Looking for FC advice

[Thorbought]

Update: I've started to talk to people who never interact with us and people who generally seem not interested in rping with us and have given them an ultimatum to leave (with me refunding their rooms of course) or to actually try and rp with us.

 

Now I need to think of some way to have people stay out of the house more.

[Valence]

Refunding their rooms? That sounds... a bit too nice.

[Teadrinker]

I don't know if I'd refund either, honestly. I'd keep the gil for a possible redecoration/rebranding.

 

Also if you'd like to shoot me a PM about it, I don't mind if you'd want to come lamp at some scheduled/improvisational RP we have going around. It could give you some ideas about the -how- to run things since I notice that is usually the biggest roadblock most face.

[Zhavi]

Thank you for all the advice everyone. It's certainly give me a lot to mule over. I'll address some points below.

 

Officers

We actually did originally start with different branches as officers with medical, airships, field, etc etc. The problem is that it ran into problems with ooc and ic and the lack of definition for the officer role. Currently, we've just made a singular officer role for ooc purposes and the person can simply put 'head medic' in their tag for ic purposes rather than making a bunch of different officer roles. I'd like to ask, what do people usually ask for their officers? What would be too little to ask and what would be too much?

 

Besides creating established roles, maybe have one or two "official" things the officers do, but try custom tailoring roles to what the individual is good at. For example, if one person is good at creating rp and getting people to rp, bam, make them the RP director or whatever. If one person is good at scouting out people, recruitment. You don't even necessarily need to give them official titles -- just let them know what they're in charge of.

 

When I was an officer in a raiding guild that had around 20-25ish people in it, that was how they did it. When they brought me into the officer core, I asked what they'd expect me to do...and they told me 'just do what you're already doing, but in a more official capacity.' Same thing with most of the other officers -- they pulled in people who were going the extra mile, told us 'this is what we need' and we filled the roles. None of us had official titles; we were just officers. Our members knew who to go to for what, because it was essentially what we were already doing. And when one of us had to take a break for a move, or a baby, or a vacation, or an assignment in the middle east, we'd have a quick chat about who was taking what extra stuff on, and that was that.

 

Same thing when I was an officer in a rp guild on a mud way back when -- I never had established roles, but I coordinated a lot of rp oocly. That was what was expected from me: building rp plotlines, supporting ones our members/other officers started, answering any questions that arose and brainstorming when needed.

 

Likewise when I was a mod on a rp forum. We all had general roles, but I was the one people went to when they wanted to push this or that rp plotline -- because it was what I'd already been doing for a couple years. When I got mod status, all it meant was that I had more resources to do what I'd already been doing, and when people had complaints/concerns I could address and settle them or take it to the site admin more directly.

 

The above won't work for everybody, but there's no reason why you can't look outside of the box for what will best suit your needs. But what I've always seen work best is take a good hard look at the people you have -- the one who goes above and beyond? Try them out and see how they work. The ideal officer (imo) is the one who has already taken on some sort of responsibility for themselves without needing to be asked and without micromanaging others.

 

I've joked before that people who are officer material are the ones who don't want to go within 100 feet of the position, because they know how much work it is, and they know that responsibility is a burden. Those are the people you want. (not that people who are eager to take on a leadership role because they want to do good aren't good for leadership roles -- it's just in my experience they're a lot rarer).

[Faye]

I think refunding them is fine if OP has the gil and that's what they want to do. All they're being kicked for is inactivity, after all. I've had people expect room refunds for stupider things ("Hey, I decided I wanna leave, can I get a refund for the room I've been using for a year?").

[Lydia Lightfoot]

Why reward a player who doesn't participate and chooses to snub an effort to motivate them? Nobody's told by the game that they'll get their money back if they vacate a private chamber, so each person who buys one knows in advance that's a one-directional gil drop.

[Kilieit]

I imagine it's a drama-prevention measure, because it reduces the level of bitterness a player could harbour over having a very reasonable request made of them ("hey if you're not going to contribute to the FC maybe you should move on").

[Thorbought]

Yeah, hopefully no one leaves with too must bitterness or resentment over it. Most of them will probably still remain in our IC LS (a lot of people who leave the fc still remain there for some reason).

[Lydia Lightfoot]

I don't mean to sound... pessimistic, because I'm not... but, be careful with changing your behavior over fears of people spreading rumors, "talking shit", etc. Very few players I've come across actually do those kinds of behaviors outside of a close circle of friends, and the one who would are just as likely to do it anyway in spite of the gil. Toxic players are just going to be toxic, some gil won't cure that (gosh, if only gil could cure toxic players...).

