What do you look for in an RP Guild?

Argent Dawn
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Hello folks!
With Cross-faction guilds around the corner I’ve been musing with the idea of creating one in the near future, but wanted to get a gauge of what folks on AD look for in an RP guild first.

Im aware managing a guild can be a lot of work and shouldn’t be taken lightly, so any information people can provide outside these questions would be appreciated too. Hopefully this post will also help anyone else toying with the idea of making an RP guild in the future.

So folks of the AD Forum:

  1. What is it you personally look for in an RP Guild?
  2. How often do you expect an RP guild to provide RP for its members? (By this I mean any events planned by the GM or Officers. Planned casual RP, DM’d events ect).
  3. How important do you think it is for an RP Guild to also do OOC content?
  4. What advice would you give to anyone thinking of starting an RP guild on AD?
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  1. Consistency. A guild should maintain a cohesive reflection of their relevant lore, power levels within their sphere of roleplay and consequences for actions in character.

Are your guild members vastly varied in power levels, say mages and common footsoldiers fighting side by side, then flat rolls as a combat solution may not be advisable as they innately homogenize every participant to the lowest common denominator.

Do your guild members deal with certain powers and magics on a regular basis? Then perhaps it is worth figuring out a coherent way to teach and practise them to avoid contradictions and clashes of interpretations.

And so on and so forth.

  1. Speaking from personal experience, RP schedules can be pretty inconsistent. The Vigil has lots of working people, university students and parents who need to tuck their kids in at around our RP time, and we often find that we have to move events around to allow the most people to participate. We post a weekly schedule of 3 - 4 events and let people sign up, then look at the numbers and postpone if push comes to shove. Provide as much RP as you can and want to, but don’t feel obliged to take everything on your own individual shoulders. Motivate members of your guild to come up with their own events and perhaps build a little roster of regulars who can shoulder the responsibility together. It will make things a lot easier, believe me! I’ve stepped down as a guild master before because I burnt myself out by generating events nearly on my own for a couple of months.

  1. I’ll take OOC content as not exclusively in WoW, but other games as well! I’m sure a guild can make do without it, but socializing and gaming with your guildmates is a great way to bond and have some fun every now and then. I myself am a strong advocate of semi-weekly game nights just for ships and giggles :^)

  2. Be transparent. Convey your vision for the guild from the get-go and don’t be afraid to go the extra mile and iron out details you personally think may be important. People will wanna read the “fine print”, if I may call it that! Let people in on your thought processes and encourage discussion, which brings me to my next point…

Be flexible. A guild is inevitably shaped by its members, and you all curate your experience together. Sharing ideas and gathering input is not only a great way to keep the guild involved on an OOC level, but will also go a long way in improving the RP for everyone. Talk about lore, talk about character concepts, talk about obscure flavour text and quest descriptions and inspiration for that next big event will come to you eventually!

Be objective. This goes not only for OOC matters of contention, but lore and headcanon as well. There is nothing wrong with headcanon per se, as long as you remember that it should serve to make sense of the universe in a way that is believable and transformative for everyone involved, and not to facilitate your own convenience. Especially if you collaborate with other guilds and communities, a biased headcanon can quickly cause clashing standards, which may leave people confused at best, and bitter at worst if their own headcanon gravely contradicts yours.

Now I must honk shoo mimimi :zzz: for I am very tired eepy. I hope my 3AM ramblings help you manifest your vision though :slight_smile:

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To go into it from both a GM and RP perspective starting with numero uno;
#1

  • Consistency. Not in the way Kuwei explains it however. My form of consistency is to be around and always offer casual RP or social RP towards guild members to keep the community engaged.

  • Management of power levels;
    Where as you always want to be the hero or have your character feel powerful (if you choose either) then you should follow that power level to the enemy you plan to fight. For example, if you’re a powerful death knight you probably won’t feel powerful killing a common bandit or quilboar. The same applies for if you’re a common footsoldier you’re not exactly going to be able to compete against a dragon.

So you must always follow and keep a maintenance on power levels the people in your group and scale upwards this leads into another point;

  • Progression.
    I think it’s safe to assume most people when they join a group or guild want to do some good RP and they want to build out and expand their character’s story, power and general purpose within that group.
    From Recruit to Captain you want to offer progression in a guild and within a community.
    If a guild has no storyline or progression then you’re probably going to grow stagnant or bored of your character(s).

