Hey
I'm currently working on a prison based RPG, and would like some help with it. Its gonna be a brutal and realistic system, and I am likely to use a competetive system similar to Runes or Paranoias.

I already have the basic outline done, and am working on rules for reputation, networks of allies and enemies and gangs.

For more information, check out the forums at rpg.net (Open Forum: OZ:the RPG, The Art Of Game Design: Hard Time (Prison RPG)

Any help possible would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance! :)

I spent some time on a game that was basically a prison rpg cast against a fantasy background. A mix of Oz and the Dungeon Keeper computer game, so to speak. Nasty, but tongue-in-cheek.

My big idea with that game was to convert the card game Spades over to a resolution mechanic. Spades is a favorite of hard timers, or so I'm told.

That's not much help, I know. Why don't you cut and paste the salient points of your background and mechanics into this thread so we can get a feel for where your at?

Take care,
Scott

OK, heres some basic notes on the system

Theres 4 stats : Toughness (Strength), Smarts (Intelligence), Confidence (Charisma) and Quicks (Dexterity)

They are rated from +4 to -4

+4: Amazing (7pt)
+3: Brilliant (6pt)
+2: Very Good (5pt)
+2: Good (4pt)
0: Average (3pt)
-1: Poor (2pt)
-2: Very Poor (1pt)
-3: Terrible (0pt)
-4: Abysmal (+1 pt)

An average starting character has 14 starting attribute points.

Skills are going to be rated the same, from Amazing to Abysmal.

Tasks can be completed by rolling 1d10, adding the appropiate attribute, adding the appropiate skill, and trying to score over a target number.

Combat works as so:
1) Combatants roll 1d10, highest number decides to declare his action first or last
2) All combatants declare their Combat Action (Jab, Swing, Kick, Headbutt, Body Slam, etc)
3) Simultaneously roll 1d10, add Quicks, add Fight skill, take away the difficulty of the Combat action
4) Higher final number wins

Heres damage:

Everyone has 4 health levels; Bruised (1-15 damage), Hurt (16-30 damage), Battered (31-45 damage), Dying (46+ damage)

1) Winning combatant rolls 1d10, adds his toughness and the attack damage
2) The loser rolls 1d10 and adds toughness
3) The difference between them is how many damage points the loser has taken

Thats the basic character creation, task resolution and combat. What do ya'll think?

I have to be honest, the idea of playing a prison RPG kinda yucks me out.

I toured a max in FLorida as part of a psych class. Not fun at all. I think I'd rather be dead than end up in a max.

But...

If you're going to do it, do some research on prison slang and lingo and base your game machanic terms on that.

look at these:

http://www.jimgoad.com/prison_slang.htm

http://members.tripod.com/afscmelocal3963/f_y_i_.htm

http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/penpal_glossary.html

http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/links.htm

Another adventure for Simulationist man!

ReverendCuster187 wrote:
Theres 4 stats : Toughness (Strength), Smarts (Intelligence), Confidence (Charisma) and Quicks (Dexterity)

They are rated from +4 to -4

+4: Amazing (7pt)
+3: Brilliant (6pt)
+2: Very Good (5pt)
+2: Good (4pt)
0: Average (3pt)
-1: Poor (2pt)
-2: Very Poor (1pt)
-3: Terrible (0pt)
-4: Abysmal (+1 pt)

An average starting character has 14 starting attribute points.

Combat works as so:
1) Combatants roll 1d10, highest number decides to declare his action first or last
2) All combatants declare their Combat Action (Jab, Swing, Kick, Headbutt, Body Slam, etc)
3) Simultaneously roll 1d10, add Quicks, add Fight skill, take away the difficulty of the Combat action
4) Higher final number wins

Heres damage:

Everyone has 4 health levels; Bruised (1-15 damage), Hurt (16-30 damage), Battered (31-45 damage), Dying (46+ damage)

1) Winning combatant rolls 1d10, adds his toughness and the attack damage
2) The loser rolls 1d10 and adds toughness
3) The difference between them is how many damage points the loser has taken

I dont know. In most of the fights I've seen, isnt going to severely hurt somone. And with a simple jab you COULD do 15 damage - if you had a tough +4 and you rolled a 10 on the dice :)

The problem with really low damage levels is that, if everyone only had 5 health points each, you could feasibly kill a man with two or three blows, which is VERY brutal - but not realistic.

