In response to my post on the 7th Circuit decision upholding a Wisconsin prison rule forbidding inmates to play Dungeons and Dragons, Joe Carter of First Things speculates about the kinds of D&D-inspired crime that the prison authorities might be worried about:
What crime could they have committed by acting out a D&D storyline? Did they use a quarterstaff to club a chaotic good druid and steal his cloak of invisibility? Because I could definitely see why you wouldn’t want that sort of behavior going on in Folsom Prison.
Carter writes that he played D&D during his “misspent youth.” He obviously didn’t misspend enough of it, however. Otherwise, he might have known that Druids are not allowed to be chaotic good. They must be of “true neutral” alignment (or some other alignment with a neutral dimension in later, more permissive, editions of the game). If a druid became chaotic good, he would immediately lose his druidic status. Thus, we don’t need to worry about prison inmates killing chaotic good druids, because there isn’t any such thing.
On the other hand, prison authorities might have noticed that D&D has a “thief” character class, and that the skills of D&D thieves include pickpocketing, backstabbing, picking locks, and disarming traps. Perhaps they were afraid that inmates might learn these skills from playing the game. If so, I would like to set their minds at ease. I played D&D for years in junior high and high school, and one of my most powerful characters was a 14th level thief. Yet I never learned how to pick even the simplest lock myself. D&D characters’ skills aren’t transferable to their players, which is really a terrible shame. There are times when my longtime favorite “flame strike” spell could really come in handy.
ghhmaster says:
Good catch on the Druid alignment.
January 26, 2010, 10:47 pmAlso a good thing your thief never ran into my 12th level paladin. I would have had to kill you.
Avatar says:
Actually, considering the inmate in question in that case did actually kill someone with a sledgehammer, it’s not quite as ridiculous as usual to speculate that the two are related. (I mean, try explaining to the warden why the NPC hero of your custom setting is a 12th-level paladin with weapon specialization and weapon focus in great mauls…)
January 26, 2010, 10:50 pmAvatar says:
Uh… 12th-level paladins must be more common than I had previously thought.
January 26, 2010, 10:51 pmIlya Somin says:
Actually, considering the inmate in question in that case did actually kill someone with a sledgehammer, it’s not quite as ridiculous as usual to speculate that the two are related.
The problem is that the rule wasn’t limited to him. In addition, out of hundreds of thousands of people who play D&D, it’s statistically inevitable that a few would commit murder even if the two were completely unrelated. There is no evidence that playing the game makes you more likely to commit crimes than you would be otherwise.
January 26, 2010, 10:58 pmIlya Somin says:
Also a good thing your thief never ran into my 12th level paladin. I would have had to kill you.
Not if I backstabbed you first.
January 26, 2010, 10:58 pmreadery says:
Four better rationales for the rule than Wisconsin chose to emphasize:
1. The game is played with dice. Dice can be used for gambling. They also have sharp edges which can be used as weapons (particularly the D&D 4-sided die.)
2. The game has a lot of little pieces and parephenalia (including the dice and the bags used to hold them) which can be used to conceal contraband.
3. The game is fun, so fun that it can make people want to stay cooped up for long periods of time to play it. To retain their deterrant and punitive effect, prisons might not want prisoners to have too much fun or to enjoy their prison time too much.
4. The game provides cover for people seeking to plan escapes. Organized planning of how to break into and out of imaginary dungeons, foil, or overpower guards, and so forth is an important part of what people do in the game. This could be used to create a cover for real planning and brainstorming ideas on how to foil or evade the real guards and break out of the real dungeon the prisoners are in.
January 26, 2010, 11:07 pmAll Dungeon, No Dragons » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog says:
[...] Oh wow. Ilya Somin totally outnerds me: Carter writes that he played D&D during his “misspent youth.” He obviously didn’t [...]
January 26, 2010, 11:13 pmIlya Somin says:
1. The game is played with dice. Dice can be used for gambling. They also have sharp edges which can be used as weapons (particularly the D&D 4-sided die.)
So are many games not banned, like Monopoly.
2. The game has a lot of little pieces and parephenalia (including the dice and the bags used to hold them) which can be used to conceal contraband.
