Dealing with Drama

A lot of guilds advertise in their recruiting announcements that they are "drama free." That's a load of bullshit from a manure salesman. Let's face it, what we're talking about here is a group of people, and anytime you get such a diverse range of people together in one place there will be the occasional dispute or outright argument.


And as Guild Leader you are often the person placed in the middle of the dispute and asked to take sides.

There are steps you can take to prevent much of the drama and provide guidelines for what you can do when drama rears it's ugly head.

Lay down the rules.

Whatever kind of guild it is you're trying to run there will need to be some ground rules. Unless of course you're going for complete anarchy, in which case why are you running a guild? Keep in mind the kind of guild you want to run and then make rules for the guild that fit that mold. But remember the cardinal rule when doing anything, K.I.S.S., or Keep it simple stupid.

Things you might want to consider rules for:

• Looting rules - this clearly lays out what you expect to see happen whenever major loot drops, the kind of stuff that people fight over. 
• Guild donations - if the guild needs any resources you might consider making them mandatory donations, or donations of in-game currency as dues for remaining in the guild. 
• Recruiting - laying down rules about what kind of player can be recruited, age, level, access to guild VOIP, etc. narrows your focus to exactly the kind of guild you're looking to run, and goes a long way toward making sure new recruits fit in.

Set an Appropriate Reaction

Eventually someone will violate one of your guild rules. To establish your lead you must be prepared to handle the infraction with appropriate action, whatever you feel that to be. I would refrain from using the /gkick hammer over smaller, less meaningful infractions, however.

Punishments you might consider:

• Demotion - appropriate for officers or other ranked members. 
• Deny access to guild resources/runs. Great for ninja looters. "So you accidentally rolled on that huh? Well that's fine, but you get no more runs this week."
• Guild Kick. Reserve this for more severe, or continuous infractions. Some rules may require this as an automatic punishment. 

Don't Hesitate

This is really the simplest thing you can do. If there are clear rules prohibiting some behavior, and the member has agreed to those rules, then take the appropriate course of action ASAP. If it happened while you were logged then make it your first priority when you log in.

Make no exceptions. If you treat one person a certain way over a rule then treat another a different way, you're playing favorites and are likely to lose members or lose whatever authority you may have had. Make sure that every member, officer or not, is subject to the same rules.

A side benefit to the guild knowing that certain actions will not be tolerated at all is that if there is a member that would violate them they'll usually remove themselves for a guild they are more suited for. Eliminating you from having to do it.

Kicking someone from the guild is the ultimate course to take, and it may have repercussions if the player was popular within the guild. Stand fast, the guild may not like it much, but they'll respect you for having the balls to do the right thing.

Get Everyone on The Same Page

However you choose to do it, get everyone on the same page. If your guild has a forum make a thread that clearly lays out the rules, and have every member /sign it. Otherwise make sure through some kind of intake policy that every member is aware of the rules and agrees to them.

Follow these guidelines and you'll eliminate much of the drama you'll run across in  guild. Not all drama is predictable, but if you act decisively about it you'll go a long way.

The Accidental Guild leader

I was browsing around www.theromwiki.com when I came across a link to this blog about leading a guild. So I read a bit of it, and mostly came to the conclusion that writer was mostly writing a guide about WoW guilds and how to run them effectively. And I thought to myself, "I like to write, I'm a guild leader, and I think I can contribute something to the discourse in a meaningful way."

So now you're reading my blog about being an accidental guild leader instead of one my insipid rants. Don't you feel lucky?

First up on my to do list: Background.

I wasn't always the GL of Theblacktower, the guild I run on the Runes of Magic Artemis server. I in fact joined it after a couple months of playing RoM sporadically. My first toon, a r/s named Dyoji, was actually a member of another guild that didn't talk or anything before joining up with TBT. Algren, my main character now, wasn't even conceived yet.

Anyhow, there I was in this great guild of people, making friends and generally just having a good time. My wife had finally joined up after I bugged her relentlessly, and we had each created new toons to play together with. After one particular run we were approached by the guild leader at the time, and he asked us to accept officer positions. We did, and I've tied my fate to the fate of the guild ever since.