  • Flexibility;
    Flexibility is important to a guild because not everyone is in sync with your timezone, your lifestyle and your hours of work / job (Some may still be in school, college or the matter of fact unfortunately, unempolyed.)

Offering flexibility with your events, storylines and progressive community needs is something that someone should always have especially in a guild.
You cannot try and force people to meet your deadlines and timelines for events or just RP because, it’s unrealistic and you have no right to that.

So a good guild offers flexibility towards it’s members schedules and IRL.

For example, I’m a father and have another child on the way in a few weeks and with a 1 year old and new born? I can’t exactly be flexible enough to get around to doing things with the group because our timelines and schedules are so out of synch.
I also work late nights as well so, that harms a lot of my chances to RP and do RP with groups including my own or groups I would join.

This can also go for another group of people they are able to be around when you aren’t so you need to be flexible to match that up together and work it out.

  • Goals and objectives.
    As stated above really you want to always have a goal and objective within your guild and community. That can range from reaching some milestones like forming from party to a whole division. Chasing up storylines that are both personal and community expansive. (A good example could be the PCU’s cosmic crown of terror arcs where they have community led objectives but also, their own guild’s goals and personal stories).

  • Diversity
    A guild needs to be diverse you don’t want the same generic people following the same generic actions and interactions. It stagnates and delays a lot of things.

#2
Personally I think that a GM or their officer team needs to be active and around. They should ideally show some commitment to the group / guild with events and overarching storylines because, what else is a guild if it’s not doing any of that? It’s just a name without a brand which makes them just numbers for a GM to boast about whilst it’s members are mindlessly standing around waiting for something to happen.

“Look at all these people following me”
“What do you do?”
“Errr”

  • This will probably kill a lot of groups. So as a leader / officer you have some responsibility to provide something to the table such as events and casual RP that organizes and unifies the group together. That is not to say you should spoon feed daily to your group because that is basically just an unpaid job to yourself and you will find yourself burning out very quickly.

Try to find balance and offer something like weekend campaigns / events for the guild and through the week maybe one or two social nights. (Or in reverse if it fits you and the guild’s schedule)

The guild members joined the guild so they expect some offerings to RP and Content (Events) but also, need to offer some agency for themselves to find RP when you’re not around.

#3
Hardly important. Most people join an RP guild for RP not for content. Where as it’s fun to build bonds and friendships by doing OOC content like M+ / Raid / PVP it isn’t something that should be thought on or focused on. But, each group has their own ways of working.

#4
Be there for your guild, don’t be a dick and be patient.

Guilds take a lot of time to form and shape, if you’re planning on leading a guild you need to be patient and focus on the right people for you and your group. Your objectives, your goals and the likes.

If you’re a new GM try to get feedback on your members on what they would like to do.

It’s all fine making a guild through registering it with some signatures. But a guild is not made by it’s leader, it’s by the people in it and the community you surround yourself with.

A good comparison is; A leader is nothing without their people just as the people are nothing without a leader. - This is what should apply to a guild.

As well as just general friendliness and the willing to try new things and objectives.

Being a guild leader is a lot of work but when it works out it is one of the most satisfying and high pay offs you could ever do. Finding a community, finding a group of friends, it’s what Roleplay is all about. If you RP alone you’re not RP’ing you’re just AFK or trudging along.

Another point I will add on is that it’s okay to make mistakes most of us have made some mistakes in their guilds, communities and their choices. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, you will learn and grow from them. The guild you go on to make will be a long and hard path but it is a great one when you dedicate enough to it.

We’re only human at the end of the day so don’t be afraid if it’s too much to handle sometimes or you feel pressured. Take a step back and explain your situation.

To any and all guild leaders out there, you’ve got this. :saluting_face:

I may add more at a later date but I think these are some solid points for both leading and what I look out for in guilds.

(Edit to fix typos)

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I prefer a few things in the guilds I join (or decide to run). A solid uniform & a concept; that can feasibly travel anywhere/do anything, this in my opinion assures the guilds longevity and stops roleplay from becoming stale. As well as how the guild operates in events & the systems it uses.

Generally expect a few events per week, with at least ‘something’ going on daily. (Even if this is socialising as a guild, instead of roleplaying.) Though obviously we’re all human, people have schedules and that should be respected.

Very important, as well as doing other activities, especially if the guild intends to be around for a while. Such as playing other games, using voice chats, party-games, etc etc … aslong as that’s not impeding roleplay & it’s joy.

Start with a group/core/friends for the best chance of success.