Also true of Monopoly, chess, checkers and numerous games that are permitted.
3. The game is fun, so fun that it can make people want to stay cooped up for long periods of time to play it. To retain their deterrant and punitive effect, prisons might not want prisoners to have too much fun or to enjoy their prison time too much.
See above. In any case, the law does not allow restrictions on the First Amendment rights of prisoners merely because they might otherwise have fun.
4. The game provides cover for people seeking to plan escapes. Organized planning of how to break into and out of imaginary dungeons, foil, or overpower guards, and so forth is an important part of what people do in the game. This could be used to create a cover for real planning and brainstorming ideas on how to foil or evade the real guards and break out of the real dungeon the prisoners are in.
This is silly. The differences between D&D campaigns and real prison breaks are sufficiently great that any such “cover” could easily be pierced by all but the dumbest prison authorities.
January 26, 2010, 11:16 pmMatt says:
Sledgehammer is pretty unique.
My impression is that it is easier to reduce bludgeoning damage rather than piercing or slashing. I could be wrong though.
I really want to see this guy’s character sheet.
January 26, 2010, 11:17 pmDale says:
Thief? That’s rogue, thank you very much.
;)
January 26, 2010, 11:28 pmMike P Wagner says:
Could I suggest a modified D & D that only permitted the use of spells – no physical weapons.
Any inmate who was incarcerated due to a crime committed by spellcraft alone would have to be banned, but my guess is this would exclude very few players.
Within a couple of years, we might have a rash of spellcraft crimes by recidivists – “Give me your money, or I will cast 7th level Entangle!” – but the could be dealt with if and when it happens.
January 26, 2010, 11:30 pmAvatar says:
Oh, don’t get me wrong, the rule as published is both short-sighted and dumb.
However, in the instant case, you could probably have justified preventing the appellant from playing because of a speculative connection with his actual crime. I wouldn’t expect prisons to allow rapists to write sadomasochistic fiction or for a mugger to paint a picture called The Look On His Face Just Before I Stabbed Him, after all. Playing a fantasy game where beating people to death with a large hammer is probably inappropriate for people who have actually beat someone to death with a large hammer.
On the other hand, managed adroitly, it could have a positive effect as well; I could see something like this working out under the close supervision of a prison psychologist. Clearly if the guy is writing ninety-page modules, he’s not a totally lost cause…
January 26, 2010, 11:31 pmIlya Somin says:
Thief? That’s rogue, thank you very much.
It was Thief in the first edition of AD&D, which is the one I played. “Rogue” is a later PC euphemism.
January 26, 2010, 11:32 pmMark N. says:
With all due respect, are you attempting to top the Star Trek post for a “nerdiest law-blog post” competition?
January 26, 2010, 11:42 pmDavid Schwartz says:
What is actually going on here? Have the prison authorities confused fantasy with reality? Is it just a power grab? Is it the religious right gone nuts? What the heck is the deal? This makes even less sense than usual.
January 26, 2010, 11:42 pmCornellian says:
Personally, I’d have taken the Teleport spell over Flame Strike. Way more real-world value.
January 26, 2010, 11:47 pmMatt says:
He should have hired these guys:
January 26, 2010, 11:48 pmhttp://www.ddlawyers.com
Kevin Andrew Murphy says:
I think Captain Muraski, in a previous life, was a Witchfinder General who couldn’t find enough actual witches so made some up to guarantee his job security.
Being a “gang abatement” officer is basically the same thing. If you can’t find any gang activity, you have to find something that looks vaguely like gang activity so you can keep your job.
There’s even the parallel to the witch trials with the anonymous letter accusing the D&D group of “gang” activity and recruiting people to the their “gang” and the judges final decision where it is said that the plaintiff had failed to prove that playing D&D could not possibly lead to “witchcraft,” ahem, “gang activity.”
January 26, 2010, 11:50 pmyankee says:
I can only see the escape plan now: Bugsy will wild shape into a Tyrannosaurus and break down the cell bars with his 28 strength, then Lucky will distract the guards by fascinating them with his bardic music. . . . Once we get Scarface’s spell components back, we’ll Plane Shift out and lay low in Mechanus for a while. The Feds will never expect us to be hiding there!
