You can't do that

[Grumblesaur]

I am all for imaginative roleplay that does not go against established lore.

This may be true, but you only seem intent on upholding it if the idea was yours or if you are in charge of the people who had the idea.

Let's try to adopt one of the core principles of improv here, since that's essentially what a dynamic roleplay environment is all about. When someone approaches with you with something you didn't expect or even don't like, try to look at it from the "yes, and" viewpoint instead of the "no, stop" mindset we've seemed to slip into. You don't flat-out refuse to engage with something you dislike, because that breaks immersion, prevents the story from going anywhere, and is trying to exert a degree of control that's antithetical to the nature of an improvised activity.

So fly around with an open mind and see what RP comes your way. Shoot some people, talk to some people, and don't spend so much time worrying about how everyone else is doing their thing. Why? Because it's a game, and that means it isn't a crime if someone plays it differently than you, especially when the only person you have any right to change is yourself.

Durandal, I greatly appreciate your mention of the "yes, and" principle. Both on the server and the forums, it's very common for people to play in a way that mirrors litigation -- out of roleplay 'lawsuits' and disputes on whether the established faction or ID rules allow. In many cases, the disputes are over 'flavor' roleplay or everyday minutiae.

I think it's important to understand that the person in the other ship or behind the other forum posts isn't just your adversary or co-pilot -- they're your partner on stage. You have to give them a little room to work in their ideas and not just constantly push your own. Imagine "what if my scanners are giving the wrong reading" when you're busting someone for their cargo, especially cargo like "slaves" which, to a scanner, will just look like people. Before declaring you're going to blow someone up for trespassing, try hitting them with an interrogation and see if they give you a good reason out. Maybe you'll find something out about a larger phenomenon, like a smuggling route running right through your home system or that one of the intelligence agencies is staging covert ops at a nearby base.

On the forums, consider what the other player(s) want and why they want it. Consider what you can get out of it. If it's not a compromise, it's a missed opportunity: demanding something for nothing or creating unfair terms of the agreement is not a way to encourage a dynamic gameplay experience, but only a way to enforce the current status quo.

A principle I've adopted from a friend of mine here is the following:

• * Adhere to your own ID and faction rules as best as possible.
  
• * If someone is toeing the lines of their ID rules or doing something otherwise questionable, but you're both having a good time, don't report them. Just play along.
  

Community-building is more important than playing sanctionlancer (especially with the peak server population being half of what it was three or four years ago) or faction right X'ing everyone and their dog that does something you don't like. Sanctions are to punish people people whose mode of operating is diametrically opposed to the roleplaying nature of the server, and I'd say that's a widely known and accepted fact. However, we shouldn't be using things like faction rights, lore canonization, or roleplay threads as tools for limiting the scope of other players' agency, because that could be even more insidious than a poorly-reasoned vaporization of someone's equipment.