The details of what my brain considers to be Rules and how it protests when they are broken or self-servingly altered are mildly interesting but irrelevant to this post.

Have you explained those details in another post, and if not, why not? I have some similar feelings, comparable by metaphor to thixotropic clay, and am curious as to the extent of the similarity.

I don't think I'd describe myself as enjoying drama, but it's interesting and I'm drawn to it, and if I don't keep track of this carefully enough I go around starting it without realizing what I'm doing until too late. Generating actual drama is a good way to hurt people, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the same appetite appears to be indulged by working out the intricacies of relationship parameters, and keeping track of the structure of a polycule in which I am an atom, even if no drama per se exists.

Could it be said that you are simply interested in exploring social dynamics, and tend to stir them up when you're bored as a means of gathering information from the increased contrast? After all, many systems are best studied when at their most chaotic. Polycules seem to have a certain unavoidable degree of ongoing turbulence, and include more explicit communication besides, so it would not surprise me at all that such a thing scratches the same itch.