 

The most likely thing which will happen - and will happen either way - is that anybody who goes will get asked by close friends why, they'll share their perspective, their friends will do as friends do (make them feel better, badmouth you for a few minutes with them, whatever), and within a couple of days it'll be ancient history to any of them. The ones who do go toxic over it and start on some kind of campaign against you, well, it's important to remember one thing: Everyone who you'd possibly want to interact with can see exactly what the toxic player is doing, and it won't work on them. The only players who are likely to buy into it are other players who are toxic, and really, who cares if a bunch of super negative people don't like you. It's not even really about you - the person they really dislike is looking at them in the mirror.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

Actually, here's another way to look at it:

 

If four players leave your FC, that's 1,200,000 gil. Over a million gil which you just paid out to players who didn't support you. Or... what if you gave them nothing, and reinvested that 1.2 million gil back into the FC and the players in it who are supporting you, by using it for prizes for public events and things like that? In that case, the gil is going productively towards helping improvement in the FC, rather than just being drained away (in the same manner those departing players had been draining your creativity).

[Faye]

I imagine it's a drama-prevention measure, because it reduces the level of bitterness a player could harbour over having a very reasonable request made of them ("hey if you're not going to contribute to the FC maybe you should move on").

 

^ This. And yes, trying to avoid drama-mongering and gossip is something an FC leader should worry about. I don't mean they should worry about it as in they should fret over it constantly and become doormats to people who didn't even stick around in the FC, because it's inevitable people will leave or be kicked with hurt feelings, just that it is wise to try to prevent any hard feelings over anyone leaving if possible. It is not a "reward," it's a refund to members who are being ousted not because of doing anything heinous, but just because of a change of policy/culture in the FC. If OP has the gil and desire to do it, there's nothing wrong with it. They are in no way obligated to, but it's certainly not a bad move on their part.

[Valence]

Can be seen like that I guess. Can also be seen as a disgruntled customer asking for a refund after having broken ten times the warranty and the user agreement (if it was already stated that people had to be active).

[Lydia Lightfoot]

I'd say even if it wasn't explicitly stated that activity mattered, that's basically an implied matter when it comes to any social activity group. 

 

Money spent on a private chamber isn't some kind of deposit. It's not gil that was paid into FC coffers to be used by the leader toward events and decor. It's a fee paid to the game which never touched the hands of the FC leader, and it's gone the minute it's spent. The FC leader has nothing to do with it, and no responsibility to pay from their own gil to compensate a departing member. 

 

That said, I admit that I myself have compensated members - in one circumstance only, and that was because we switched FC house, and as the FC leader I didn't want there to be any financial burden placed on the members due to the change in house. Anybody who already had a room at the old house, I gave them 300k to buy a room at the new house, so that their only inconvenience was needing to redecorate. Chalked it up to an additional cost of the new house.

[Thorbought]

Money isn't really a problem between me and my co-gm so we feel comfortable returning the money for the rooms.

 

Kind of off topic but do for a fc plot-line, is it acceptable to work a personal story into a fc-story? And would I want to chronicle everything that happens in the FC story-wise or just major events.

[Kilieit]

Yes, as long as you (or whoever's personal plot it is - gonna use "you" in this post for simplicity) are completely and unconditionally okay with FC members influencing that personal storyline. If you'd want there to be limits to how or who could cause changes to your personal storyline, then keep it personal.

 

On the players' end, it sucks to be not "allowed" to influence the flow of a storyline. Most players want to feel like their presence makes a difference, and like they're having fun. That fun thing means most players will seek to influence things about the storyline that they find interesting. So... players in a scenario will immediately sniff out any boundaries you try to put in place, even if you dress them up in IC reasons, and then ask why they're there, how they could get around them, will assume there's a plot point hidden on the other side... because the "forbidden" is interesting. Trying to block people off from certain aspects will just breed resentment. You have to be prepared for this when making public a storyline you have personal investment in.

