When we cast aside the problems that are hurting our game right now (XP Glut, Broken Custom Items, Faulty Appeals, and a Confusing Addendum), the way forward doesn’t become more clear. In fact, just the opposite. There is no way forward…because we don’t have a way to measure success beyond fixing the problems that make us crazy every game. Once those are gone, there is no way to envision what will help the club rise from “Not broken” to “Awesome!”
If the Camarilla was a business, this would be an easy vision to create. We would simply look at our profit/loss spreadsheet and talk about ways to make more money in the future. We could market to new players, improve our current staff, and watch the money roll in.
But we aren’t a business. We’re a fan club. A club with a unique environment that combines role-playing, networking, and community service. We can’t judge our level of success by our profit. And we shouldn’t judge our success solely by the number of people who put up $20 in membership fees.
So we propose a question that would help us measure our success:
Do members like being members of the Camarilla?
It’s a strange question to ask, we know. But think about it before dismissing it. Despite all the activity and effort people put in to being members, how much do they LIKE being members? Do they love it? Is the club the best thing that’s ever happened to them? Or have they slowly grown to hate it, sticking around because they’ve invested themselves? Or is it somewhere in between?
It’s time to mandate some ways of measuring this question. It’s also time to set solid, consistent goals that we can judge ourselves (and our leaders) against. Here are three ideas we have to mandate metrics that matter…with our all-important question in mind.
1. Measure the Promptness of Officers
It’s a sad fact of the Camarilla that most of our bad officers fail by simply underperforming. They don’t make bad calls, or rule in favor of their friends, or run stupid plotkits. Instead, they just slowly stop showing up for work and run down the entirety of the club.
If we want to create an environment that makes players like being Cam members, we should eliminate the biggest obstacle. Often failing STs are the first step toward general player disenchantment, as their approvals hang at mid or high and their regional prestige is misreported. And often the first sign of a failing ST is a lack of reporting.
We already track if STs and Coordinators are reporting. It’s time to put some teeth into that metric. If an officer fails to report for two months, we should automatically call for a Vote of No Confidence. It’s mean. It’s a bit snotty. But it would make lazy Coord/STs get off their butts and force bad Coord/STs out of office. After all, there is no reason that anyone should go 2 months without dong their job!
2. Create Simple Useful Member Surveys
Sometimes the best way to find out information is to simply ask. Yet, our Global Surveys are exercises in NOT asking. They inquire about canon, power levels, xp expeditures, but never ask if we like playing!
Surveys need to get simpler. We suggest the Net Promoter system, a type of survey that asks only a few questions and computes results my lumping responders into large groups. It may not generate as much data as our current surveys, but it will generate data that is useful to our officers in targeting problem areas and improving the experience of members. It also gives us a number we can work to improve over time!
3. Record and Publish Attendance at Games
Finally, the Camarilla exists as a disparate collection of Venues and Domains. There is no unified place that we come together every week to examine the health of the club. We all may know of a specific game that is doing well or poorly, but we have no sense of the national or global health of our Chronicle. Working with officers and getting member surveys will be a great start, but really there is only one number that should matter to us: How many people show up to play!
We suggest that RSTs begin to collate and publish the attendance data they receive every month from the DSTs and VSTs of their region. This information could easily be posted to a wiki and tracked over time, giving us a sense not only of which venues (Requiem, Forsaken, etc) are most popular, but also which Domains are thriving and succeeding. We already report this data and it would be easy to make the RSTs post it!
We think that game attendance is the single best measurement of how the club is doing. If you love the Cam and are deeply invested in your character and the stories your domain is telling, you make time for game. If you aren’t making time to attend, it’s likely something went wrong. It should be the RSTs primary goal to increase the number of people attending games within his/her region. Failure to do so should indicate that something ain’t right…
As the average member no doubt realizes, the Camarilla tracks an amazing amount of data every month. From prestige logs to character sheets, our “little club” probably crunches more numbers than any of us would care to admit.
We send out surveys. We record attendance. We record formal warnings, suspensions, and losses of prestige. We update character sheets on the CRD, the approvals database, and our personal excel sheets. We file approvals, appeals, and complaints. We stare at our books at 2 am, wondering if the next 10 xp we spend can go to the best possible use. And then we send in reports!
And yet, we here at Save the Cam are always left with the sinking feeling that nobody is actually getting anything out of this mass of data. We certainly aren’t establishing a metric that tells us if the club is healthy or not! It’s time to start using that data for something productive…and holding our leaders accountable for the way the numbers turn out.
Speaking as someone who works in an industry based on Metrics, I sincerely doubt this is a good idea.
