When does roleplay cross the line?

[Antonio]

Discovery is a role playing server. In theory you're given an ability to play a role of anything you want as long as it's not forbidden by the rules (ex. furries and ponies). While that's all nice and giving freedom to players is undoubtedly a good thing, my question is - when does that "anything" cross the sensible line of what we deem acceptable in the community? When does something become unreasonable and way too coincidental/intentionally orchestrated for people's own benefit? What exactly makes us say "cut that nonsense out, it makes no sense"?

I'll give you an example. A Freelancer piloting an Eagle is roaming around Sirius, offering his services to people just to survive to the next day and hanging on by a thread. One day he decides he wants to get himself a GRN Battleship. He does all the "roleplay" necessary to get one, acquires it and makes an SRP request. People read the roleplay asking the following: How did a lowlife freelancer get in a position to acquire the biggest war vessel of the mightiest military force in the game? How did he gather the crew? Trick the GRN into getting his hands on one? No matter how well he may explain the story, would we say "yeah sure, but come on think about it for a second, the likelihood of that happening is like winning three lotteries in a row."? Is that roleplay sensible? Is it crossing the line of what's acceptable? What even is acceptable?

Another example. NPC factions A and B are hostile. They have bad relations for years and have fought numerous battles with thousands of casualties. A player faction belonging to faction A decides to, for whatever reason, defect to faction B. Regardless of faction B's response, which we can assume is negative because the trust between the two is nonexistant, what about the decision of defecting? It doesn't immediately break any rules, but it raises an eyebrow of most people in the community. Most of them would dismiss any kind of reasoning from the defecting faction simply because the end product seems too unrealistic. It makes more sense than the first example (which was intentionally made extreme), but it's still very questionable to happen. Would the second story be okay if the faction defecting has been existing for years and has a long history of "regular" roleplay? Would it be okay if it was made 2 weeks prior to defection? What exactly needs to happen in order for the roleplay to become widely acceptable?

Before someone misinterprets the thread and gets offended, I'm not targeting anyone's roleplay here specifically. I'd genuinely like to know community's thoughts on the matter. When does roleplay cross the line?

TL;DR read the first paragraph.

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[Lythrilux]

Roleplay crosses the line when it messes with lore or NPC faction lore, imo.

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[supatroll]

Or how a bomber wants me to drop all my cargo so he can pick it up (5k cargo btw)

[-Rax-]

This is an interesting question regarding to RP. From my own experience I'd say objectively that crossing the line will depend on the writer's experience on RP, on hi own. For an empty server like this, people tend to have split characters with different RP storylines. Since there's not even much activity around , the map's big and you can do many stuff, RP is being more permissible in the transcursion of the char's lifetime. Yes, SRP'ing is a thing. Acceptance on SRP's is given by another league, though and still they're being flexible because there's not many people requesting to SRP.
Personally before switching sides I'd change the char and start over with it.
One thing it also triggers me a bit, is when you're reaching a high rank on a faction, you're "ready" to fly capital ships. Where's the sense, inRP for the char, if he never wanted to escalate from snub to Bs's, that in a high rank he will be able to fly a capital ship with tripulation in it?
And what's the sense of the Pirate ID, overall? Or why does intelligence factions barely ever only work in their respective inner house?

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[SnakThree]

What line? Reasonable roleplay or spiteful roleplay line? Because those are two very different lines.

When it comes to reasonable, I go with idea that consequences of actions should be reflected upon roleplay.

If you are lowlife Freelancer scrapping for money, there is no way in hell you can get Battleship in reasonable sense.

If you are faction that was hostile to another, and decide to defect/merge without their acceptance, that might go over to powergaming line.

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[SnakThree]

Or how a bomber wants me to drop all my cargo so he can pick it up (5k cargo btw)

Pirates might demand all your cargo due to:
1. Trader being arch-nemesis. Example - Lane Hackers would demand all cargo from official Ageira and Interspace factions.
2. Pirate might have quasi-lawful contact who could cruise up to take the cargo and sell it to lawful base. Example - Same Lane Hacker calling Junker to take all goods floating in space after Ageira ship dropped it.

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[Enkidu]

Metagaming. Elitism. NIMBY'ism. Using your cloaking device as an INRP narrative tool to troll people. Roleplay which is not roleplay but just there to harass the player, I.E: alliances that make no sense or team-ups that massively defy cannon.

I think defection is fine if it's handled well. Totally fine with snubs defecting.

Capturing capital ships and re-pressurising them after half destroying/boarding them in a fight would be better RP than defecting. Better than: "My ship is heavily automated so there's no crew screw you I do what I want".

Even borderline wierd things like inexplicable monster ships are totally fine, because Discovery is that sort of scary, violent universe.

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[Pepe]

When one sees enough players throwing tomatoes on him in enough chats, one surely knows he crossed some line. That's why friends are for. Or relatives. Pets too.

But what if one has no friends?

Having no friends in MMO game is wrong already. That's where all the evil comes from.

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