Hard Time (Prison RPG)

[Bailywolf]

Hey Jay

Don't discount the great possibilities for future 'prison planet' style games.  Have you seen Pitch Black?  It might be cool to play a bastard like Riddick for a session or two... especialy with the chromed corneas.

And what about cracking out?

Building elaborate escape plans makes for a good group cohesion game scheme.

You could rate the prisons themselves based on security, crookedness, brutality, priveleges, population vs origional maximum population (perhaps as a ratio to multiply or divide other factors.  A prison with 2:1 overcorwding would have x2 Brutality but one with the reverse would have half as much... more space the breathe).



The real barrier to a good prison RPG is that in many Max prisons, the cons can spend 23 hours a day in lockdown, getting an hour out of their cells to pace a 10 yard cage with a fence on top.  Not much room for adventure.  Even in less secure prisons, lockdown is getting longer and longer because it is easier to control a growing population if they are all locked in cages.

Troublemakers can catch a ghost train- be taken and transfered to god-knows-where in the middle of the night.

What takes a character out of the game isn't going to be death, but either transfer somewhere worse or parole or (even, perhaps) release.


So there needs to be some measure- Perhaps oposing totals of Good Time and Bad Time.  You get Bad Time whenever you get into trouble that draws official attention.  Getting shanked earns you a whole pile of Bad Time if you live.  Small chunks of Bad Time will get you thrown in The Hole, lots and you'll catch a ghost train.

You earn Good Time by staying out of trouble.  Get enough, and earn some priveleges (and some oportunities to earn some extra cash, get some fresh air, or plan your escape).  Good Time also increases the chance you'll get parole.



I'm just ramblin now.

[ReverendCuster187]

Future prison planets are a very good idea, but in the core rules for this I really want to focus on modern day prisons.

The game is going to be based around encounters, so the problem of the long hours in lockdown wont really be a bother.

Does anyone have an idea of how combat should be better done? I personally think my idea is suitable, but I'm always open to suggestion.

[amiel]

I'm in favor of a previous suggestion that combat should be heavily weighed to surprise and numbers. I'm not an expert in actual prisons however, most fiction and movies that I've seen hover around get the drop and overpower scenes.
       I do like the way you've done the three health levels, however.
-amiel

[GMSkarka]

Some clarifications:   RevCuster first brought this up over on RPGnet, and based on what he was saying over there, the idea would be to do an RPG largely inspired by HBO's "OZ" series.  If you're not familiar with it, OZ is essentially a dark, violent soap opera, set in the fictional Oswald Maximum Security Prison.

Based on that, it seems that what he *originally* was proposing is a hardcore narrativist game.  I suspect that he still is, and just isn't familiar with the terms.   The idea being that the game would be sort of a more realistic version of Vampire: an exploration of surviving in the face of your own inner evil.  

The discussion sort of petered out over on RPGnet, when it was revealed that RevCuster is a 14-year-old, and not really possessed of the maturity necessary to handle such an adult subject.  (NOTE:  THIS IS NOT A SLAM OR A FLAME. He's a great guy, just young.)  The legal issues of someone writing a book that he himself would be barred from purchasing, and the inability of a third-party publisher from entering into a contract with a minor was also raised.

Personally, I think the idea rocks.  I approached HBO some time ago, and queried them about both the OZ and the SOPRANOS licenses.  When I tried to explain what an RPG is, they told me that they didn't think that "games" were proper licenses for these properties.  They didn't get it.

Ah well.

Gareth-Michael Skarka
Adamant Entertainment

[Ben Morgan]

Re. a prison game: As I understand it (I wouldn't be one to judge, personally), OZ is not a terribly realistic show, insofar as max security procedures are concerned, but it is a damn fine piece of drama, and that at least may be worth emulating in a Narrativist game. Judging by some of the comments here, the gritty realism is not what you'd really want to go for, so much as the illusion of gritty realism. If that makes any sense at all. :)

Sometimes, HBO proves that they can have their heads up their collective asses as much as anyone (even WB). They let Spawn get away as well.

[Tim Denee]

I know this is a bit of a stagnant thread, but I'm reading 'Strega' by Andrew Vachss, (due to all the praise Jared keeps giving Vachss), and came across this relevant tidbit:

"When you're doing time, you learn that each shift has its own personality. The first shift, the joint is on its best behaviour; that's when the visitors are allowed in and that's the only time the Parole Board comes around. The jerkoff therapists and counselors and religious nuts all make their appearances on the first shift too. The second shift is where you settle all your disputes, if you're serious about them. Prison fights only last a few seconds - someone dies and someone walks away. If the guy you stab lives, he's entitled to a rematch. And the third shift is where you check out of the hotel if you can't stand the room - that's where the young ones hang up in their cells. Prison's just like the free world: bullshit, violence, and death - only in prison it's on a tighter schedule"

[ReverendCuster187]

I'm probably going with a RUNE-a-like approach to the way encounters are handled. Rather than adventures, the game will be made up of linked encounters - play will be at times when somthing actually happens, rather than simulate the actual dreary monotony of prison life. These encounters add to the OZ style - we see what matters to the story.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Prison films
http://www.prisonflicks.com/