BEST PRACTICES FOR PROSPECTIVE ORGANIZERS
Most people who have ever seen Star Trek would be lying if they said they never dreamed of sitting in that center chair, leading a ship and crew off on incredible adventures. Being the captain of a multi-player crew will let you do just that. A multi-player crew captain is part leader, part organizer, part writer, and part dungeon master. Running a crew is a challenge and a commitment, but for those of you who feel up to the task, it’s also an opportunity to help create and participate in a great roleplay experience.
Understand your schedule and your time constraints. A fun and effective multi-player crew works because its captain and crew are able to log in and play together at the same time. Before taking on the challenge of running a crew, make sure you know when you're going to be available to RP on a regular basis, and make sure any prospective crewmembers know it too, before letting them sign on. It's perfectly normal for some crews to meet more or less often than others, and it's even possible to run a crew even on a very limited schedule; awareness and providing accurate expectations are keys to success.
Choose a style and stick with it. Some organizers prefer to run a weekly event, that they GM themselves, others prefer to have their crews attend events GMed by someone else, while still others prefer not to schedule events at all and just wing it. All of these, and many other styles, are perfectly acceptable, as long as the organizer decides how his/her crew is going to be run, makes sure the crewmembers all understand how it’ll work, and preferably, remains as consistent as possible.
Only take on as many players as you can handle. Know your limitations. Managing large numbers of players can be very difficult, not only for scheduling, but for RP as well. Increasing numbers of players make GMed events increasingly hectic. Organizers need to be careful not to accept more characters onto their crews than they are comfortable providing for. Small crews that have fun and succeed are far preferable to large crews that fall apart.
Define the amount of control you want over your ship and crew. The single most common question about multi-player crews is, what can the crewmembers do when the captain is offline. Can the crew take the ship to fleet events when the captain isn’t around? Do they have to make up their own excuses for being off the ship to do other RP? Would you prefer people only use alts for non-ship RP? How flexible do you want to be with allowing crewmembers to hang around the starbase? As the organizer, you get to decide all of these things, and more, but it is vital that your crewmembers know what your decisions are. If they have to ask what to do when one of these comes up, you have failed to give them adequate guidance.
Make effective use of your resources. From the fleet timeline, to the stardate calculator, to the transcript formatter, to the crew threads and roles on discord, Argo provides its members with a wide array of tools to help with RP. The most successful multi-player crews are usually the ones that make the best use of them.
The following recommendations are specifically aimed at running an organized player crew:
-
Expand Your Info Sheet
Each organizer is required to make a pinned info sheet in the crew's discord thread (see: Fleet Policy section). While this is the minimum, the more info you add, the easier it is for members to join and participate with your crew. You should consider adding the answers to the 'amount of control' questions listed above, along with any other useful info that your players should be aware of. If you have an ongoing plot you can set up a 'the story so far' section on your info sheet. If you choose to make use of any of the other threads on this list, it is highly recommended that you link to them from your info sheet. All in all, by adding as much additional info as you can, you'll be providing your players (and any prospective future players) with a great starting point for all things related to your RP.
-
Actually Use Your Discord Thread
The discord thread for your crew should contain more than just the info post. We encourage you to use it to organize your events, discuss scheduling, post updates, send reminders when you have events, and ping your crew tag when appropriate. All of these things could certainly be accomplished elsewhere or in private, but there is a real benefit to doing it where prospective crewmembers can see it. The chatter shows your activity, gives an indication of *when* you're active, and highlights your crew to the rest of the fleet.
-
Captain's Log
Maintain a thread in the Short Stories forum for your Captain's Log. This is more than simply an IC log for your character. Just like the TV show voice-overs, your Captain's Log thread can be a great OOC resource for members of your crew to stay up to date on your ship's ongoing story.
-
Ship Record
Maintain a thread in the Ship Records forum for relevant information about your ship. Technical data, deck layouts, statistics, and anything else your crewmembers might need to know about their starship should be made available to them here.
-
Onboard Messaging
You might want to maintain a thread in the Communications forum for any short IC messages, announcements, or orders sent between crewmembers onboard your ship. Using a single thread will cut down on clutter and provide a single location to reference for each ship.
-
Recent Reports
The Recent Reports IC channel on discord is the best way to quickly and easily give the entire fleet a glimpse of what your ship is doing. From simple things such as arriving at and departing the starbase, to short summaries of RP missions, posting recent reports greatly adds to the overall immersion of the fleet.
-
Fleet Roster Entry
While it is the responsibility of each member to update their own character registry thread (thereby retaining control of their character's assignment), the organizer of a multi-player crew can use their own registry thread (found here) to keep roles updated, define static NPCs, and even advertise open positions.
PITFALLS TO AVOID
Don’t hamper your crewmembers’ integration with the fleet. When run well, multi-player crews can easily become very tight-knit little cliques. This is to be expected, and on one hand, it’s great that people will have the opportunity to RP a close group and to make closer friends OOCly. As nice as that might sound, it carries a strong risk of fragmenting the community. As the organizer of an Argo multi-player crew, we ask that you do what you can to avoid letting that type of situation develop. Don’t schedule your crew RP at the same time as other fleet events. Don’t ever force players to choose between your crew and other RP. Don’t ignore non-crew players, and try not to poach from other crews. Be mindful of IC happenings elsewhere in the fleet, and don’t try to avoid fleet-wide plots.
Don’t forget to communicate. The single fastest way to ruin a crew is failing to properly communicate. Make sure that you’re on the same page as Argo leadership. Make sure your crewmembers understand how you’re running things. Make sure they know when to meet up for crew RP and when you’re running events. Make sure they know what they can and can’t do, and when they do something you’re not happy with, make sure they know what and when that was, and how they can avoid it in the future.
Don’t underestimate consequences. As much as this applies to every GM, it applies doubly so to the organizer of a multi-player crew. From devastating tragedies, to ship movements and actions, to the simplest of orders, everything that happens to your ship has an effect on every member of the crew (including ones that may not even be online). Consider this carefully when directing your plots and events.
Never be afraid to ask for help. This is, possibly, the most important point in this guide. Nobody knows everything, and every one of us has been in a situation where we’ve needed a little help. This may take the form of getting advice, borrowing somebody to play an NPC, asking someone to GM an event, or any number of other things. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, but a tool for success.