RPGs "reduce accountability and substite raw power for legitimate authority"

[Nightfall]

Unfortunately Darrin, Wardens ARE thought police in prisons. It's again a sad commentary on the human condition when we treat our worst and most deprived horribly and then expect them to not turn out worse for it.

 

[Sejs]

"Roleplaying games are prohibited," they said, "to prevent inmates from plaing themselves in fantasy roles that reduce accountability and substite raw power for legitimate authority."

Step 1: Gain legitimate authority over something.

Step 2: Use roleplaying games to plant self in fantasy role.

Step 3: Reduce Accountability.

Step 4: Cash in old legitimate authority for raw power.

Step 5: Use raw power to take over earth.



Man I had NO IDEA roleplaying games were such a threat to the world at large! Something should be done!

 

[Nightfall]

Man I had NO IDEA roleplaying games were such a threat to the world at large! Something should be done!

Right just like reading Farenheit 451 is a sin against the state.

 

[trancejeremy]

Well, I guess it really depends on whether or not you feel that prison is for punishment for a crime, or someplace to rehabilitate people.

Still, in either case, I'd rather have them pretending to be criminals (via a role-playing game) than actually being ones.

 

[s/LaSH]

Frankly, this might be one of those situations where 'parental accountability' (used in a distant and bizarre fashion) is needed. Might. If we're talking about Death Row, I'd be very, very careful about exciting the inmates. If we're talking minimum security white-collar crime, then I'd be happy allowing such materials in. Somewhere in the middle? Never having been in prison, I can't comment.

An externally-run session focusing on social order and accountability (which you CAN do in RPGs - get a psychologist to design a campaign or outline for ya) might be rehabilitative, however (not to get political, but simply teaching inmates how to cook their own food has been proven to cut the reoffending rate)... and also create a niche employment market for GMs. Which would be a way of getting paid for playing D&D. Heheh.

Fun fact: Wizard (the preeminent comics magazine) now has a 'jail mail' sidebar in their mail column, dealing exclusively with letters from prisons. That Green Lantern reference wasn't a coincidence.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Well, I guess it really depends on whether or not you feel that prison is for punishment for a crime, or someplace to rehabilitate people.

Ideally, it should be both...

Heck, I think there's no better service to society that the prison system could perform than turning hard-core criminals into hard-core gaming geeks. Give 'em something useful to do with their lives.

 

[Ace]

Ideally, it should be both...

Heck, I think there's no better service to society that the prison system could perform than turning hard-core criminals into hard-core gaming geeks. Give 'em something useful to do with their lives.

Yeah. The Knights of the Dinner Table had a riff on this a few issues back

 

[Alzrius]

Well, I guess it really depends on whether or not you feel that prison is for punishment for a crime, or someplace to rehabilitate people.

Ideally, the principles that justice is supposed to mete out upon those convicted of a crime can be divided into three tiers: desert (in the sense of "just deserts"), deterrence, and rehabilitation.

In practicality, achieving all three is virtually impossible...heck, even achieving one is, depending on who you ask, rarely done.

This particular case seems to be a question of desert vs. rehabilitation. On the one hand, people aren't in prison to have a good time. On the other hand, there is a valid arguement to be had for saying that playing RPGs in prison could promote values that society embraces. This isn't even taking into context the caveat that even though they're being punished, we do not want people who are in prison to suffer, so there must be elements there to make life comfortable, and perhaps even enjoyable, for them.

Personally, I take exception to the idea that prisoners can't play RPGs. The idea that they "reduce accountability and substitute raw power for legitimate authority" is absurd. This is the same garbage we hear from everyone who doesn't play RPGs: they seem to be under the impression that people cannot separate whats inside their head from what's outside of it. Having a character who bashes in the head of the local militia and flees into the wilderness is different than doing it yourself.

This is in addition to my worry that free speech is genuinely being impinged here. It is necessary to deprive criminals of some elements of freedom in order to contain (and hopefully rehabilitate) them, but this can turn into fascism and abuse of power much too easily for my liking. I personally hope that this ruling gets overturned, and quickly.

 

[Eosin the Red]

Wow. I seem to be falling on the wrong side of the fence. As a person whose father has served time in a maximum secutiry prison and whose brother is currently serving 20 years in a super max - I wanna say "what are you folks thinking!" These are people who have stepped outside of society. We just had a 64 year old female raped, repeatedly and beaten so badly that she may well loose and eye and spent more than a week in the ICU. You want the sleeze ball that did that to someone who could be your grandmother to be able to game? You think he has "rights" like everyone else? No, he gave up rights to cable tv, Dragon Mag, and WWF the moment he began battering a metal rod against a womans forehead. He gave up rights the moment he sodomized her. He does not "deserve" anything more than the punishment that society has judged appropriate to his or her crimes. We aren't talking about jay walkers. We are talking about people who use and abuse other human beings for joy, sport, or to gain material goods without working for them.

I find it incredilous that people defend any right of anybody in prison.

These aren't the folks you want hangin out at the FLGS.

 

[Norfleet]

Something to keep in mind is that cable TV isn't granted to the prisoners as some sort of award: It's granted as an inexpensive means of keeping them from rioting. Considering the amount of violence one is subjected to on television, I hardly think that gaming is going to make them any worse. There are certainly far less healthy things for prisoners to be pondering than how many experience points they need to reach the next level: The alternative is that prisoners spend most of their time working out, something which will probably make them better able to carry out their crimes than becoming a flabby, out-of-shape gamer.