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Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

One of my bosses got a lot of his "think on your feet" chops from D&D. He was damn good. No one ever caught him flat footed without an answer and all of his answers sounded good and scored a point for his side. I asked him once where it came from, and he told me it was playing D&D.

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I love D&D. Many of my best memories of my early teen-age years revolve around D&D. I think D&D could be part of a good therapeutic tool, and if it is used as one, great, seriously.

I just have a hard time with the notion of "hanging out in prison, doing whatever I want." Prison should have a rehabilative aspect to it, for sure. It should also work as a very strong disincentive.

Unfortunately, we don't seem to be doing either very well.

The thing is, prison is already a heavy punishment. You don't get to see your family/friends. You can't stay current with your work environment. You don't get to go on holidays. You don't even get to choose meal times, bed time, or when you would like to do sport.

It's already a lousy experience for inmates - they've had a lot of freedoms taken away (note, I don't think this is a bad thing), but from there to denying them anything to distract themselves from their plight is quite cruel.

I learned a lot from playing D&D as well -- my interest in graphic/info design can be traced back to when I was designing my own charts and character sheets.

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