First of all, while I get paid to deal with metrics at work. Storytellers do not. Some may say that Prestige is a form of payment, but it was never designed to be nor should it be viewed as such. It’s the thank you note that often does not come in another form.
To address specific matters,
1. Measure the Promptness of Officers: Over all this not a bad idea. Infact, it’s more or less already in place, with the exception of the automatic VoNC. Reporting is important, but for Storytellers, there are more important factors. Is the game they run one that is enjoyable to their players? Does it contribute to the Chronicle as a whole? I can easily forgive a Storyteller for missing a report or two. Coordinators are a different matter because prestige is awarded solely in reports.
2. Create Simple Useful Member Surveys: Currently less than 10% of the membership participates in these sort of things. Those that do usually specifically have a complaint that they wish to be addressed, which commonly has not been brought to their officers attention. Additionally NPS is generally done through a random sampling of a rather large group on very specific issues and ultimately boils down to a single issue. “Would you recommend this to your friends and family?”. Most Camarilla members already do this. To truly make this matter does not require them to answer a question, but for them to actively recruit for the Camarilla. The gaming community while maintaining a large presence on the net is generally wide spread from each other, with various social circles forming around geographic and preference options.
3. Record and Publish Attendance at Game:
This information if compiled would honestly tell us very little useful information in regards to the Camarilla, other than patterns and tracking holistic game attendance which
I agree could be useful on a global/national level but does not provide a great deal of useful information on lower levels.
Each region has it’s own flavor, preferences, and staff. Even within that however, domains have their own flavor, preferences, and staff.
I do not mean to be offensive but you seem to base much of this idea off how a single area does things, as in my Region, it has been quite some time since it was requested in any ST reports that attendance be reported.
In regards to showing the popularity of venues, while I do not dispute it would show how often a venue is attended, it does not show much in regards to anything else. It does not account for why the venue is attended. Many players in the late stages of burn out, attend game solely out of sense of obligation rather then satisfaction or enjoyment with the venue. Most commonly, this feeling is found in Requiem, but it can be present in any venue.
Just as often, a venue that does not have a great deal of numbers is considered of far greater quality by those who play it. Do we consider a larger venue which has mostly dissatisfied players to be a greater success than a smaller venue that is almost universially enjoyed by those who play it? Your proposal states that we should.
As a last note, you conclude your missive with this:
“It’s time to start using that data for something productive…and holding our leaders accountable for the way the numbers turn out.”
McDonalds sells the most hamburgers in the world. They consistantly make a good profit and have exceptional market share and brand identity. This does not mean that they have the best hamburgers in the world.
Metrics work for a field where success is determined by the financial status of the company.
In the Camarilla, Metrics are of limited use, unless we want to define our success solely by our attendance numbers.
As an additional note, I personally have frequently observed in companies that use Metrics, those who are held responsible for the results, attempting to skew the results as they know that Metrics often are over relied on and used to determine the quality of their performance, regardless of the actual results.
The result of this is rather then focusing on how to create a successful company in terms of customer and employee satisfaction as well as finacial viablity, management focuses on achieving standards usually set by those who have not ever performed the job. Often, different groups of management are held responsible for different aspects of Metrics and without exception they will focus solely on achieving their Metric, often at the expense of other fields.
An example of this using a Call Center setting, would be Floor Managers who encourage their agents to rush customers off of the phone due to Call Handling Time being considered over the Metric at the Expense of Quality. Quality Assurance at the same time, insists that Quality scoring must be achieved even if it means longer handling time. Commonly the standard set is done independantly of a holistic look at things, resulting in the Quality requirement being set based on Agents who scored high in Quality, but may not have good Handling Times, while acceptable Call Handling Times are determined based on Agents who deal with customers very quickly. but may not have an acceptable Quality score.
Looking at only two of the axises commonly found at a Call Center, the result is an Agent who has been given conflicting instructions and often being judged by standards that are unreasonably high to consistantly achieve. While we looked at two factors, the reality is that is commonly many more factors by which agents are judged by.
You will note that Call Centers usually have one of the highest turn over rates outside of fast food, despite offering generally outstanding pay and benefits with only minimal prerequisites to enter the field.
Is this really what we wish to turn the Camarilla into?
I would have to say this is not a viable solution.
In keeping with #1, I would like to see the loaned MC for primary officers disappear. I know too many Cammies who ran for office not because they thought they could do a good job or because they wanted to, but solely for the MC bump it would give them. By all means, continue awarding Prestige to officers for a job well done! However, I think the loaned MC would discourage the folks who are only in it for the cookie and not for the good of the club overall.
