Techmix-nerf and factions which are unique in RELYING on techmixing

[Denelo]

... when the rules change, the board we play on changes...

... change - by rules, or by the game mechanics - change our RP. - and we can be damn thankful for that. - it means we have to change our ways - which is a lot more exciting than sitting it out.

Here is your flawed premise. I am here to write a story. I am making a work of art. To do so, I must know what is and isn't possible. When the rules of play change halfway through the game, especially to such a ridiculous and restrictive degree that it must fundamentally change my roleplay, my work of art, how exactly am I supposed to expect to be able to produce my story in the future? Producers are the people who think far, far in advance, who plan and create as they see fit. While I am perfectly open to dynamicism within the game - and, indeed, welcome it - artificially introduced changes from the outside force entirely out-of-roleplay changes to storyline. The storyline is changed by things entirely unrelated to it which awkwardly twists and bends it. It's like telling a runner he's going to run a race. Sure, it's fine as long as he gets to compete against others in the race, but when you start pelting a few of the runners with tomatoes halfway through because they doing "too well", or simply because they happened to get in the way of a part of the race track that you don't like, or perhaps are not running in the "accepted" style - perhaps they are running like Eric Liddel instead - that's unacceptable. Dynamic stories make me happy. People forcing me to awkwardly, drastically alter my story with no in-story justifications don't.

Somewhat related, but on the point of people wanting good things for themselves; I mean, that's natural, isn't it? People only know how things adversely affect them, most of the time. I know how this adversely affects the Hellfire Legion and independent mercs, because I'm a long-time Legionnaire, and my main roleplay story is of an independent merc (see footnote at the bottom of the post). I've been told about how it affects other people, and that's terrible, but I'm not enough of an expert on such matters to fight their fight for them. Really, though, I am fighting against the principle of the idea, and of the whole tech system: I'm against the idea that out-of-roleplay force can be used to change peoples' stories, which, to make it even more egregious, most of which the people applying the force don't know a thing about. Any stories, not just current ones - future ones, past ones, present ones, all of them. It's wrong no matter what time it's in, or who it's applied against.

My revolutionary idea is hardly complicated or, well, revolutionary. It's the concept that people have freedom to make art as they wish, as long as it doesn't interfere with others' art in an irreconcilably vile way. If someone wants to say he's an undercover Navy guy hiding in the Corsairs, and runs around with a MH Titan, why on earth should I stop him? Do I think it's a poorly thought out story? Yes, but at the same time, it doesn't hurt me for it to exist. I can ignore it, my characters can treat it like some kind of madness, or any number of other reactions. That idea's where the whole concept of the Harris Syndrome came from - the idea of an actual in-character infectious disease causing out-of-roleplay behavior. A ton of people actually spawned roleplay stories off of studying it. The question I dare to ask is this: Why is that a bad thing?

Footnote:

Incidentally, my merc is only a merc because of the tech chart and ID engagement regulations. She was very peaceful and hated to kill anyone. Unfortunately, the few people she would kill, she couldn't without a bounty. Since she had to start claiming bounties in order to represent her character faithfully by allowing her to kill the people she hated. Of course, people started to treat her as a dirty merc for claiming bounties, which influenced her ideas of them and made her kill them more. Now she actually actively hunts bounties and has started to gather mixed factional tech (you know, the stuff you say ruins balance so much?) instead of awful civilian stuff. Why? Because of your very beloved ID engagement restrictions, designed to "reduce PvP" and stop "random engagements", which, any fool could tell you, also stops characters (esp. non-affiliated characters, and she is very dedicated to remaining "free" from affiliation) from being played faithfully by attacking people they actually hate and thus harms roleplay. On top of that, the fact that she has a merc ID means that she can't do the chit-chat with her enemies you value so much, as most Kusarians (who are, of course, her primary enemies) won't talk with a "dirty merc". In short, you can't manipulate people the way you think you can; people are far more complicated than you could possibly imagine, and attempting to manipulate them will have unintended side-effects, aside from the obvious anger at being manipulated.