Guild Leading: Deciding Fair Consequences

One of the hardest parts of being a Guild Master is not recruiting. It’s actually disciplinary actions & deciding fair punishments. I have this saying I remind my officers of “Council before demotion, demote before removal. Now if the person is at the lowest rank in the guild, it is Council before removal, only because there is nowhere to demote them to.

Officers do get reprimanded and treated the same as a member would. The types of disciplinary actions you choose are totally up to you, but if you kick someone without even so much as a warning, then that’s just not very good leadership. You should always give a warning of some type in my professional & game-related opinion.

Sure, it might just be a game, however, to have a good functioning guild you need it to be structured with rules & consequences. So, here is how you should decide what punishments are fair and which ones are unacceptable. “The Punishment should fit the crime” I always say.

What kind of guild are you?

In order to decide what consequences you should give for rule breaks, you need to decide what type of guild you are. If a raiding guild and a raider act up you might “suspend” them from the next raid. They want to raid but you won’t let them because of their actions, I have seen this to be quite effective. This would motivate them to follow the rules & understand that you are not going to play games with them and you are serious.

Fair Consequences

Having an officer specifically in charge of disciplinary actions is also a good way to go. This officer would be the one you put in charge of choosing the consequences for rule breaks and ensuring that other officers and yourself remain fair. This is particularly useful in bigger guilds with close to 1k members that are quite active. Then have an officer strictly in charge of disciplinary actions or something like that, so they can help you out.

What consequences does your guild dole out when a player breaks the rules? How did you decide those were fair consequences? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you