When this story was brought to my attention by one of my Players, I was sure he was playing a practical joke.  Then I thought that maybe it was one of those “spoof” news stories like you would find over at The Onion.com.  But sadly, fellow Gamers, it is not the case – Dungeon Masters are pretty much the same as leaders of a criminal gang!

According to the article in the FoxNews.com’s Technology section on Wednesday, the headline stated that “Dungeons and Dragons Threatens Prison Security, Court Rules” .  Apparently, an inmate was denied the right not only to act as a Dungeon Master, but was prohibited from playing any fantasy role-playing game because the relationship between a DM and Player too much resembled that of a gang leader organizing his gang. There was also a blog discussion at Geeks Are Sexy.com entitled Dungeons & Dragons: A Threat to Prison Security which takes a fairly in depth look at the whole issue.

But what really shocked me was the wording of some of the statements in the legal brief for the Singer vs. Raemisch Case .  While I appreciate the fact that the prison was acting to preserve its right of creating a safe environment where hopefully an inmate would be rehabilitated, I find the legal phrasing of how D&D and fantasy role-playing in general was being portrayed.

The prison officials case was won when they “provided the court with a plausible explanation for the D&D policy, that the game’s structure (especially its control by the Dungeon Master) mimicked that of gangs”.  The prison officials stated that “cooperative games can mimic the organization of gangs and lead to the actual development thereof”, which I find a little surprising because most games and team sports require a certain amount of cooperation.  And while I have never been in a prison, I assume that all those movies and TV shows depicting convicts playing basketball and lifting weights has to be fairly accurate right?  So from the prison officials perspective, they should certainly ban basketballs, because clearly forming a team to shoot hoops could cause a gang to develop right on the spot right?  And what about weight sets?  I mean one guy spotting the other guy makes for too much cooperation between inmates, and besides that, all that muscle development makes the inmates more physically imposing and dangerous – so ban weights too or you will have hulking gang members breaking out of prison!

What I found truly stunning was how the prison official, Muraski, claimed that it was his responsibility to “prevent the grouping of inmates into new gangs or other groups that are not organized to promote educational, social, cultural, religious, recreational, or other lawful leisure activities”.  So D&D is not a lawful, social, cultural, or educational leisure activity?

Well first of all, I am pretty sure that playing D&D is still “lawful”, unless a bill was recently passed I didn’t know about.  And it is “social”, as in I get together with my friends and play it quite often, and even go to whole conventions to be with my fellow gamers – and not to form gangs, by the way!  And D&D is certainly a “cultural” phenomenon, and has been since the late 70s, so I fail to see how that does not apply.

And what about “educational”?  Seriously, how many of you, my fellow gamers, knew what a barbican was, or a magonel, or what the difference between a greatsword and a long sword was before D&D came along?  D&D is utterly educational, inundating the players in a sea of new terms, historical references, and mythological lore which spark new interests in history, classical literature, and myth.  Arguably, it also introduces new pantheons of gods, and so I could argue the “religious” angle too, but I do not think the prison officials would be too happy with “non-traditional” groups springing up to start prayer to “alternative” pantheons.

But most disturbing was the assertion by Muaski that D&D “promotes fantasy role playing, competitive hostility, violence, addictive escape behaviors, and possible gambling”, and that this “can compromise not only the inmate’s rehabilitation and effects of positive programming, but endanger the public and jeopardize the safety and security of the institution.”

So what does that say about the rest of us non-inmates playing Dungeons & Dragons, in our homes and gaming stores?  Now that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed with such claims, how does that reflect on the rest of us, as D&D gamers, as a whole?

What I find really sad is that I think the prison officials looked at D&D in entirely the wrong way.  Rather than view it negatively, as something that might be used to create a gang or unlawful behavior, I wonder how it might have been used by a trained prison counselor to promote positive images for the inmates to aspire to.  As we all know, role-playing can produce amazing feelings of excitement, suspense, and happiness among the players, and that for many of us, it allows the chance to explore a persona that not only can be a hero, but even change the world in the process.  I wonder how poignant it would have been to have prison inmates play good-aligned characters, and face down and defeat evil monsters and villains that were committing crimes not unlike what lead them to be in prison in the first place?  Would not that be a form of rehabilitation in its own right for the inmates – role-playing heroes, fighting evil, and protecting the weak?  I think the prison officials looked at only the most basic and outward forms of the game, saw players hacking up monsters with swords, and ruled the whole thing as violent escapism.

If only there had been one official or judge involved in this case that had been a gamer… I wonder if the verdict might have ended up differently?

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

So how do you feel about D&D being labeled as promoting “competitive hostility, violence, addictive escape behaviors, and possible gambling”?  Do you think the Courts were right handing down their verdict or have they got it all wrong?  As always, your feedback and comments are most welcome!

Tags: court of appeals, D&D 4e, editorial, news, prison gangs

This entry was posted by Editor-in-Chief on Friday, January 28th, 2011 at 7:51 pm and is filed under RPG News & Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.