09-22-2010, 08:09 PM
09-22-2010, 08:28 PM
09-22-2010, 10:35 PM
09-22-2010, 11:05 PM
09-22-2010, 11:09 PM
09-23-2010, 01:05 AM
I ran one of the longest running large RP supergroups on City of Heroes and have seen many guilds/SGs/what have you rise and fall over the years. I don't see why an LS would be any different to run than any other in-game social organization. Machiavellian as it may seem, my secret formula to success mirrors that of successful community rep organizations and social LARPs, and goes like this:
1. Make the rules and expectations clear and available to everyone. I attribute the success of my SG, as well as other guilds/large social groups I've observed in other games, to this rule. Write a charter that clearly defines the expectations for both players and the leadership, then stick to it. I don't necessarily think you need to get as detailed as mine was -- what with it including consent rules for IC actions and guidelines on story design -- but you also have to consider that the larger the group is, the greater the sources of friction and the greater the probability that people will have different ideas of what acceptable RP is. By laying out the rules, you make it easy for people to decide whether the group is a good fit for them, and you also make rule #2 a lot easier to enforce as there's no wiggle room.
2. Enforce the rules with a light touch except where OOC jerks are concerned, then destroy them utterly. It's pretty easy to figure out who in the group is a prick OOCly, even if they're awesome RPers. At least one RPer I had to remove from my SG was a very talented RPer, but she was poison OOC -- abusive, manipulative, and generally destructive. You do not want drama in your group, even if its source is a great RPer. I've seen far too many great groups get torn apart by drama queens. Identify them, wait for them to violate a charter rule (which they'll inevitably do), then remove them with extreme prejudice. You may get some backlash, but see rule 8 and realize that the group will be stronger for it.
On the other hand, it's also easy to identify players who make honest mistakes. Don't sweat these, but do firmly apply increasing punishments while simultaneously offering the player assistance with storyline planning and consent issues if they talk to you before they do something wrong. Live by the classic adage, "Once is coincidence, twice is happenstance, three times is enemy activity," but also remember that players like to live by "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission."
3. Make the group you want to play in. I've seen several groups implode because their leadership decides they don't like the theme. I've also seen groups explode because their theme is too broad and eventually the group gets too large and has no focus. Pick your players carefully (IC interviews with apps seem to work well) and ensure you would want to play in the group even if you weren't leading it. This also means you should stick to your guns and not broaden your theme just because the group isn't large enough. Recruit heavily, but wisely. The players you want will eventually come to you.
4. Get some damned good officers. I can't stress this enough. You cannot be everywhere at once. You must have officers to act as your eyes and ears. Many times, players won't come to you with issues because they don't want to seem whiny or because they're afraid of what might happen. Officers give players a layer of indirection that makes them feel more comfortable. Officers also act as either your trusted council of advisors or -- in the case of the SG I ran -- the rest of the ruling council, so they need to be interested, involved, and not drama generators (see rule 2). I personally like to keep one or two voices who have differing opinions on group governance in the council to help avoid groupthink.
5. Let RP evolve naturally from IC interactions, and resist the urge to create epic group-wide storylines. Big storylines are very, very hard to run, and you usually don't have time to deal with them. If you must have them, let your officers run them. Also, scripted storylines tend to produce cliques in a group, intentionally or otherwise. They also tend to squelch character development at the cost of people showing off. I'm not saying they can't be fun or useful, but they need to fairly open in their execution and shouldn't clobber the members' RP.
6. Offer at least an illusion of control and influence to the members. Like I said, this list is fairly Machiavellian.
You don't want your players to feel like they don't have any control over decisions. Conversely, you generally don't want them to have any control over major decisions, especially disciplinary ones. The trick is to let players decide on things that directly affect them but that don't really affect the governance of the group. Elected officers are a no, but the design of the crest or the group's colors would be a yes.
7. Separate OOC and IC responsibility. Characters that make good leaders are not necessarily played by players who are good leaders. Likewise, players who are good leaders don't always make characters who can, or will, lead. The solution is to separate the OOC leadership from the IC leadership. If your theme involves cutthroat jockeying for IC power in the group, this also means that your leadership doesn't need any OOC protection to keep the good leader players from being booted out by good leader characters. As an added bonus for all groups, this also reduces complaints of bias, as it's hard to say that the OOC officer who plays a meek Conjurer is making OOC decisions to benefit his own character.
And finally, 8. Don't worry about what your members think about you and your officers. Every decision you make will invariably piss someone off. If you run your group to please the players, you'll be pulled in multiple conflicting directions and will either make bad decisions or no decisions at all. You'll also open yourself up to accusations of bias when a decision benefits only part of the player base -- the ones you like and that like you. If you do what's best for the group as a whole, you may lose some players to unpopular decisions, but most will stay as the group will be stronger for the choices made. Stick to your guns and your principles, and your best players will stick with you.
As I said, it's all a bit Machiavellian, but it's worked in my experience. Even if you think player management is manipulative (and I'll concede it is, but I'll also challenge that it's a necessity for any group that gets sufficiently large), I would still recommend 1, 2, and 7 to any group. Drama kills. Not knowing what's expected causes drama. Having IC leaders run the group OOC causes drama. Having poison players causes drama. Anything you can do to reduce drama is wise -- and that includes following the whole formula here while making it known that you do and being a nice, fun, easy-going, gregarious person OOC (which you should be anyway to run a group successfully, I'd say ).