I’d also like to point out that the UNSO election is in full swing. This is the US membership’s best hope to be heard by the Cam Council – so vote!
Just to point out:
In Canada, 3 months of no report puts an officer in the black, and makes for an automatic election – not a VoNC, but the mandate to simply run the election for that position. The person currently in is welcome to re-run, but everyone in the Domain will know that the reason the election is being run is a failure to report.
As well, we do not give Prestige for officer positions unless a report is filed that month – this includes our National officers (and in fact, the Nationals do not get Prestige if they are late with a report, unless they have given prior notice, or have a definate emergency).
We also got rid of MC Loans a few years ago – our ST’s ability to create NPC’s is based on their ST level, not the member’s personal MC level. This seems to have leveled out the playing field, and settled the “being ST just to get more MC” problem.
Decker – A lot of what you have said is true. We don’t want a Cam that is completely governed by arbitrary surveys, attendance records, etc. However, you’ve presented nothing for us to measure success with instead of the metrics described.
So…how do you suggest we define a successful club?
Rachel,
I hate to say it, but we agree.
Not only does the MC bump seem random and useless, but it really encourages people to run for positions solely for the bump. Also, I’ve seen not two different players end their DST terms early…and still end up benefiting from the bump. While they went into XP debt, they still got to keep everything on their sheet!
The prestige should be reward enough.
Indrani,
Damn. Well…leave it to Canada to be like us but better.
Measuring the promptness of officers- good thing. I recently had an approval sit at Mid for about three months, then spend less than a week at High before getting approved.
Useful surveys- the ones we have are useful, except that they don’t allow the right answers to the questions. Too many of them are five-option multiple choice questions from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” They ask the right questions, but limit how we can answer.
Publish attendance- this is a double-edged sword. It could discourage people from attending a venue that desperately needs attendance, like Forsaken and Awakening in my domain. Low attendance doesn’t mean a badly-run venue, because Forsaken was just simply unpopular and Awakening is very unfriendly to new players.
GrahamC,
We are more interested in attendance data across Domains and Regions than individual games. Obviously Forsaken has lower attendance, but how low? Is it THAT different than Requiem? If so, should we work on that?
We can’t answer any of those questions until someone puts the data together.
I think it varies from domain to domain. Regionally, I saw a lot of Mage and Werewolf players. At least I did at SCaRE. Locally, things are another matter. Here for example, we have a thriving Requiem game and a decent Changeling attendance.
Forsaken was a great venue here. It was a literal war against the Pure… except there wasn’t much action because the NPC Pure packs always outnumbered the PC Uratha. The first few games were great… then once the Uratha got a small territory, interest fizzled along with Uratha aggression. And if we progress the timeline forward enough, we’ll probably find that the Uratha have yet again been kicked out of town by overwhelming numbers of Pure.
Mage… sucks. I don’t know how to play it, and the last game I played resulted in me getting hit by a lightning arc from a defensive spell that my character (Prime 4, Forces 5) should have known to check for when he was trying to unravel another defensive spell on this building. And when I made an issue about it, it was dismissed as “Its your responsibility to educate yourself about this game.”
So yeah. Take a bad rulebook, high-powered players who don’t want to take time out in game to educate the new guy, and plots that’re way out of his league anyway. You end up with one new guy (me) who figures that no amount of XP will help because he’ll never learn how to play anyway, and just leaves the venue to die. And wouldn’t bat an eyelid if the Cam were to suddenly de-sanction the entire venue.
Graham,
That attitude is exactly what we are worried about. Your interactions with the venue left you sour and unhappy. So you left.
A survey at the end of your game would have given your ST useful info.
A record of attendance would show that you (and others) stopped going.
These numbers mean something.
Ok, realized I just went way off topic there. I thought you were asking about my home domain.
On the regional level, I honestly can’t say. If you can’t get into the local game for whatever reason, how do you get into the regional or national game? Hell, I *just* got into serious non-local Requiem plot on my Invictus character.
Mark – Oh, come now, it’s not *that* bad to agree with me!
To a certain extent, I think the onus of tracking membership is on the VST and DST. If fewer and fewer people are attending their game each week, that should send up a red flag that folks just aren’t having fun.
Let’s take a hypothetical, and say that Joe Cammie is elected VST of his local Requiem game. His first game as VST, attendance is similar to the previous month – but subsequent months see a dramatic drop in attendance. His third month as VST, the game has dwindled to a fraction of it’s size.
Exactly what would the remedy be for that situation? Maybe Joe is just a terrible VST, and that’s why people are fleeing. But maybe his chapter is based around a college campus, and the reason attendance dropped off was because finals hit and then everyone went home for the summer.