I'm going to define the levels very carefully, so that by the time you've taken more than bruised damage, you'll probably be on the floor or KO'd. And once your on the floor, within a few rounds it is possible to get kicked to death.

As for the confusing combat, heres how it works : Initiative is only used to determine who chooses their combat action first. The simultaneous roll is a contest to see who's blow hits. Is this clearer?

Weapons are being worked on next, but will do an awful lot of damage. A gun is very likely to kill you with one hit, especially if its a head or body shot.

Another aspect to consider: Hospitilisation. Most prison fights will not last long, and will end with one or more participants in hospital. It will be possible to die of your wounds in hospital, even after they've been inflicted. Critical hits are an idea as well.

Hi there,

I have a question. What's the game about?

I get the setting (prison), I get the style (gritty/harsh), I get the system (as described), etc. What I'm not seeing is the payoff in terms of experience and enjoyment. It breaks down, to me, into a couple of possibilities. Which, to you, is the priority? And if I'm missing the point, please explain it to me.

1) A form of competition or survivalism in which a player, via the character, prevails or fails to do so. This is more-or-less what I thought I perceived in the initial post, that the system was to be "competitive." Am I right in thinking that the point of play is, the GM proposes and mediates threats, and the players' task or experience is to survive those threats?

2) The raw experience or sensation of being in prison. This is more-or-less consistent with the "realism" aspect of the rules. I'm not sure I see any compelling reason to want to play, in the sense that I do not want to be in prison, or to pretend to be, or to run a character who is, if that sensation is the first priority of play.

3) An opportunity to create "little dramas" in the harsh environment, much as one sees with war stories. The overall situation is horrific and dangerous, but the personal connections or triumphs illustrate various things about humans that we like to see dramatized. (This would be the Shawshank kind of context for play.) I don't see any evidence of this design goal in the material presented so far.

So in sum, I see some indication that #1 is a goal, and perhaps #2, but not #3. Help me out - am I missing the point?

Best,
Ron

I was getting confused by all this talk of combat and damage. How often does this come into a daily prison routine? Now bullying and intimidation I bet is a daily aspect of life. You need 'conflict resolution', not combat resolution.

Talk of personal dramas gets me interested. I don't want to play a murderer whose got to survive 23 years of brutalization with the goalbeing trying to get parole in 15. I want to play an undercover cop who specializes in going 'inside' to work on a case; or a guy wrongly accused of murder who knows the real murder is in the same prison (but who, and where). That kind of thing. You need a reason to get up in the morning other than to slop out ...

Mithras wrote:
I was getting confused by all this talk of combat and damage. How often does this come into a daily prison routine? Now bullying and intimidation I bet is a daily aspect of life. You need 'conflict resolution', not combat resolution.

ReverendCuster187 wrote:
I dont know. In most of the fights I've seen, isnt going to severely hurt somone. And with a simple jab you COULD do 15 damage - if you had a tough +4 and you rolled a 10 on the dice :)

The problem with really low damage levels is that, if everyone only had 5 health points each, you could feasibly kill a man with two or three blows, which is VERY brutal - but not realistic.

I'm going to define the levels very carefully, so that by the time you've taken more than bruised damage, you'll probably be on the floor or KO'd. And once your on the floor, within a few rounds it is possible to get kicked to death.

As for the confusing combat, heres how it works : Initiative is only used to determine who chooses their combat action first. The simultaneous roll is a contest to see who's blow hits. Is this clearer?

Weapons are being worked on next, but will do an awful lot of damage. A gun is very likely to kill you with one hit, especially if its a head or body shot.

Another aspect to consider: Hospitilisation. Most prison fights will not last long, and will end with one or more participants in hospital. It will be possible to die of your wounds in hospital, even after they've been inflicted. Critical hits are an idea as well.

