The mortifying ordeal of being known

There's a book called Tabletop Role-playing Therapy: A Guide for the Clinician Game Master by Dr Megan A. Connel that's a really standout resource about this, she appeared on the official D&D podcast a year or so ago talking about it.

I'd say that this is more a resource for therapists to use TTRPGs than it is for DMs to act as therapists for their players. There's a fine line between accommodating your players' preferences and needs and providing unwanted therapy; if you want to actually put any therapy techniques into your game, ask your players approval first.

Every work of artistic expression, from painting, through photography, all the way to fantasy improv, is a little window into who you are

the imaginary you is being put in various situations, mysteries, plots, and they have to figure out their way to victory! (and at the same time reveal exactly how you appraoch problem solving, how your logic works, and what assumptions you make)

it's like the random shapes test but you don't even realise you're doing it

though it could get significantly harder to see through the layers of fantasy if you're dealing with experienced roleplayers playing their 50th character

Fourth character reminds me of a character my friend played. His name was Jim Spoons, and his backstory was that his wife was murdered and he was trying to find out who the murderer is and avenge her. He carries this out until the final session, when it is revealed that he in fact was the one who killed his wife, and that Jim Spoons is an anagram for... OJ Simpson

That fourth one. Did you ever do a write-up? I'm fond of shaggy dog stories and other long walk anti jokes.

Can you remember the first time you felt insecure about your ability to come up with backstories? What was that like? And so on

What if it's both?

Ok, so, the trick is to make sure the NPC's are the same way. That'll really confuse the players.

Person jumps off a roof and splats in front of the party

player: "why did that happen?"

dm: "They had just purchased boots of flying from an untrustworthy source and figured this was the best way of testing them."

No, you are not. You just have bugles on your fingers.

Well, you sound like a team player. You place the common good (fun together) higher than individual ambitions (or maybe place your own worth very low, I can't tell from one sentence, but the outcome is the same).

Saying deliberately sounds like it's not just a thing that you find yourself doing again and again, but a conscious choice. That suggests there was a choice to make; that the option of playing a self-centered character was something you were actively aware of, but were sufficiently repulsed by it to make a point of being better than those people.

I think you're a nice person, empathetic, while not so entirely innocent as to not even consider the possibility, still principled and caring enough to actively defy it.

I think you're a net good for this world.

You're either an Aquarius or a Libra.

Im unsure of Ché-Elmo is a reference or pun but the rest of that is gold

You are immature for your age and try to now grow up. You think you are smarter than most people, which you are, but not by as much as you think. For that reason you struggle with impostor syndrome and hold yourself back from achieving the career you actually want. But still you manage to come off as condescending to people around you.

Please don't take this seriously.