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Welcome to the position of guildleader! So what does it mean to be a guildleader? It involves being the IC and OOC point of contact in your guild. For a general overview check out (Help Policy Guildleader).

As a guildleader you shape how your guild is viewed and how they interact within theme. Guilds are also how new players get involved and can shape the view of a players experience in TI. This means finding a balance between IC theme and providing a good RP experience both IC and OOC.

How do you do this? Well first let's look at some guild commands and some steps in the process both IC and OOC.
(refer to help guildinfo commands)

Onboarding

Guild <player> <guildname> is probably the most basic and important command since it allows you to add a player to the guild.

Promote lists the ranks you can promote someone. When you add someone they start as rank 0 - retired. You have to promote them to the rank you want them to be. To do so you write: promote <rank #>

Another useful command is gpay. This is in order to pay your members. Not all guilds pay their members, but if yours does then its a good idea to get friendly with this command. (help payments)

gpay list will give you a list of how much your guild gets paid. This amount is usually not very high and is based on the city report, but it does provide a (weekly?) income for your guild. Keep an eye on this so you can make sure your guild is paying people properly without going bankrupt in the process. gpay also shows you who is withdrawing and how much.

gpay <name> <amount> [daily/monthly/weekly] This sets it up so you can pay your guild members. The time is based on OOC time frame.

gpay <name /vnum> edit Allows you to add a note to payments so you can explain why a payment is being taken out. A good tool for helping keep track.

Well, we have the commands for onboarding down but what about the IC experience. When onboarding a player, a guildleader should keep in theme with the player but also make the process fairly easy. Guilds tend to be a players first experience getting involved in TI and making the process too difficult is likely to scare the player away from not just the guild but the game.

Remember, TI is a game and should be fun. This doesn't mean to not be themely but it does mean you should be providing them with a fun way to get involved. Guilds are supposed to be an easy way for players to automatically get involved and have a guild support them. So make sure that when you are interviewing a player for a guild you are not imposing OOC rules that hinder the experience. You might be a die hard TI player but some people just play in their spare time and you should be allowing for both types of players to enter the game.

This also means availability. Remember, players are all from different timezones and sometimes are simply not available when you are to play. If you are having a hard time meeting and you are the only GL then consider sending IC mail or doing a pboard so you can help bridge the gap. A GL is a supportive role not a gatekeeper preventing others from RPing. Find creative ways to overcome OOC issues and if that doesn't work then seek out staff for help.

Plots, Games, and More!

We've got the onboard process down. You're ready to get into RPing the meat and potatoes...okay...now what?

Well there's a lot you can do here and the only thing you are limited to is theme and the game mechanics. So basically, what is it that the guild is set up to do and what are fun ways to get involved?

This is going to mean different things depending on the guild but there are some core things you must do which is explained in help policy guildleader.

One of those is training. You should be making training available for your members. This can provide great RP scenes but if you're not available point them to other members or if they want to train alone explain how they can and even point them to an NPC to help give them valid IC reasons. NPCs are a wonderful way to help with gaps. Remember your guild isn't just made of players but a whole bunch of vNPCs. Use them.

Another way to help drive RP is through the Plot System (help plot and help plot advance). Plots are a great way to help kick off a storyline or just do mini-Rps that can evolve into an IC RP. I suggest doing one for your guild once a month if nothing else is going on. Each player in a plot can do an action and the staff will respond with what happened and what they did. Then from there you can bring that info into actual RP. It's pretty low maintenance and an easy way to provide activity for guild members and reasons for them to RP.

Plots can seem intimidating at first, but once you create your first one it's fairly easy to do.

So that brings me to a new command.

gpoints - typing gpoints will show you how many guild points your guild has. gpoints are used to make plots so you don't have to use your own qp to pay for a guild activity.

What if you want something more involved? There are two options for that.

The first is the Storyteller system (help story)

The storyteller system is used by a player to basically provide a RP scene with your own missions and such. This is a great tool for making an guild event. For example, you want to do a story about the Reeves hunting down a criminal? You can make it and you're basically the dungeon master, using npcs to play the criminals and witnesses, giving members clues, etc.

As a guildleader you provided a ton of fun involvement and RP experience. Storytelling can be a lot of work so it might not be for everyone, but having one every blue moon can really cause your guildmembers to be more active and makes the RP more fun in general. It's also not limited to just guildleaders to make. If you have a guildmember that wants to run a guild focused storyline, try to provide support and encouragement.

The next option is RPA. (help RPA) This one involves more staff involvement so probably not ideal for most situations, but if you have your characters adventuring and would like to liven up the scene an RPA event can be just what you need. Minor RPAs could just be the staff throwing in a quick NPC scene while major RPA can be something much more detailed. I would suggest using it sparingly but remember it is an option.

What else?

Plot Header List - This lists the major staff run plots going on. Plot headers are made for guilds and the player base in general to get involved and guess what? It costs no QP or gpoints to act on this.

So how does it work?
1. You create a plot
2. You change the type to staff plot header.
3. Add the header number of the plot. header <#> It's the same number as listed in plot header list.
4. Share it with your guild or anyone else you want to share.
5. Add your action. Your action is what your character is doing IC. All your guild members can also add their action as well.
6. Submit.

Staff will respond to each person who posted an action and often have you roll or ask you what type of skills you have or check them themselves and tell you what happened with your character. They'll even sometimes give you items you found or new clues. It's very cool and allows for you to get involved in lots of ways.

The Council. When you become a guildleader you automatically become a member of the council. The Council is made up of guildleaders, the Seneschal, and nobles who choose to join. It's a great in for nobles who aren't part of a guild to also get involved. Just remember to join it. Guildleaders are automatically opt in. Remember that the council is an automatic way to get involved with other guilds. Perhaps you want to do something with another guild, reach out and plot together. Have fun!

Finally I want to bring up that being a GL is what you decide to do with it. It can be a lot of work but you knew that going in, right? It has both an IC and OOC responsibility and you're in charge of building your guild up. If you discover something is in place that's not working then see why it's not working and how you can make it better. Sometimes this is something you can do on your own, sometimes you're going to need staff intervention. Try things and realize some things will work and some things won't. Remember though, GL is a role made to support players. If you don't want to focus on your guild members and just what to do your own thing then being a GL might not be the right fit for you. But if you're a GL you already know this and I hope you have lots of fun being involved! Don't burn yourself out. Delegate, have fun, and if you have comments or more things to add to this post feel free!