Regarding the class change issue, I see no connection between being pressured to step down and being pressured to choose a class you do not want.
I understand that stepping down will cost the character H/P. However, the right is to freely choose a class, not to never lose honor or prestige. By the logic espoused by the player of Sevile, protesting him so much that he loses enough honor and prestige not to qualify for the Cavalier class anymore would also violate the IR; anything that caused him to lose H/P could potentially violate it, since it could lead to him no longer qualifying for a certain class.
In this case no one is telling Sevile that he *must* play this class, or *can't* play that class. That would clearly violate the IR in question. However, it is self-evident that the designer's intent is not that all characters be able to switch to any class at any time. If that were the intent, classes wouldn't have H/P requirements. Therefore, you cannot have a right to play any class you choose at any time, only a right to play any class you qualify for at any time. Qualifying to be able to play a class is not a protected status.
The point is that no one in this situation is telling Sevile he can't play a Cavalier. Instead they're pressuring him to do something that would lead to him no longer qualifying for the class. It is certainly understandable then that Sevile would seek to avoid taking the action that will penalize him, but I cannot see any way in which the other characters are at fault for the situation in which Sevile finds himself. They are playing the game within the expected bounds of character behavior. Rather, it is the player of Sevile who is seeking to use the Titans to reduce the pressure on him by scaring off the players behind those characters with the threat of OOC sanctions, which is clearly not an acceptable behavior.
In stepping down, the penalty my character would have accrued would have made it flatly impossible for him to change class to Cav. That penalty had already been taken into account when the original plan was laid out. Bowie changed his mind regarding that plan immediately after secession and tried forcing the issue with Sevastian. I would have been happy to step down had the penalty not been such a large portion of his existing h/p, because then he could easily have switched to a cavalier to regain his lost stats. In trying to force the issue, it led to this entire clusterf**ked situation.
I by no means was trying to use the Titans to reduce pressure on my character. I was trying to prevent escalation of the situation to what it has blown up into. I like Ironsides as a player, and did not want to have to take the matter to the authorities. It was a poor decision on my part, and I fully admit that it was the wrong way to go about things. It does not change my intention in doing what I did though.
Less than a week has passed, and already the penalty has dropped low enough that Sevastian could step down and still have enough H/P to become a cavalier. If patience and understanding had been displayed, Sevastian would have stepped down this turn, as I made abundantly clear in game. As it stands, I was harassed IG and Ooc over the matter and my IR were ignored, IMO.
If my logic is wrong, then I apologize, but I do not feel it is acceptable for another player to try and force such crippling personal penalties on another due to impatience.