It wasn't long after that that a dramatic turn of events resulted in my holding the title of "guild leader".

The Situation
So you've found yourself the leader of a guild, all the officers have left and you're stuck holding the bag. Well, all is not lost my friend. There is hope for your little band. But you have to ask yourself some questions first.
1) Do I really want to be the guild leader?
The answer to this question can only be supplied by you. Being the guild leader has it's share of perks, but it also has it's downsides.
The perks include:
* Your the Head Guy in Charge now. Your word is final and as absolute as you want it to be.
* There's now a whole guild that looks to you for answers, input, and leadership.
The Downsides include:
* Success or failure of the guild lays on your head now.

Other considerations for contemplating this question are:  Do you believe in the guild? Can you see the potential there for the guild to flourish and grow? How willing is the rest of the guild to follow your lead?

My answer: Yes. I felt a particularly strong attachment to the guild that I had joined, and a responsibility toward it since I was an officer there. I didn't want to let my guildmates down, so I accepted the offer of the former lead to take over leadership of the guild.

First things first: Establish your lead.
This isn't really all that hard, just organize the guild into a structure you're comfortable with. If that structure is already there you might just roll with that for awhile until the guild just naturally evolves into something else. In my case, other than my wife, all the other officers of the guild had left. They were all family of the GL and had left to form their own guild, and he decided to go with them. Family drama kicks the snot out of guild drama, believe me.
So what did I do? I searched around me for people that were loyal to the guild and whom I could trust to help me operate it. Who did I consult with? Who was showing real leadership within the guild? Those are the people I approached about being my officers. I made them officers, I gave them authority, and more importantly, I listened to them.

I can't stress that enough. Whatever your personal feelings for the guild you need to be able to adapt to the evolving needs of the guild. And without feedback from the guild you're never going to make it. My officers provided me with a range of viewpoints and experience, and I listened. The only time I shut down any of their ideas was when I felt it would be a detriment to the guild as a whole or went against the guild's theme and mentality.

So then I had myself as head, officers one tier below me that I trusted, and then the rest of the guild.

It was a good start.

Politics, same as it ever was

I don't think that politics have changed much really, even in the past 20 odd years when so many advancements in communication and sharing of information have come to be. We all still believe we are right and will adamantly argue the point with anyone who disagrees. Sometimes coming to blows, most often turning to the tried and true method of labeling, undermining, and discrediting. Seems as long as our political opponent appears wrong, we appear right by comparison. It doesn't occur to anyone that they could both be wrong.

Take for instance when President Bush was in power. How many times have we heard the phrase that he "lied" to bring us to war with Iraq and Afghanistan? Really? Ok, why? And if he was lying, why in the world would a Democratically led Congress agree with him? Including one Barack Obama? If they didn't agree, they sure as hell went against their conscious when they declared war in Iraq. In truth, we finished the job that should have been done 10 years prior and removed a tyrant from power. And Saddam DID have WMD, he'd even gone so far as to USE them. His regime was even actively trying to block UN inspections teams. Rather shady behavior from someone who wasn't hiding anything. The sheer amount of animosity directed at Bush was just insane. Most of it I'd wager were due to the fact that he just disagreed with those who attempted to label him.

The best example I can think of to illustrate how divisive the arguments are was just after Bush was elected the first time. Half of the voting populace voted for Bush. Get it? Otherwise he would not have been elected. Granted he lost the popular vote (not by much as I recall,and I'm far too lazy at the moment to check) but he did win the electoral college vote. Argue as you may the viability of such a system, it IS the system we have in place and thus Bush was the duly elected President of these United States. And what happened immediately after he was elected? Everyone who voted for him was called an idiot, or ignorant, Bible-thumping morons. There were even cries that he had stolen the election, or his brother gave it to him.

