There has been a lot of tension between our GM (guild master) and our RL (raid leader) for several months now. I had ignored it kind of and hoped it would resolve itself, and tried to take myself out of everything, telling myself this is not my responsibility now. But it kept getting worse, to the point where drama was flaring up in raid, and one of our raiders, who is a very close friend of our GM, got so upset at our RL she straight up quit the game. Then for some reason our GM promoted her friend above everyone else, including our RL, and took away some RL permissions.

By this point, our RL felt entirely betrayed and that he could no longer trust our GM, and our GM said she was not going to show up to raid this week, despite being in a key tank position.

At this point I suppose it would be worth noting a few things about WoW officer rankings. The GM has the power to change all things within the guild. To take any of the gold and items in the guild bank, to give anyone else permissions to do this, and to take away anyone’s permissions. The GM can also kick anyone from the guild, and can disband the guild if they choose to. The RL may or may not have any actual power, but is usually the heart of the guild, if it is a raiding guild, like ours is. The RL is the person who makes all final decisions related to the raid, and the person who gives all the commands during raids, the time when everyone gathers. Depending on the guild, ranks may not mean much. When I returned I saw that the GM at the time (not the current GM, this one became GM by default because the last one was inactive for 3 months and her rank was next highest in guild, as the guild banker) was not doing anything to help, was in the process of leaving the guild, and no other officers other than our RL were doing any of the work necessary to maintain the guild. Therefore, though I did not take any officership, I started helping out with the work related to running the guild, and in a sense I became a de facto officer without any rank, simply because I was doing so much of the work. So ranks matter a bit, in that GM and RL have their specific powers, but in most WoW guilds anyone can end up doing a lot for the guild if they choose to help out a lot.

Now, it may seem curious to some why GM and RL would be separated, if GMs have all the official power, and RLs are the heart of the guild. In the past, I was GM/RL, and many other guild leaders are. Many guilds do separate these roles, however, and when I left I did the same thing. I had 2 teams at that time, and I gave GM to 3 people to act as co-GMs, while each team also had their own RL, and then there was a banker and a recruiter. This is all to say that that is how humongous the job of guild leadership is. Before I left, I was doing the job of 7 people, myself. The GM’s job is the one holding the guild together no matter what, it is the roughest job. The GM also often has to deal with a lot of people management, drama management, crisis management. And when an RL has to deal with all of that shit, it can profoundly affect their ability to maintain the concentration and morale needed to raid lead. Raid leading is something that requires a lot of pure concentration, the times when raid leaders are at their worst are when they are frazzled or upset because of other stuff. So I separated the ranks, and gave GM to 3 people, in the hopes they could share the burden together, and make things as easy as possible on the RLs, so the RLs could just concentrate on actually leading the raid.

So back to the current situation, I could not believe what was happening to my baby, to my guild. And I could not stomach the idea that this drama between the GM and the RL was going to tear the guild apart. Many people were already asking what was up with the GM promoting her friend who quit the raid with no warning, wondering what the power play and drama was, and people were saying they were getting really affected by the drama and toxicity, when we have always tried so hard to be a non-toxic guild!!!

So I felt I could no longer stand aside. I felt these two officers either have to find a way to work with each other, or one of them needed to step aside. Now, our RL has been doing almost everything for the guild, if he left, the guild would die (though perhaps it might survive if I were willing to take over raid leading, which I will not do at our RL’s expense). But even our GM could see that if she were to kick our RL, the guild would die. So I talked to them both, and our RL felt so hurt and betrayed by a variety of things that our GM did, including this strange action of promoting her friend who quit, and taking away RL permissions, that it did not seem like it would be at all easy for them to resolve their situations. As for our GM, she felt that it was all my fault and our RL’s fault, that we refused to work with her, and that she wanted to communicate with us but we just ignored her.

So in the end, I decided this was too much and I should take GM back myself. On a personal level I absolutely hate this. I do not feel ready to be GM right now, I am still very fragile, mentally. But this situation could not continue without more harm happening to the guild, and if I am GM, at least I can communicate with our RL. Then, if she could find a way to fix things with our RL, I could return GM to her. Once I made this decision and told our current GM about it, she was beyond hurt and angry at me. She felt she wanted to make things better for the guild but could not because the RL and I would not help her. She said things would be better if she could kick the people she thought were toxic and recruit more (without our RL’s consent), but she would not recruit herself and my refusal to help her recruit because I would not work against our RL made her feel I was completely abandoning her.

She was already in a fragile state, even before I talked to her, so my actions have made things much, much worse for her. And I was harsh, I was blunt when I told her all the things she was complaining about weren’t other people’s jobs to fix for her, they were her jobs because she was GM, or at least her job to find the people to fix all the problems she said we had. I asked her multiple times what she was planning to do to fix the situation, and each time she said it could be fixed if only I or the RL or anyone else did the stuff she wanted us to do, and at these times I did not accept it and told her it was her job to make sure these things happened. If she felt we were not communicating with her, and she needed to talk to us, she could not wait for us to make the arrangements to talk to her, it was on her to make sure these talks happened. I also told her I would not continue to recruit to help if she could not work with our RL, and told her in this situation as GM it would be on her to recruit herself (like I did when I was GM and no one wanted to help me), or find someone who would help (as I have done many times too). But in my harshness her biggest takeaway was probably that I was refusing to help her and pushing everything onto her and all in all being a terrible person. She said I was acting like my officers in the past who drove me away from the game, and that my approach to thinking that the GM needed to ultimately be responsible for everything is wrong and is what caused me to be burned myself out. Indeed by the end she told me she had lost all respect for me and hated me.

I had hoped she would see that when I asked for GM, I was going to take on these burdens myself. I told her that in returning GM to me, she would no longer be the one responsible for making sure everything gets better. But I could not tell her this without making her feel that I was repudiating her entirely, forcing her to fail by not helping her succeed and then performing a coup. And so I hurt her a ton. I did this because the guild needs stability and the shit that was going on in the leadership of the guild was going to cause my guild to fall apart, and I could not stand by and watch that happen. I also did not want her and the RL to continue down this spiral of hurting each other more and more. But the way I chose to deal with it, though it probably is the best choice for the guild, and perhaps will put an end to some of the problems and harm, also seriously hurt our current GM.

I think I made the overall best choice. But it was harsh, and I will have to live with that. I will have to live with the knowledge that I caused a lot of harm to someone who was already very fragile. As someone who has been harmed while already fragile, I can relate to what she is feeling. And this will always weigh on me.