Guild Mechanics

This will be my first post here so I want to make it quality. Here it goes.

There are a fair share of heavily experienced guild members/leaders out there, and this discussion is aimed at you guys. I decided I wanted to relive my successful guild days from WoW in SW:TOR, so I created a guild.

Most guild seem to have a standard pyramid scheme of: Guildmaster, Officers, Veterans, Members. I thought I would try and break the cycle by introducing the rotating leadership mechanic like that of the Jedi Council. A few members of this council hold longer terms but most hold short terms and none can server a term twice in a row. This allows for a rotation of fresh ideas and new leadership and I don't see any downfall to this system.

My question is: Has anyone ever had any experience in a guild with abnormal leading policies and how did it affect the guild? I want to refine the mechanic so that the guild can function without me.

I was Co-GM of a guild in WoW. The way it worked was that I lead raids and the GM handled guild related stuff. Unfortunately what happened was that since most of the GM's work was conflict resolution and telling people to behave she came to be viewed as the "bad guy" while I was viewed as the "good guy". Next thing we know there's a group trying to talk me into leading a coup... A fairly rapid shift in leadership might work (monthly or bi-monthly I think) such that nobody would have to wait long if someone they had a personality conflict with was leader.

The only pitfall I see would be if you give everyone a shot at leadership. As several have mentioned in your thread on the official forums ninjas and trolls will see this as an opportunity and behave however they must to get into the leadership position so they can do their damage. Further, even a rotating leadership has to be selective. You don't want someone, however well intentioned, who has no leadership skills being given run-of-the-guild.

My recommendation for what you're suggesting would be to form a cadre of leaders who rotate through the position. Another guild I know of functioned well enough that its GMs would simply step down when they burnt out and promote someone they trusted and who was willing to the position of GM. Having a regular rotation may prevent that burnout.

I'll cross-post onto the official forums to see if it will generate more serious discussion.

We've toyed with this idea in the past. Never really had any strict rules set for it as people stepped down on their own to avoid burnouts, while new people would step up during those times.

In terms of guild leaders it's a bit diffirent, our system requires a certain type of a character because GM's power is not really bound by rules. So what's been the defining factor between me and the four other who took up the chair over the years? Love for the guild and the community and agreement over the foundation where the guild stood upon. Now where all of the GMs shared these they were all diffirent personalities which was visible in their lead. But I'd say that was always a good thing. The lenght of the leadership has pretty much been as long as they feel like they want to keep doing it. Funnily enough I did notice that the leadership was always offered to the predecessors when they'd return from their break. Although they never took up the post as they saw that the successor was doing a mighty fine job. I'll ask for someone who never was a GM to post their opinion on this.

Now in terms of officers we're run by a Council who strives for democratic decicion making. Again not overly limited by rules. Then we have another level of officers who'd do most of the daily stuff while the council is more like the devils in the background. I would have to say that a person with a fresh supply of good ideas will usually never find themselves without the Council at their back asking if they'd want to do more xD

No major decicions are ever made without allowing the members to participate. Usually when the Council agrees on something they'd post it for the members to vote. And the members have the possibility of voting for changes in the leadership although we've never seen this hapen.

The term based officership has been a rather natural one to us but we're still discussing how we wan't to go with it this time. It's hugely dependant to our numbers so I could say that we try to evolve our system to mold it whenever we see a way to make it better.

The design would allow the guild to function even if the GM is afk and is built with that in mind.

Now our way works wonders but it's very people dependant. That is why our application screening is rather tough even though we'd consider ourselves to be casual and friendly to newcomers, which we are ofc. But we just want to make sure we get no bad apples

Aldemarran wrote:

I was Co-GM of a guild in WoW.

...

I'll cross-post onto the official forums to see if it will generate more serious discussion.

