Let's talk about cliques within guilds/groups

Argent Dawn
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Hello there.

I have been in several guilds over my RP career, this year on Alliance side has been a lot of struggle. I have sought to find military guild or something which aligns with my character’s goals, but whereever I’ve joined, most of these guilds seem to have cliques within the guilds as well.

In some it’s the long-term members being more tight-knit, and sure between these, you sort of need to earn your place and trust, and you progressively get it over time. You can also talk with people constructively, with clear social expectations, boundaries and so forth.

But recently I have been to too many guilds, which advertise themselves to be theme X but then they’re filled with relationship RP. Either romance bleeding into duty, or half of the guild being blood-related. Imagine that you are supposed to be military or similar force, but surprise surprise, half of active serving members are related by blood or have alts for such setting. Mind you, I haven’t joined any noble house guilds where blood relations would be more of a theme. Still, on duty you hear a lot of hinting to personal matters between clique members and thus, you can’t but to feel that you are made feel less than them.

In recent guild, my character was ICly being bullied by another same-ranking member with comments of cutting his arms off, and humiliating him socially - all this without provocation. I told this person that it wasn’t fun or okay IC or OOC, and it was resolved, but what baffled me was the lack of consequences on the person. They actually got more favor from the guild’s leader after that incident, and once I tried to voice this, I got faced with denial from the guild leader and the few others who were part of the clique.

Similarly, I wished to make friends ICly and become part of the blood-ties setting as well. While the IC friendships was doable with others, once I began to ask about blood-ties, I was denied with “we aren’t obliged to include you” and various other excuses. I brought this later up on guild discord in hopes of that if I pointed out that “hey, people with my rank have been given more, could I also receive these opportunities?” or “how can we make this work”, people got very defensive about the clique. Eventually I was silenced, so that those people who were part of the clique were allowed to defend themselves, but I couldn’t defend myself against anything which they said, which was denial and twisting my points into what they haven’t been.

Apparently it had been offensive to claim that there was a clique, because the clique itself didn’t perceive being one and that I was always included. There was no transparency on when RP is happening, so my only option was to watch the guild’s RP in-game like hawk and try to evaluate from afar whether it’s private or public (people had personal ties RP a lot after all).

Is this what the RP culture of being in guilds and communities is now? Appeal to the status quo, charm your way up, but never question those in power or express critical viewpoint, or else you get silenced and kicked out? Instead of announcing RP publicly for the guild so anyone can join, people just privately agree to RP with one another and “there is no obligation to anyone else”. Why are people in a guild, if not to RP together?
It was twisted as if I was asking for people to “report to me”, while I asked for transparency, equality and inclusion - or at least clear ground rules on what is acceptable behavior and what is not. Exclusion is silent bullying, as well. It’s easy to label a person trying to voice concerns as a problem or creator of drama, when people don’t even try to look at the issue from your point of view - why their behavior was hurtful.

I never asked people to RP with me all the time, or took a reasonable, calm “no” negatively, if someone didn’t feel like it and it also showed by their actions. But say, how would you feel about a guild leader who 1. never preannounces when they intend to be online, 2. you ask them for RP but they never feel like it (some reasons were valid, others were a bit fishy), 3. even if they say “no” to your requests to RP, they then log on few hours later to RP with another guildmate of same rank as myself. Does it sound weird?

Being silenced and kicked out without even given a chance to defend myself, perhaps reinforced the air of fear for those who were bystanders.

Am I the only person who thinks that OOC discussion is a good way to go about something, if the way how you’re ICly being treated, makes you feel bad? Is it better conduct to just say “this isn’t working out” and leave silently, rather than trying to resolve problems, especially if you think the way how you’re being treated IC, is hurtful even OOC?

Are there any combatant or explorer guilds that still maintain conduct of transparency about RP, trying to keep guild free of cliques (and thus, keeping RP inclusive) and perhaps have specific set of rules IC and OOC, for how you’re supposed to behave, instead of expecting you to mind-read?

