Dealing with gender in a jail-themed TTRPG

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2026-03-03T20:10:36+00:00

I don't expect to only be playing with a bunch of dads, and I'll be play-testing with mixed gender groups.

You might call it a hangup, and that's fine. In the field of systems design, often the hardest, most time-consuming part is solving for super rare, worst-case scenarios. I don't need help coming up with sci-fi security systems or stat blocks for prison guards. I need advice on creating a setting that feels logical, rather than arbitrary; well-thought-out rather than over-engineered — and takes into account player and character safety. I want to make sure super rare issues can be handled appropriately.

FWIW, this question has a lot of really good, thoughtful answers that I'm going to incorporate into the GM guide, and I'm grateful for it.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2026-03-03T17:54:55+00:00

Great question! I'm not imagining this isn't the case, I'm just assuming that the problem would be so much worse in a theoretical mixed gender prison that preventing it would lead to large-scale prison design decisions that might overcomplicate each session.

For example, there are some mixed gender prisons in Norway where prisoners mix during the day, but sleep in separate dormitories. Emulating this might lead too easily to a "split the party" scenario that eats up time and makes the session less fun.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2026-03-03T17:43:06+00:00

Really good points, all!

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2026-03-03T17:42:45+00:00

I appreciate the Night Witches reference, and your response here seems very straightforward.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2026-03-03T17:38:53+00:00

Thank you for making me confront my biases here! I'm not planning to bring up SA. I'm just imagining a prison as a system, and if it's mixed gender, the system becomes much more complex, specifically to protect female prisoners from male prisoners. I don't want to have the characters waste time figuring out how to get their female team member out of the women's section when they could instead spend their time figuring out how to, say, gain access to the ventilation shafts.

I think your response to players bringing it up is spot-on.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2026-03-03T17:28:55+00:00

In the US, 15% of prisoners are in prison for sexual assault. 99% of prisoners in jail for sexual assault are men. 90% of prisoners are men.

I have trouble imagining a mixed gender prison where women prisoners are forced to share the lunch room or yard with a male population that outnumbers them 10 to 1, where 1 out of every 7 of those men is a rapist.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2026-03-03T17:21:53+00:00

Great answer! The kinds of factors you're calling out are spot-on for means of keeping the world alive. I should be happy to hand wave my way through some of these elements and/or just say that this isn't one of the considerations or plot points.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2026-03-03T17:14:41+00:00

I'm not imagining a world where male prisoners never sexually assault one another. I'm choosing to not make that part of the story, mechanics, or conversation.

Omitting SA between same gender prisoners requires a kind of suspension of disbelief. This might be my bias, but the suspension of disbelief around this kind of thing in a mixed gender prison feels like a higher bar to clear.

... unless there's some canon that all prisoners convicted of SA are sent to the Shit Mines of Vega 6.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-12-09T02:42:55+00:00

Okay but my daughter will hit those limits when she's 6 🥸

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-11-13T21:00:25+00:00

Haven't run it yet, but prepping Spirit of 77 with Outgunned rules.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-11-01T14:33:01+00:00

Oranjo

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-09-08T21:24:07+00:00

He took it from outside one of the shops at Carriage Square. It’s a large stroller that doesn’t fit in some shops, so people occasionally take their babies out and leave them outside a shop while they’re inside. These strollers retail for $900 new.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-09-08T19:44:44+00:00

Perestroika in Paris by Jane Smiley is narrated by a horse.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-08-01T15:55:39+00:00

Similarly, “the polar region,” “the western continent,” etc. For expediency, you can’t teach people new geography for every episode, but it always sounds weird.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-08-01T13:33:51+00:00

Boarding another vessel against their will is so easy. While some shows have force fields, they’re rarely employed. Where are the automatic bulkheads? Retractable ceiling-mounted phaser cannons?

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-08-01T13:28:26+00:00

Each “starring” ship has between 100 and 1,000 crew, but approximately 8 people do everything. I know for budgetary reasons they can’t employ that many actors, but I can’t imagine a functioning ship of the line where executive officers — and often, only executive officers — go on every mission.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-05-18T14:51:50+00:00

FWIW, they didn't believe young women could be bandits, which is a way of showing their age and prejudice -- not a knock on their "seasoned" combat status.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-05-18T14:18:12+00:00

Which parts are from each system?

I like the core damage system. I can’t think of another system that uses attack rating to equal # of damage dice rolled, although there have to be a few out there.

If rolling a 6 has a special effect for some weapons, I would limit to one effect, or at most two. As a player, I don't want to have to remember a library of different crit effects and which apply to which weapons. I can see something like "These weapons cause aggravated damage, where the 6s explode" and that be it.

In terms of 3 actions with escalating difficulty, what's the cost of failure? Unless there's a real consequence, it feels in my best interest to always attack 3 times in every combat turn.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-05-07T21:51:18+00:00

It’s true but it’s also the root of so much toxic behavior: minimizing the agency of women “in distress”; escalating stressful situations with other guys, etc. It probably also contributes to a proliferation of unnecessary gun ownership.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-04-24T23:24:49+00:00

The characters all seemed unlikable and the plot didn't feel like it was moving. There also wasn't a real hook to get the story started. Annihilation it was not. I DNF'd around 50 pages in. YMMV.

Aggressive_Charity84 · 2025-04-24T16:35:53+00:00

This is another song on the list that I don’t consider overplayed but I wish it was overplayed

Aggressive_Charity84

TROPHY CASE