[sldev] A.I. & LL's No Gamble Rules

Harold Brown labrat.hb at gmail.com
Sun Aug 12 21:50:05 PDT 2007


You're forgetting the most important portion of the gambling ban rule...

You have to have paid in for a chance to win something.

Buying equipment for an RPG game is not the same as paying in money to a
slot machine.  Although if you have an NPC dropping Linden Dollars, they
need to have come from somewhere.... but that's neither here nor there.

Combat with an NPC also has a skill element, unless you're talking a purely
dice-roll based combat system (which in a 3D environment is very much looked
down upon).  But even then in Pen and Paper D&D your choices can mitigate or
even outweigh the poor roll you recieved on the die.

It isn't the objects that are banned either.... it is how they are used that
is banned.

A slot machine that takes lindens and pays out lindens is banned
That same slot machine set to free play and paying out lindens is not banned
That same slot machine set to free pay and not paying out anything is not
banned

On 8/12/07, Dzonatas <dzonatas at dzonux.net> wrote:

> Artificial Intelligent programs, like ones to create NPCs, may hit a
> crossroad with the gamble issue. Before this becomes a policy issue, one
> thing to think about is how "chance," or actually "random," is being
> used. The ban is not clear when lindens dollars are involved in
> processes that also involve such said randomness. The intent of the
> words suggest a limitation, but it is that jurisdiction being outlined
> that is not clear.
>
> For example, if one were to win a battle with a NPC monster and its drop
> linden dollars as a reward. The technology behind the NPC monster is
> A.I., and that could be seen as a "chance." I doubt that such said
> chance is supposed to carry such intent, but there is no policy to make
> that point. As ugly legal battles get, this hole could fall prey.
>
> Would a simple addition to the words be enough? I thought of the phrase
> like "the jurisdiction of excludes processes that involve a nature of
> random access as the instance of chance." I posted this here instead of
> directly to the legal team due to the more technical nature of the words
> "random access." There is obviously a difference between the randomness
> of a roll of die (or a random number generator) and, for example, the
> random order in which players may hit and kill a NPC or how that NPC
> reacts.
>
> What is a good way to describe the difference in such randomness or such
> chance?
>
> p.s... NPCs have become my older kids favorite thing to play against and
> these don't exist currently in SL besides experimental A.I. life habitats
> --
> Power to Change the Void
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