Not sure if my experience will help you but I throw up what worked for me. I run the stories in the Night Blades FC and they are very large affairs. We call each arc a "season" and they usually last about 4-6 months depending with about 4-5 months downtime in between. Usually any story has about 20ish people involved.
~ A team is important. While I'm the head, I actually have a team of volunteers who help me guide and run the story. They don't have any actual power with in the FC, they really want to make sure the story stays cohesive and someone is always on to answer questions and relay to me what's been moved ahead plot wise. On top of that, they can be your hype man for you. Make sure you get people you trust here, because if one person drops out it can really eff up everything.
~ Hype is kind of important. I personally don't like a lot of hype, because I think it creates too much expectation that's hard for a team of volunteers to really live up to, but I do see the usefulness in a little hype. For us, it's usually what we like to call "The Waiver". The Waiver is a thread on the forum that says "If you want to be a part of this storyline, you must agree to the Waiver because your character may be hurt. Sign here." This actually creates it's own buzz. "Oh a dangerous storyline?" "What's this about?"
~ Villains are really really important. Not henchman or randos, but actual villains with names and their own motivations. I actually noticed no one really cared in the story the FC was telling until the Villains started invading their space and forcing them to react. Then they wanted to jump in. Honestly, 90% of my GMing life is deciding what the villains are going to do, what their next move will be, what their backstory is, who their going to attack, etc etc. Get that team you trust to roll some villains and make sure you guys actually play them. People like seeing tangible conflict, if you just say there's some seedy person off screen they are less likely to care then if they SEE them.
~ Start small. The very first guild story had a total of 5 people interested. 5. And at the time we had around 25 people. We did it anyway and the small group had such a blast they then kept talking about how great it was in our downtime, which made like 15 people interested in the next one, then 30, then 40 (That got a little hard to handle). Make a great story for whatever audience you have and more will follow when they realize what they missed. There's probably 3 or 4 people in your FC who are interested in bigger, darker plots right now - make a story for them! Once they start talking about how cool it is or how interesting a certain villain is, or how they need to figure out something, it will pique other players interest.
~ Being a leader suuuccckkss. This one is something your going to have to get used to if you plan on continuing this route. It's... really hard to actually get RPers to move because they like their comfort zone and A LOT of them don't want any uncontrolled conflict because they're too afraid of what might happen to their characters (It doesn't matter how many times we say "A GM is not allowed to kill your character without your permission" we STILL get 10-15 "You were going to kill my character without my permission!" complaints per story). You have to earn a lot of trust with the playerbase, because people are very protective of their characters. Just keep attempting and don't get discouraged. Keep saying you won't permanently kill or maim characters, that it's all in good fun, and show them that it is. Eventually, the ones who are willing to engage and have fun will make themselves known.
Honestly, I could go one for pages and pages about being a GM in FFXIV. Since I've been doing it for 3 years I have... a lot of experience for better or for worse.
~ A team is important. While I'm the head, I actually have a team of volunteers who help me guide and run the story. They don't have any actual power with in the FC, they really want to make sure the story stays cohesive and someone is always on to answer questions and relay to me what's been moved ahead plot wise. On top of that, they can be your hype man for you. Make sure you get people you trust here, because if one person drops out it can really eff up everything.
~ Hype is kind of important. I personally don't like a lot of hype, because I think it creates too much expectation that's hard for a team of volunteers to really live up to, but I do see the usefulness in a little hype. For us, it's usually what we like to call "The Waiver". The Waiver is a thread on the forum that says "If you want to be a part of this storyline, you must agree to the Waiver because your character may be hurt. Sign here." This actually creates it's own buzz. "Oh a dangerous storyline?" "What's this about?"
~ Villains are really really important. Not henchman or randos, but actual villains with names and their own motivations. I actually noticed no one really cared in the story the FC was telling until the Villains started invading their space and forcing them to react. Then they wanted to jump in. Honestly, 90% of my GMing life is deciding what the villains are going to do, what their next move will be, what their backstory is, who their going to attack, etc etc. Get that team you trust to roll some villains and make sure you guys actually play them. People like seeing tangible conflict, if you just say there's some seedy person off screen they are less likely to care then if they SEE them.
~ Start small. The very first guild story had a total of 5 people interested. 5. And at the time we had around 25 people. We did it anyway and the small group had such a blast they then kept talking about how great it was in our downtime, which made like 15 people interested in the next one, then 30, then 40 (That got a little hard to handle). Make a great story for whatever audience you have and more will follow when they realize what they missed. There's probably 3 or 4 people in your FC who are interested in bigger, darker plots right now - make a story for them! Once they start talking about how cool it is or how interesting a certain villain is, or how they need to figure out something, it will pique other players interest.
~ Being a leader suuuccckkss. This one is something your going to have to get used to if you plan on continuing this route. It's... really hard to actually get RPers to move because they like their comfort zone and A LOT of them don't want any uncontrolled conflict because they're too afraid of what might happen to their characters (It doesn't matter how many times we say "A GM is not allowed to kill your character without your permission" we STILL get 10-15 "You were going to kill my character without my permission!" complaints per story). You have to earn a lot of trust with the playerbase, because people are very protective of their characters. Just keep attempting and don't get discouraged. Keep saying you won't permanently kill or maim characters, that it's all in good fun, and show them that it is. Eventually, the ones who are willing to engage and have fun will make themselves known.
Honestly, I could go one for pages and pages about being a GM in FFXIV. Since I've been doing it for 3 years I have... a lot of experience for better or for worse.
![[Image: tumblr_n92fndN0EH1rujdn8o1_500.gif]](https://33.media.tumblr.com/449e130ac31106ec8aeda3d0f121d76b/tumblr_n92fndN0EH1rujdn8o1_500.gif)
