Let's Talk RP Guilds

Wyrmrest Accord
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Hello, WrA! I’m back with more annoying questions.

How’s your guild doing? How have they approached BfA’s story? Have things slowed down, sped up, crashed, burned, rose from the ashes? To what do they owe their success? What do you blame for their failures?

Further, what do you look for in a prospective guild, and what do you avoid? What is your ideal RP guild? What themes and concepts do you want a prospective guild to explore?

For officers and guild leaders, how does your guild approach events? Do you prefer running /roll-based or narrative-driven encounters? Or neither?

Tell me all about your RP guilds, WrA.

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Shameless plug for Firebrand Enterprises incoming.

I was a more casual player and RP’er for the longest, so I stayed out of most “heavy roleplay” guilds because I never considered myself reliable enough to participate on a regular basis. I’d also heard about the OOC ego-tripping, rumor-mongering, and backstabbing that can occur in various RP circles, which kind of put me off getting too involved. So in the end, I’d just join one of the massive guilds on the server for the guild perks. Maybe attend a meeting every other month or so, but otherwise do my own thing.

That changed a little over a year ago when I made this character (Tamanii) and started getting more into RP. Since I also decided to become super dedicated to staying IC and get more involved in the community this time, I treated her choice of a guild like a job search- Tam’s main concern being a good paycheck. She only joined Firebrand Enterprises at first because of the generous pay. V was the first time anyone took her ridiculous salary request seriously. And if Tam’s getting paid, then dammit, Tam’s going to make sure she’s worth it.

In the year or so since, we’ve gone from a dozen to over fifty active players, and we’re still growing. Tam has gone IC from being an irresponsible walking advertisement to a slightly less irresponsible publicist/recruiter and discovered she’s actually a more capable than she once thought. It’s been a fun journey.

We haven’t encountered any particularly bad/prolonged internal conflicts or mass exoduses since the guild’s started. I chalk a good chunk of this up to V and Ashagar’s tough but fair management. Officers are held to a very high standard of integrity and there’s nobody in the guild that’s too important to not be demoted/removed if they don’t adhere to it. If there’s an issue, she’ll come to you in private OOC to address it and won’t hold things against you if you disagree.

I think this helps IC as well, since running the guild like a company means that it’s the well being of the company that matters most. If an employee isn’t working out… Well, it was nice working with you, and we’ll put in a letter of recommendation.

I also think our guild is unique in that its mercantile focus allows it to accommodate a wide variety of character concepts- so long as there’s SOME way for their skills to be monetized or otherwise serve the company. Your character won’t be expected to adhere to a religious code or follow orders like a soldier. Your character doesn’t have to be an unscrupulous profit-minded charlatan. You don’t have to be a goblin. We have all kinds of characters, which allows us to run all kinds of events and tell all kinds of stories. Some are /roll 20. Others are entirely narrative. It’s mostly at the whims of whoever’s running the event. Since our focus is so broad, we aren’t so necesarilly tied to the advances of the gae’s overarching plot, although we do acknolwedge them and take them into account during RP. War or no war, end of the world or not, business has to continue.

Guild member engagement is another big reason I think we’ve been successful. Guild Events are not under the strict control of the officers. Any member can host an event and post it in the Guild Calendar or on Discord. Does your character want to host a hunt? Run a stall at a market? Conduct a seance? Do they need someone to provide them with a particular product or service? Post it and interested parties will show up.

Making sure players know each other and are comfortable RP’ing with each other is also very important. We have Security (combat and adventure oriented), Research (magic/engineering/lore oriented), and Commerce (merchant/services/social oriented) branches that conduct monthly meetings. Employees in attendance explain what they’re up to, what story lines they’re pursuing, and we try to pair people up who have similar interests. Once a month, we have a big meeting for everyone.

Each department is headed by a manager and their assistants, who are tasked with facilitating this networking and helping players advance their individual storylines. If we see you’ve just sitting around and not doing anything, we’ll try to pull you in or assist with any hurdles you might be facing.

Also, at the end of these meetings, we have “coffee dates”. Employees are randomly paired up with one another and tasked with going out and spending time learning about their coworkers. This gives shyer players/characters an excuse to interact, lets you associate with people you otherwise wouldn’t have any reason to talk to, and helps prevent the formation of guild cliques due to people only being unfamiliar around their IC/OOC friends. It’s honestly one of the coolest RP hooks I’ve ever seen implemented.

And that doesn’t even cover the OOC stuff we do inside and outside the game. Mog runs, Mythics, Tabletop games, streaming movie nights, partygames on 3rd party sites, drawings for character art. So on and so forth.