1. Make the rules and expectations clear and available to everyone. I attribute the success of my SG, as well as other guilds/large social groups I've observed in other games, to this rule. Write a charter that clearly defines the expectations for both players and the leadership, then stick to it. I don't necessarily think you need to get as detailed as mine was -- what with it including consent rules for IC actions and guidelines on story design -- but you also have to consider that the larger the group is, the greater the sources of friction and the greater the probability that people will have different ideas of what acceptable RP is. By laying out the rules, you make it easy for people to decide whether the group is a good fit for them, and you also make rule #2 a lot easier to enforce as there's no wiggle room.
2. Enforce the rules with a light touch except where OOC jerks are concerned, then destroy them utterly. It's pretty easy to figure out who in the group is a prick OOCly, even if they're awesome RPers. At least one RPer I had to remove from my SG was a very talented RPer, but she was poison OOC -- abusive, manipulative, and generally destructive. You do not want drama in your group, even if its source is a great RPer. I've seen far too many great groups get torn apart by drama queens. Identify them, wait for them to violate a charter rule (which they'll inevitably do), then remove them with extreme prejudice. You may get some backlash, but see rule 8 and realize that the group will be stronger for it.
On the other hand, it's also easy to identify players who make honest mistakes. Don't sweat these, but do firmly apply increasing punishments while simultaneously offering the player assistance with storyline planning and consent issues if they talk to you before they do something wrong. Live by the classic adage, "Once is coincidence, twice is happenstance, three times is enemy activity," but also remember that players like to live by "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission."
3. Make the group you want to play in. I've seen several groups implode because their leadership decides they don't like the theme. I've also seen groups explode because their theme is too broad and eventually the group gets too large and has no focus. Pick your players carefully (IC interviews with apps seem to work well) and ensure you would want to play in the group even if you weren't leading it. This also means you should stick to your guns and not broaden your theme just because the group isn't large enough. Recruit heavily, but wisely. The players you want will eventually come to you.
4. Get some damned good officers. I can't stress this enough. You cannot be everywhere at once. You must have officers to act as your eyes and ears. Many times, players won't come to you with issues because they don't want to seem whiny or because they're afraid of what might happen. Officers give players a layer of indirection that makes them feel more comfortable. Officers also act as either your trusted council of advisors or -- in the case of the SG I ran -- the rest of the ruling council, so they need to be interested, involved, and not drama generators (see rule 2). I personally like to keep one or two voices who have differing opinions on group governance in the council to help avoid groupthink.
5. Let RP evolve naturally from IC interactions, and resist the urge to create epic group-wide storylines. Big storylines are very, very hard to run, and you usually don't have time to deal with them. If you must have them, let your officers run them. Also, scripted storylines tend to produce cliques in a group, intentionally or otherwise. They also tend to squelch character development at the cost of people showing off. I'm not saying they can't be fun or useful, but they need to fairly open in their execution and shouldn't clobber the members' RP.
6. Offer at least an illusion of control and influence to the members. Like I said, this list is fairly Machiavellian.
You don't want your players to feel like they don't have any control over decisions. Conversely, you generally don't want them to have any control over major decisions, especially disciplinary ones. The trick is to let players decide on things that directly affect them but that don't really affect the governance of the group. Elected officers are a no, but the design of the crest or the group's colors would be a yes.7. Separate OOC and IC responsibility. Characters that make good leaders are not necessarily played by players who are good leaders. Likewise, players who are good leaders don't always make characters who can, or will, lead. The solution is to separate the OOC leadership from the IC leadership. If your theme involves cutthroat jockeying for IC power in the group, this also means that your leadership doesn't need any OOC protection to keep the good leader players from being booted out by good leader characters. As an added bonus for all groups, this also reduces complaints of bias, as it's hard to say that the OOC officer who plays a meek Conjurer is making OOC decisions to benefit his own character.
And finally, 8. Don't worry about what your members think about you and your officers. Every decision you make will invariably piss someone off. If you run your group to please the players, you'll be pulled in multiple conflicting directions and will either make bad decisions or no decisions at all. You'll also open yourself up to accusations of bias when a decision benefits only part of the player base -- the ones you like and that like you. If you do what's best for the group as a whole, you may lose some players to unpopular decisions, but most will stay as the group will be stronger for the choices made. Stick to your guns and your principles, and your best players will stick with you.
As I said, it's all a bit Machiavellian, but it's worked in my experience. Even if you think player management is manipulative (and I'll concede it is, but I'll also challenge that it's a necessity for any group that gets sufficiently large), I would still recommend 1, 2, and 7 to any group. Drama kills. Not knowing what's expected causes drama. Having IC leaders run the group OOC causes drama. Having poison players causes drama. Anything you can do to reduce drama is wise -- and that includes following the whole formula here while making it known that you do and being a nice, fun, easy-going, gregarious person OOC (which you should be anyway to run a group successfully, I'd say
).09-25-2010, 11:59 AM
All makes sense.Not really qualified to talk about leading since all my guilds /LS's have crumbled.But the ones I've been in as a follower seem to do well.Mind you I've only RP'd for a year so I'm not up there and put very little faith in a 16-20 year old who says my RP is great and turns around at the slightest mistake and says the opposite 
.
I won't bother with an example 20 quid says most of you have been there
.I won't bother with an example 20 quid says most of you have been there
09-25-2010, 02:52 PM
09-25-2010, 09:39 PM