And now Barrack Obama is President, and the pendulum has swung back the other way politically, but not the divisiveness. He's been accused of everything from being a Muslim (which is a derogatory phrase how???) to faking his Birth Certificate. What do I think of Obama as President? Not much, but then I'd rather have ANYONE other than a politician in such a powerful office. It's not that I don't trust him specifically, I just don't trust anyone who's job description includes trying to make everyone happy, especially those in their own party.

As far as political mindedness goes I'm pretty conservative. I support less taxation, less government intrusion and such. Other times I'm pretty liberal, for instance I agree that gays should be allowed to marry. Which is pretty much where I believe most of us are. Which in my eyes is the problem. We either elect a conservative, or a liberal, and only half of the population is served well. And the other half raises hell and pulls out their tinfoil hats. Maybe next time we can find someone who actually represents us and not some political ideal? HMM?

Freaking stupid people

Going to the Movies Essay

Outside the main entrance to the mall was a large canopy, high up. Broken, aged concrete lined the building. Straddling the doors were two square bases, where statues once stood. They made a great playground for two rambunctious boys; platforms for adventure. Faded, peeling green paint along the base, trees growing on top. They added to the air of disarray and neglect shared by the whole building.
Pushing aside the glass doors we would enter a vast foyer. The ceiling seemed to reach for the heights, belying the impression from outside. The hall was vacant, void of life. The only sound was the swish of the doors closing behind us, the echo of our voices and footsteps. The tile floor reflected a ghostly image of me staring up at me. He seemed just as excited as I was, and as alone.
Ahead of us, like the bow of a ship rising out of the waves, was a water fountain. It was oblong shaped, the walls on the lengthwise sections starting low then raising until reaching its apex at the points on the end. Cylinders with sprayers on the ends rose out of the water at differing heights. The water itself glistened under the lights, reflections of discarded change along the bottom. Directly above us was a mirror image of the fountain hanging down from the ceiling. There was always a haunting feeling around the fountain, of something perhaps forgotten.
The fountain sat in the middle of a T-intersection of the halls. To the left, the hall seemed to go on forever. Lining its edges were vacant storefronts, remnants from a more profitable past. Dingy, yellow colored glass lined a couple of storefronts. Others stores were barred by rusty chain drop gates. One, once a pet store, featured a fish tank built into the floor that customers would cross upon entering. It too was empty, inhabited only by creatures of our imaginations.
To the right of the fountain, along another hall, were usually the only other signs of life. Sometimes it was a couple heading for the same destination. Other times there was a line already formed at the door. Ignoring the urge to run and skip became even more difficult, even more so than when faced with the statue bases or the water fountain. Here the excitement of our intended visit only grew. Above the glass front in stark black and white were always two choices, the same as the number of screens the theater itself had. To the right the line terminated at a small desk, where a clerk would take our mother’s money and issue us our tickets.
Inside was semi-dark, the foyer illumination barely maintained by the lights overhead. The brightest lights were behind the candy counter, where the smell of butter and the dry roast of popcorn came from. The pattern on the worn and tattered floor would beckon me forward toward the next rooms. There was the soft murmur of conversation, the bleeps and bloops of the arcade machines set apparently at random through the room. Mom would buy us our popcorn and sodas and, snacks in tow, lead us toward our destination.
Rounding a corner on either end of the foyer was a short hallway, punctuated by a set of double doors at the end of it. Sometimes if we were running late to the show there would be the sounds of advertisements and previews drifting through the space in the middle where the doors didn’t quite meet. Walking through those doors led into the theater itself, a slanted room filled on either side of the aisle with row upon row of folding seats for the patrons and dominated at one end by a large, rectangular screen. Along the lengths of the sides of the room were floor to ceiling curtains, and it always occurred to my young mind to wonder if anyone would bother hiding behind a set of them.
The room sloped downward, the aisle being the only thing still carpeted, though the carpet was torn in places and sticky in others. The concrete floor where the seats were was not in any better shape, old gum and soda spills inhabited that space. The seats themselves when folded down might reveal a jagged tear or some loose bits of popcorn from a previous show. I did not much care about the shape of the building or the contents, after a few moments of waiting that seemed interminable the projector I could make out in that little square of light above and behind would start spooling up; the lights would dim; and I would be transported to a world far away from abandoned malls and dirty carpets. I loved that place.