 

On the DM's end, being a good DM means making sure the players can have that fun. That's your basic role. Crafting a high-quality storyline with compelling characters and occurences is a big part of that for most people, but it should not come at the expense of the players' freedom to influence, or you'd be better off writing fiction. Basically... in very simple terms... assume as soon as you open a storyline to players, they're going to try to break it. They're going to do stuff you didn't plan (and may not want). You cannot respond to these occurences by just shutting them down (this is called railroading, and it's bad). A good DM is reasonably flexible to these things, and remembers that the story is as much the players' to steer as theirs, if the players want. If weaving your personal story in with the FC plot will make you feel weird about that, don't do it, because it hinders everything for everyone.

 

It's a different and less complicated thing to use this as a lead-in as opposed to the focus of a plotline. I've done this with Aghurlal's personal plot VS the free company's plot for now, for example - Aghurlal's with his current free company because he's a Dutiful Sister, and the free company are smugglers who may or may not be pirates and may or may not need stringing up and/or murdering by the Dutiful Sisters as an organisation. Aghurlal's there to spy and investigate. (This was OK'd by my GM.) But the actual... spying-ness is all behind the scenes for now; it was used to get my character into the FC, but it's not driving the FC's current plot, so I don't have to worry about adapting it for a wider audience just yet.

 

But if you want FC members to influence your plot - like I will be doing once it's convenient, both to my personal storyline and the flow of the FC storyline, for Aghurlal's motivations to be revealed to the other FC members - if you want their input, and relish the idea of them getting to share in affecting a plot you enjoy, then go for it. The main thing to remember is that you should be treating it like any other plot - if you find yourself going "okay but I should get to choose because it's my character", it's maybe... worth disentangling the plot from the FC a little bit.

 

As for recording stuff, recording things serves two purposes:

A) A "last time on [FC name]" for people who were absent for OOC reasons to pick up easily where everyone else left off

B) A resource for FC members to look back at if they OOCly forget details or occurences their character would remember

 

If your record is mostly for purpose A, then only record major events, because a huge log of tiny details will make it intimidating to back-read. If your record is mostly for purpose B, have someone record everything (this is one of the "low people-contact" things you can pass off to someone who's not otherwise officer material - I do this for my FC and I'm not on the officer team), because you never know what will be significant later on.

[Faye]

Money isn't really a problem between me and my co-gm so we feel comfortable returning the money for the rooms.

 

Kind of off topic but do for a fc plot-line, is it acceptable to work a personal story into a fc-story? And would I want to chronicle everything that happens in the FC story-wise or just major events.

 

Personally, I'd recommend keeping your character's personal story as far away from the FC storyline as possible (unless you mean including other people's personal stories for their characters into the FC plot, which you could do, it's just something you'd then have to try to do for every person in the FC to stop people from crying foul). I used some of the elements from the FC storyline in my character's personal story and even though the FC storyline had little to do with my character, it still set people off.

 

Also, what you want to chronicle is up to you. I kept track of everything, but only detailed the parts of the small events that bridged together the major events.

[Thorbought]

Yeah my main concern is people upset that personal plot is getting into fc plot. The personal plot I had in mind had the potential to be kind large-spanning so I wouldn't mind spinning it more into a larger plot for the company. And I understand that it should be flexible for other people to change. But as mentioned, it's definitely a concern that people wouldn't want it. 

 

As for recording things, so far we've only had stand-alone missions that don't have an overall plot so I never saw the need to chronicle them.

[Redrick]

Yeah my main concern is people upset that personal plot is getting into fc plot. The personal plot I had in mind had the potential to be kind large-spanning so I wouldn't mind spinning it more into a larger plot for the company. And I understand that it should be flexible for other people to change. But as mentioned, it's definitely a concern that people wouldn't want it. 

 

As for recording things, so far we've only had stand-alone missions that don't have an overall plot so I never saw the need to chronicle them.

I know this is rather old but I felt like dropping my little tid-bit in here. Just got out of an FC that did this and the biggest issue I had with it wasn't that it was a plot around their characters but that they were the central point of everything. Essentially if you weren't bending the knee to their character you weren't working with them and it was frustrating for the FC leader and frustrating for me as a player. 

 

This was mentioned above, if you can allow people wiggle room to play and experience themselves . Let them enjoy themselves while moving the story plot along, then I see that working out really well. I would not mind a plot that kind of arcs over someone else character, long as I can still influence it in a way and react accordingly to my characters true reaction and not have fear of IC OOC bleeding which happened in said guild. 

 

Just make it fair so everyone's able to react and feel a part of it, expect them to try weird shit and possibly stop the plot every now and again cause that's what roleplayers do; and don't get angry if people aren't immediately following the yellow brick road and I think you'll be good. :thumbsup: