Aren't dice and coins banned because they can be sharpened into a shiv? That would explain why cards are allowed.
If that were true though, then they wouldn't confiscate any of the makeshift dice, made of paper/cardboard etc.
How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
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Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Criminal justice is for reforming but also deterring criminals. If it were only for the former reason, capital punishment wouldn't exist.
Whether prisons are effective for deterrence is an empirical question. As it turns out, they're not particularly effective. The people who go and hold up a convenience store aren't doing it because of a reasoned cost-benefit analysis based on risk of capture, differential value of prison vs freedom, and future discount rates. They're doing it because they don't do those things. That leaves three real reasons: 1) Refo…
To add to this is a simple truism, "people commit crimes because they don't think they'll be caught". Sure, it's not always true, but it encapsulates a lot of the mindset.
Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
#43Disappointing to hear that some prisons are cracking down on D&D, like the Idaho State Correctional Instutition whose rules are quoted ITA. It seems like a productive outlet to me. Locking someone up for a few years with nothing interesting to do sounds like a good way to make someone come out the other end worse than they were before.
Gotta say, reading that made me more disappointed in my state than I already am. I honestly have no idea why such activities would be banned, can't even make the private prison argument since it's run by the Idaho Department of Corrections.
Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
#44I guess I can understand the dice ban (sort of?) but the fact that some prisons have apparently have banned games like D&D altogether is bizarre to me. It seems like a healthy, relatively peaceful way to pass time and do something creative. I can't see it having a negative effect that other prison activities don't already make possible.
Some fundamentalist Christians are convinced that D&D is occult, a gateway to Satanism and demonic possession, a cause of suicide, etc. I wonder if any prison administrators share that belief system, which might contribute to a decision to ban D&D.
Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you converted the rules to be powers of 2, each coin representing a binary digit, it shouldn't be too bad 24d10 becomes 0-240, so change it to 0-256 and you've got 8 flips (8d2?) Distribution won't be correct but hey, 8 flips
I didn't know the central limit theorem when I played D&D, but it's interesting how massively different those two distributions are -- 24d10 versus a uniform 24-240 distribution. 24d10 is 24 independently rolled d10's, that means we convolute the uniform distribution with itself 24 times and the result will be nearly indistinguishable from a scaled bell curve. Edit: Click the “Graph” button here to visualize: http://…
I'd like to just add a shoutout for the word "convolve" as the verb referring to this particular action of convolution.
Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Criminal justice is for reforming but also deterring criminals. If it were only for the former reason, capital punishment wouldn't exist.
Whether prisons are effective for deterrence is an empirical question. As it turns out, they're not particularly effective. The people who go and hold up a convenience store aren't doing it because of a reasoned cost-benefit analysis based on risk of capture, differential value of prison vs freedom, and future discount rates. They're doing it because they don't do those things. That leaves three real reasons: 1) Refo…
> The people who go and hold up a convenience store aren't doing it because of a reasoned cost-benefit analysis based on risk of capture, differential value of prison vs freedom, and future discount rates. They're doing it because they don't do those things.
Conversely, at least some percentage of the people who don't have made that cost-benefit analysis.
Plus some part of the people who go and commit felonies, mainly the young and naive, have made at least some basic cost-benefit analysis; they mistakenly think they'll be the leaders/tough ones in prison and it'll be okay.
I'm not a fan of the punitive prison model, but fear of consequences is a good deterrent.
(I sound like an uptight prick, but I'm speaking from experience. Then again, I've never been in a US prison, so I can't say much about them and I don't like what little I know)
Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
#47Aren't dice and coins banned because they can be sharpened into a shiv? That would explain why cards are allowed.
If that were true though, then they wouldn't confiscate any of the makeshift dice, made of paper/cardboard etc.
Nah, sometimes stuff is confiscated just to make life more miserable for the inmates.
Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Criminal justice is for reforming but also deterring criminals. If it were only for the former reason, capital punishment wouldn't exist.
Whether prisons are effective for deterrence is an empirical question. As it turns out, they're not particularly effective. The people who go and hold up a convenience store aren't doing it because of a reasoned cost-benefit analysis based on risk of capture, differential value of prison vs freedom, and future discount rates. They're doing it because they don't do those things. That leaves three real reasons: 1) Refo…
I’m mostly in column 3) which is why I support severe punishment (eg death penalty for almost all murders) but also more focus on guilt assessment (all capital punishments require a second independent trial with higher burden of proof and greater restrictions on prosecution)
Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
#49At the prison I was in (northern Indiana), dice were banned as "tools for gambling" -- yet playing cards were OK. Yea, it didn't make sense to any of the staff either.
We carved our own out of bars of "state soap" (the cheap Barker brand inmate soap that gets distributed in just about every institution). We carved out the little divots on each side for the numbers and used Kool-Aid to stain them. Some of the older guys who had been incarcerated for a long time were so good at making them[1] that they were damn near indistinguishable from the real thing until you felt them of course (they were made out of soap after all). They actually rolled fairly true as well.
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1: they could also carve out some very intricate chess pieces. I mean these were damn near works of art. You couldn't use state soap for those though, it's far too thin and brittle. You needed the good Ivory-brand stuff from the commissary.
Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
#50I guess I can understand the dice ban (sort of?) but the fact that some prisons have apparently have banned games like D&D altogether is bizarre to me. It seems like a healthy, relatively peaceful way to pass time and do something creative. I can't see it having a negative effect that other prison activities don't already make possible.
Some fundamentalist Christians are convinced that D&D is occult, a gateway to Satanism and demonic possession, a cause of suicide, etc. I wonder if any prison administrators share that belief system, which might contribute to a decision to ban D&D.
I think it's more a matter of people using their authority over prisoners to satisfy their sadistic power fantasies.