You need more apropriate attributes.

Being in prison and surviving with your ::ahem:: assets intact involves not so much the ability to pound someone's head into the floor, but in the ability to show no weakness.

Jam a thousand hard guys into a building meant to house four hundred. Give them shitty food, shitty company, and nothing to do but pump iron and brutalize each other.


Surviving in this environment is utterly dependent on not just being hard, but apearing hard. You have to be able to size up other men, read their strength and weakness, read how far they can be pushed before the hate they feel overcomes the fear you inspire. A brutal, dangerous, game of bluff and call. Poker, where the raise is a shank in the ribs on night.

So, what is importiant? You have to be physicaly adept; not necesarily stronger than the next guy, just faster, harder, better at exerting force. You have to have balls. Big brass balls. You have to have a solid rep. If you're the guy who had Mad Cat Kenny gutted like a fish when he spilled your coke, you might get some more respect. And to get away with all the minor fellonies that make prison live slightly less horrific- drug smuggling, bootleg smokes, favors from the guards, notes passed to the outside, you need Moxie.

Meat
Balls
Rep
Moxie

Honestly, I don't think I would ever buy or play any prison game of any kind; it's a topic that is just too distasteful for me.

Nonetheless, in the hopes of humanizing it a bit, or at least introducing the struggle to retain humanity in a brutalized environment, I might recommend a book I read recently, called We're All Doing Time, by Bo Lozoff. It's non-fiction, intended (partly) to be read by people in prison, and consists of advice on, of all things, yoga and so forth. Most compelling is the latter half, all letters back and forth from prisoners to the author. It provides a staggering portrait of the prisoner mindset and the possibility of opening that out into what I can only call a more human view. Although it is of course somewhat religious in content, the tone is beyond down-to-earth (you cannot sell philosophy to cons in the usual ways, because they are utterly inured to bullshit in all its forms, being so surrounded by it as they are). Anyway, quite possibly obtainable at your local library, do check it out.

--TQuid

Stab me in the arm forty times and I still won't die from it

OK, thanks for the response so far.

Confidence is now Balls. Respect is going to be split into a couple of categorys, for the different 'types' of respect in the pen.

I'm trying to take into consideration how to make the combat as realistic as possible. Its going to have a hit location system, so like you said, 40 stab wounds to the arm wont kill you immediately. The point of the wound levels is to have an abstract idea of how hurt you are.

The reason guns are going to be deadly isnt really to do with realism as such - its to make players want to prevent there use. As the guards are going to be the only people with (easy) access to guns, fighting them can easily end in death. The guards need a lot of advantages.

Character is going to be given a lot of emphasis. In reply to Ron Edwards post, the game is about #1 & #3 : survival and character. 1 is the goal, 3 is the reason to want to play. See?

Hey there,

I'd call you Jesse but would rather not unless it's your real name ...

Anyway, if your goals are #1 and #3, then I think I have to tell you that you need to strip out your game design and start over, in my view. Every design consideration you've mentioned, particularly those regarding combat and injury, are aimed like a torpedo at goal #2.

Now, don't take me at my word. I have a lot of highfalutin' theory as the basis of my claim, but that ain't worth much without going into that theory, blah blah (I have a big essay in the Articles section if you're interested in that, "GNS and related matters"). I also have a lot of experience, but you probably do too, and neither of us has access to one another's experience. So I'm suggesting something else.

Check out some game designs that aim specifically at #3. Free ones include The Pool and The Framework, both very radical (although the latter might be a great add-on to a more traditional system, for your purpose). The websites for these games are accessible through the Forge Library. See what you think of applying either of those systems to your setting and theme and "feel," and compare it to a system more like the one you've presented. Which approach, in play, with real live players, do you think will yield what you're after more consistently?

Also, consider whether player-solves-GM-challenge is really the best context for generate-dramatic-story. I suggest that it doesn't, and that rewards for players that arise specifically from dramatic/story input are a much better context for getting a lot of that kind of input.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Oh yeah, when Fang gets Scattershot into a user-friendly form, check it out too. I think it's got some very good potential for what you're after.

