The first time Tony Ford played Dungeons & Dragons, he was a
wiry Black kid who had never seen the inside of a prison. His
mother, a police officer in Detroit, had quit the force and moved
the family to West Texas. To Ford, it seemed like a different
world. Strangers talked funny, and El Paso was half desert. But
he could skateboard in all that open space, and he eventually
befriended a nerdy white kid with a passion for Dungeons &
Dragons. Ford fell in love with the role-playing game right away;
it was complex and cerebral, a saga you could lose yourself in.
And in the 1980s, everyone seemed to be playing it.
The game has since become one of the most popular in the world,
celebrated in nostalgic television shows and dramatized in
movies. It is played in homes, at large conventions and even in
prisons.
When Ford, who is now on death row, first overheard the other men
playing D.&D., they were engaged in a fast, high-octane
version. The gamers were members of the Mexican Mafia, an insular
crew that let Ford into their circle after they realized he could
draw. The gang’s leader, Spider, pulled some strings, Ford
recalls, and got him moved to a neighboring cell to serve as his
personal artist. Ford earned some money drawing intricate Aztec
designs in ink. He also began to join their D.&D. sessions,
eventually becoming a Dungeon Master and running games all over
the row.
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