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Message: <blockquote data-quote="akbearfoot" data-source="post: 4069632" data-attributes="member: 33560">I can see banning dice because of gambling concerns....but then again, I was pretty sure most long-term inmates have access to sports on Television, and to decks of playing cards.  So there are already plenty of ways to gamble in prisons.  I would also bet money that(tee-hee) the habitual gamblers have already smuggled dice in, just like the drug addicts get booze and drugs snuck in.  There are other ways to handle dice rolling without actually rolling dice.Various studies have proven (or at least strongly suggested)that RPGs aid in the development of numerous positive mental skills.  And to date, not a single crime has ever been attributed to being caused by a RPG.  Plenty of people have 'suspected' as such or even tried to use an RPG as a scapegoat, but RPGs have never been sited as being a primary factor in any crime.  I just spent a little while trying to find something to prove that claim incorrect, but was unable to.  If anyone knows of an example to disprove my statement, I very much would like to read about it.  A couple years ago I remember watching one of those D&D videos and they actually sited a specific # of crimes where D&D specifically was listed in association with crimes and suicides, but in every case those suspicions were dropped.It seems like most of the people posting on this board are of the opinion that prisoners don't deserve to have any fun in prison....kinda makes any sort of rehabilitation an impossibility.   If I knew there was a way to help a group of people decrease racial tensions, improve reading skills, basic math skills, problem solving skills, and vocabulary, and that they would have fun while they were doing it I would jump all over that.Asside from possibly desensitizing an extremely sheltered person to the IDEA of violence, I question any claim that D&D or role-playing games in general has ever or will ever harm me physically or mentally.  Nobody with access to basic cable and any PG rated station can say that they were never exposed to violence until they played an RPG.   I actually see a lot board games as roleplaying games, only with less complexity.  Monopoly puts you in the role of a business tycoon whos ONLY goal is to bankrupt your friends and drive them to the streets penniless...Chess teaches you to sacrifice your pawns in order to achieve victory over your opponents.  Clue, Axis and Allies, battleship, Life, Operation, and plenty others are limited versions of role-playing games.The idea that letting inmates play D&D will change the group mentality of the prison seems rediculous to me.  Obviously not every inmate would want to play a RPG, but then again most criminals aren't serving hard time for very violent crimes.  What about all the average guys in average prisons.  I don't know how prisons actually work, but I don't imagine that you'd have a lot of guys who are serving life terms mixed in with the guy that got caught stealing a rack of soda at the local 7-11.  I don't picture actual prisons working like the show OZ....Paris Hilton didn't go to San Quentin, for example.  If Joe bob has violent tendencies, then his fellow inmates are probably already avoiding him...and as normal, if you act up in prison, you're going to be punished with solitary confinement or whatever.  If I were in prison, and I was allowed to play RPGs, I would consider that MASSIVE motivation for me to be well-behaved.  In real life I used to have to finish my homework before my friends could come over and game with me.  Guess who did his homework early on game nights <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />FWIW I've never been in prison, and I am fairly confident that I wouldn't survive an extended stay in once.  But for some reason, this thread really caught my attention.</blockquote>

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