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Could you elaborate?

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My formatting isn’t great because I don’t use forums as much as I would like but I did indeed elaborate;

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I just wasn’t sure how this applies to the guild, and what exactly you meant by this anyways.

I mean, you might. In fact, I’m guessing a lot of death knights might delight in tormenting the weak. Point being; what do you mean when you say you’re looking for management of power levels in a guild?

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I do apologise in this case I’ll try to break it down.

Management of power levels in a guild can range a bit more than the brief section I gave to it;

  • If you’re common mercenaries you probably want to match up more against common enemies (Quilboar, Gnolls, Bandits, etc)

Which means you may want to steer clear from someone who is a hero-level RP’er / class such as a Death Knight, Demon Hunter, Dracthyr Evoker.
This is because realistically they can just 1 shot everything and the whole guild is kinda like :person_shrugging: ok.

  • If you’re going against more fantasy enemies; Dragons (Living / Undead) , Titan-like creatures, sea monsters, Liches and the sort. You’re probably wanting more folk that fit that narrative like your Demon Hunters, Death Knights and Evokers.

You need to have a balance on your power levels to what your guild aims to go for because you want it to be enjoyable and a struggle. Winning with ease and no struggle can get boring. (This might be just me though not someone like yourself or others.)

So keeping that balance is essential to me so that my group or the group I’m in can have a more fun time.

There can be times where your classes can merge or come with one another to fight a super monster or to fight armies of all these quilboars, kodos and what not but it should be a more climactic end to a Campaign for example.

If you’re fighting a high fantasy monster of some sort are you going to want Farmer Joe in your group to hunt it down? Probably not because Farmer Joe is probably going to get crushed considering he barely has any experience in battle and isn’t trained for this kind of fight.

Are you going to want Farmer Joe to help you fight against some bandits? He probably makes more sense to be able to swing his pitchfork, hoe or rake against these bandits and be of use to the group and learn.

Which falls into progression which Farmer Joe can go from being Farmer Joe to Ranger Joe or Sergeant Joe.

It’s about maintaining the power level.

I hope that was a bit more concise and easier to understand (it’s now 3:30 am, I’m really tired! Bless)

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Theme that fits my characters and events that are fitting both in terms of theme (if you´re for example dwarven guild, focusing your main storyline on some struggle between Kirin Tor and blue dragon won´t fit, however if you´re just a group of adventurers battling evil, it´s perfectly fine) and OOC event style. Especially the second should be communicated, for example, I like use of NPCs and as little rolling as possible, while someone else wants almost a DnD system. Both are fine, but aren´t compatible with each other, so guild should be clear about what it wants to do in this regard.
Also, collaboration with other guilds.

This depends entirely on its size. Guild with 5 members and only 1 officer (the GM) realistically can´t afford to do planned things every day, while one that has 20 members and 4 officers should be able to have something going on daily.
However, even in guilds that can´t do daily content, I expect having the ability to RP daily if I wish to, which means, if a guild can´t provide that by itself, it should organize things in a way that doesn´t get characters stuck in the middle of nowhere. Basically, end an event at a point where you´re either in a hub or have easy means to get there.
Exception to this rule are campaigns, for example if you travel to Winterspring for 4 days long storyline, but need to have one day off in the middle, it´s absolutely fine to not think about “how do I allow folks to visit Stormwind?”.

It´s good when there´s an option to do that, but I don´t think it´s necessary and definitely shouldn´t be something you feel forced to do. Being an officer is difficult enough by itself, even without some added requirement to (on top of doing events, recruiting, organizing stuff with other guilds and moderating the guild) think of creating some OOC events.

Advertise, advertise, advertise. People need to actually know about your guild to apply into it, and nobody is going to spread the word for you.

Also, don´t compromise on things important to you. If you make a guild with uniform and someone is trying to pull your nose by saying how important their mog is to them, don´t make an exception for them. If you say “I´m only accepting X, Y and Z race”, don´t let the all concepts inclusion crusaders bully you into accepting something you don´t want into the guild. You´re putting in most of the work, therefore your vision is the most important.

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Personally, I prefer having a consistent theme or concept for a guild. On top of that I think a friendly community is actually quite important. Since these are people I will be RPing with often I want to actually like… be comfortable around and with said people and be able to talk to them like they’re mates.

I don’t particularly “expect” anything personally, I won’t get discontent if one week has only a couple events when last week had a lot more, that kinda thing.

