In what circumstances should you deny a PC (cyan or otherwise) entry into a guild?

[Puciek]

There is just one big problem that people seem to forget.

Almost all of the helpfiles for cadets, pages, students, acolytes, apprentices I have found and read, list that people are also there to learn. To learn how to behave properly, to find their motivations and development... There are many other vNPC around, people that may also lack motivation, diligence, faith and much more. From corrupt cadets and Reeves to foolish and misinterpreting acolytes. I, as a player, honestly feel that those reasons I read here for the refusal of that cyan, are concerns that should prevent a promotion to something higher than a student/page/cadet/apprentice/acolyte and not a complete refusal to join a guild, being a GL is also a voluntary position and if that extra work is not for you, then maybe it might be right to step down, over wanting to have that power for your OOC satisfaction.

Cyans are also character that are still growing and settling in. My characters and their backstories are often unfinished at their entirety until at least about two hundred hours in because new things may arise that I did not anticipate and that need to be incorporated, or because more motivations need to be made up, reason for the personality to be as it is to refining it properly as new knowledge comes by that simply had not been seen or found before.

I don't think that this is contradicting to what is being said here, and I can't think of a single entry-level helpfile that says this rank is there for player to find a reason and motivation to join the guild. Mostly because by that point you are already member of the guild, even if at entry level position, your motivations for joining should be crystal clear. Otherwise, why exactly did your character join the guild? it is not a 2-week internship, it's a serious commitment with all the guilds we have, so the PC reasons better be serious too.

Your career path may not be, you got all the time as cadet to decide if you want to be a guard, scribe, justiciar, detective or whatever other ranks are there, this stuff will come as you learn the job OOCly and ICly. But to say that people should just be auto-joining guilds to figure out why their character wants to join the guild makes no sense to me tbh. And refusing people is perfectly fine, and part of GLs job, especially as they then have to arrange all the mentioned training, guidance and so on, even if it's to be delegated - that also takes time, and more and more as guild grows.

[BlackSoul566]

Wait wait wait... All of this complaining over a GL's time when the Guild itself is a total of six players, currently? Two of which are GLs? That's literally two players per GL. How hard could it possibly be for one player to arrange all of this stuff for two players? If you don't have time to manage these things for two players, why are you a GL in the first place?

[Dreams]

Wait wait wait... All of this complaining over a GL's time when the Guild itself is a total of six players, currently? Two of which are GLs? That's literally two players per GL. How hard could it possibly be for one player to arrange all of this stuff for two players? If you don't have time to manage these things for two players, why are you a GL in the first place?

This wasn't complaining about a GL's time. That was a point brought up during the conversation, but it wasn't the original point of the thread.

It was mentioned as ONE reason people might get denied guild-entry, it was not (by far) the only one.

[galaxgal]

Yeah, uh, I'm not even the leader of a Guild that inducts members right now. The example and experience I'm speaking from was as a GL of one of the Guilds that often gets a lot of 'social alts' and as a result can have phases of unusually high 'apprentice' character counts. I believe at least one other guild often ends up this way as well.

GL's are player characters, too. They don't have special OOC responsibilities to please the playerbase unless their title is GI or Seneschal because they aren't volunteer workers or servants. They take on responsibilities (keeping the Guild strong, managing their popularity status) that are largely IC, so if they fail at this as players, they will fail at this as characters too. And they have carte blanche to do what they please to achieve those IC goals.

The things that make a 'good' GL are all of the things that already make a 'good' player in every other dimension of the game. And, likewise, they shouldn't be pressured to act in certain ways over OOC mediums such as this one.

If something rubs you the wrong way about a certain GL, and I'm going to be honest, this thread sounds more and more like it's about a certain Guild, there are IC options and game mechanics to deal with that.

[OneWing]

There is just one big problem that people seem to forget.