I shall keep names and such out of this, and would appreciate that if anyone recognizes this case, they will keep names and remarks out as well. I’d appreciate if this is kept constructive discussion only - even if you disagree, don’t outright deny, but reason why you disagree.

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Cliques are always going to exist. It’s a very human thing and it’s amplified when it’s a bunch of world of warcraft roleplayers with limited social skills.

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I have been in similar situations where I join a guild and there’s zero effort in including me or other newbies in what’s going in, even if I/they make the effort to engage with the guild.

Sadly it probably boils down to what Cromnir wrote above me. It can be incredibly disheartening after a while but I think the best you can do is to just move on until you find “your people”.

At the end of the day you’re in control of your own experience.

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Humans are pack animals. We have a planet divided into large groups like nationalities, ethnicities, and cultural groups that identify with each other, divided down further into local groups, divided down further into friend groups, and divided down further into best friends. It’s hard to penetrate these groups, but it’s not surprising in the least that even within guild groups there are yet more groups.

This sounds more like a thread moaning about your experiences in that one particular guild - which is well justified, don’t get me wrong, that does sound like an awful situation. But at some point if you want to be part of a guild you’re going to have to do the legwork and push yourself in. Either that or start your own guild with your own friends and sculpt the social space to your own tastes.

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If you have tried to communicate that you aren’t having fun with the way your character is treated by other members of such guilds and their DMs only to be met with this kind of behaviour, I would say that you are not in the wrong here.

However, as Cromnir has just said, while these things aren’t a part of every guild out there, it’s very much a present thing every now and then.

Some guilds sometimes just have this obsession that although they don’t want to include any new characters into their roleplay proper, they still would really like that +1 to their online member count because they have some obsession for member numbers like they’re roleplay pyramid scheme salesmen instead of a DM for a monthly subscription version of Best Hits Compilation of D&D and Warhammer Fantasy 2023.

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Somewhat obliquely related but this has reminded me: I think it’s also slightly symptomatic of the changing attitude in roleplay compared to, say, ten years ago, in that roleplayers are just becoming incredibly vain.

Nobody actually wants to roleplay anymore. They don’t want to create stories with others, they don’t want to interact, they aren’t comfortable or interested in others taking the initiative and stories developing collaboratively. They’re here to be looked at. They want people to look at their art, read their TRP, appreciate their cultivated profile aesthetic, and that’s pretty much it. The last half dozen community discords I’ve been a part of have been filled with members who don’t really talk to each other, they talk at each other about their characters, art, short stories, and other content they’ve made or written. Roleplay as an exciting, collaborative, proactive activity seems to be yesterday’s news.

Or maybe it’s just me. :person_shrugging:

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While I think that it is true that there is a larger number of people who are like this than in years before, I don’t think it’s a necessarily higher percentage of them being a part of the roleplay community overall.

Roleplaying has become more and more popular over the years, with things such as Critical Role, the Total War: Warhammer games and the most recent D&D movie making the fanbase of roleplay games, especially fantasy roleplay games, rise up in numbers.

With it, comes more people; and with more people, it also means more people who are engaging with the roleplay fanbase with the intent for people to praise their writing, rather than just doing it with the intent of simply having fun and making other people have fun alongside them.

Places like Discord have only made communication far more prevalent and far easier to access than most other messaging apps up until its release, so I think it’s more that there’s a very loud minority of people in the roleplay community of practically every game who are just there to flaunt the fact that they’ve spent 450 bucks in their latest character art commission, and a grand total of 0 hours actually trying to roleplay or write with others in the last 6 months.

Or something that is rather exclusive to WoW and MMO RP, bragging about the fact that they have “15+ members online!” without mentioning the fact that about 60% of those come and go like the guild roster is a revolving door because it’s really just 6-7 people actually roleplaying and another 7-8 people spectating, hoping for a story arc involving their character’s motives or interests that will never come.