Depends on what you mean by content. Current stuff like raiding and M+? Not really. But if content also involves doing mog/mount/trinket runs of old raids for members I think that’s a part of the whole friendly environment thing I said.

I am absolutely under-qualified to answer this. Just don’t be a bad person? I guess?

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I think an important thing that rookie GMs often underestimate the importance of is commitment to the core concept. I’ve seen no small amount of fledgling RP guilds alienate their early joiners and subsequently die out by straying too far from the actual basis that got them to join in the first place.

Doing something different every now and then is a nice change of pace. Doing it too often will just make people feel like they’re on the wrong track entirely, particularly if there is a failure by the GM to actually indicate this change to guild’s course.

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This is all very interesting and useful info, thank you to everyone who’s posted above!

I did briefly run a small RP guild back at the beginning of SL, with a strong core concept and twice weekly events. What lead to the downfall of that guild was that some members seemed to be expecting the guild to provide them with daily RP, and one or two of the above posts has referenced this also. This brings me to another question:
5. How (as a GM) as you supposed to have a life and play the game yourself outside of GMing if thats whats expected of you? (I understand for some who work part-time or don’t work theres abundant free-time for planning RP and playing for yourself, but I personally work fulltime and can’t even log on every weeknight).

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My main suggestion is to find (or to look for) a group of officers which can support you.

Running a guild on your own is a massive task, and without help it can easily become overwhelming: just think that you will have to manage the members expectations, create content on a regular basis, encourage random role-play, monitor the guild’s discord, and keep up the spirits of the guild.

And this is the work that everyone can see - behind, there is everything else: event planning, managing problems OOC and IC (hey you’ve just logged on from a day of work and a random person whispers you: a player in your guild insulted another guy, now it’s your problem!) and so on.

I personally led a guild for almost one year like this, trying to host an event per week and stuff. When I realized that after basically 10 months there was no one that would help me, and I was completely drained, I freezed the guild because I did not want to keep going like that forever.

My suggestion is: I know you’re organizing the Barrens’ RP evenings. Try to look out for friends there that would help you run the concept - ideally, not just join, but help.

Also, be very clear about the expectations of those that join the guild. How many events you plan to have? What kind of RP should one expect? And an important one: what they should not expect! Do place boundaries, too. “I’m not going to provide RP 24h/24h” is an important boundary to place. :+1:

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Key is to do what you were doing and actually provide just the amount of events you can handle and then put the guild into place where, if the members want, they can take part in hub RP (this can be done through stuff like guild having Stormwind as main base, or setting up portal between the city and your base and so on).

Zaphius also hit the nail on the hand with the officer tip. I´ve seen many guilds die just because there was nobody to officer them when the GM burned out (and to prevent GM from burning out by doing events themselves). While it´s fine to just one man it at the beginning, it can become draining quickly, especially as the guild grows.

I´d also add “I´m not going to change event times” to this too. It´s good to be flexible to a point (do event on Thursday rather than Wednesday when you get 1 person signing up for Wednesday and 4 for Thursday), but you can´t center your life around RP and move events 2 hours earlier or later because some of your players don´t want to be there between 8 and 10.

People without officer and DM experience sometimes don´t realize the amount of work that goes into these things and that RP for officers and DMs isn´t just some chill time every evening, it contains a lot of effort and stress.
It´s why I always find it funny when there´s some member rebellion against the officers, they leave to make their own guild and it crumbles to dust in a month because, surprise surprise, now they actually have to put in some work.

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Our guild has a simple solution: Everyone can make events, not just the GM. With four officers doing around one event per week and everyone doing events from time to time, we have five to six events a week without anyone burning out. Our guild lead normally does the big events where something for the whole guild may change, but everyone can host what they prefer. Noone is forced to, my events are quite rare for example. But it is also a great way for everyone in the guild to make events that center around their own toons. Needless to say, you can also develop your char if you don’t host your own events.

What might work as well is making roleplay on one fixed day regularly. I am in another guild who does roleplay once a week, every monday. It is mainly for people who have family and a bunch of reallife, so they have this one day a week they can take the time and play WoW. Story moves slower, but if you only have one day a week, you wanna make it count.

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Nice informal survey there! I hope I can help with another perspective.

