dungeon

Ok…so I think I’ve set the scene.  Let’s move in to the game itself.

The most important thing I’ve learned playing D&D is to “roll for notice”.  

Every player has a different ability level to notice things.  So if we encounter a new character, situation or room, for example, we might decide it’s a good idea to “roll for notice” to determine if there is, indeed, anything strange or significant that the DM thinks we might notice. 

However, as Level 1 (ish) players, more often than not, it’s our exasperated DM who asks us “do you think you should roll for notice”?  And we most probably do.  So dice are rolled (successfully) and the relieved DM is thus able to reveal to our band that the bearded old man sat in the corner of the tavern has a red tortoise on his lap; or we might catch the faint glint of a hidden mechanism on the bookshelf; or we might even notice the shimmer of a dagger being readied by the lady shifting nervously at the bar.  

Or, we might see nothing (if we failed that notice roll I mentioned, or we’ve forgotten to ask in the first place.

Noticing isn’t passive in D&D. You don’t just “see” something because you’re entered the room. You have to choose to roll.  You have to pay attention.  Because if you don’t, you miss things. Things that could have saved you, or changed things, or opened up a new path.  

And that, I think, is leadership.

Hidden Treasure

In schools, it’s easy to charge in to new rooms (think new initiatives, new priorities, or new challenges) without rolling for notice.  It’s easy to stride in, confident in our quest, assuming we can already see what’s there. But actually, unless someone (like our DM) prompts us to take a [condor] moment to pause, to observe, to notice, we risk missing the hidden mechanisms, the glint of that dagger, or that random red tortoise, that was there just in front of us, if only we were looking with some intent.

A function of leadership is noticing. 

We have to pay attention what is going on around us, we have to pay attention to the people around us, we have to pay attention to what we choose to do or what we don’t choose to do.  We have to find a way to see the exhausted colleague, the quiet quitter, the well intended policy that helps one group but hurts another.

So, I’ve mentioned quite a few things that leaders need to pay attention to, without mentioning the need to pay attention to myself, and what I might need for my positive mental health. 

Playing games beyond midnight on a Thursday night is not a really good idea (especially on a school night).  We are all exhausted towards the end of the week and it is not uncommon for me to find myself nodding off for a few minutes here and there.  But I commit to this madness because I’m making an intentional trade-off.  I choose to spend time with friends,  I choose to connect, I choose laughter, and I choose to belong.

And I do so because I’m well aware that this is what I feel I need to do to protect my mental health and avoid the trappings of loneliness, depression, or anxiety that I’m seeing and constantly reading about just now.  I think my fellow band members would say the same.  

Johann Hari, in Lost Connections, suggests that the rise in depression and anxiety isn’t primarily a chemical story but a social one. We’ve become disconnected from one another, from meaningful work, from nature, and from a sense of future worth. The cure, he shares, is reconnection with community, purpose, and play. This resonates so much with me.

Level Up

So Thursday D&D isn’t only escapism for me, it’s a reminder that I can’t notice (lead) others if I’m not noticing myself. If I don’t tend to the small commitments that keep me connected, the dice stay unrolled.

It’s why “roll for notice” might be the wisest advice I have to share.

In D&D you roll to notice what’s in the room. In leadership you roll to notice who’s in it.

I don’t think Leadership is about what you do next. Leadership is about what you notice first.

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Hari, J. (2018). Lost connections: Uncovering the real causes of depression – and the unexpected solutions. Bloomsbury Publishing.