January 27, 2010, 12:00 amyankee says:
Sure, but I get the sense the people running the prisons in Wisconsin aren’t exactly the brightest bulbs in the American correctional system.
January 27, 2010, 12:06 amGo Horns! says:
Did the expert actually study how role playing games are used to facilitate the formation of gangs? He might know about how gangs form in general, but I wonder if he had any science to backup his expert testimony. Until he has science to backup his theory on D&D and gang formation should he be allowed to testify to its veracity in court? I wonder if a Daubert challenge to the expert testimony would have worked.
January 27, 2010, 12:06 amChris Travers says:
Then the objection will be that it is somehow spiritually unhealthy and leading people to Satanism….
As an aside, I have known a lot of Neopagans and Hermeticists whose interest in such things was first brought about through role playing games so personally I think this is a healthy trend. Some myopic ministers disagree with me however, and I don’t think it should be necessarily the case that things like Enochian manuals should be censored in prisons.
January 27, 2010, 12:13 amyankee says:
No way. With Teleport you run the risk of missing your target and ending up over a bottomless chasm, in the middle of the ocean, or in some equally deadly location. Much better to wait until a higher level when you can get Teleport Without Error aka Greater Teleport.
January 27, 2010, 12:17 amEMB says:
Time stop please.
January 27, 2010, 12:24 amProsecutorial Indiscretion says:
The D&D ban isn’t all that bad – in that setting, a Paranoia campaign would seem more appropriate anyway.
January 27, 2010, 12:30 amProsecutorial Indiscretion says:
Also, while I’m in nerd mode, imagine the outcome if, in the context of a campaign involving Conspirators and their readers, one of the players cast the old Wish spell. I envision days, if not weeks, of heated argument to resolve it.
January 27, 2010, 12:33 amDavid Byron says:
[url=http://www.popehat.com/2010/01/26/what-can-change-the-nature-of-a-song/]Captain Muraski — Pike you![/url]
January 27, 2010, 12:51 amDavid Byron says:
Hey, Captain Muraski– pike you!
January 27, 2010, 12:53 amOperationCounterstrike says:
What crimes might D&D inspire?
Well (true story) my friend and I allowed his little brother to play with us, and we acquired a super-healing potion, and we cut off all four of the little bro’s character’s limbs and healed the amputation-wounds before he could bleed to death. We made this poor simp into a quadripelegic! And sold him to an ogre to use as a sex-toy.
January 27, 2010, 1:07 amAnatid says:
And here, all along, I was under the impression that my high school friends and I played D&D because we were a bunch of antisocial geeks, not that playing D&D turned us otherwise-charismatic people into a bunch of antisocial geeks. I would argue that the personality traits that have driven me to learn lockpicking, knife fighting, stealth, and combat anatomy also drove me to play rogues, not that playing rogues drove me to learn these things. But hey.
On a vaguely scientific note, one would expect that gamers in general would have a slightly lower rate of externalizing behaviors (alcoholism, drug abuse, aggression and violence) in response to stress than folks who do not have an outlet. Ideally, of course, these folks would be in therapy, but the state isn’t willing to pay for that.
But then, from a scientific standpoint, locking nonviolent offenders in with violent offenders is just about the worst idea ever. So since we’re clearly not paying attention to the factors that are proven to make offenders more likely to re-offend, why not go ahead and ban a fun game that has never been demonstrated as detrimental?
January 27, 2010, 1:40 amMikee says:
I tried, oh I tried, to avoid commenting here. But despite the decades of time long passed, and the many miles between me and the rest of those who played D&D way back when, I have to admit that since I couldn’t get a date on many a Saturday night, D&D wasn’t too bad a way to kill several hours. I hope that is not the same reason the prisoners play D&D!
January 27, 2010, 1:47 amroy says:
As of 4th Edition, druids can be of any alignment. Chaotic Good is actually a good fit for the new class flavor, with less emphasis on the balance of nature, and more on “primal” wildness. Less moonlight ritual, more face ripping. Trust me, I’m a Level 2 Dungeon Master.
