[...] terminer, je vous donne un lien vers une charte rédigée par un développeur. Bien que je doute que des jeux l’utilisent, [...]

As much as I enjoy using virtual worlds as performance spaces, we’re talking gaming here. And if I’m designing a game, it would be nice to know ahead of time if the person roleplaying The Joker is allowed to punch the person roleplaying Robin the Boy Wonder, and if not, how do I design around that without editing the Teen Titans entirely out of the game? It’ll be interesting to see how the upcoming DC Universe game tackles the issue (if there’s any PvP component at all). I know City of Heroes has no policy against adult villians knocking the stuffing out of underage heroes.

In instance one, if a minor character leaps off a cliff, the character should be subject to the same laws of physics as any other, which in most settings would be a short, unpleasant trip with an abrupt end. If somebody roleplaying a Hogwart’s student skips up to a Lord Voldermort NPC (pardon my spelling, fans) and offers him a daisy, that student should be reduced to a greasy stain on the flagstones. Is there any serious question that this is allowable?

Instance two, minor-on-minor “harm” might be unpalatable, but there have been titles based on little more than beating up one’s schoolmates and stealing their lunch money. I don’t get the appeal, but I guess it speaks to some people’s inner bully.

I can’t think of any case where it would be artisically or otherwise necessary to give a player-controlled adult the ability to harm player-controlled minors, and it seems to me that would be appropriate to address in the TOS.

But I reiterate, the broadness of the proposed language excludes instance one and two as well, which I think is an unjustifiable hindrance on game design. While the literary examples given are all books/plays, any one of them might serve as inspiration for an RPG. If I’m designing Shakespeare Online, must virtual Verona be off limits?

I trust this clears up the obvious lack of understanding (not driven, I’m sure, by any type of malice) that seems to be insinuating that the people who question this clause are proponents of virtual child abuse.

Therefore it is perfectly reasonable to have a law that bans the simulation of harm to minors. People going around kidnapping, beating, abusing, etc. children in a virtual world even if they are “acting out these stories” will indeed be simulating harm in ways that fictional characters do not. They don’t leap off the page; they stay on the page. The person logging off, meanwhile, has been *desensitized to crime* and has also enacted it online. That matters. And it is different.

“Little Red Riding Hood” adapted by the Brothers Grimm (features a girl being eaten by a wolf, ogre, or werewolf; possible rape or molestation in earlier versions)

“The Whipping Boy” by Sid Fleischman (features an orphan child who is whipped as punishment for the wrongs of another)

“Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens (features an orphan child who’s abused, enslaved, or otherwise forced into labor and criminalism)

“Smallville”, the TV series (features various teens who are abused, locked away in basements, kidnapped, thrown down stairs, beaten, stabbed, shot, run over, tossed long distances into walls and windshields, and attacked in many other ways)

A short story, by yours truly, that features a young woman who is abused by her father and locked away inside a niche below a floor hatch.

Not certain about content. Been awhile:

“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain

“The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier

Incredible themes of personal self-discovery and enlightenment are communicated in this story…which also contains depictions of child rape and incest. Without these passages, understanding the nature of what kind of consequences they had on Precious would be nearly impossible to understand.

I think it would be hard to find anyone who has read this piece that would conclude it is defending or justifying those who do such in real life. Actually, it does much of the opposite. It would be difficult to explore the depth of these issues without detailing and exampling the very behavior in question.

The very bringing up of an activity or idea is not a justification, endorsement, or defense of it.

I don’t like, in the least bit, any harm coming to minors (or anyone else, for that matter). However, I’m likewise not ignorant to the fact that depictions or descriptions of such can be used in a larger context that ultimately speaks against them.

I’m going off topic for a moment because Prokofy really seems to enjoy using the word “geek” and I don’t find it particularly offensive. Guilty as charged, I suppose. Wikipedia defines Geek as a “peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, gaming, etc.” By that definition Prokofy, welcome aboard!

Usually followed by ‘in a court of law’ with all that infers.

You may be requiring a world owner/creator/whatever to set up a court or offering courts as a Metaplace service. Given virtual world law is becoming a real profession, it might be viable.