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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

#151

Post by Consultant32452 »

John23832 wrote: post #11
protonimitate wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as pastimes go it seems pretty innocent, but I guess one could argue that because jail is supposed to be punishment time passing actives aren't a priority (not saying I do or do not agree with that stance).

That’s probably the problem. Jail/prison should primarily be for reform, not pusnishment. If I punish without helping you change, I’m only telling you to not get caught next time.

Your point is valid, but I disagree about the primary purpose of prison. The primary purpose is to protect broader society by removing bad actors. If you can also reform the prisoner, then that's a bonus.

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

#152

Post by IIAOPSW »

paulie_a wrote: post #108
VLM wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in both two large corporations and the Army all of which sometimes are disturbingly similar to prison. The way the world works is someone does something stupid or incomprehensible where the most minor detail includes topic X. The report of the foolishness goes up the infinite hierarchy of micromanagers to someone who wants to make a statement to his superior of his great leadership skills by permanently "solvin…

And cynically this is how a bill becomes a law forever I can't find the relevant video clip, but it's from a school house rock parody

I think it was Stallman who described the basic politicians syllogism.

Something must be done

I am doing something

Therefore something is being done

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

#153

Post by aseipp »

jnbiche wrote: post #138
kolpa wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US prison system is largely a loophole to recreate slavery without violating the letter of the 13th Amendment. http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/gilmoreprisonslavery...

Despite black Americans being incarcerated at greater rates than white Americans, there are far more white Americans incarcerated than there are black Americans. So if the objective was to re-create slavery, they did a very poor job out of it. No, our prison system hurts all races: white, black, Asian, native, etc. And sadly -- because of the racism prevalent in US society -- if we want true prison reform, we have to…

OP never said anything about race or incarceration statistics -- he just said the prison system is a mechanism to recreate slavery. To Americans, the word "slave" has a very, very particular meaning -- revolving around the nature and history of black people in our country.

But it should not, and can not, not be divorced from the abstract concept of what slavery is. Slavery is about power, and slaves come in many forms and fashions. And if you forget that, you'll be made a slave yourself. You don't have to be in chains to be one. This is what OP is referring to -- not that prisons and their systems seek to reintroduce "black american slavery", but to reintroduce, and normalize, the abstract concept of 'slavery' in society, all on its own. That's much more dangerous.

You see it in a lot of places where people talk about the lives prisoners lived, during and after release -- go check the comments on any news article. You'll see how many people think it is "just" that said convict has their entire being and life crushed. That it's good, good that they're a slave, in return for the crimes they committed.

This isn't really very different from what you're saying, in a sense -- that everyone is set back when we lose track of these things. But the difference between "slave" meaning "black american slaves" and "slave as a concept" is an important distinction to draw. There's an important ontological gap, there.

Frederick Douglass took note of this well over 150 years ago:

> The power of the antebellum slaveholding class, after all, resided not only in its direct domination of black slaves, but in its ability to divide and exploit an even larger multiracial working class. Douglass knew how well this system worked from bitter personal experience: As a hired slave in Baltimore, he was assaulted by white dockworkers with bricks and handspikes. Yet he remained clearheaded about who benefited from this racial violence. As he wrote in 1855: “The slaveholders, with a craftiness peculiar to themselves, by encouraging the enmity of the poor, laboring white man against the blacks, succeeds in making the said white man almost as much a slave as the black slave himself…. Both are plundered, and by the same plunderers.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-enduring-struggle/

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

#156

Post by stryk »

NeonVice wrote: post #97
stryk wrote: post #49

At 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 gu…

What did they carve with?

I can only speak for what I saw done first-hand. Some guys used their own shanks/shivs/whatever you want to call it, basically any old piece of metal. This was obviously done in their cells on their own. Much more frequently [and out in the open] though was guys using the plastic butter "knives" that came in the dinner trays (think KFC, individually wrapped sets of 1 plastic spork, 1 wetnap, and 1 plastic butter knife with a kinda serrated edge - though still dull as all hell). For doing the divots we used the end-tip of the long piece on the cap of a typical old-school style Bic pen - this worked extremely well and quick.

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

#157

Post by tachyoff »

joejev wrote: post #146
tachyoff wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Come to think of it, why is the criminal justice system not "tested"? I can think of a few. 1. That costs time and money. Even if it would help, I see it being very difficult to justify, essentially, "secret shoppers" for the court system. I think it also kind of underestimates how much time, money, and effort goes into trials. It's not like a quick batch of unit tests. It involves lawyers, judges, jury selection (…

> elipsoid earth theory Do you actually know this is true? Have you tested this?

You don’t have to bite the donut to know it’s sweet.

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

#158

Post by slaymaker1907 »

kibwen wrote: post #17
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.

"With a thunderous roar, the colossal red dragon envelops the party in a cruel wave of fire! You each take 24d10 damage, but while I'm sitting here flipping this coin six hundred times please do let me know if you make your reflex save for half..."

24d10 would be miserable, even with dice. I takes approximately 4 coin flips to approximate a d10 (need to ignore values [10,15] and add one. This works out to ~100 rolls.

For the more common case of a d20, you could do 5 coin flips, but doing 6 instead gives you much more wiggle room. In that case, you only have to ignore values [60,63] so you only have a 1/16 chance of needing to redo the coin flips. It would be tedious but doable (particularly if you had some system where you could prepare rolls while waiting for your turn).

d4 = 2 flips guaranteed, definitely not bad. d6 = 3 flips expected. d8 = 3 flips guaranteed. d10 = 4 flips. d12 = 4 flips.

For something more typical but still nasty, a Fireball with 8d6 would take ~24 coin flips. Also, if I were a prison DM in this situation, I would probably take the time to homebrew the system so it only uses power of 2 rolls, i.e. d2, d4, d8, d16, and maybe d32. I would probably do d16 instead of d20 since d32 would be rolling 5 rolls quite often and a d16 is closer to a d20.

Overall, the difficulty would not be the coin flips but doing the math to keep track of everything.

Even if they restrict you from doing that, another option would be to do some sort of manual pseudo-rng. That option would probably be faster if you have access to a scientific calculator.

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

#159

Post by slaymaker1907 »

jlgaddis wrote: post #13
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.

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

Do some sort of simple pseudo-RNG then (DM seeds it obviously). Icky math, but you could probably just generate a bunch of rolls as part of your prep work.

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

#160

Post by e12e »

jopsen wrote: post #147
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being deprived of your freedom is punishment enough. That should be easy to accept for any libertarian and even many conservatives (the ones with libertarian tendencies). Anything beyond that is just adding insult to injury and only serves to reflect badly on the correctional system itself. For instance, I don't understand under what logic prisoners absolutely need to have their stuff chucked out on a regular basis.…

It benefits nobody, that is what makes it evil. Isn't the question why voters are so cruel? Why do American Christians only make headlines when they preach hatred against the LBQT community?

> It benefits nobody, that is what makes it evil.

I heard you like to manufacture jeans and number plates. How about I pay you to house some workers you hardly have to pay to do the work?

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