On the list of U.S prisons banned list...

[lordlundar]

Is Dungeons and Dragons of all things, citing potential gang activity.

I'm not even sure I know where to begin here. Did we hit a temporal field that sent the planet back 30 years when D&D was considered evil? Maybe the staff there need a refresher course on the differences between a group and a gang.

I mean what's the worst that could happen, someones going to throw paper balls at somone else screaming "Lightning bolt!"?

[Andara Bledin]

I've never been involved in anything prison-related, but I really cannot fathom, even after the response, how this would be any more dangerous than the various group heirarchies that I know already exist among the inmates.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

I can sort-of see the logic in banning it, though I don't agree: the biggest obvious-to-obververs difference between a group and a gang is what they do together, the structural changes leading up to that could perhaps be fairly easily hidden, and what they do *could* change over time... but it's far too far-fetched to call it rational unless a gaming group actually has become a gang somewhere.

[blas87]

So.....people in prison are allowed to form race related gangs and keep up the "brotherhoods" of such gangs (I'm talking all races here), but they can't just be dorks and play D&D? Are you for real?

I saw something on TV one night really late when there was nothing else on, I can't remember if it was history or discovery, but it said that even behind bars, the gang members of those race gangs are still dangerous.

I'm more afraid of that, honestly.

[fireheart17]

I wonder if that will affect Kara on CS's inmates once Magic and Pokemon gets banned.

[KitterCat]

Wow, someone took Mazes and Monsters seriously? I wonder what would happen if the inmates tried to LARP.

[DrFaroohk]

lol my mom took that movie seriously. She was convinced it was a true story, and for a long time insisted that playing ANY type of fantasy game would make you go insane. If it had goblins, lightning bolts, swords and shields, dwarves or castles, you were a dead man.

[Megg]

My brother has been incarcerated since 1993 in Texas. He has his entire collection of D&D stuff with him. They made my mom order them and have the bookstore ship them directly to the prison, but they let him have them. So I am sure this is not all prisons in the US. In fact, the article said (bolding mine)

A U.S. court of appeal has upheld a ruling that bans Dungeons and Dragons, a popular role-playing game, from a Wisconsin prison.

So apparently the ban is only in effect in this one prison? Or perhaps in Wisconsin? Either way, not nationwide, as the title of the article suggests.

[Bloodsoul]

Have you ever tried to grasp the rules on grappling in 3rd Edition? The ban probably came about so as to deter any riots due to them.

[Kaylyn]

Have you ever tried to grasp the rules on grappling in 3rd Edition? The ban probably came about so as to deter any riots due to them.

Hell, the arguing my group has done over simple rules and how exactly they apply to an unusual situation has nearly incited several riots...

[Andara Bledin]

Hell, the arguing my group has done over simple rules and how exactly they apply to an unusual situation has nearly incited several riots...

That's the sign of a weak DM.

My last DM would have allowed discussion for about 15 minutes or so before "rocks fall, everybody dies." My ex would start making noises about the air starting to be full of static electricity if the players got too unruly over the rules and something about the color blue.

^-.-^

[Hyena Dandy]

Pah. Those are too subtle.

I prefer to invoke rule zero if people start arguing over specifics.

"I'm the DM, I say X is true. Rule Zero, argument over."