January 27, 2010, 1:53 amJeremy Patrick says:
I think institutions have a tendency to try to ban anything that might make prison life more bearable: smoking, porn mags, weightlifting, and now D&D. Something of a “if they like it so much, we should probably take it away from them” mentality.
January 27, 2010, 2:17 amreadery says:
The court held the standard of review is rational basis, which is a much lower standard than the one used for First Amendment matters in the outside world. I’d certainly agree this reason isn’t sufficiently compelling to pass a civilian-world First Amendment challenge. But it doesn’t have to. The standard is rational basis. Not making a prison appear too much like a summer camp is rational, hence passes the rational basis test.
January 27, 2010, 2:18 amreadery says:
Also, it isn’t clear to me that D&D is ‘speech’. There are lots of the things on the border that aren’t necessarily protected in the prison world. Do prisoners have a right to possess and play whatever video games they want? Dance naked (or with pasties) whenever they want?
January 27, 2010, 2:23 amAnatid says:
If you consider roleplaying to be a form of written and verbal self-expression, then it is absolutely speech. Just how many of your personal desires and phobias did you pour into Thurgold the Dwarven Barbarian, anyway?
January 27, 2010, 3:08 amJohn Fast says:
An interesting comment at the webcomic Penny Arcade.
Meanwhile, if I ever have to do hard time again, I’ll make sure to leave my D&D books outside, and simply bring World of Darkness items.
January 27, 2010, 3:41 amGoobermunch says:
Roy–
Except that in 4e, the alignments are (L)Awful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil, and Chaotic Evil. There are no chaotic good druids in 4e, either.
–G
January 27, 2010, 7:45 amspeedwell says:
As an ultra-long-time rolegamer girl (coming up on the 30-year anniversary of my first game, folks, and yes, I did have the very first D&D box set), I have something to say about this.
In the cause of plain speaking, I believe the people we have in our jails are not, for the most part, the highest rank of intellectuals and effective planners. They are characterized by a general inability to get along with others, drop-of-a-hat meaningless violence, laziness, lying, entitlement morality, and thrill-seeking. They tend to be mentally ill far more often than the general population, and with more damaging illnesses. Many of them have, at best, a loose grip on reality. This is exactly the sort of person who you do NOT want to be playing rolegames.
In our groups, we systematically weeded out players who were taking things too seriously (identifying with their character too strongly, getting too upset about in-game losses or character deaths, taking in-game events personally, and so forth). We also weeded out people who were incapable of following our quite loose and situational group rule structure, were nasty to other players, or showed signs of being mentally ill (such as creepy unwanted touching, drug or alcohol addiction, or doing offensive things to get attention).
People like that did not make good gamers and for the most part were incapable of contributing anything significant. They were the ones who wanted to senselessly level the nearest village, role-play horrible tortures and rapes in the most offensive detail, play demonic characters for the sake of being evil, get angry at nonexistent perceived slights, constantly demand concessions and exceptions from the Dungeon Master, and generally piss everyone off and ruin it for everyone. Emotions run high, like they do when you’re watching a really good movie, and a role game is no place for emotionally dysfunctional people who make a practice of acting out.
Now, rolegaming has been shown to help borderline retarded people advance socially, psychologically, and educationally, but even if I were a therapist I would expect to draw hazard pay for running a game in a jail.
January 27, 2010, 8:09 amrbj says:
John Wayne Gacy did oil paintings while on death row.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy#Gacy_as_an_artist (Just because it’s on wikipedia doesn’t mean it isn’t true).
If someone has beaten another to death with a sledgehammer I would hope that that person would not be released back into society under most circumstances.
Very silly decision by the prison warden. Being able to engage in a pleasurable activity should be a big carrot used to encourage good behavior in prison.
January 27, 2010, 8:12 amegd says:
In other words, your GP or your HP.
Thank god I’m not the only dork around here. Although we are currently playing Warhammer Fantasy RP rather than D&D.
January 27, 2010, 8:20 amspeedwell says:
To the point then… Rolegaming in jail, where practically everyone is dysfunctional, retarded, or disinclined to follow rules when it doesn’t suit them, is overwhelmingly unlikely to result in anything like a “pleasurable” experience.
