Post/Author/DateTime	Post
sd-einsatzgruppen 10-22-07, 12:38 PM	I caught the "caged gamer" thread below, but was unable to reply to it before it got correctly closed by the moderator staff. The moderator in question gave a green light in that thread to continue a discussion of the phenomenon of D&D in prison, so I figured I would take up that task. First off a little biographical info to establish my credibility. I've been a professional correctional officer for over 16 years. I've worked in a wide variety of correctional settings from high security 23 hour a day lockdowns to general population to low security trustee facilities, to out on the perimiter sitting in a gun tower. I'm currently a shift supervisor and the intake and release coordinator for my unit. My views, experiences, and opinions are my own and only reflect the situation and rules of the prisons in my state (Texas). Other facilities may have very different laws and regulations than those I talk about. D&D does have a certain amount of popularity amongst some prison inmates. One came presume that the large amount of time it takes up and the mental "escape" it provides makes it a good time waster. It's not universally popular of course. I've only seen it played to any real extent in low security areas. High security areas have a higher percentageof anti-social types who would not be interested in the game and in fact might disrupt other's play time. Moreoever the lower amount of out of cell time and ability to gather with other inmates makes playing the game in high security areas a bit harder. Like I said this rule does not always apply. I recal seeing one group of lockdown inmates that ran a campaign. They were housed in a single man cell "control unit" type setting and had to stand at their cell door and cal out to each other to play. It seemed to work out for them though... The demographics of D&D players remains the same as in the "free world". The majority of the players are young and the vast majority are white. (even though whites are a minority in my state's prisons.) Like on the outside, the game seems to attract the more intelligent inmates. There are some obstacles that inmate D&D players have to overcome. The most difficult is that my state bans the pocession of all sorts of dice due to problems with gambling. The ways I have seen inmate D&D players get around thi vary from randomly opening a page in a dictionary and looking at the page numbers, placing numbered slips of paper in a bag and drawing lottery style, and on occasion fabricating "spinners" from cardboard and popcickle sticks. The other big problem is that maps of any sort are a no-go due to issues with them being an escape tool. Depending on who is enforcing this rule and varying from unit to unit this can be extended to fantasy maps such as are used in D&D. Finally my state has a ban on all sexually explicit material, which is usually interpreted as to mean anything with a depiction of nudity of any sort, be it actual photos or even drawings. Thus oddly enough the Monster Manual is on the banned list due to the depictions of bare female breasts on the Harppy and Sphynx. (crazy but true) I am a professional in my behavior and maintain a buffer zone of socialization between myself and my charges. I regard any conversation that goes over 30 seconds with any inmate that is not involving something official as being too long and avoid doing so. This is for my own protection in order to prevent "set ups", inmates coming to know too much about me, and avoid any hint of fraternization. However I can't help but feel a small, tiny bit of empathy for D&D players having been playing the game on and off since 1980 myself. I have on occasion stopped in a dayroom and sepnt a few moments watching a group play or picked up an player's character sheet and made a quick comment on it. Mostly I have used my position as a player to educate other staffers as to what they inmates are doing. On a couple of occasions I have talked other staff out confiscating dice substitutes like spinner that the staffer was mistaking as a gambling tool. I also once educated a fellow supervisor who was wanting to confiscate an admittedly very nice hand drawn version of the Greyhawk map that a group was using. Now don't get me wrong. This does not mean I have any feeling of pitty for inmates or see them as anything other than what they are: criminals and convicted felons. I also do not let my guard down around those I see partaking in leasure activies that I enjoy as well. I just beleive in being fair. Finally, allow me to caution you all in regards to the now closed post by the supposed prison inmate D&D player. It is sadly not at all uncommon for inmates to solict things from the outisde and in fact engage in scams to rip off the unsuspecting. The MO for this sort of thing is to sell a sob story, rope the unspecting kind hearted soul into being a pen pal, and then make ever escalating requests for money, goods, help when they get out, etc. Do they all do this? Of course not. But it's common enough to make one avoid all such pleas. I recomend that you do not interact with any incarcerated felon aside from ones you know personally such as familly or friends. Indirect interaction via an established charity such as a church is anothe thing of course. Moreover, at least in my state, inmates are not permitted unsupervised access to computer or the internet. A inmate here is not going to have his own email address. (like I said, other states may have different rules, but the risk that such unsupervised access would pose make me suspect that this would be pretty universal) The guy in question may have someone on the outside running an email for him, but he is almost certainly not reeiving and replying personally. In short, be extremely cautious when considering replying to such things and please keep in mind the character of the people we are talking about here.
FoeAxeXiii 10-22-07, 08:40 PM	About a year ago I had a guy stay at my house for three months (practically uninvited) named Ses. I never learned his real name. Anyways, he was a buff charismatic ex-convict and friend of my rent-mate. One evening while me and my friends were holding a session of D20 he came in with my rent-mate (rent-mate didnt play d20) and was smiling more wide then usual. Phil, my rent-mate, told me that they were driving home and he told Ses that we were going to be playing a game he probably wouldn't understand and to not disturb us or take alarm. Ses responded, "Lemme guess, Dungeons and Dragons". Me and my friends were surprised at his familiarity with the game and listened to some prison stories about how he came to know DnD. He told us how some guys would always play it at some certain time (don't remember the details) and he gave it a whirl a few times himself. He told us about the spinners and how dice were illegal. excerpt of the conversation (note, Ses speaks in a heavy new yorken " thug" accent): "Yeah I played the dwarf, I'd kick *expletive deleted* in and *expletive deleted* *expletive deleted*s up. Then I'd drink the healing juice." (When he said "healing juice" we cracked up.) "Hell yeah, I know how to play that *expletive deleted* men! You need that healing juice son. I was *expletive deleted*ing *expletive deleted*s up for that juice. (We were playing D20 modern but didn't find it necessary to tell him as its fundamentally the same.) I wonder where he is now..