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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

#61

Post by walshemj »

labster wrote: post #20
walshemj wrote: post #2

Surprised that prisons ban dice but not cards which can be used to substitute for dice. Interestingly some of the early board games used spinners as dice where seen as sinful, normally by the more hard core protestants.

Well obviously dice are sinful, because they're made from platonic solids and that Plato guy was a pagan. Maybe those cylindrical ones are ok, though. This brought to mind the fact that in Japan, cards were considered to be the more pernicious influence on gambling, which eventually led to a card deck that was pessimized for gambling[0]. Of course, people can gamble on anything they can play, so it didn't exactly wor…

Apparently puritains and others of that ilk regarded dice as instruments of the devil

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#62

Post by dfee »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #51
Notorious_BLT wrote: post #7

I 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.

D&D and similar have a really negative reputation in some circles, including religious groups. I was a gamer in my teens. One younger member of the group was probably being given a hard time by his religious family for being a gamer. He was often absent from gaming sessions. The weekends he was absent consistently included stories like a drunken car wreck, and now he has a broken leg, or a wild party where some gal s…

Do you think this is a representative sample or a bizarre situational experience?

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#63

Post by logfromblammo »

dalore wrote: post #21
jlgaddis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, coins -- all forms of currency, actually -- are banned.

Ok a leaf? Or a piece of toilet paper.

Scrabble tile, letter up vs. letter down. Bonus in that the flips may be done all at once and ordered alphabetically.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#64

Post by kzrdude »

Y_Y wrote: post #45
kzrdude wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah that's nice. I took the relevant course in Swedish, where we use the German loan word "Faltung" (turns to faltning in Swedish) for this operation.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#65

Post by Thrwr11 »

cableshaft wrote: post #52
pesfandiar wrote: post #4

Well, they can't ban 1-bit random number generators (e.g. coins) and with a bit of time, you can simulate any of dice used in RPGs.

Slips of paper, write 1-20 (or whatever the die faces are) on them, shuffle them up, have people pick one. There's your randomness. You could even insure an even distribution and have like 1-6 in there 4 or 5 times (if it's a d6), and don't return the slips back to the pile until the pile is depleted. Or you can do what I've done for testing pen and paper game designs where a die wasn't handy, and do the above and wr…

You have to put the slips of paper back if you want to simulate dice.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#66

Post by DoreenMichele »

dfee wrote: post #62
DoreenMichele wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D&D and similar have a really negative reputation in some circles, including religious groups. I was a gamer in my teens. One younger member of the group was probably being given a hard time by his religious family for being a gamer. He was often absent from gaming sessions. The weekends he was absent consistently included stories like a drunken car wreck, and now he has a broken leg, or a wild party where some gal s…

Do you think this is a representative sample or a bizarre situational experience?

When I briefly attended church in Germany while hosting games at home for my husband who still played, one gamer consistently got up on very little sleep to go to church on Sunday morning. Where I would then listen to the preachers talk about what evil pieces of shit we were.

Meanwhile, every single gamer who left Germany came to my apartment to tearfully say goodbye because gaming at my apartment was an escape from eating at the mess hall and getting drunk at bars. It was the only thing that kept them sane and not an alcoholic.

I don't know about most gaming groups, but where I have been, it's a bastion of civilization in an otherwise cold, cruel world.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#67

Post by iamdave »

dfee wrote: post #62
DoreenMichele wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D&D and similar have a really negative reputation in some circles, including religious groups. I was a gamer in my teens. One younger member of the group was probably being given a hard time by his religious family for being a gamer. He was often absent from gaming sessions. The weekends he was absent consistently included stories like a drunken car wreck, and now he has a broken leg, or a wild party where some gal s…

Do you think this is a representative sample or a bizarre situational experience?

Ever hear of the Jehovah's Witnesses? Ever hear how people who managed to pull themselves out of that looney bin talk about the way they view the outside world and especially games like DnD?

It's more common than you think.

Nothing in that comment surprised me and made me wonder if that kid was raised in a JW household before finally getting out of the house and turning hard into the party life. It's way too common of a story, kids raised under the thumb of the Watchtower Bible and Tract society going off to college, not having the church on their backs constantly, and practically cannonball into the party lifestyle that they'd been sheltered and repressed from their entire teenage years.

I know because I was one of those kids.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#68

Post by sevensor »

csours wrote: post #54
skissane wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As illustrated in the well known documentary "Mazes and Monsters" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpcL-fQNPfQ

There's a memorable chick tract on the same theme as well.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#69

Post by macintux »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #59
scarmig wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Capitol punishment is however a complete solution to recidivism for violent crime, undeniably.

Challenge accepted: I'll deny it.

It's only a "complete" solution if you actually have the right person.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#70

Post by EggsOnToast »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #53

For a semester, I taught in a state prison for a prisoner educational program. Every time I went in, I was struck by how punitively petty so many of the rules and corrections officers were. The environment is carefully crafted to suck out all joy and hope from the inmates. Azkaban with its dementor guards is a pretty good illustration of an American prison. Guards are as likely to confiscate gaming materials (and pun…

I'm just giving anecdata here so I'm curious to see if you agree with me. Having known two people that went to prison, my opinion on the system is that I think people usually go to prison for the legally correct reason. That being said, a lot of people I meet seem to associate going to prison with deserving to live in a hellhole. No one considers the social exclusion itself a hellhole as evidenced by the ubiquitousness of rape jokes about prison. The reason I mentioned that the point about the prisoners deserving it from a legal perspective is because I think this is the point where most people lose sympathy for the prisoner population, it's the moment when they just sort've assume that anything that comes after being found guilty is just more of a reason not to commit a crime in the first place which is a horrific outlook in my opinion.
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