January 27, 2010, 8:21 amDale says:
Classism! I’m offended!
January 27, 2010, 8:55 amMojo Bison says:
I have had so much enjoyment reading these threads that I have lost track of time and am now late. I play my card from the Deck Of Many Things that allows me to restart the day…
–oh wow, a thread on Dungeons and Dragons. I want to read that…….
January 27, 2010, 8:55 amJeff the Baptist says:
Actually it’s because everyone finally realized that “thief” is a crappy job in D&D. The only people to steal from on most dungeon crawls are the other members of your party. As such, playing a real thief often made you despised by both your friends and enemies. On the other hand you could easily adapt the same skillset to play a spy or other similar profession. So they changed the name.
January 27, 2010, 8:56 amthe count says:
If you can find it, check out the meta-RPG “Power Kill” by John Tynes (Hogshead Publishing), the point of which is no matter what milieu you stick over top of your RPG, they all seek to make acceptable what would otherwise be considered sociopathic behavior – breaking into people’s homes, killing random strangers and stealing their stuff, etc.
I know, I know, it all depends on the GM, blah blah blah. Even if YOUR game is different, the way the overwhelming majority of people play the game is that way.
January 27, 2010, 9:19 amCan't find a good name says:
Perhaps the prison was afraid that players who took on the “cleric” character would file claims under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
January 27, 2010, 9:48 amStuart_the_Viking says:
Years ago when I had a group of role-playing friends, we would often put the books away and basicly play free-form. No dice, no character sheets, nothing. All we needed was a good Game Master/Story Teller type and some imagination (and a good memory). We did have to have SOME form of random decider and on the rare occasion when nobody had dice, we used rock paper scissors or guess a number between 1 and 100 and it worked out fine.
It doesn’t matter if they take away the D&D. True role-players will figure out a way to play anyway.
s
January 27, 2010, 9:53 amJohn Armstrong says:
The druid alignment thing is a geek check, like the Starship Enertron.
January 27, 2010, 10:23 amDan J says:
This is one of the greatest threads I’ve read in a long time. Thank you all for well articulated and nuanced points of law and D&D lore!
January 27, 2010, 10:35 amSteve Poling says:
How many years were you in Junior High? the way you phrased it gave the impression you spent multiple years in 7th or 8th grade.
January 27, 2010, 10:49 amruprecht says:
AD&D taught me to always take a corner table and sit with my back to the wall. That and cooperation. Not much else is applicable to the real world of Modern America.
Now, if they were playing Gamma World…
January 27, 2010, 10:55 amRon W says:
There used to be a Mensa SIG for Mensans in prison. So there are at least some highly intelligent prisoners. It is easy to break laws these days without intending to or even know you have done so. Just too many defined crimes.
Second point is, if he was using a sledge hammer maybe he is a cleric as they are not allowed to use edged weapons (or at least they weren’t in first edition back when I used to play.)
January 27, 2010, 10:56 amJT says:
My friend was much less subtle, “That’s weird because as high school kids all the game led to was virginity. Which in prison is probably a good thing”
January 27, 2010, 11:03 amMr. Bingley says:
Hey Speedwell, we must have been “in search of the unknown” at around the same time. I still have that light blue box from Christmas of 1978.
And I haven’t yet been convicted of any major crimes.
January 27, 2010, 11:09 amKevin R says:
Are you forgetting the “Lord of the Rings/property law” post? Bonus Trek reference in the comments to that one, I seem to remember Sasha Volokh giving the correct way to cite the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition (unless I’m mixing up my nerdy law blog posts).
January 27, 2010, 11:23 amJosh James says:
A recent conversation I had with some law school friends:
Me: “D&D would be fun to play. . . again. I have all the dice we’d need and have been looking for an excuse to buy the new books. But if you want the classic stuff I can have my mom ship my old 2nd Edition books from home.”
Friend 1: “D&D is just a bunch of nerds sitting around pretending to be something cool. It can’t be that much fun, and seems like a waste of time.”