I'd call you Jesse but would rather not unless it's your real name ...

Looks like some clarification is necesary. I was referring to the web-handle "Reverend Custer," who is the main character in the comic The Preacher, and whose first name is Jesse. Thus my first line in the last post had nothing to do with Jesse Burneko ...

Rev, what can we call you? I like to use people's real names, but I also understand that people don't always like to have them used, so just let me know what you'd like.

Best,
Ron

Ah, sorry, Ron I thought you were sarcastically refering to my constant struggles between systems, my goals and my players. :)

Jesse

As for a detailed combat system...

I don't think this game can derive any kind of benifit from a detailed (read: complex) combat system.

Prison violence isn't like combat in most RPG senses. It isn't really about exchanging blows until one guy goes down. There are basicly three kinds of prision violence:

Rumbles
Freak Outs
Murder


Rumbles are semi-organized fights along the lines of "meet me at the fountain after school. 3:00 high!" Rumors spread about some action- usualy a grudge or dispute. The unoficial prision netowrk starts running interference to keep the screws from figuring it out (but sometimes they don't even care). Bets are places. Two (or more) fighters mix it up. Sometimes it bare-knuckles, sometimes with imporvised weapons (including the 'yellow vest'- body armor made by taping phone books or other thick hunks of paper to the body). This is the closest to the calssic rpg fight.

Freak Outs are spontaneous violence. The potential for this is always brewing, and some guys are always ready to pop. The guards watch out like hawks for this kind of thing. Sometimes prisoners have wepaons, but usualy it's a bloody, eye-gouging, lunch-tray slammin free for all. Here, speed and sheer bloody-mindedness win the day. I knew a guy who did time in Louisiana (a bad scene). He said the first thing he did was single out the biggest guy in the cafeteria and jump him right in front of everyone, screaming bullshit about how the guy insulted his momma. He jacked him with a metal tray then kicked the crap out of him before they guy could even stand up. Here, who's meanest wins.

Murder. This is all about cold revenge. Your old cellmate used to drive you crazy, then when he got transfered he stole all you skin mags and spread rumors that you were his bitch. This mook has to die. You cash in a favor with the Latin Kings (you have a connection with a crooked guard who supplies you with weed... you sell to the Kings cheep to keep them liking you). Three days later while your old pal is waiting in line for work detail, a llifer with an armful of tattoos and a sharpened toothbrush breezes by, pops the mark four times in the kidnies with the shank without breaking stride, and goes back to his cell, where he brushes his teeth. This aint combat. It's murder.




Violence in prison is fast, furious, and brutal but rarely fatal. Murder is surprisingly common, and usualy a lot more permenant. Even is a murder attempt fails, it almost garuntees a transfer for the vic. That takes a guy out of the game just as surely as death.

Bailywolf wrote:
Violence in prison is fast, furious, and brutal but rarely fatal. Murder is surprisingly common, and usualy a lot more permenant. Even is a murder attempt fails, it almost garuntees a transfer for the vic. That takes a guy out of the game just as surely as death.

These are some great responses.

After reading your post , I'll probably be re - examining combat. It is going to use the same sortr of system, as i like what I have already, but is going to be even more brutal. Surprise and who hits fuirst are going to be the most important factors.

Oh, and I have absolutely no experience in this type of stuff whatsoever, except a few little crap games I wrote a few years ago, aged about 11. Good for me then, but well...

Any kind of human emotional drama I have to facilitate all on my lonesome via raw GMing techniques and proding my players with hot pokers.

Wuh thu uh luh uh tuh uh ih oh.*

[Well, therein lies a tale all its own.]

Seriously, though, like some of your other posters, I would never be interested in playing a prison game, any more than I would be interested in playing Contract Law: The Binding by White Wolf. Too much realism. RPG's for me have always been an escape, not a reminder of the harsh realities of life in our world and time.