Almost all of the helpfiles for cadets, pages, students, acolytes, apprentices I have found and read, list that people are also there to learn. To learn how to behave properly, to find their motivations and development... There are many other vNPC around, people that may also lack motivation, diligence, faith and much more. From corrupt cadets and Reeves to foolish and misinterpreting acolytes. I, as a player, honestly feel that those reasons I read here for the refusal of that cyan, are concerns that should prevent a promotion to something higher than a student/page/cadet/apprentice/acolyte and not a complete refusal to join a guild, being a GL is also a voluntary position and if that extra work is not for you, then maybe it might be right to step down, over wanting to have that power for your OOC satisfaction.

Cyans are also character that are still growing and settling in. My characters and their backstories are often unfinished at their entirety until at least about two hundred hours in because new things may arise that I did not anticipate and that need to be incorporated, or because more motivations need to be made up, reason for the personality to be as it is to refining it properly as new knowledge comes by that simply had not been seen or found before.

I don't think that this is contradicting to what is being said here, and I can't think of a single entry-level helpfile that says this rank is there for player to find a reason and motivation to join the guild. Mostly because by that point you are already member of the guild, even if at entry level position, your motivations for joining should be crystal clear. Otherwise, why exactly did your character join the guild? it is not a 2-week internship, it's a serious commitment with all the guilds we have, so the PC reasons better be serious too.

Your career path may not be, you got all the time as cadet to decide if you want to be a guard, scribe, justiciar, detective or whatever other ranks are there, this stuff will come as you learn the job OOCly and ICly. But to say that people should just be auto-joining guilds to figure out why their character wants to join the guild makes no sense to me tbh. And refusing people is perfectly fine, and part of GLs job, especially as they then have to arrange all the mentioned training, guidance and so on, even if it's to be delegated - that also takes time, and more and more as guild grows.

Very newbie hostile and missing the point by five miles. You are not entitled to IC powers just because and I think it can be best answered by quoting someone else.

GL's are player characters, too. They don't have special OOC responsibilities to please the playerbase unless their title is GI or Seneschal because they aren't volunteer workers or servants. They take on responsibilities (keeping the Guild strong, managing their popularity status) that are largely IC, so if they fail at this as players, they will fail at this as characters too.

Because this is taking on responsibilities, as an OOC player to commit on them ICly. If you don't have the time or commitment in the first place, don't accept it to begin with.
And I, as a human being, quite literally fail to see the difference between leading an IC guild and leading a guild for an MMORPG. Both are very much coming close to real life jobs and the later has a lot more drama and bullshit going on than the former. Both are OOCly decided responsibilities, that you as a player, in both instances, choose to take on. And both can be motivated for the same reason.


All of this that I am seeing is people trying to justify being allowed to be a dick to people and do as they please just because x or y, which is the problem and discourteous towards the applying member and the reason for the refusal given is a weak one. Students are not allowed to treat anyone and you can't tell me, that out of the hundreds of students, doctors, physicians that exist as vNPC, that all of them would be perfect, and not just in for it for the money, or lying and actually having no clue about the practice in the first place or equally poorly motivated and disregarding of life. Those people exist for certain, this is a grim time and you lot need to stop remembering vNPC when it suits you and disregard them when they do not and I have yet to see anyone do a plot/event to remove those elements from any of the guilds.

Lastly, give people a chance, use those opportunities to help them grow as characters. It will not always be satisfying to do, but if you do manage to, it can be one of the most appreciated and fun experiences, make use of vNPC to teach them. Have the dude see the failure of failing at their job as doctors, have them see the misery it brings to the family, their children. And most of all, remember that the loss of a single finger or limb, can very much cost you your entire livelihood at that time.
Make RP and story, not reasons to not make rp and story.

[mystry]

Wait wait wait... All of this complaining over a GL's time when the Guild itself is a total of six players, currently? Two of which are GLs? That's literally two players per GL. How hard could it possibly be for one player to arrange all of this stuff for two players? If you don't have time to manage these things for two players, why are you a GL in the first place?

As the others have said, the main point of this thread wasn't about the GL's time.

However, having been two GL's thus far, I think I can say that non-GLs always underestimate how much time managing even one person can be.

Consider, for a moment, a training session. Let's say you are training a brand new cyan, who had 36 in their guildskill. Unless you have VERY high teach (which most people don't since most people don't learn slot it), it'll take you at least an hour to two hours to get that newbie's pool to more than can be grasped, especially if they swapped their stats to have higher intelligence.

This is compounded by pacing of scenes. It is not unusual for me to be in a training scene for three or even four real life hours because my student responds slowly.

I have an advantage in that I have an abundant amount of time to be on TI (mostly due to the pandemic). Most people do not have that advantage. And that's just for ONE person, and you usually have to have separate training sessions because time frames don't align perfectly. Sometimes you can delegate to a higher ranking member, but sometimes that's not an option.

And this is on top of all the other normal GL activities, like interacting with the rest of the council, managing your mail, schmoozing other players for support, smoothing over or handling incidents, and any personal stuff you have going, like items you want to craft or phome expansions to write, or even just skills you want to train.

Anyway, back to the show.

[Puciek]

There is just one big problem that people seem to forget.

Almost all of the helpfiles for cadets, pages, students, acolytes, apprentices I have found and read, list that people are also there to learn. To learn how to behave properly, to find their motivations and development... There are many other vNPC around, people that may also lack motivation, diligence, faith and much more. From corrupt cadets and Reeves to foolish and misinterpreting acolytes. I, as a player, honestly feel that those reasons I read here for the refusal of that cyan, are concerns that should prevent a promotion to something higher than a student/page/cadet/apprentice/acolyte and not a complete refusal to join a guild, being a GL is also a voluntary position and if that extra work is not for you, then maybe it might be right to step down, over wanting to have that power for your OOC satisfaction.

Cyans are also character that are still growing and settling in. My characters and their backstories are often unfinished at their entirety until at least about two hundred hours in because new things may arise that I did not anticipate and that need to be incorporated, or because more motivations need to be made up, reason for the personality to be as it is to refining it properly as new knowledge comes by that simply had not been seen or found before.

I don't think that this is contradicting to what is being said here, and I can't think of a single entry-level helpfile that says this rank is there for player to find a reason and motivation to join the guild. Mostly because by that point you are already member of the guild, even if at entry level position, your motivations for joining should be crystal clear. Otherwise, why exactly did your character join the guild? it is not a 2-week internship, it's a serious commitment with all the guilds we have, so the PC reasons better be serious too.

Your career path may not be, you got all the time as cadet to decide if you want to be a guard, scribe, justiciar, detective or whatever other ranks are there, this stuff will come as you learn the job OOCly and ICly. But to say that people should just be auto-joining guilds to figure out why their character wants to join the guild makes no sense to me tbh. And refusing people is perfectly fine, and part of GLs job, especially as they then have to arrange all the mentioned training, guidance and so on, even if it's to be delegated - that also takes time, and more and more as guild grows.

Very newbie hostile and missing the point by five miles. You are not entitled to IC powers just because and I think it can be best answered by quoting someone else.

GL's are player characters, too. They don't have special OOC responsibilities to please the playerbase unless their title is GI or Seneschal because they aren't volunteer workers or servants. They take on responsibilities (keeping the Guild strong, managing their popularity status) that are largely IC, so if they fail at this as players, they will fail at this as characters too.

Because this is taking on responsibilities, as an OOC player to commit on them ICly. If you don't have the time or commitment in the first place, don't accept it to begin with.
And I, as a human being, quite literally fail to see the difference between leading an IC guild and leading a guild for an MMORPG. Both are very much coming close to real life jobs and the later has a lot more drama and bullshit going on than the former. Both are OOCly decided responsibilities, that you as a player, in both instances, choose to take on. And both can be motivated for the same reason.