I've actually already thought of this. The way it works is there is a large pool of people who volunteer for the rotation and they are simple authorized by either the existing council or, in the case of the first council, the GM. Just whip up some sort of 'evaluation' such as general knowledge of their class, length of time spent in the guild, dedication to the guild, ect. ect. It would just be so easy to quell any unrest with this system because leadership doesn't belong to 'legacy players' who wind up getting spots in raids and hold officer titles even though they only log on once a month. I've seen multiple guilds fall apart for that very reason.

I won't hesitate to say it, this guild is meant to house many of the best players on whatever server is decided on. This is being set up for long term raiding/progression. I plan on having no less than 200 geared and experienced guild members no less than one year after release. I did it in WoW and I was 16; I'm doing it again but with a different basket.

*EDIT* That sounded way more defensive that I was expecting.

Never had issues with officers being afk tbh, cause if they did go afk they were just replaced. Gosh that sounded harsh

Personally I've always liked big guilds IF they manage to be drama-free and have mature people.

IMO leadership always belongs to the people who are most suitable and I'd never agree with officers getting priority on raid spots over normal members.

I've no great guild leadership experience but in relating this to my RL experiences I'd have to say you might run into some issues, mainly a lack of a centralized focus and direction to take the guild in. Each person or group would have their own way of doing things and going about achieving goals, even if the goals were predetermined. Take America for example. In recent elections power has shifted to a different party and now with an opposing party president this session of congress was considered to be a "lame duck". The goals of each party are essentially the same but neither one wants to concede to using the others ideas and plans to get there. In a guild where decisions need to be made quickly I think you would still need a solid leader or core group of leaders to be successful.

Quote :

In a guild where decisions need to be made quickly I think you would still need a solid leader or core group of leaders to be successful.

*cough* The Council? Sure democratic discussion is preferred but when a decicion needs to be made quickly the council has the power. And I don't think politics apply that much tbh, at least not as they do iRL.

I don't see a second administration of a guild not using the first ones ideas to make stuff better. Not using them would be foolish.

AndrianMendel wrote:

I won't hesitate to say it, this guild is meant to house many of the best players on whatever server is decided on. This is being set up for long term raiding/progression. I plan on having no less than 200 geared and experienced guild members no less than one year after release. I did it in WoW and I was 16; I'm doing it again but with a different basket.

*EDIT* That sounded way more defensive that I was expecting.

Only thing I have to say to this, is you may not need that big of a number really for members, since the group sizes are smaller, at least I'd think you could work with less. I get what you're trying to achieve however.

I've been the GM of the oldest Horde guild on my server in WoW, and I've been it's GM for over 5 years now. It started off as kind of an oligarchy, then developed into somewhat of a dictatorship with just me having admin rights. Originally did that to prevent guild bank and other things from being hacked, before the authenticators hit. We were also very stringent in screening players, I never once had a ninja in my guild, nor did we ever really have anything like drama which is why we've been around so long. Even though I held absolute guild power, never really did anything without discussing it with the guild, and I'd like to say I was utterly blessed with the best people you could ask for to game with, because their ability to talk to each other and work things out was amazing.

I very nearly didn't have to do anything, we all came to agreement easily and everyone always had ideas. I think I got lucky, and honestly, I'm incredibly thankful for it. I'm trying to continue that in TOR, my WoW guild was somewhat small, but we had incredible fun while still being fantastic players (I and my buddy who started the guild, were the top two pvpers before BC hit. I've got a screen shot to prove it,) and still maintained a lot of fun.

I'm not sure this system could really work for every guild, as we weren't a hardcore progression guild, and your council system might be a good way of going about what you're trying to achieve (especially with the demon of burnout,) but I'd have to agree, to keep the pool of people smaller then just everyone in the guild.

I'd say I'm big on quality over quantity though, we usually went long periods between actually getting members....but they all stayed and have been with the guild since they joined and haven't ever gone anywhere else. Even spent different birthdays out of state visiting them for the first time, different members through the years.

