When Wizards and Orcs Came to Death Row

August 31, 2023 7:08 AM

For men awaiting execution in Texas, illicit games of Dungeons & Dragons became a lifeline. CW: Discussion of violent crime and execution
posted by Etrigan (11 comments total)

I read this earlier in the NYT and found it pretty wrenching emotionally.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:13 AM on August 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

I am always moved — usually to sadness, sometimes to anger — when I read of people in prison (especially for life sentences or on death row) playing D&D and the nearly inevitable attempts of prison officials to quash it.

Here are people who will never again be in a place where they are not inside four walls, using their meagre resources to imagine a free life, and institutions are trying to stamp out their imaginations. It’s about as dystopian as you can get.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:51 AM on August 31, 2023 [36 favorites]

ricochet biscuit if you want something to give you a bit of hope, there are some prisons that actively support D&D. Here is an extract from a report about HMP Holme House, a prison in north east England. The "house block 7" mentioned is a wing for vulnerable prisoners:

The library had recently appointed a mentor as a games coordinator on house block seven to boost engagement with enrichment activities. Sixteen prisoners had joined a Dungeons and Dragons club, which encouraged decision-making, research, mathematics and negotiation. [link - para 5.9]
posted by greycap at 8:15 AM on August 31, 2023 [11 favorites]

I was going to post this this evening, so thanks.
posted by praemunire at 8:52 AM on August 31, 2023

Thanks, greycap. I am in awe of prison librarians; I advise a campus books-to-local-jails student group, and the jails here are bad enough, I quail before the conditions in actual prisons.
posted by humbug at 12:01 PM on August 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Related/Previously: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
posted by metaphorever at 1:59 PM on August 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

That was so moving, so sad. What an example of how people's creativity will work its way out, in the face of obstacles. Such invention and connection.
posted by doctornemo at 4:37 PM on September 1, 2023

I used to run an RPG publishing company, and we received a regular trickle of letters from inmates in US prisons asking us to send them RPG books, usually pro bono. This was in the 1990s. I don't recall ever receiving such a letter from a prisoner in any other country.

(Our response was usually 'Dude, it's Warhammer, the front cover literally shows a dwarf with a mohawk eviscerating a dude with an axe, there's no way they're going to let that through.')
posted by Hogshead at 12:06 PM on September 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I once tried to send copies of Dune and of an illustrated edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as gifts to a prisoner. I took special care to read the rules for sending books, but they were rejected because why? Because fuck you, I guess. I never learned. Maybe the picture of Eccentrica Gallumbits was pushing it, but it was all so silly—just a couple of forty- or fifty-year-old books.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:48 PM on September 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

The writer of the article is also pretty remarkable.
posted by bluefly at 2:37 AM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

As someone for whom D&D can be a stress reliever and an anxiety management tool as much as it is fun and entertainment. I can only imagine what it means to these men. The article does a great job at describing how sometimes fantasy can do an amazing job at revealing actual humanity.

I hope their 'dice rolls' (spinner spins) are high and, much more importantly, that somehow they are able to escape the heinous fate (both current and future) that they have become trapped in.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 8:29 AM on September 5, 2023