Question about private TOS sim rule overrides.

[LazarusSyndrome]

I wish to create a role-play sim sim and common themes to such sims are weapons, magic, etc. These effects can very easily be classified as grief or assault. In compliance with the community standards and the terms of service you are required to ask permission to apply effects like these to someone's avatar.

Is it possible for a sim to implicitly grants permission by posting a TOS they player must agree to in order to enter the sim? For example the sim TOS states:

"Objects are present in this sim that may effect your avatar in undesirable ways. These objects include but are not limited to weapons, magic, decorations, and HUDs. By entering you implicitly grant permissions to allow your avatar to be influenced in any non-permanent way by these objects."

 

If so does this methodology apply to other rules? What do sim owners have power over with their private TOS agreements?

I'm really looking for a clear ruling from a reputable source on this matter but I would love to hear all input.

[Coffee Pancake]

If you want to make a region where the whole point is blasting each other about with scripted weapons,  that's entirely fine.

Most RP's in SL have some kind of attached combat system

It's only "grief or assault" if it's not opt in, set people arriving at your location to a separate landing point, well away from the chaos, put up a teleporter, a sign declaring the rules of participation, weapon/magic system in use, info about where to get the required toys. Name the place PewPewKaboom.

 

The ToS is final, so if you want to know if something is allowed, and you can't find anyone else doing it already, ask and be specific.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

Technically/realistically speaking, no sim can override SL's TOS.

However, assault / harassment isn't really a thing if it's something that's being actively participated in by everybody involved. (Eg. You type "combat" into seach, go to a military sim, and start flailing a gun around. You can't then start filing Abuse Reports about anybody that shoots you repeatedly. Especially because dying sends your avatar home, and if your home is in the combat sim, you're implicitly actively participating in it.)

[Lindal Kidd]

Go right ahead...no harm, no foul.

[Lucia Nightfire]

Turn off public access at the region level and put an experience in the region's Key experiences list.

In the experience's profile description add your region's use case or game's ToS.

Anyone attempting to teleport to the region that is not participating in the experience will be given a dialog telling them they cannot enter unless they participate in said experience with a uri to the experience's profile.

Anyone that forgets or blocks the experience while in the sim will automatically be teleported out by the server.

Edited June 7, 2019 by Lucia Nightfire

[Lindal Kidd]

Lazarus and Lucia and Coffee have good ways to inform visitors in advance of what to expect.  That's fine, and it's good manners.

But really, you don't have to do them.  In SL, the rule is "your land, your rules."  You do have to follow the Maturity guidelines (no slimy tentacle sex in General regions) and the ToS (no stealing, for example).  (Although even that can be flexible.  There are people making an SL living with "financial domination".  Is it stealing?  I'd say so, but the participants wouldn't.)

You could create a region that is damage enabled, for example.  The moment someone arrives, they're subjected to a major asteroid impact event or eaten by sharks, and zapped back to their home location.  No warning.  You can (if your region is rated Adult) fill it with mind-blasting images of the most disgusting horrors that will scar the psyches of every visitor.

There are places like that in SL...and people who enjoy going there.  SL's official motto used to be "Your World, Your Imagination".  And some people have really really twisted imaginations!