Friend 2: “We were just in a moot court competition, and you’re saying that about D&D?”
Friend 1: “Yeah so?”
Friend 2: “At least D&D is a bunch of nerds sitting around pretending to be awesome things, like Paladins and Wizards. A moot court competition is just a bunch of nerds pretending to be bigger nerds. And if you make it very far and the professors sit as the judges, then it’s nerds pretending to be bigger nerds in front of bigger nerds pretending to be the supreme nerds of the land. How is that better than D&D?”
Friend 1: “Point taken.”
January 27, 2010, 11:23 amChristopher says:
The adjective is implied in the noun.
January 27, 2010, 11:28 amMark L says:
Was the ban on D&D specifically or Role Playing Games in general? If it was the former they could do GURPS, Knights of the Round Table, or Traveller. GURPS only uses D6 AFAIR, although you can pick chits out of a bag or roll a six-sided pencil if dice were not allowed. (We used pencils in study hall in the eons past when I was in high school.)
January 27, 2010, 11:34 amIs Life in Prison Without Dungeons & Dragons Cruel and Unusual Punishment? :: The Zero Boss says:
[...] more, check out Volokh Conspiracy, where they’re considering how D&D might inspire prisoners to mischief. Forget the Thief [...]
January 27, 2010, 11:49 amDgood says:
I believe that changed; my group is running 3.5 and I’m playing a gnome cleric with a sickle. Character nickname: The Badger. Weapon nickname: The Badger’s Claw. This is my first ever campaign though, so I’m not as familiar with when things changed up.
January 27, 2010, 11:55 amCosmicConservative says:
So much rich material here…
I still role play and enjoy it immensely. I’ve been married for 24 years, have two kids in high school and college and have a fairly decent job as a director in a major international corporation. I graduated with a degree in physics and play guitar, hunt and fish…
I didn’t start playing D&D until college though, so maybe I was inoculated against the worst of the nerd pathogens…
Playing games like D&D is, in my opinion, a great way to express an individual’s creativity and build confidence in a social environment. To actually run lengthy campaigns requires a multitude of skills ranging from graphics to public speaking and including a need to master fundamental organizational, time management and dispute resolution skills.
In fact it’s hard to come up with a better way to train for a career in management. Putting together a one hour presentation to a room full of bored corporate drones is child’s play compared to creating a vibrant, interactive, challenging and ongoing presentation lasting several hours per session for months on end for a group of power-gaming number-crunching nerds who will jump on the slightest gap in your campaign and tear all your careful planning to shreds in a heartbeat while cackling maniacally in your face.
January 27, 2010, 12:06 pmDudeman says:
I reckon that the main difference between prisoners playing D&D and people on the “outside” is that the prisoners are prohibited from leaving “mom’s basement.”
That being said, having played D&D, Call of Cthulu, and other RPG’s, they tend to be less destructive than a “night out at the bar.”
January 27, 2010, 12:07 pmWill says:
For a few individuals, intense, prolonged game playing can affect the risk/reward judgment process. It would seem reasonable that prisons have a larger population of those who already have problems in this area. D&D is unlikely to help or hurt.
January 27, 2010, 12:13 pmPintler says:
Is playing a game considered a first amendment right? 9th would seem like a good fit, if anything was covered by the 9th, but it doesn’t seem an obvious fit for the 1st. Why do prisoners wishing to play D&D enjoy more rights than HS students wearing ‘Bong Hits for Jesus’ shirts?
I’m not trying to argue the law with a law professor, but I can’t quite grok the rationale.
(followup: are restrictions on playing Grand Theft Auto OK?)
January 27, 2010, 12:26 pmcomatus says:
I’m not convinced Bob Stroud should have kept birds.
January 27, 2010, 12:47 pmFaith+1 says:
They are already in prison. I’m guessing they are probably already pretty advanced thieves and playing the game isn’t going to teach them much.
January 27, 2010, 12:47 pmElfwreck says:
That argument would work for banning *all* games, not a specific category of them. The idea “they shouldn’t be having that much fun” implies that D&D is inherently more fun than other games.
