Jailhouse Mox

March 10, 2022 2:55 AM

Jailed for 10 months, a prisoner found a cellmate who played Magic: The Gathering and created 20 jailhouse decks from memory. (SLReddit)
posted by Shepherd (21 comments total)

> You should post this to r/magictcg, they will appreciate it - that's the sub for people who play in person with physical cards, as you did (except yours involved some handiwork!)
> He'll get banned for proxies.
> Edit: turns out the mods over there are so pathetic they deleted his thread for "proxies". What a joke.
posted by little onion at 5:10 AM on March 10, 2022 [13 favorites]

Gaming of all kinds is huge in prisons - I work w/DC Books to Prisons and we constantly struggle to fill the many related requests we get, especially for RPG rule sets, modules, etc.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:19 AM on March 10, 2022 [6 favorites]

This was unexpectedly powerful and moving. Thanks for the post.
posted by lazaruslong at 5:36 AM on March 10, 2022

Are D&D books allowed in prisons? Playing TTRPGs would be a great way to pass time in jail. My guess is the dice aspect would probably be breaking some kind of gambling rule? But you could make chits out of paper as dice substitutes (we did this in school back in the early '80s).
posted by SoberHighland at 7:04 AM on March 10, 2022

Are D&D books allowed in prisons? Playing TTRPGs would be a great way to pass time in jail.

Unfortunately, lots of things that would improve the lives are prisoners are incompatible with the idea that carceral justice is about punishment rather than rehabilitation.
posted by mhoye at 7:14 AM on March 10, 2022 [18 favorites]

My guess is the dice aspect would probably be breaking some kind of gambling rule?

Indeed, and they do come up with some imaginative ways to work around it.

How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband
posted by calamari kid at 7:42 AM on March 10, 2022 [9 favorites]

Are D&D books allowed in prisons?

In many cases, yes.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:48 AM on March 10, 2022

True story. I was working on Death Row one day escorting inmates to see the physician. There was a medical emergency on the yard in the unit. The inmate with the medical emergency appears to have had a heart attack. A few inmates nearby immediately started good CPR (having received training to do so). The doctor and a nurse were in the unit and responded. I was later told that there was little that could have been done as it seemed to have been a rather massive heart attack and he was probably gone by the time he hit the ground despite resuscitative efforts.

Back to the guy I had taken to see the doctor in the first place. I stood by with him while everything else played out. When he heard who it was that went down, he started to tear up. That was his Dungeon Master. When he had first seen the group that played D&D he scoffed and dismissed them as nerds. But at some point he had gotten involved and was thereafter sucked in.
posted by ericales at 8:41 AM on March 10, 2022 [23 favorites]

What a contrast between those two subreddits. the /r/MagicArena mod saying, "Technically, this isn't a post for this subreddit; but we're gonna make an exception because it's incredibly important to highlight that Arena is made for everyone, and Magic is a great uniting touchstone for people in all walks of life who make all sorts of decisions. Rehabilitation is important; and anything we can do as a community to aide that is inherently valuable for us all."

And then the mods in /r/magicTCG/ deleted the post for "proxies", as if anyone is going to confuse handwritten cards as "counterfeit" cards. For fuck's sake.
posted by xedrik at 8:52 AM on March 10, 2022 [8 favorites]

"proxies", as if anyone is going to confuse handwritten cards as "counterfeit" cards.

Ah is that what is meant by "proxy"? It was unclear to me in the context of this. In anycase, I think this a really great and interesting story. Thanks for sharing.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:57 AM on March 10, 2022

Magic is a collectible card game (Pretty much the original and still the biggest.) Cards come in sealed packs, and include different rarities, with the harder to find cards being more expensive. Many cards are worth thousands of dollars.

Various systems limit or disapprove of using created cards in place of the authentic version. A proxy card isn't necessarily counterfeit, as it can be very obviously a mock up of a genuine card. Most people using proxies would be surprised if they were taken as genuine, whereas counterfeit implies a more organized method to illicitly make money off someone else's property and the people who enjoy the game.
posted by Jacen at 9:09 AM on March 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

I read the OP in r/MagicTCG but it's gone I guess. Pretty interesting, and he answered a lot of questions.