Long post, I know, but I can’t say enough good things about my guild! It’s exceeded all my expectations and I’m glad for all the cool people I’ve had a chance to meet. I haven’t enjoyed WoW, let alone RP in WoW this much in a good while.

Then again, I am the company publicist. I get paid to say stuff like this.

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I hope they pay you well :slight_smile:

Great sounding stuff here.

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Oh, I do. And I gotta tell ya, gold or no gold, Tamani’s one of the best players I’ve ever had the honor to write with, hands down.

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Pretty good, thanks for asking. Wish we had more ranged, though.

BfA has put the Caravan in the deliciously awkward position of having to support people that they deeply distrust. Alliance military command basically treats Chosen like dirt and then bullies them into compliance, which has arguably lead to at least one death of our own; the only reason Ursuola hasn’t told them to go screw is because the Horde has crossed the Godzilla Threshold.

At least one of our members is also privately conflicted between raiding and the War Campaign; since the raids we go into every week are basically just - we think - Groundhog Day loops, we don’t actually get to fight the Horde, just a repeating echo of the Horde. She debates just running off and fighting them full-time.

I realize that none of that makes sense if you don’t know the guild’s story, but trust me, it’s great.

I’m not exactly in a position to comment on this, since I haven’t needed to look for a guild since MoP, but I am in a position to say what I think people should look for in their guild:

  • Rules more substantial than “don’t be a wangrod.” It’s the laziest possible discipline policy and doesn’t actually tell a member what the guild leadership considers “being a wangrod” to be.
  • Nonposessive leadership. “Poaching” or “stealing members” doesn’t exist, and anyone who tells their members otherwise is trying to control them.
  • Some sort of regular event (whether that’s raiding, RP, social gatherings, etc) that encourage members to take initiative. Your characters should have and then get to pursue aspirations; a guild centered solely around the stories of its leadership is boring for everyone else.

First, I think that the best guilds are groups of friends who get together regularly to play lots of games, one of which is WoW. We regularly do stuff like movie night, Overwatch, D&D, Talisman, and so on, and I honestly believe that our RP is better for it.

As far as actual events go, however, they’re always narrative-driven and almost never combat-focused. What little combat we do have, though, is resolved through /duel if we’re getting out the weapons and through emotes if characters are having the equivalent of a slapfight.

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Oh, big agree. I’ve always found the idea of RP guild “poaching” absurd.

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Bit slow, most of us are college-aged and finals are coming up, with a few of our ‘veterans’ having unsubbed until some serious changes to the game occur. Been considering going on a recruitment drive.

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Heart of the Raven here! We’re doing pretty great! We’ve got a solid group of active members, a regular stream of new members, and plenty of new faces showing up to events.

IC our guild is not affiliated with a specific faction, which has made BfA very interesting but well controlled. Any character signing up with work with Heart of the Raven knows their neutral stance and keeps themselves in check. Everyone has their personal stories going, hitting the BfA story more than the main guild story, making it comfortable for everyone to develop at their own speed.

If I were to look for a guild on another character, I’d want one just as open and caring. I’ve got a hunter I really want to get more involved with military and political RP, so I’d like to find a guild with a very active discord for ooc communications and a well written info page dedicated to the IC structure of the guild. I want to see events that are not exclusive to the guild and are not simply /roll battles and D&D-esk campaigns. Meetings, galas, competitions, faires, for a small example.

I’m not an officer or guild leader in any guilds at the moment, but Heart of the Raven is completely centered around events. We host a weekly, neutral social gathering where we are the staff and entertainment open to the public to mingle and enjoy. There is a monthly, neutral dance club in collab with other guilds we bring up mostly for the social aspect as well. We’re open for catering other events, be them social to meetings, and we’re working with multiple other guilds for many different summer events. I’ve seen some guild events dedicated to encounters, but I’ve not been to any of them due to work so I don’t know how they were handled.

tl;dr - we’re social and active.

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My guild fell dormant after a series of events I should have oocly prevented. I’m planning a big come back with another character as the ic face of the guild and the primary leader taking a more back seat role. All failures are my own and I have learned from them.

As for how we approach events, I plan things out so we have a mix of narrative and rolls. I have been toying with some stat system ideas for fresh changes as well as considering going full emote and not rolling at all. My second in command has had some bad luck issues that are ruining his character for him as we’re looking to help prevent that from happening to anyone else.

We were a pure illidari guild but I brought my mage in because she is the widow of an illidari and now I’m opening it to all who icly seek purpose or a place to belong. It’s going to be nice when we get rolling again.

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I’m trying to find one at the moment. I enjoy ones that take jobs to help others out and enjoy ones that build comradery. I guess that means i enjoy mercenary or military guilds. RP and PvP would be important. Whether I can find one or not isn’t another story, but I’m just more starting the search as I level Autai.

