How inmates play DnD in Prison

waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/padk7z/how-inmates-play-tabletop-rpgs-in-prisons-where-dice-are-contraband

pretty interesting.

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law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3553
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pretty interesting op

I'm not always a fan of vice but this was a good article. They can tend to be hit or miss. But yeah op nice find.

the spinners is a neat solution, but I can see more fights breaking out over them depending on whether players soften or harden their flicks for a desired roll

I would assume the people playing DnD in prison are typically more docile.

>Vice
Thanks, but no thanks.

what a bunch of fucking nerds

Why would they ban RPGs?
Not just the dice but the games all together.

Could potentially be used to plan crime in code. Also, prisoners shouldn't be allowed to have fun

>also prisoners shouldn't be allowed to have fun

Only Americans can be this stupid

One of the few decent articles.

How can you ban something as subjective as fun?

>needing dice
I want to introduce these motherfuckers to diceless games like Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. It will be kawaii as shit.

Several of my family members are COs, adnd that's apparently something of an internal mandate. Prisoners are there to be punished and should basically be hassled, harassed or otherwise made miserable whenever possible. Their recreation should be kept meager and taken away for any and all infractions

You can't ban fun per se, but you can do your damndest to make sure inmates don't have any method of enjoying themselves that can't be strictly controlled and easily taken away

I thought prisons are for reform to prevent criminals from committing crimes when they get out? Such high levels of misery seem counterproductive when they are already not free.

a friend of mine had a brother who played it in prison
there was like, some fat white head skin head dude playing a gnome or some shit, the rogue stole from him and he got really fucking mad screaming YOU STOLE FUCKING MY STAFF
don't remember what happened after that

In the United States the prisons want the prisoners to come back.

Reform? Lol. American prisons exist for profit making. If you reform them, your client base disappears!

Some countries believe that making prison as miserable as humanly possible is the best way to discourage them from committing crime in the future.

The american prison system isn't really meant to reform prisoners. It's meant to be a sword hanging above the head to prevent crime, and to get free labor out of those inside the prisons. To accomplish that, prison will largely ruin your life and often encourage criminal behavior and recidivism so that they have a consistent workforce

Welcome to the U.S. Legal system. Jails are essentially threats for non-criminals, and even having been to jail is a permanent punishment because it limits employment opportunities to the extreme.

>"4e was the worst for prisoners." says Micah. "Gotta have maps and minis for everything."

4e was the worst for everyone.

Prison seems like the perfect place to finally get players committed enough to play GURPS or BRP. They finally have nothing better to do.

The only sorts of prisons that are going to allow something as rulebook heavy as GURPS to be played are gong to be the sorts that'd let them do other things.

Seems like an excuse to justify being a dick to them for no reason.
Isn't it already enough that they're forced into a rigid and hostile environment? Not saying let them do whatever they want. Keep order.
But why crack down on them just cuz they wanna play pretend that they're elves for a few fucking minutes?

>If the prison bans D&D, play Pathfinder. They're pretty stupid and won't know it's the same thing.
fucking kek'd

Shh... if all the GURPS players are in prison it'll one less tribe on Veeky Forums, and one step closer to everyone realizing that it isn't [tribe] that's wrong with Veeky Forums, it's Veeky Forums that's wrong with Veeky Forums

1) They'll find a way to use the game to commit rule violations or even crimes. Prisoners can be extremely creative due to their situation and forced state of sobriety.

2) This is the same system that turns a blind eye to prison rape and other horrible violations of prisoners' rights for basically reason. The question isn't "why maintain a hostile environment?", it's "why not maintain a hostile environment?"

3) Americans expect prisoners to be punished and would be outraged if they discovered prisoners were enjoying themselves while incarcerated.

OP here, I fucking despise vice. but this is actually a good article.

Partly because the US prison system is attrocious and basically designed to exploit and harm prisoners, and partly because the people who become corrections officers are the worst sort most of the time. You know that stereotype about how high school bullies grow up to be cops so they can harass and hurt other people and get paid for it? Well the ones who are too incompetent to be cops become COs. There's not really any other word for it than bullying, because they like to fuck with people and make their lives miserable and know that no matter how they push them they can't fight back or they'll get punished even harder.
The sort of soft criminals who'd probably be the people playing D&D are the ones most likely to get fucked with, because they're generally the ones with something to lose and probably aren't super violent. The real thugs and lifers basically get left to their own devices a lot of the time because they know they're not leaving prison for a long time if ever, and are in their element there. Not to mention they're a lot more willing to fuck a guard up

American Prisons are mostly privately owned. The prison and police lobbies fight to keep many things illegal in order to put and keep as many people as possible in the prison system. many prisoners are forced to do work for pennies on the dollar for large corporations while in prison. practically a new form of slavery. when people get out they cannot get jobs due to being in prison and end up committing crimes and thus the cycle starts all over again.

gambling and contraband?

>Partly because the US prison system is attrocious and basically designed to exploit and harm prisoners
to be fair, it wasn't meant to be that way. It was meant to make prisoners useful members of society (this did include hard labor, etc) and through this hopefully return some to the point where they would be a part of society. Ironically, people's attempts to "reform" prison and make it more humane is what turned into the inhumane shithole it is now where everyone is constantly stuck in a violent, hopeless situation.
>and partly because the people who become corrections officers are the worst sort most of the time
there's also that whole thing where people placed in situations of authority and told to be brutal will become brutal, no matter how noble they were before.

Well it's one way to insure no one skips out on game night

With how intentionally horrible prison seems to be, it seems like the perfect place to get a lot of angry people and turn them into revolutionaries and terrorists who want to fuck the system. Is that an actual thing, or is it more about crimes and not ideology?

Just say you have to flick it as hard as you can, every time.

If they say it hurts, remind them they're in fucking prison, deal with it

ez pz

prison gets called crime college pretty often

It can be. Many Muslim terrorists in Europe are radicalized in prison.

It's more likely to turn them into career criminals and gangsters than revolutionaries. Your career prospects are shot, you're years behind the outside world and basically your life is gone, and chances are you had to get buddy-buddy with some hardcore dudes to get along in jail

It wasn't always bad, there used to be decent articles. You could tell it was going to go downhill fast when comments were disabled

I hear too that the archives are being taken down so there aren't contradictions to the image put forward now

pretty funny, Vice used to actually be pretty conservative. or at least moderate. now they are MOSTLY ill informed hard left trash, though some of their articles are still interesting. anything involving politics is automatically horrid.

>the spinners is a neat solution, but I can see more fights breaking out over them depending on whether players soften or harden their flicks for a desired roll
Old school houserule for such things - rule the spinner has to spin a certain number of times or it doesn't count.

Prisons are literally for slave labor, detention centers too.

Because in the American police, court, and jail system every American is treated like a fine, community oriented, stand up, basketball American regardless of skin color.

I would actually say the reverse occurs. They generally become career criminals and gang members and are fully invested in keeping the system going.

Also there's not much to actually fight in America. People like to meme about attacking the system, but really everyone here more or less plays into it.

I don't know. Prisons in the states vary. I know my brother was allowed playing cards when he went so I'm sure dice were allowed as well.
I'd wager if you're in a prison that is fed from a city shit may be more strict.

One would think that hardened criminals would make note of their least favourite wardens for when they got out

USAian law mandates these four objectives of incarceration:
>Punishment of the actual criminal
>Deterrence of potential criminals
>Protection of the public from the actual criminal
>Rehabilitation of the actual criminal
law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3553

I have been in prison for two months, and boardgames and rpgs were used quite a lot, was one of my main distractions along cooking, working and reading.

But of course im not american, and you can understand where i come from rather easily, as i got in jail for using a "go back to the vatican" sign when the pope visited my hometown.

You've piqued my interest.

>"go back to the vatican"

... is that hate speech? Is the office of the Pope somehow considered an ethnic or religious group?

Its inciting (see: showing) hatred against catholics. In theory anyway.

>pope
>religious group
YOU FUCKING THINK?

>Is the office of the Pope somehow considered an ethnic or religious group?

I dunno, is the pope catholic?

The "legal" reason was the use of banner without permission, but it was mostly a way to do a symbolic retaillation from the provincial government, considering that visit made both nationalists and commies butthurt.

The pope himself is catholic, but the office of the pope is not a religion.

If I tell you to go fuck yourself by identifying you as your job, you can't claim you are being religiously persecuted, even if you flip burgers for Tom Cruise.