Tracking numbers is all well and good, but I would say the final onus for getting rid of a bad ST would rest with the membership, to begin the process of removing him from office.
But on the other hand, if Joe’s game was pegged to a college campus, the domain would have a history of rising and falling attendance and nobody would bat an eyelid at it. Instead of “Oh, we need to remove Joe,” it would be “Oh, its the summer and the whole domain’s attendance went down.”
Not a huge fan of Metrix systems, especially when volunteers and overall quality is so subjective.
However I think it is necessary for an even playing field and feel.
In reality I think heavy oversight and a much stronger but a fast approval system needs to be in place. Say 10 days, something is submitted to an ST on Wednesday … by the next Saturday, it is up or down and the reasons why, and the changes needed to be approved…X, Y, and Z need to be removed for it to equal that cost; or the cost should be x.
Every character, any one thing not explicitly mentioned in some ruling should go all the way up the chain.
X Prestige for X, have a scale if it is needed for the things that is needed. 1 prestige for every 3 well documented reviews of an item with additional notes of new ways this can be abused.
Use double blind audit exp grants, prestige grants. Blind surveys of game quality, and long form surveys of game quality for those who opt to answer those.
When there are clear probabilities of issues, it stops being double blind and starts being reviewed by regional officers.
Also a lot of education and other ways for officers to be re-immersed with their responsibilities.
Overall we are trying to make a chain store experience, some local flavor, but if someone goes from place to place things cost relatively the same for the same items. It is preferred that we are trying to make a high quality experience, with a lot of colors and spices. But you do not want there to be total crap in any venue, minimum levels of quality must be adhered to and high quality should be rewarded and acknowledged.
In the end very clear views of quality and transparency, responsibility and empowerment are necessary.
Graham, The trouble is, you can’t just ‘plug yourself into’ a venue if you don’t know it.
I don’t know why the heck you had a character with one arcana at four and one at five if you didn’t understand the game. You’re supposed to be a frickin master, and you can’t riff on the basic ways magic works.
There used to be a rule that you couldn’t use your prestige until you’d played at least three games at mc 0. Apart from the fact that this either led to three month lived characters or hyowge stat bumps, I thought this was a great idea. Maybe when you hit your three months the xp could be drip fed or something rather than hitting you in one fell swoop
I note that xp glut is noted in many places in the website.
First the xp curve is in the game, is ludricous. The cam is trying to measure a fair way of generating elder gaps thru the MC system and making it actually reflect a difference.
How many times do you spend even 100xp on your sheet and not see a real difference.
The geometric progression is based on table top, which meets on average of 4 times per month, or once per week. So you see 52 games per year with 3-9xp per game, lets save average at 6. 3+9=12/2=6. And this is realistic, I have seen a lot of games run about 6 per game in table top, specifically due to the curve.
In the Cam there are a lot of venues that run only 1 time per month with a max of 5xp and granted the leniancy of downtimes and what not you can get up to 5 more xp for the game. So first comparison is 24 xp tabletop versus 10 xp for LARP. 312 xp in table top, based on 52 weeks. Some people do take holidays but not always versus 120 xp in LARP. That is a big difference.
LARP mechanics being what they are, we are trying to hit the highest number possible to generate successes. So you have to have higher numbers in LARP than in tabletop to achieve mulitple successes.
Unlike tabletop where with a dice pool of 3 there is a chance of multiple successes, in fact are odds are you will get at least 1. without factoring in the ace always being a failure a pull of 3 will not always give you a success on the average, 1+10=11 divide by 2 is 5.5 or 6 rounded+3 pull=9 which is a failure. Your normal pull will fail with no chance of multiple successes.
There is no good mathematical way of making the games run side by side. The old system was actually better since it took a whole different approach. Although that system the xp curve was a bit too leniant.
The prestige system is an interesting idea and it has its flaws. But basically you reward people for working for the cam or for doing things for good causes. Its a great idea of making the world and the cam a better place as well as giving a reward in the form of xp to help advance your character.
Anyway, in my opinion the fundamental problem lies in the rules and the way they are structured. You would be better suited to go to White Wolf to change the rules than the cam on that. The cam already is trying to fix a lot of the rules in the addendum.
The addendum is confusing since there are so many interpretations to the rules. People are fallable and do not always express themselves clearly or easily.
But they are in place to make a more fair game to everyone.
I think its great you have strong beliefs but I think a lot of the issue your presenting is an issue with White Wolf, not the Cam.
Thanks for reading this and feel free to contact me for further discussion. I love a good argument..hehe.