Constitutional Convention: A look at Warcraft’s Crappy Guild Culture

Over the five years I’ve been in WoW I’ve been in several guilds across several servers. Most only for a little while, most are casual raiding. But one thing that strikes me as odd is the lack of rules in the foundation of any guild. So I’d like to look at the cause of this, the problems it causes, and make the case for why having rules is important.

Let’s be honest, what it takes to form a guild is enough money to buy a charter and 9 suckers, I mean friends, to sign it. Do that and boom <The Knightly Defenders of the Cause> or whatever is now in the world, making trouble for all those who would oppose you.

Now the moment you start inviting strangers you probably come across an asshat, so now the only rule you have is no asshats. Maybe throw in “be cool to each other” to emphasize the point.

Then maybe Bob can’t play as much or is an altaholic and feels all emo about it because Jane gave him grief about not focusing and leveling up to raid, so you make a rule about how everyone is welcome except asshats.

And generally this is about as far as most casual guilds get in their rule making structure. Sure they might dress up the language some but at the core this is what you got.

Now if your guild raids anything that is currently relevant you might have a loot system, and assuming your guild survived the battle between the “I want DKP” and  the “Screw your DKP you Fascist Hardcore Raid Monster” factions you have some loot policy drawn up to get you by day to day.

But what is usually absent is any definition of who does what, what their expectations are (besides not being an asshat), and sometimes what the chain of command is. Think about your guild when you joined (assuming you weren’t a founding member), did you know who the Guild Leader was? Who were the officers? Who would you talk to about whatever issue you had? Now that you’ve been in the guild for a while, is it any clearer who is ultimately responsible for what?

And many times this is because people look at rules as being something only hard core guilds do. So anytime someone proposes making something codified there is backlash with the usual refrains of “come on we’re all friends here, if we can’t talk it out then we have bigger problems” or “is this rule necessary or are you just power mad?” But not having some formal structure does pose problems.

Think back to a kinder gentler era when computers were cardboard props on a TV show about space adventures, and real computers took up whole floors of buildings. People didn’t have MMOs so they joined clubs. Maybe it was a bowling league, maybe it was the Elk Lodge, maybe it Boy Scouts. Chances are whatever club people joined for social purposes had some rules. There would be a club president, there would be club bylaws, and there were positions of various officers like treasurer, secretary etc etc. Why did they have these things? Because each organization had some purpose and needed some framework to be able to accomplish that goal. They had rules not because arguing over bylaws were fun, but it helped establish the system everyone would know to make it work.

Without bylaws, constitution, or compact you have certain problems that will arise that will need to be dealt with without any formal guidance or mechanism in place. Remember back to my post about being Guild Leader, I stressed at the end that the most important thing you can do is try and be fair to everyone. Rules allow you to do that. So if person one is an asshat and you kick him out because the rule exists and is known to be enforced, person 2 won’t be an asshat or risk being booted from the guild. If you have a set procedure for how to resolve disputes before hand when loot drops or someone no shows on a raid or whatever, you have a plan in place and all you are doing is enforcing the rules. “Sorry Jane, we have a loot system for a reason, Bob won that fair and square.”

But the rules should go beyond the code we live by, they should spell out who does what. In the United States we have a Constitution, and political debates usually center around the bill or rights, but what most people gloss over is that article 1-3 are simply outlines for who does what, how they got those jobs, and what restrictions they have. Those are really important. No one is ever going to say “well my dad the senator died, so by the rules of inheritance, I’m now a senator” – well, they can say it, but it won’t be honored.

In a previous guild, Zelmaru and I honestly didn’t know who was the guild leader because they never formally spelled out who was whom. Yeah one guy’s name was listed in the guild list, but he never did anything so it was really hard to trace who to go to if I had a problem. Who do I talk to about taking items from the guild bank? I have an idea for an event, who do I talk to about getting it on the calendar?

And if you have no mention of how people get to positions of responsibility, players may not even offer to help out because they think it is a closed system. That perception can be a big problem as you end up with an old boys club view by newer members who may not invest fully into the guild’s well being.

These things serve as a source of frustration for new members, and even old members as leaders come and go. That frustration bubbles up and at some point you will have drama.

Up to this point I’ve tried to keep the case for having formal rules under wraps, but it keeps poking through as a present various problems that lack of rules has. Let’s lay out the goals of having formal rules. First it outlines authority over various areas of the guild’s activities. Second it establishes an impartial criteria for self governance.

The outlines of authority can be really useful in helping guild members find the right person to approach with an issue, but also can be useful in preventing officer burnout. One thing I have never seen in WoW is the idea of officers and guild leaders having set terms. People take on these roles with no specified end date. Ultimately I think this lack of defined terms is a mistake because it could inspire people to offer to help, and they know they would only be on the hook for it for a set period (say six months). The guy who has light workloads in the winter but crazy work hours in the summers might be willing to dedicate that spare time to help build the guild in his off season. Terms help create the notion everyone can, and maybe should, invest into their guild through service.

Set job descriptions for officers can also serve as a mechanism to explain the rationale for why certain decisions are made. A statement like “Raid Leaders must rotate in all qualified raiders” could indicate that you are an inclusion in raiding guild. While “Rai
d Leaders will select the most qualified raiders” means you will probably be doing A team/B team static raiding.

The “impartial criteria for self governance” sounds all legalese, but really it is just common sense. Basically think of speed limits. They exist as a rough estimate on what is deemed acceptable driving speed in a given area. And we have a bright rule that driving too fast is wrong. By having rules that are posted and easily acceptable to everyone you do the same thing. When Steve is being an asshat you can clearly point to the rules as justification on booting him from the guild. Just like loot systems provide a way for you to decide who gets what, posted rules allow anyone to predict the outcome of a situation based on what is agreed as the guild rules.

So by now you realize the “Don’t be an Asshat. It is okay Bob is an altaholic. We use this loot system in raids.” ruleset is woefully inadequate to support your guild structure. But before you start assembling a rules subcommittee tasked with drafting a constitution you should stop and take a deep breath. Before you do anything you need to outline to those in your guild why such a change might be beneficial. Remember they won’t initially see this as a way to make a guild run smoother, instead you will likely get the “is this really necessary or are you power mad” or “if we can’t talk it out as friends we have bigger problems” responses. I would stress that to embark on these kind of changes could be a long process, one that will require you to be persistent in achieving.

But with Cataclysm coming running a guild is going to be a lot more important. The guild system will make running a guild a much bigger deal going forward, and with shared 10 man 25 man raid ID change, people will start expecting a lot more from their guild. Having some formal rules should help ease that transition.