I really would like a guild that explores the PTSD that soldiers/citizens that have experienced due to countless horrors most would be scarred by.

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This guild sounds great :heart:

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They all moved to another game with cat girls and now I have to deal with cat girls everywhere in a game I don’t even enjoy playing.

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Off-server necromancy?!

I’m getting close to bingo.

Also, my guild is fine, if I had one.

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What are you talking about even?

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I think he’s talking about :b:inal :b:antasy

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Yeah but who is “they”? And why is he being forced to play it? Does he need help?

Quick, blink your coordinates!

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Send help. I mistakenly picked up catnip on my way home. They’re breaking the doors down. I don’t want to be here anymore.

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This is the first guild I have ever made, and this is my first time back on WoW in a year.

I represent the < Stormwind Clergy >. As far as we are doing, OOCly we are up and down, as most guilds are, but I think we are doing well. We are doing more recruitment, and seeking to expand, but we are in a semi-comfortable spot.

Our guild has approached the story of BfA from the perspective of stay-at-home priests, so to speak. We share probably a similar perspective as civilians; we don’t really know the costs or the details of every battle or war. Hell, Fortea hasn’t even met a Naaru or left the Eastern Kingdoms before. Because the guild lore is meant to have the Clergy fairly local; they are a section of the Church who operates out of the Cathedral of Light to serve the civilian sector (as opposed to soldiers at the front) as an address to the Kaldorei Refugee Crisis.

So far things are slow as, once again, BfA’s story will have little impact on us unless Stormwind or nearby provinces are attacked. Otherwise, most events are centered around community events and flavor RP to help bring people together. We have prayers, sermons, pilgrimages, processions, and various other little events for Stormwind, especially for those interested in Light RP.

We occasionally have a guild storyline that lasts several weeks. Mostly involving ghosts, relics, and other mysteries in various nearby provinces.

As a guild we prefer roll-based encounters, but I like having a system where people are more advantageous for certain actions like in D&D. However, I also enjoy the randomness and the potential failure of someone to achieve an action. Mostly avoids issues with one another accusing of not being able to take a hit for their character.

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WRA’s Hounds here. Blizz for some reason still thinks I’m in Stormwolves despite leaving them.

To be honest it’s a bit slow trying to get things back up and running, not a lot of players these days.

We have only really used a few parts of the story for our guilds story. Such as participating in the siege of Undercity because it was so close to where we normally RP. Also using a couple of the mission table quests to help drive our own guild story. Like how the Forsaken have taken Shadowfang Keep which was our guilds headquaters.

A bit of everything, things really slowed down with the holiday’s soon after BFA launched and we suffered a devastating loss to the guild that kept us from becoming active for a while. Now we are slowing working our way back.

Wouldn’t really call them success since we’re still regrowing but I think we still exist because of some dedicated members and a few of the officers willing to try new routes and RP styles.

The officers inabilities to come up with, and attend the constant steam of events which is what really burnt us out, myself included. We had to much going on every week and it just wore people out.

Personally I look for something that sounds good, I always want to learn about a guild before I join them get a idea for them and what they do.

Guild’s who just don’t fit my likes or RP style. Some things I’m just not into which other people are. Mass recruitment advertisements like Mature Content and Brotherhood of the Horse. No offense but the constant whispers and messages just get annoying.

Ideally it would be a medium sized guild, mostly with friends but also welcoming of new people, having fun events like battles or hanging out maybe even a couple parties. Having a story line I can feel invested in or maybe working with others on their stories.

A mix of both main guild stories and some character stories, fighting and relaxing. Having positions and people who can fight and those who can plow the land or heal that don’t take up a weapon. There are a lot of things that could be explored, but hard when sometimes they don’t fit the guilds bill.

The GM likes doing roll battles since their kinda easy for them to keep track off, roll a D20, the number is either the damage you deal or the damage your take. He gave me our WRA guild to oversee and run and even allowed me to run events my own way which I’ve started using DiceMaster and most the officers for WRA Hounds has taken a liking to it, since it makes their attacks feel more then just a D20 roll and a emote. It makes them feel like this is what my character actually does with the passives or traits or even my badass ultimate.

Part of this could be based on the previous sentence but some of our events area mixture of both, especially in my events. I normally have a rough idea lined out before hand and make players roll for perception checks or to see if they actually discover the ambush in time. Right now we have/had a couple story lines going on at the same time one of them I am looking at expanding and continuing.

I loved reading about everyone posts and their awesome sounding guilds. Hope mine wasn’t as bad as it seems.