  1. Small and with a strong RP idea behind the foundation.
  2. Once a week was fine for me. Because I prefer small guilds, many of the players in guilds I’ve joined often joined with their alts.
  3. It’s extremely helpful. Not quite necessary, but doing PvE content together is a good way to build trust and prove reliability.
  4. I tend to join guilds seasonally and temporarily for specific RP arcs, so I may not be the best person to advise.
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Roleplay within the theme of the guild, if they have a specific theme. IC connections and development for my character, which usually goes hand-in-hand with RPing within theme of the guild. Nowadays there are many guilds with cool concepts, but their RP only seems to connect with their theme during events, and they forget about who they are as soon as they slip into casual. It might be just me, but it becomes immersion-killing over time.

Depends on the type and structure of the guild. If the guild is active and there is a tight-knit core, I’d expect to RP with them more often, than in a guild which functions more like a loose community. But even in loose community, there are few factors which should be taken into account; does the community provide character development or is it -just- a place for people with similar concepts to connect, nothing more. Community guilds are usually where my expectations are lowest, but then it’s unlikely for me to be too active there either.
It also affects however if my involved character is one I play actively, or one of my more casual RP characters. With mains, I don’t like being at a standstill for too long, even though people having RL and commitments outside RP is fair.

Not important. It can be fun to do content with your guildmates, I have found it relaxing to be on voice and bantering while doing m+ with a guildmate or two for example, but it isn’t a necessity. If I want to do content, I can find it in communities dedicated to content, or guilds where my content alts are in.

I may not be in place to give proper advice but as others above mentioned already, bring a GM of RP guild is stressful task. Not only because you’ll have to “keep people entertained” sort of and actively keep planning RP, but also handling recruiting and conflict between members - it always happens when people mingle, sooner or later. There I won’t be repeating which has already been said but going to second on this:

From personal point of view however, practise open communication and if you host events or casual RP, keep it predictable so that people can participate instead of feeling like they’ve been left in the dark about when RP is happening. Some people may be more spontaneous or chill about it, but if you have people who are invested and want to participate, just to miss out on lack of info, it’s bound to cause frustration.

And treat your members fairly, even if you had personal preferences for whom you want to interact with more. People are social creatures and naturally some mesh better than others, but it can still be off-putting if GM or officer starts highly preferring to RP with select few people in the guild and push certain others aside, ie. as if they don’t even want to get to know your character before they’re being treated as “not important”. Try to let everyone have their turn to shine in events for example. With great power comes equal responsibility, so they say.

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You just find the balance naturally I think. Atleast, I did.

We can apply the factor of when we all used to be able to come home from school, log on and play. But, now that’s a lot different and you’re working all sorts of hours, different days you’re not in that school routine of Mon - Fri 8am-4pm.

A good way to draw comparison is to what I posted earlier and that is the players have their own agency to find and do RP without you. Some days you just can’t and won’t be around and you can communicate that through Discord or the Guild itself.

A good idea as well is to find an Officer. Though, do not recruit someone purely for an Officer basis nor should you give it out to someone who is just there. An Officer should be someone who is around a lot and is giving you ideas for the group, etc. You can make them an Officer in place of your absence due to your IRL needs. :slight_smile:

GM’ing can become like a unpaid second job and you need to be ready for that if you’re planning to lead a guild. Many people seem to forget the people behind the Guild brands and the things they do to try and make it work for everyone around them it’s a thankless job very much like DM’ing and planning campaigns.

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A thematic and concept that is clearly defined, preferably with a system that I think I would have fun with - and most importantly, a concept which the character I intend to roleplay fits in.

When it comes to events, I expect at least one a week, preferably somewhere between 2 and 4; but 1 is just fine as well. It mostly depends on the roleplay ethos of the guild, I think. For me, a week with three planned events in a guild with people that only log in for planned events might feel ‘emptier’ than a week with one event in a guild with people that log in quite often outside of events.

I don’t think it is necessary, but I do think that it is something that inevitably comes on its own without planning, unless we are talking about something like Raids or Rated PvP. I vastly prefer doing content with friends I roleplay with.

Run something that you like and you are comfortable with. That includes thematic, rolling systems (or a lack thereof), and guild membership size.

You are not going to get a trophy for juggling your brain into exhaustion by DMing for 20 people at the same time when you have more fun with less than half that number, all while selling off half the core concept of your guild so you could recruit half of those numbers, all while forcing yourself to use a rolling system you don’t enjoy whatsoever.

Some DMs are comfortable running a five members strong guild that uses NPCs for their events, some other DMs are more comfortable running a twenty-five members strong guild that uses a D20 system for their events.

Find what you find fun, and run that.

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