The real insanity is forbidding one particular RPG while ignoring the existence of hundreds of others, apparently because they’re low-profile enough not to have been called to anyone’s attention yet. I expect that Puppetland/Power Kill would be much more problematic–and neither of those directly involves dice.
Diceless RPGs are rare, but would be hard to prevent. Amber & Everway are the two biggest, but there are plenty of small ones, plus LARPs… one set of simple rules, and LARPs could take over prisons. (The mind boggles trying to figure out how anyone could forbid or prevent a game of “Assassin” if it caught a group’s interest.)
January 27, 2010, 12:47 pmyankee says:
In general, no. It seems to me that the issue with D&D is that playing D&D mostly consists of talking. Except for rolling dice, the game “moves” consist exclusively of saying what your player is doing. Miniatures are helpful but not required,* especially if the group’s playing style deemphasizes combat. As other commenters mention above, there are even various ways of dispensing with the dice if you really have to.
*The latest edition of the game is almost exclusively a combat game and the rules make miniatures effectively mandatory, but this is less true of previous editions, all of which are banned.
January 27, 2010, 1:09 pmTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » What Kinds of Crime Might Dungeons and Dragons Inspire? -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Peter Black, pammar, RecessionCone, Joshua Neikirk, My Best News and others. My Best News said: The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » What Kinds of Crime Might … http://bit.ly/dlXKnf [...]
January 27, 2010, 1:14 pmLee Peters says:
D&D also has some economics educational value: Dungeons & Dragons Players Ponder Mysterious Power of Costshifter Character
January 27, 2010, 1:26 pmShelby says:
Avatar @ 10:50: a 12th-level paladin with weapon specialization and weapon focus in great mauls…
C’mon, be realistic. Paladins can’t take weapon specialization; that feat is limited to fighters. And since paladins can’t multiclass, he’d have to take 4 levels as a fighter, take the feat, THEN become a paladin and reach 12th level. Which is a totally different thing.
More generally, I get the sense that the public defender in question really didn’t have his heart in this one. Which is a pity, if only for the precedent it sets.
January 27, 2010, 2:46 pmNostromo says:
D’ya think?
January 27, 2010, 2:47 pmRead Cruel Doubt by Joe McGinnis (sp) about a brutal North Carolina murder and beating that will leave you spellbound, to coin a phrase.
Perseus says:
One would think that in addition to the thief class, the assassin subclass, which requires an evil alignment, would be even more troubling to prison authorities.
January 27, 2010, 2:56 pmAlexinCT says:
The reason they banned the game was that everyone in prison only wanted to play a thief, or rogue in the new edition, and they all wanted to play evil characters. Fighting would ensue as the party usually turned on itself before it could even leave the inn – suspicions and such running rampant – and the DM would have to shive some bastard for ruining the game he had put so much time into. It was necessary to stop all that stuff.
And as someone that played an original and RPGA certified 14th level paladin, I think prisons are just incarnations of hell on earth anyway. So there!
January 27, 2010, 3:19 pmmalclave says:
Are you suggesting that Jack Chick was wrong?
Next you’ll be telling me that the movie Mazes and Monsters (starring Tom Hanks) was not truly representative of gamers.
January 27, 2010, 4:03 pmElfwreck says:
Unclear; we’d probably need the original court ruling for that. This one talks about a D&D ban in one spot, and an RPG ban in another.
Specifically D&D, p4: “Waupun officials confiscated his D&D materials and enacted a categorical ban against D&D.”
General, p9: “Muraski testified that Waupun’s prohibition on role-playing and fantasy games was intended to serve two purposes.”
A clever person could argue that the ruling bans certain types of therapy and counseling, as the difference between role-playing-as-a-game and role-playing-for-therapeutic-purposes might be impossible to define.
January 27, 2010, 4:26 pmLawbee says:
According to the opinion, the ban on D&D was “incorporated into a broader policy prohibiting inmates from engaging in all types of fantasy games..” And, the opinion does suggest that an “unstated” rationale for the ban might have been the simple desire to punish.
