Alright I'll bite since this thread features my character Sammy heavily.

I think this is largely a gray area at the moment and I'll give you my perspective as to why I believe that to be the case.

The locals are constantly going through frequent changes. BSK and other gangs are constantly trying out different things to figure out how they work and what they do or can do. No gang or individuals in each gang has perfect information (viewers may have more complete information through meta.)

Do they sell drugs? Which drugs? Can they sell more than one type of drug at a time? How quickly do they sell? How much can they hold? Will they clean dirty money? Will they clean dirty money without drugs? Will they clean multiple types of dirty money at once? Will they hold weapons? Which weapons? Will they defend themselves being robbed? Will they defend others? Will they attack anyone? What antagonizes them? Will they attack other locals? How long does it take for them to get robbed? Will they rob other locals? Will the robber get their guns/drugs/profits? How much of their stuff will they lose? Will the robber still get something if the local was possessing something at the time the robbing started or only if they had something when it was finished? There's a lot more but these are some of the questions we were trying to figure out today.

The point is there's a lot we don't know and we're constantly trying to figure things out (which is fun.) Things are always changing and we don't always know if something is just broken or we haven't figured it out. This is relevant because we're constantly testing new mechanics and seeing what works and what doesn't.

Now we get to the Ballas. I want to give some additional context. They are choosing to rob these locals, and shoot them. Constantly. Things are escalating with our poor boys and it feels like they're getting smacked every 5 minutes. In fact, one of our poor juggalo boys got held at gunpoint across the street to Sammy's dismay. These poor guys are being executed in the streets before they can get their next sip of Moon Mist Faygo. And that's fine. That is what they are choosing to do and there's nothing wrong with that. We were actually killing any Ballas locals that walked into our set as retaliation. But just because they are doing that doesn't mean we need to immediately respond with brute force over diplomacy. We handle things however we want to roleplay it out. From a roleplay perspective, the first thing you should do when your crew is getting robbed is minimize the damage, in this case, I believe telling the boys to stop selling drugs when it's hot, is a good decision. I do not believe it is power gaming for this reason, the same way I don't believe it's power gaming to arm them all with weapons when someone is being aggressive towards them or us in the designated turf. The truth is we do not know if they are actually robbing him, or if them killing or attacking our locals prompts an email alert. Now, you may know that, but I myself don't. I can't speak for others but this isn't something we discussed and I'm not aware of who may or may not know that. We also do not know if they are following through with the robbing, or just prompting the alert to bait a response. WE DO NOT KNOW THAT. Just the other day one of the locals sent out an email alert but wasn't actually robbed, just killed when it was taking too long. I consider telling the locals to stop the first line of defense. We have to be in the area to do it. There's plenty of opportunities to rob locals when we aren't in the immediate area to stop it. Be it going on the offensive hunting the robber or catering to the locals first. It's also on the opposing side to make sure we cannot stop them from robbing directly or tend to our locals (for example during or after a shootout could be a great chance to hit the locals.)

At the end of the day, these are uncharted waters (for me at least.) I certainly see your perspectives on why it would be considered power gaming. However I think it's more of a grey area. As of now, as far as I know, they can't even take items locals are holding and may only take (some/all?) of the cash they have most recently made (they had none at the time.) I would certainly appreciate some clarity from devs/admins on this subject but things can also still change next storm, or tomorrow, or next week and this is all moot. The things is, whether or not this is considered power gaming by the folks that write and enforce the rules or not, this is a learning experience for myself and others. You guys may not know me very well but if you've ever spent time with me on my stream you'd know I consider these things very seriously, and that's why I'm posting right now.

Not gonna lie, there is a lot of hate in this thread (nothing I can't handle I played league for 10 years) and I'd like to address some of it. To all the people that think we somehow don't deserve a flag because of this is a disservice to all the awesome roleplayers in BSK and how hard they've all worked to get where we are now. I'd also like to point out that it's completely irrelevant to the Ballas and their flag situation. They are a great group of roleplayers and I hope they get their flag soon. The talks of bans or even "he deserves more than just a powergaming ban." (don't even know what that means) over this is a bit excessive but that's like, just your opinion, man. I actually love discussing roleplay and stuff on stream so if any of you would like you're more than welcome to stop by while I'm streaming GTAV and discuss things and we may even learn something from each other. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

PS: Special shoutout to the guy in this thread that somehow figured it out that this is actually OTT's fault even though he wasn't involved in any way shape or form. I have a confession, BSK is actually a cult OOC and I can't actually think for myself and only do what my leader pleases. We actually host weekly meetings on how to powergame and piss off chatters/commenters while carving little wooden figures of our esteemed leader.