However, I would be interested in say, four generations of enslaved humans on a penal colony planet. Or, the conquered sentient descendants of dinosaurs in servitude to humans. Or humans living in underground colonies, monitored by the computer, and unable to leave the complex (due to the irradiated world-legacy of the commies.)

You can still deal with the same issues, the same realities, the same cold equations, without the stigma of the real world.

Skippy (Scott)

Hi Rev,

Did you see my post on the first page, from 30 Jan 2002 17:31? I am very interested to see what you think about the systems that I mentioned. They're free and easy to look at from the Library, and they produce "good story" in play in ways that your proposed system will have problems with.

Here is my next question for you. You stated that my goal #3, creating a good story, was important to your vision for the game. Very briefly - in just one sentence, phrased as a question or issue, what might a story created through play of your game be about?

Best,
Ron

I'd just like to say that I'd play a prison game. The uglier and more brutal the better. Especially if my character could make meaningless and hypocritical moral gestures and then die squealing.

So don't be dissuaded.

-Vincent

Some suggestions (from watching Oz):

You could give your characters oh, say, a dice pool. The pool represents their past: actions, friends, and enemies.

During the game (maybe only during the "new guys arive" scenes) a player can introduce an ally--make a roll. On a 1-5 you get an ally of porportionate power (5 being the most). On a 6 you get an enemy of randomly determined power. You get to define the new character (maybe the GM defines enemies or has veto power).

Reputation: You can choose to call on your rep. When doing so, roll one or more dice: the level of success indicates that another party has heard of your exploits. This can be done to add or help with an approriate skill ("I was a safe-cracker") or to increase Confidence (the guy heard I was a bad mo-fo).

As presented this is obviously pretty rudimentary but, from watching Oz, I conclude that often a character will run into past associates or those acquainted with him (maybe reputations gone bad could be a guard has heard of you).

Also: there's a book called You Are Going To Prison. Check it out. Scary.

-Marco

Ron Edwards wrote:
Here is my next question for you. You stated that my goal #3, creating a good story, was important to your vision for the game. Very briefly - in just one sentence, phrased as a question or issue, what might a story created through play of your game be about?

I gotta go with Mike on that one--Prison is a perfect Gamist environment: everyone has to watch every one else's back. If the player wants story out of that, they can play with a GM whose an entertaining story-teller (I can imagine some pretty skin-crawling narrativst premisies set in prison ... "what are you willing to do for ...")

-Marco

OK, heres a general answer to a number of Q's

The game will probably be 'Gamist', although not having been here very long, I'm guessing as to thats meaning.

I'm gonna go check out those free games now.

The game will almost certainly be a modern day, down to earth, realistic setting, rather than a far future prison planet. I will probably include some notes on these settings, but I think to shy away from the games subject matter would weaken its impact.

The current combat system is in place for straight up rumbles, with two or more fighters duking it out face to face. Sneaking up on somone, or jabbing them while their not looking will be harder, but much more deadly.

And you can call me whatever you wanna, but heres most of my more common names : RC187, that lil' boy with the prison game, Aggy Type ( dont ask), or what everyone out of the net calls me : Jay. :-)

Bailywolf gets the Blue Ribbon for nailing how "combat" works in a prison environment. Awesome description.

The Wick and I were talking about a prison/criminal game awhile back. The way you built your character had to do with a) how much time you did and b) what crime(s) sent you to jail in the first place. Which means that the worse the criminal, the better he was (in game terms).

I could definitely see this as a game, in the traditional sense of the word (like a Cheapass game without the humor). Heck, I always wanted Will Wright to design SimPrison (eek!). But really, I would want to dive into a prison game where the emphasis is on character development, roleplaying and thematic punch (I enjoy reading material dealing with this subject...er, take that as you will...and would want to play a character dealing with this situation).

But man, ditch the combat system you came up with. I think something like Herr Burneko's Isolation would be incredibly appropiate...especially with all the cultural/idealogical ties involved in prison life (the Mob, the AB, latin and PR gangs, black Muslims, etc.).

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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"

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.

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