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I think this is a noticeable trend pretty much everywhere online, not just in the roleplay community. People’s attention span has gotten shorter, and many of today’s popular online platforms heavily pushes people to get hooked on reacts and visibility/popularity than making meaningful connections. I’ve noticed a similar shift in art circles as well; as opposed to the days of yore forum communities, it’s less about making connections and discussion around art pieces now, and more about self-promotion and button click reacts. It’s always been the case though that more people are takers than givers given the opportunity, maybe just more amplified in recent times.

Sorry to hear about the OP’s experiences, I haven’t been big on joining guilds for a long time myself. Do you think it would help you find like-minded people to play with if you created initiatives around themes that interest you, and discover other people without cliques who you could play with regardless of if they’re in some guild or not? For example through some small-ish DM’ed events that you could host?

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I think there are few identifiable problems you´ve mentioned that I´ve seen in guilds I´ve been in the past.

First is advertising themselves as being something they aren´t. This often has to do with events (or lack of events, to be more specific) and in general the reasons why some people decide to make guilds. It isn´t so they can provide stories for others, it´s so they can RP with their friends, with the guild theme being just a backdrop. It´s why there have been so many noble houses in RP, it´s often the GM wanting to be epic leader with many people behind them, but in reality they won´t put in any legwork. A good indicator of whether a GM (and officers) are in it for the fame and clout, or actually want to create stories and provide RP, is whether there are any events being run. If a guild spends multiple weeks in row with 0 events, and all their RP just being social stuff, chances are you aren´t in a group lead by people who want to give to others.

Another thing is being unwelcoming to new people. No, contrary to what some have said in this thread, it shouldn´t be the new person´s duty to try and find RP within the guild like a guy dropped in the middle of Sahara. There should be some means for the new person to take part in what the guild is doing, but here´s the kicker: Often such RP opportunities are achieved through planned events, and if your guild isn´t doing any, there won´t be any opportunities for you to get into the group.

However, there are also few things about yourself you might look at.

First of all is the focus on rank. It doesn´t mean anything, in fact, it´s one of symptoms that often makes guilds pretty inaccessible to new players. You really shouldn´t expect better treatment over someone who is new just because you were in the guild for 5 months (which, 99% of the time, is how guild ranks work, you´re just passing time/events attended thresholds).

Thing is, without more information, we can´t really rule out who was in the right. Yes, sometimes IC behavior is influenced by OOC (which is unfortunate, but it is what it is). However, often the person who is being hurt by IC behavior of other characters just has really skewed idea of what is bad behavior or bullying IC, and how much it is influenced by OOC.
And, while this is just personal opinion with my dreams being the only source, I firmly believe that 90% of all cases of “negative IC interaction hurting someone OOCly” is the hurt person just being unable to distinguish between hostility to their character and hostility to themselves.
However, if this was one of those 10%, I´m sorry that it happened to you.

I´d say there are plenty. Anything specific you might have in mind when it comes to race/class?

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I’ll always keep RPing.
I want to be part of a story. I want to hear about other characters, I want to see them grow, even if mine don’t.

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((Apparently the new Orcish heritage armor doesn’t show, so I am now an half-naked Orc. Very nice.))

As others have mentioned, humans are social animals and cliques is the natural state of humankind. This of course translates into RP as well, no different from real life.

Albeit, the focus on clique-related micro-communities who band together based on shared opinion, but more commonly a shared dislike of another clique/cliques has been on the steady rise since around WoD. This will sadly translate into groups forming on the basis of “Us vs Them” and generally be hostile to outsiders of said established clique, even their own guild members, as they’ve yet to “prove” themselves a part of the clique, simply because they weren’t an original member of the group.

This, in turn, leads to multiple cliques forming in the same guild, with obvious overlap. Fracturing the guild just as much as it fractures RP as a whole on Argent Dawn. Be it from different opinions/stances on topics or groups, forming an endless web or chain of cliques with mild overlap, leading to an extremely toxic eco-system for RP in general.

A common example being that as a brand new member of X guild, you will be branded a part of the leading clique by extension by people you’ve possibly never met, all while not even knowing the guild you’ve joined, nor whomever may have a problem with them.

