At the age of twelve, I knew magic. I knew spells, charms, and potions. I knew the rules of invisibility, flight, and future sight. Furthermore, I knew other schools of heroism and villainy—psionics, spycraft, vampirism, ninjitsu. I knew how mutants were made. Most importantly, I knew how to rally those with these powers, and together, we embarked on quests. Yes, I was a preteen game master.
Roleplaying requires players, and as an unpopular kid I didn't have many. The one campaign I ran was with my obliging cousin and a fellow nerd from Latin class. This didn't stop me from developing nonplayer characters and mapping out strange lands, nor from blowing whole summer job paychecks on game supplements from my neighborhood comic book shop. My lifetime of active RPG gameplay might add up to less than forty hours, but I know gaming.
Many years have passed, but I can still recognize roleplayers at a glance. (Who else has use for a twenty-sided die?) In prison, where roleplaying games are forbidden by policy, they're even more obvious.
The dauntless roleplayers in my wing use every opportunity to occupy a sagging plastic card table in the corner. Variously used for independent study, Bible group get-togethers, and the occasional loner eating a bowl of instant ramen, the gamers stake their claim there and set up camp, armed with sourcebooks, character sheets, pencils, markers, folders, charts, and dice. They spend hours at that table, quibbling over rolls and strategies. It appears they're operating in a different realm, in a world where they're stronger, better, more adventurous versions of themselves. In a sense, they are.
Their dice are made of soap that's been pulverized, liquefied, molded, meticulously shaved, etched, then coated with several layers of floor wax. No such elaborate craftsmanship would be necessary if the Department of Corrections simply permitted its residents to purchase RPGs. Alas, prison policy explicitly bans roleplaying. Dice of any kind are considered gambling paraphernalia, ergo also contraband. But life finds a way.
The RPG of choice in Missouri seems to be Palladium, a competitor to its more famous forebear, Dungeons & Dragons. Over time, somehow, different titles have trickled into the prison—The Palladium Role Playing Game, Rifts, Ninjas and Superspies, and more. Fans of D&D often call Palladium's rules cumbersome, but what Palladium sacrifices in fluid gameplay is balanced out by satisfying realism. The Palladium system has a smaller market share of the RPG world. It happens to be the one I bought as a kid. Surprisingly, it's also the one that many people in prison risk conduct violations to play.
Sometimes I overhear the B-Wing gamers in their questing.
"I pick up the donkey shit and put it in my bag," says one.
"You can't," the Game Master responds. "The bag's already full."
"Are any of the goblins hungry?" asks another player.
I learn that a crew of the creatures run a boat that the players want to take across the sea, and the players plan to supply food for the journey. I also learn that Goblins eat poop.
This is ridiculous, and I probably could've just left it out, but I think the absurdity speaks to an important point: this is what roleplaying looks like. According to the old-school gamers I've asked, the DOC imposed the RPG ban in the 1990s. Reading through Missouri case law and national law reviews didn't confirm this. It did, however, speak to the historical war between evidence and fear that surrounds roleplaying games in prisons.
In a quick search on LexisNexis, I found sixty-two articles that included the terms "Dungeons & Dragons" and "prison"—most of which appeared to scoff at arguments that D&D could incite gang violence or function as an escape tool. The articles cite the prosocial aspects of the game—how it fosters cooperation, rewards communication, and can serve as a nonviolent channel for players' emotions. A 2023 News Inside article by Keri Blakinger describes how D&D even allowed one death row inmate to cross prison's hard-drawn race boundaries and gain his sole form of daily human interaction.
To play the part of a daring magician, a heroic dwarf, or an intrepid elf, when your autonomy has been hijacked and your material sense of self stripped, could only impart a feeling of freedom. Roleplaying is an escape more engrossing than any book or TV show, and both safer and less expensive than any drug. For the gamers in my wing, who barely interacted before their campaign started, roleplaying is many things.
It was an excuse to improve his reading, says the Game Master. He remembers being functionally illiterate when he came to prison in 1996. Joining a campaign with some guys on his cellblock became his incentive to learn how to read. He praises RPGs for their potential to teach.
Another man describes his in-game character as a grownup version of his young son, who lives out of state and whose voice he hears only when he calls home on weekends. For him, gaming is a way to cope with the distance and feel a connection to his only child.
Not that every gaming story is a noble one. Most people probably just play because gaming is fun. Regardless, the value of RPG shouldn't be denied. If hiring some shit-eating goblins to take them overseas keeps these guys quiet and out of trouble, I say set sail.
