I was wondering - what’s your opinion about racial guilds?
Personally, I do love them. I tend to join almost-exclusively this type of guild.
I love seeing people from the same race (can be any) doing almost pretty much anything together.
I also love when a racial guild tries to cover up PvE content. I knew a bunch of goblins from Moon Guard that raided a mythic + one time. :’)
I love the races of Azeroth, but my favorite ones are humans (Alliance) and goblins (Horde). When they band together and only with people from their kind I like to watch and even participate in their events.
Lastly, I would only join a multi-racial guild if is some kind of pirate crew or something like mercenaries. Which is a plot that I don’t get too much involved.
I enjoy racial guilds because they are places where one can explore the kinds of plots that heavily or exclusively concern a single race. I feel about the same in regards to class guilds, despite those being far less frequent.
Guilds dedicated to particular race and their lore allow people to focus on that in a way that other guilds often don’t. You get to portray interactions and situations within that race and potential clashes specific to them.
Frankly I kind of wish there were more around. In my personal experience they seem to have declined in popularity over the years. To an extent I can understand why, as the race-central theme tends to feel exclusionary to folks. Overall I still very much think they have their place in the roleplaying community, as much as any other commonly entertained theme.
That was exactly what I was looking for, but I couldn’t put it in words.
I believe that your guild is Panda-only, right?
What kind of plot do you guys run, usually? Pandas are somewhat rare, according to WoW Census. It’s great to see folks like you around.
Jadepaw has been relatively inactive for a while now; for much of this expansion cycle. There’s still some folks around but as far as I know we haven’t done much as a group in a while. BfA seems to have hit a lot of the guilds I’m part of like that actually, but I digress. I admit in this case I’ve hardly been any help as I often jump between multiple characters and don’t spend much time on this one in game.
There are other Pandaren guilds around as well, such Horde’s Kui Zhang Society and Steelpaw Shaodin and the omni-faction Pandaren Empire. I can say that, while Steelpaw was similarly comatose throughout this expansion, we’ve had surges in activity here and there; including some networking with the aforementioned others, the likes of which I’m admittedly a bit too unfocused to be privy to most of the time.
As Yonara alluded to, the expansion has taken a toll on a lot of people and guilds, race specific guilds often take that hit first as they’re already pulling from a limited pool. Imagine how many Forsaken fans just quit and what happened to Forsaken guilds, especially without a allied race to bolster them back up?
I like them or else I wouldn’t be running one. However, I do think some archetypal ones are overdone (Looking at you Orc clans and Blood Elf aristocracies).
Redwood being a tuaren guild lets us do more tauren stuff, like graze uninterrupted. We take on a different outlook and can present that to the wider community who don’t really have the people or interest to dive as deep a we do into aspects or certain areas.
A challenge, of course, is class restrictions and recruiting pools. The way we’ve tackled that is to allow a “representative” role IC that has a hard or percentage based cap, whatever is hit first. This allows us to take in the warlocks, mages, rogues, demon hunters, that we’d need for raids or BGs while also keeping to our established RP and what we want out of the guild. These are mages who maybe want to learn how Runemasters work, or a Forsaken who wants to do more nature study, an Orc just tired of Orcish life and finds a stronger cultural connection with Tauren.
On Classic, we took a similar approach but opened up membership to Kalimdor as a whole as class restrictions are even more extreme and tauren got the short end of the stick, while also only really excluding Forsaken but have still allowed 1 or 2. This keeps with the RP we’d like to see, primarily tauren with orcish and trollish characteristics.
Allied races also help a lot and I think any racial guild that doesn’t include them down is doomed to fail. Imagine being a tauren guild without Highmountain or an orc guild without Maghar, especially when people have RP’d these things for a decade or more now. Dwarves might get away with it, and Blood Elves, but why handicap yourself further like that?
I commited the worlds cringiest thing and joined a " worgen only " guild.
The guild was uwu as heck but unbearably stupid in Role play scenarios. Was one of the worse ways to enter into the role playing world.
I enjoy racial guilds because the first RP guild I joined was super racist. I get that it’s just an act but it was really confusing and negative. I was super young and naive so I didn’t understand at first but then I just left. I know not everyone is like that but being a night elf druid makes people think I like to ERP in bear form. I’m shaming anyone but that’s just not me.
Sadly there is a right and a wrong way to do it. The first one I joined, it was definitely the wrong way, but after a few, I was determined to do it the right way. Mine has been working since 2016 because we strive for the “Werewolf” theme, and I’m of proud my members for not falling into the negative stereotype.
I do enjoy racial guilds, mostly because you get to explore aspects of that race’s culture in so much more detail, and you all have common goals and lore to collaborate on. For worgen especially, the canon lore has founded a culture of packs and hunting even among Gilnean worgen, which can only really be explored with a group of worgen. Other races could get bitten in the chaos, and are a liability.
I’m the exact opposite. I like having a mix of different races all mixed together and seeing how characters from wildly different backgrounds interact. That and the last couple times I tried to join single race guilds, they ended up being like 75% erp.
Honestly I think the practice is needlessly exclusive and hobbles guilds mechanically. Unless the game decides to allow for any race/class combination you’re just shooting yourself in the knee. It’ll be an uphill battle to do any sort of end game content competitively, and guilds that don’t have racist recuriting polices will effortlessly lap you.
What I did instead with TDC was make it very Forsaken themed, but kept the door open for any sort to conceivably join. It looks visually coherent RP wise as instead of race, I focus on uniforms. You have to have a black or purple outfit with the tabard presented. Need not wear it always but will have to at guild events, and also have a spooky mount - purple skeletal warhorse is the easiest one to get in a pinch.
This allows for the aesthetic and thematic coherence I think a lot of racially exclusive guilds aim for without sacrificing anything.
In addition to the undead vibes I also packed in a democratic revolutionary angle, which has more broad appeal.
By doing that I’ve comfortably fit in NBorne diplomats, Belf Blood Knights, Troll Witch Doctors, Goblin businessmen, and many more into the guild’s story without it feeling like a tonal shift.
Suffice to say I think a cultural theme, Forsaken in my case, is superior to racial exclusivity. With transmogs you can make it clear everybody’s on the same team. And, in the undead’s case at least, all breathers have spooky, scary skeletons inside them. So, why not let them in?
I’m shaming anyone but that’s just not me.