Monday, May 09, 2011

Proposal: I’ll see you in court

Timed out 1-5.—Yoda

Adminned at 11 May 2011 13:20:04 UTC

Add a new dynastic rule entitled “Litigation”, with text as follows:

Any Investor may engage in Litigation with any other Investor or with any Corporation in accordance with this rule.  To initiate litigation, the initiating Investor (the “Plaintiff”) makes a blog post (the “Complaint”) indicating that they are initiating litigation and identifying the Investor or Corporation that is to be the target of the Litigation (such target, the “Defendant”).  The content of the Plaintiff’s Complaint must contain a statement in the form “Merit = X”, where X is an integer between 1 and 300.  The Complaint may also contain any non-gamestate text that the Plaintiff desires to give character to the nature of the dispute.  Within 1 hour after posting that blog post, the Plaintiff must reduce the amount of Credits of Currency that he owns by one third of X, rounded down to the nearest integer, representing the fees and expenses of conducting the Litigation.

If the Defendant is an Investor, the Defendant may Answer the Litigation by posting a comment to the Plaintiff’s Complaint conforming to this rule.  If the Defendant is a Corporation, then the first comment to the Plaintiff’s Complaint that is made by an Investor (other than the Plaintiff) who is a shareholder of the Defendant Corporation and that conforms to this rule constitutes the Defendant’s Answer to the Complaint, so long as the Investor posting the comment states that he is posting it in that capacity.  The Answer must contain a statement in the form “Merit = Y”, where Y is an integer between 1 and 300 but which must be greater than or equal to X.  The Answer may also contain any non-gamestate text to give character to the nature of the dispute.  Within 1 hour after posting that comment, the Defendant (or, in the case of a Defendant Corporation, the shareholder who posted the comment that constitutes the Answer) must reduce the amount of Creditrs of Currency that the Defendant owns (or, in the case of a Defendant Corporation, the Defendant Corporation’s Worth) by one fourth of Y, rounded down to the nearest integer.

After an Answer is posted to a Complaint, the Market shall resolve the Litigation by rolling DICEX and DICEY in the GNDT.  If DICEX is greater than DICEY then the Plaintiff prevails in the Litigation, in which case Plaintiff’s Credits of Currency is increased by X and Defendant’s Credits of Currency (or Defendant’s Worth, in the case of a Defendant Corporation) is reduced by X.  If DICEY is greater than or equal to DICEX then the Defendant prevails in the Litigation, in which case Plaintiff’s Credits of Currency is decreased by one fourth of Y (representing reimbursement of Defendant’s legal fees), and Defendant’s Credits of Currency (or Defendant’s Worth, in the case of a Defendant Corporation) is increased by one fourth of Y.

If no valid Answer is posted to a particular Complaint within 5 days after the Complaint is made, then the Plaintiff prevails in the Litigation by default, in which case Plaintiff’s Credits of Currency is increased by X and Defendant’s Credits of Currency (or Defendant’s Worth, in the case of a Defendant Corporation) is reduced by X

If more than half of the EVCs on this proposal include the phrase “High-stakes litigation” then replace “300” with “1000” wherever it appears in the proposed rule text above.

Comments

Yoda:

09-05-2011 22:29:20 UTC

imperial My only concern is that this action could drive one of the parties into Bankruptcy.  Also, why does the Market have to roll the DICE?  I would say have the Defendant roll the DICE, since they will be the last ones to post.

Darknight: he/him

10-05-2011 03:37:23 UTC

imperial

Travis:

10-05-2011 06:38:20 UTC

against

Purplebeard:

10-05-2011 07:35:57 UTC

against Apart from Yoda’s concerns, what if the Defendant is already bankrupt? They can’t spend credits, so they lose automatically.

Purplebeard:

10-05-2011 11:03:02 UTC

I took a few minutes to work out the math, and it seems like the Plaintiff has an EV of about 12 Credits if they bet the maximum, or 104 if the maximum is 1000. The Defendant loses about 187 Credits, or 687 if the maximum is 1000. (For anyone who’s interested, P(DICEX > DICE(Y) = (X-1)/2X if X=Y)

With a friendly Shareholder of any Corporation, any Investor can abuse this to grind towards infinite Credits if the Defendant can resolve this (or force me to roll thousands of dice otherwise). A simpler scam is for any two Investors to start a billion Litigations with X=Y=1. No one stands to lose money, since all fractions are rounded down.

Purplebeard:

10-05-2011 11:06:43 UTC

Let me rephrase: in the second scam, the Defendant can still lose 1 Credit, of course, so you’d end up with one incredibly rich Investor and one with millions in debt.

Oze:

10-05-2011 15:16:25 UTC

against