Speaking of proxies, I want to buy checklist cards, with proper Magic backs, for all the DFCs in recent sets. I can make the front art for the checklist. Does anyone have any ideas how to get something like that printed? I do not want to counterfeit any actual cards, just pick up the ball that Wizards dropped when they started asking us to scribble on their so-called helper cards. I want something nicer and professional. DM me if this is a derail.
posted by hypnogogue at 9:19 AM on March 10, 2022

Are D&D books allowed in prisons? Playing TTRPGs would be a great way to pass time in jail.

There was a segment about this on Ear Hustle, the San Quentin (partly inmate-produced) podcast.
posted by atoxyl at 9:43 AM on March 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

Magic is a collectible card game (Pretty much the original and still the biggest.) Cards come in sealed packs, and include different rarities, with the harder to find cards being more expensive. Many cards are worth thousands of dollars.

Indeed. I once before recounted an encounter with the prices sought for individual cards nearly a quarter-century ago in the first wave of CCGs (collectible card games).

(I do offer a latent correction, though: I had said the late nineties was pre-eBay. In fact, it was a fledgling company rising up on Beanie Babies sales. I think it had thirty employees in 1998.)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:35 AM on March 10, 2022

OMG, this guy's name from the dice article: "Thommy "Uewneeq" Irvine."
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:03 PM on March 10, 2022

He sees what we're doing and asks what it was. Told him the best we could. His reply was "The most Caucausian thing I've ever seen was here (indicates at about his chin) and now it's way up here (indicates way above his head)" and he walks away. Funniest thing ever.

Gold.
posted by Mchelly at 12:12 PM on March 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Dungeons and Dragons: A Life Changing Experience

This has a lot of 'what is D&D' preamble, but is pretty great once it gets started:

About six years ago, my friends and I were starting a new adventure at a prison in San Luis Obispo when someone walked up and asked to play. At first we were hesitant because he, a white inmate, had clearly visible tattoos that indicated that he was at one time involved in violence against black inmates. The DM pulled me aside and said, “I think we have an opportunity here. I believe he wants to make a change in his life or he wouldn’t be willing to play with you on the yard where everyone could see. If you’re not cool with this, he’s out. If a problem occurs between the two of you, he’s out. But I think we should play the game because we have a chance to make a real difference in someone’s life.” Reluctantly, I agreed. The DM asked me to play a dwarf and asked the other guy to play a half-ore. In effect, the DM wanted me to play the racist and wanted the other guy to play someone whose only crime was being born.

During the adventure, between in-game dialogue and sidebar conversations, we actually became good friends. We talked about how the segregation in prison made us feel and why we felt the way we did. Sometimes we even played out some of the scenarios we discussed in our game, but with the unique perspective of being in each other’s shoes. Plus he played a thief whose skills and cunning were needed to get us out of numerous sticky situations. I played a cleric whose moral fortitude kept us focused on completing our goals without sliding into spiritual abyss. We could not have succeeded without each other.

Our experience did indeed have a profound effect on his life. He gave up his old ways and made many friends of other races before his tragic death from heart complications. Near the end, when he knew it was time to say goodbye, he chose to spend his final weeks playing as much D&D as possible.

posted by kaibutsu at 12:53 PM on March 10, 2022 [6 favorites]

Here's an EarHustle episode that features another instance of hand-made MtG cards.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:57 PM on March 10, 2022

The list of decks that he created from memory is _amazing_ . He admitted that he got a few cards wrong but had the mechanics basically correct. That brought a tear to my eye.
posted by jonbro at 4:15 PM on March 10, 2022

How has nobody given you your dues for the post title yet, Shepherd? +1 mana to you, your choice of colour
posted by saturday_morning at 4:49 AM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

On D&D in prison, I have a family member who used to work as a corrections officer in a county prison. They were once working a unit and noticed some inmates playing a game that involved moving chess pieces around a board while also drawing cards from a deck. They went over to see what was going on, and at first the inmates didn't want to say. I suppose they were concerned about getting trouble or being mocked for what they were doing, but my family member was very familiar with D&D. They ended up watching for about twenty minutes while the inmates battled gnolls on the chessboard using a deck of cards for their combat rolls. I'll have to ask if they ever encountered inmates playing Magic.
posted by maurice at 7:33 AM on March 12, 2022