Anyway, it could have been worst. At least the plaintiff wasn’t subjected to abdominal surgery by correctional officials in search of a cellphone. See
January 27, 2010, 6:55 pmlink below from the CA 1:
yankee says:
Even worse, you could be playing 4th edition, in which case weapon specialization doesn’t exist at all. You could do it in 2nd edition fairly easily: start as a fighter and dual-class into paladin. You’d need that 17 Charisma though, which is hard to get on 3d6.
January 27, 2010, 6:56 pmAnatid says:
How exactly to they intend to prohibit roleplaying games, anyway? I’ve played D&D since high school, but I’ve done pure-writing RPGs from an even earlier age. All you need, literally, is another person to talk with – you don’t even need to write things down. And trust me, you don’t need dice and tables of stats in order for characters to be evil, backstabbing jerks. All you need is two or more people with a good imagination willing to participate in a common fantasy.
So in order to enact this ban, every single prisoner will have to be put into solitary confinement, yes?
January 27, 2010, 7:13 pmXanthippas says:
pwn3d!
Unless they are imprisoned in something akin to the dungeon of a medieval European baron, I’m not sure how much planning is transferable to the real world.
Interestingly, this is exactly the sort of behavior my friends and I emulated when we broke out the dice and character sheets.
January 27, 2010, 7:14 pmDevin says:
I made a similar comment on the other thread on this topic, but it’s worth reading Mike Stackpole’s The Pulling Report, which dealt with the Satanic Panic over D&D in the 1980s, and quotes studies showing that roleplayers, on the whole, are less likely to commit crimes or attempt suicide than non-gamers. Not that this necessarily indicates that prison inmates would become less likely to commit crimes if given the chance, but it certainly suggests that their propensity toward criminal activity wouldn’t be encouraged by playing roleplaying games.
January 27, 2010, 7:30 pmMikeTheMoose says:
Right he would never have gotten the idea like that in prison if it weren’t for that evil AD&D. No one there would have ever thought of bludgeoning someone to death with a heavy object otherwise. . .
January 27, 2010, 7:38 pmGreg says:
I’m not sure what’s more worrisome: a criminal looking to play an evil rogue, or a person who named their paladin after themselves! “Sir Alexander the Noble” indeed!
January 27, 2010, 8:39 pmreadery says:
It’s well established in rational basis jurisprudence that partial solutions are always rational and there’s never any obligation to solve any problem completely or optimally, or to make any comparison to anything else. If making prison less fun is a legitimate state interest, then banning any single fun thing is rationally related to that interest. It has some tendency, considered by itself, to further the interest. End of story.
FYI Games are objects. They don’t have constitutional rights. Their feelings don’t matter. The state doesn’t have to treat them fairly. They’re not entitled to equal protection.
January 27, 2010, 9:04 pmProsecutorial Indiscretion says:
Any word on whether the prisoners have started LARPing?
January 27, 2010, 10:23 pmmarkm says:
Most likely they’re trying to avoid becoming the “date”.
Jokes aside, as I remember D&D and similar RPG’s, we roamed around and picked up anything we saw that looked useful, or valuable enough to trade. We broke into places and searched them for more loot. Meeting a stranger usually resulted in a fight – and the winners looted the bodies of the losers. The only ethics ever on display were the sort the Mafia would subscribe to – don’t steal from or betray your own gang – and enforced in much the same way as Mafia ethics.
The prison authorities were too stupid to argue this, but it’s certainly plausible enough to pass “rational basis” review to argue that simulating criminal behavior in a RPG will reduce the chances of rehabilitation. There’s an equally good argument on the other side, that roleplaying can substitute for actual crime – but any actual evidence for this wouldn’t include guys like the typical prioner. Anyway, “rational basis” review allows the authorities to ignore conflicting evidence and use theories and speculation in place of evidence.
January 28, 2010, 8:38 pmGuest says:
Ilya,
A 12th level thief, huh? Just thank your lucky stars things didn’t turn out this way for you:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp
I was always waiting to be introduced to the “real power” but my DM mever deemed me worthy or ready.
January 28, 2010, 11:59 pmAmbrose says:
One problem, dude… They did come up with the rule. They might legitimately be too stupid to catch it.
May 30, 2010, 10:03 pm