/officerchat

I’m still off doing that wacky Ph.D application thing, but I wanted to throw this out there.

It’s not all raids.

Every now and then, it does help to kick back, relax and give out some money for nothing. At least once a month a run a guild event that’s got nothing to do with a raid, and gives out at least as much money if not more. I thought I would share these events because it’s cute and because you really want to spend time with your internet friends and not just advance your character and bounce to a better server…right?

First things first, money or prizes can come from the guild bank or from a personal stash. The set up of your guild depends on how much you want to offer. I’ve seen guilds give away mechanohogs and those nifty 20k gold mammoths. I’m not quite there yet. I give out a thousand gold in cash money to first, second, and third and then probably rare pets because we seem to like those. Give away anything, get creative. Hell, give away your officer team for a night of whatever heroics the winner wants. Give them the ability to take an under geared toon to a raid you’ve got on steamroll.

Now, onto the events.

1) Scavenger Hunt…with a twist.

The standard “Go bring me 30 of these” isn’t bad, but it looks too much like a quest for me. The first rule of my scavenger hunts is no mage ports and no 8 minute hearths, because that gives two classes a really distinct advantage. Other than that, let it fly! Do a staged scavenger hunt with multiple legs and make them get nuts. For my last scavenger hunt, I had my group scavenge up wedding dresses and tuxedo suits…but then they also had to recite four lines, in yells, of Romeo and Juliet with point given for accuracy. I took them to the arena, made them get naked and beat each other blue. I made them beg a single gold off a stranger (the stranger had to then whisper me and tell me they gave the gold and each whisper was sent a thank you note with five gold attached, just so you don’t think it’s okay to scrub the server). If you are doing three places, give three points for first, two for second, and one for third. That seems to keep it pretty even. I would also randomly demand that they stop, jump in place, dance or spin in circles and then carry on.

2) Clue

Take the lot of you to a dungeon where it would be generally hard to wipe. I used Kara, but it turned out to be a bit too easy. I’d try Naxx next time, but you know the level of your guild better than I do. One person moderates the event and the other nine (or 24) are playing a game of clue. At the start of the dungeon, pick one person and whisper them that they have from now until the first boss to wipe the raid and get away with it. If they wipe the raid and no one can figure out who did it, they get X gold (I did 50). If someone figures it out, they have to say who did it and how they did it, such as “Solanum in the hallway with misdirection!” Allow them only one guess, to prevent people from just going down the raid list. If they bust you, you get 50 gold. As a caveat, if the murderer manages to wipe you before the boss, announce who it was and carry on to kill the boss. This prevents you from having to stand in one hallway, dead over and over, for three hours. If you don’t manage to get wiped or they get figured out, set a new murderer after the boss and carry on.

You might want to allot repair funds for that one. It’s all well and good until someone makes 50 gold, but has to spend 200 gold on plate repair bills.

3)Race you!

For a prize, make a race hard. I have this one coming, but I was thinking of having everyone roll on a PvP server and getting a blood elf from silvermoon to the Exodar. No tricks, no ports, no flights. Or make them race somewhere even more out of the way. I wonder who can get from the Exodar to the entrance of Sunken Temple now…

Keep it light, keep it fun, keep morale up! If you’ve done a really nifty guild event, let me know in the comments. I totally want to steal the idea.