Liv from the Ardent Circle here!
Our guild is doing pretty great. Vanforth, our lovely DM, ran a huge campaign about a Horde invasion in Stranglethorn (where our guild is ICly based) and took a break. We were pretty inactive for a while while other DMs worked on their stories, but we’ve just started running them again! I have to thank Van again for helping me with my own story.
I think part of the reason we were inactive for a while was the inevitable school down period, and it seems to happen each year. Many of our members are in college (or work as teachers), and academics can be pretty demanding. But! Summer is back, and it feels great.
I have pretty particular taste when looking for a prospective guild. Maturity is a huge one, for sure. Everyone deserves to be able to have fun and goof off, but sometimes people take it a bit too far and can’t be serious. It can ruin the immersion, so I tend to avoid that kind of guild. People with a great sense of humor who can also stay in character when they need to are the people who I get along with the best. I like simple combat systems, and well-written, immersive events that give our characters new experiences and challenges.
I look for stories that are complex, with a detailed plot and a mystery to solve, or ones that present moral/ethical dilemmas for the characters to work past - stories that those characters can truly grow from. It makes things immersive for me when there’s more to a story than ‘oh no there are bad guys, let’s beat them up’!
Our guild approaches events similar to how a D&D game is played, but without the complex stats/bonuses. Most encounters are narrative-driven, but we often introduce simple rolls in combat and mystery-solving (ex: Roll /10! 1-3 injured, 4-6 struggle, 7-9 kill one, 10 kill two). The roll parameters are purposefully vague so that characters can be creative with what happens to them; you roll, then you post, then you wait for the DM to make a post.
I love this guild a lot. I have such a specific taste that it’s difficult to find RP guilds I feel at home with, but this is one of the rare gems. <3