Honestly, I'm not sure quite what works. Every single guild I've seen on my server, and on my brother's, has pulled itself apart at one point or another. We're the only one that has endured, though I've seen some other really long running ones, and they've all used different leadership styles. I'd say it's more about attitude and quality of players in the guild then actual structure (though, structure def helps.) If you're going to go with a Council, I'd still have a goal/vision for the guild that they can strive for, and would require a lot of working to change that at all, so you don't get pulled in 50 different directions.

And to anyone in Serenity reading this, I don't plan on being Mr. Dictator in TOR, lol. I'ma have me some officers, I'm too busy in RL to do what I used to in other guilds, and my WoW people kind of refused power...none of them WANTED to be officers.

Hope this helps a bit.

All have been very good tips on how to run a revolving leadership.

I've never done this intentionally, but I have been in guilds (at all levels of power) who have changed leaders multiple times.

I would say the easiest, and most fair, way to run this type of guild would be this:

1. Have short terms

2. Hold elections for who each new leader would be, but be sure that every member of the guild knows that the new GM is only temporary. This will reduce rage quits when someone they don't like wins. (Sounds a bit like the U.S. but I won't go into politics here. This is the wrong forum for that.)

3. Have any and all officers be automatic candidates. You know they are trusted members who would (hopefully) manage the guild in a way everyone will enjoy.

4. Allow for write-in candidates.

5. Optional: Keep the original GM in full power so the newly elected GMs do not have /gkick abilities. This could lead to disaster. Make the revolving door be in title only and not have full authority over everything.

My 2 cents

I only really have experience from wow, been in my guild since I started to play in 2006. We have had a guild "leader" but he hasn’t lead anything. We are more a social gathering for fun, if someone wants lead a raid they do that if same for pvp, dailies, levelling alts and dungeons. Due to the nature of the guild and the ppl in it there’s a lot of varying activity and some ppl have breaks now and then. But we never remove anyone from the guild and when someone loggs in after 6 moths of no playing everyone is dam happy to see them. We let ppl play on there own terms always, after al the game is about fun and not work. I prefer this to a strict leadership or even the need of a leadership. I don’t see the need for a leadership in guilds tbh, but if there is a focus on something specific thing say pve raiding then there is a need for some structure (read below) but that is not the same as a guild leadership.

When I was raiding I was in a Raid Group with a Raid group leader who sorted the administration behind the scene stuff and ha had a council of leaders who rotated on dkp duty and raid leading. I really liked this system and the structure was very good. Now the Raid Group Leader mostly led the council and did not lead raids he was the one trying to keep ppl happy listening to complains and al that. He and the council keep good track of attendance, attendance behaviour (what day players were attending) and general performance. This system was good because it was hard to direct anger at any specific leader, sure some of them annoyed me more then others but they did not have any absolute power and was not in charge every raid so I could always live with it.

The structure was:

Group Leader
Tank leader
Tank council member
DPS leader
Dps council members
Healing Leader
Healing council members

So the leading group was always around 7-9 ppl can’t remember exactly, these ppl rotated on the officer duties so we normal members did not really see the difference between a leader and a council member. When someone in this group wanted to step down or had to quit a new Leader would be chosen/swapped from the council. And the leader group (including council) choose/asked from the member base ppl that would like to get in the council if there was a spot free (was always those that had been in the group for a looong time that got asked).

This group was successfully raiding from MC to some were in middle of heroic ICC with this system. What broke the group was in my opinion Wrath with its focus on getting gear fast together with no need for gating like BC had so players could move around between groups much easier. This together with the introduction of 10man were parts of the group would make a closed “10 man elite” group and this did not sit well with a lot of members

But bottom line is in my opinion to not confuse guild structure with activity leading. The one with the power to kick should always fight for the mebers and tell the activity leaders to work with "problem" members to help inprowe them and if its a totaly hopless couse then maybe a kick can be voted forth or put the "problem" member on a retrial. If the activity leader is the same as the one with the power to kick you have nowere to turn as a member if you are unhappy with something