Clique-centric infighting and hostility is especially prevalent on Alliance-side of AD, where at worst of times, depending on the theme or scene of RP you are part of, you’ll almost be given a checklist of who-and-who-not-to-interact-with, only entrenching the plague that is cliques on AD.

Bad blood from 10 years ago still affect many groups, and many guilds have been founded on petty concepts as “We don’t like X, so we’re going to dedicate ourselves to being anti-X” or just to actively mess/sabotage the group they do not like, for whichever reason.

In the end, people will argue between what has been the reason behind the slump or slow decline of RP an Argent Dawn. And surprisingly to no one, it always ends up boiling down to clique-related drama or bull :poop: in the end.

I’ve engaged in it, as have so many others. But it can only improve when people stop giving a damn and painting whole communities with the same brush from 5 years ago, simply because they are somehow related or connected, no matter how vague or far-reaching said “connection” may be. We all have to make an active choice for the sake of RP and community.

(See: Ignores PCU, for example)

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Approachable.
Artwork in About.
PCU? Get lost!1!!

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The three horsemen of the apocalypse of Stormwind RP :pensive:

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The funny thing about that is that it’s really those people’s problems more than the new people joining x guild with y members with z connotations. If they’re willing to judge somebody they’ve never met entirely on associations that they percieve the other person as having then that’s their loss and the player in question shouldn’t have to conform to their weird ideals or opinions.

I know it’s an obvious thing to state but it irks me. I don’t care in the slightest if your friends and my friends aren’t friends - go back to high school if you wanna pull that :poop: (And yes I know adults do this nonsense too but it’s a stretch to call them ‘adults’ really, isn’t it?)

Look, I have a reputation to maintain as a suspiciously wealthy furry and the peasants must know of my deeds.

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Can confirm. Obahar won’t stop flexing his endless galleries of pristine art for his…
Checks notes
… Furry characters.

The peasant nightmare never ends :pensive:

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Definitely a bit over the top to put it in one’s OOC info like that.

But!

No one’s obliged to interact with anyone. If I don’t want anything to do with someone cus they’re X, Y, or Z, then I have every right to refrain from interacting with them. You can definitely be civil about it though.

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Just brainstorming because while I agree with your point, is there not a sliding scale of sorts? On one side total acceptance and the other absolute exclusion, there’s obviously a balancing act to be struck, I just wonder what the parameters are for a “healthy” server? Because sadly it seems to be on the individual players and one must hope that enough agree on a set of norms to prevent the server from, well, dying?

Hope this makes some sense!

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Agreed, but it does sometimes feel like the people who go out of their way to say “ignores x/y/z” (because it does extend to groups and guilds beyond the PCU) aren’t just doing it because they don’t want to RP but because they want to send a message.

What they fail to realise is that the message they’re sending is that they’re insufferable self-rightous knobs who are more than willing to make a personal problem everyone elses problem as well.

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I think we’re more likely to achieve world peace before we have a collectively agreed upon answer to that.

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:nerd_face:

That is fair. However, the issue we are dealing with on today’s AD is the fact that… It doesn’t matter who you are. Someone will take issue, and then spin the narrative endlessly until the original slight is forgotten, and a whole new, monstrous reputation takes form.

The entire concept of “choose who you acknowledge” has been weaponized and taken from the reasonable stance of “These people are genuinely here to spread toxicity and negatively impact RP” to “Uh, I don’t like X, so I don’t like the entire Y guild they’re a part of, and I don’t like all the Z guilds they affiliate with”. In the end, it warps into circular logic.

It isn’t anymore about each and every one of us having the direct choice of who we do or don’t interact with. It’s now who screeches the loudest (and first) about X group without any proof of their accusations, and whole communities falling apart simply because… Why did we dislike them again?

The active choice of who we interact with has gone from a personal choice, to a collective sentence applied to groups whilly-nilly, which then only reinforces the same clique-issues we have from the start.