All of this that I am seeing is people trying to justify being allowed to be a dick to people and do as they please just because x or y, which is the problem and discourteous towards the applying member and the reason for the refusal given is a weak one. Students are not allowed to treat anyone and you can't tell me, that out of the hundreds of students, doctors, physicians that exist as vNPC, that all of them would be perfect, and not just in for it for the money, or lying and actually having no clue about the practice in the first place or equally poorly motivated and disregarding of life. Those people exist for certain, this is a grim time and you lot need to stop remembering vNPC when it suits you and disregard them when they do not and I have yet to see anyone do a plot/event to remove those elements from any of the guilds.

Lastly, give people a chance, use those opportunities to help them grow as characters. It will not always be satisfying to do, but if you do manage to, it can be one of the most appreciated and fun experiences, make use of vNPC to teach them. Have the dude see the failure of failing at their job as doctors, have them see the misery it brings to the family, their children. And most of all, remember that the loss of a single finger or limb, can very much cost you your entire livelihood at that time.
Make RP and story, not reasons to not make rp and story.

I've no idea where do you get this idea that not being allowed into the guild right now, somehow, is not RP. It is as valid RP as accepting, and portraying it as such is just doing injustice to a lot of the populations who drives the more-conflict oriented RP.

Your PCs will not always get what they want, it is especially true if you will quantify it by "right now". Nothing stops a failed guild applicant from literally proving themselves and having another attempt at convincing the GL. And you know what? That also makes RP! It may not fit some rigid plans but, well, that's how plans work when they are incompatibile with another persons plan, especially if the other person has power over your pc.

[Starstarfish]

Consider, for a moment, a training session. Let's say you are training a brand new cyan, who had 36 in their guildskill. Unless you have VERY high teach (which most people don't since most people don't learn slot it), it'll take you at least an hour to two hours to get that newbie's pool to more than can be grasped, especially if they swapped their stats to have higher intelligence.

I'd like to highlight this. I would highly recommend that people who are in GL spots or who might want to be and are in an Org that will require teaching stuff, to seriously consider making Teach a learn slot. It will long-term make your life and those of your underlings infinitely better. And personally? I think it's a good coded representation of being so passionate about your work that you can convince other people to be passionate and interested in it too.

[Dreams]

Your PCs will not always get what they want, it is especially true if you will quantify it by "right now". Nothing stops a failed guild applicant from literally proving themselves and having another attempt at convincing the GL. And you know what? That also makes RP! It may not fit some rigid plans but, well, that's how plans work when they are incompatibile with another persons plan, especially if the other person has power over your pc.

I'm going to highlight this. Being cyan is not a 'get everything you want free' card. Preferential RP means that people will do their best to go out of their way to provide RP for them. Not being accepted into a guild is not denying them RP.

To note, because this has also come up before (though not in this specific thread), the following is not denying them RP:

• Acceptance into a guild.

• Not teaching them a skill they want to learn, because you know it and they want to.

• Not being super unbelievably friendly when your character is a grump.

None of these DENY newbies RP. All of them can create and provide RP, even if it isn't necessarily in the manner they wanted. Just because someone doesn't get what they want for the character, or someone doesn't give the character what they want, doesn't mean RP is being shut down. Nor does it mean that someone is being hostile to newbies. If newbies are never taught, guided, how will they learn? There is no requirement that says they have to get everything they want in order to learn. In fact, when you DON'T get what you want immediately, it gives someone something to work for, which is a GREAT RP hook.

[galaxgal]

My point was that if you feel a GL is failing at their job you can take that IC instead of using Forum posts pressuring players OOCly to play the way you want them to.

EDIT: And GL's aren't given their powers 'just because'. They're given their powers by luck and seniority in a Guild, and therefore familiarity with its standards and theme, or because they made an application character who is then tasked with bringing a (usually dying) Guild back from the grave.