In Memoriam?

I don't understand the recent fad of putting "In Memory of.." stickers or decals on cars and car windows.

So your attempt at honoring a loved one is plastering their name all over your P.O.S. car? How much is that memory going to be worth when you decide it's time to buy a new vehicle and sell that one? How honored to you really think that person is to be remembered in that way, with an entirely temporary device?

This follows in line with all the roadside memorials you see where someone had an accident and lost their life. Yes, the loss of life is terrible, but do you really want to remember where someone died? Or the fact of their death?

For me personally I'd rather remember how someone lived, and treasure the memories that I have shared with that person. A marker on the side of the road, or a cheesy sticker on a windshield, would simply cheapen those memories and remind me more of how they died, rather then how they lived.

You want to remember me? Then remember me dammit! Don't insult me with some temporary decal that's going to be scraped off later, or a marker of where I died. How I die is of little importance to me, how I choose to live makes all the difference.

Hotel Etiquette

Some people seriously just don't know how to act at all, or they believe for some reason that they are special and don't have to be polite.It's just very aggravating, so I thought I might come up with a list of rules on how to act in a hotel, but I'm fairly sure these can be applied to most places that deal with the public.

1) Respect is a two-way street. Coming at the clerk with an attitude is only going to get that attitude reflected back at you. Yes, we understand there is a problem with the room, give us a chance to correct the problem before you decide that we did it to you on purpose. Most hotel clerks don't get paid much, so their patience in dealing with people that think they're rock stars is pretty thin.

2) Unless you are paying for a 4 star hotel, don't expect 4 star services. Seriously, the level of service is defined by how much YOU pay, not how much you think you deserve. Got in on a coupon rate, don't expect the hotel staff to be bending over backward. We'll help you, just don't go making ridiculous demands of our time or patience. Also understand that most hotels don't keep a full staff on hand 24 hrs a day, the clerk you think should come handle your problem RIGHT NOW could very likely be the only person working, and it's likely that they might have other issues to deal with, be patient.

3) Free services are just that, free. If you're not getting them why in the world would you expect a discount? YOU'RE NOT PAYING FOR THE DAMN THING IN THE FIRST PLACE! Also, if there is something you just absolutely have to have, make sure the hotel provides it before checking in. Waiting until you've already taken a shower, etc, to call down to the desk is not doing you any favors. And chances are you'll be stuck with paying for the room at that point regardless.

4) When you've made a reservation, double check it to make sure it's what you want and review the cancellation policy. If you book a room then see a lower priced on on your way to that hotel you may be out of luck if their cancellation policy doesn't allow for same day cancellation.

5) When negotiating room rate, DO try to bring up any discounts before agreeing to the rate and getting the clerk started on booking you. I've had plenty of people, after I've gotten them into the system and they're good to go, suddenly remember their AAA or other discount. Also keep in mind that the clerk might actually be giving you a better discount than what you might have gotten online or otherwise.

6) HAVE YOUR I.D. READY. And make sure it's valid, and matches the credit card you intend to pay with, if that's your chosen method of payment. We have to have the information off the ID to book you into a room, and for credit cards we HAVE to make sure it's yours. Trying to use someone else's credit card isn't going to get you into the room. Most hotels REQUIRE prior authorization for it, and no a voice on a phone is not proof enough. Stop getting mad about it, we are protecting your sorry ass. You really should be thankful that we do check IDs, because I'll bet you'd be pretty angry if someone stole it and we didn't.

7) Towels in the room are NOT for washing your vehicle. Period.

8) If you can't afford the pet charge, leave the little critter at home. I don't care if it only weighs five pounds, I still have to charge you for it. And don't lie about it, if I catch you it's only going to make me less inclined to be nice.

Seriously, I don't care what your deal is, if you're nice to me I'm much more likely to be nice to you.