Dear Drama Mamas,

I am in a 25-man raiding guild on a server. We are a decent group of raiders. We have every raiding stereotype you can imagine: the yelling raid leader, the cool-as-a-cucumber DPS, and the always-has-a-strat guy, just to name a few. So as you can see, we are a typical group trying to climb to the top of the server ranking. I have been in this guild since a month after Ulduar released and I have gotten into the flow of people leaving, joining and quitting the game. It felt homey until 5 months ago, when problems started to arise. I have been having drama with one person -- not run-of-the-mill drama, either. Recurring drama.

We will call him Mr. Green.

Mr. Green has been in the guild for a while. He joined when ToC was new. His raiding status has been off and on since then, depending on how many raiders we have. This is mainly due to the fact he is what experts call an "idiot." His raid awareness is that of a sloth and he never comes prepared, may that be with raid goods or knowledge about the encounter. For a while, he seemed to be filler for our raids when we are short-handed, but now I notice he is getting in raids over competent people. To illustrate how idiotic he can be, here is a fun example:

Mr. Green was in with us on a Putricide attempt. We had gotten down the green ooze (which he did not bother to attack) and were on the other side waiting for the orange to come down. Lo and behold, Mr. Green is on the wrong side. The raid leader gently told him to move, but when no response was received, raid leader began to channel his mean side. Alas, it was too late, and Mr. Green wiped the raid when the ooze targeted him and blew up. Everyone makes mistakes, I know this -- but Mr. Green decided to say he didn't see it or any warning, despite having DBM and all our raid leaders having DBM on announce.

Wiping due to trivial things is a usual scene in our raids with Mr. Green, and one day it became too much for me and I lost my cool. I have become famous for losing my cool on Mr. Green, and people treat it as a game. Since then, our healer channel has become a place to bash him -- and from what I have heard, there are other class channels that have turned into the same thing.

I have tried talking to my GM about Mr. Green, but since my GM is very passive-aggressive, he told me that he enjoyed when I exploded on Mr. Green and he would rather have me cut him down until he leaves, rather than kick him. This puts me in an odd position. I don't like cutting down people, but it seems everything he does rubs me the wrong way. Whether it's calling me male on every occorrence (I talk regularly in Vent and am very much female), biting me instead of a DPS on BQL, Ice Blocking me because he was in the wrong place during Sindragosa, or just being moronic in guild chat. I have become a gigantic rage monster and whenever I have a "rage moment," my friend spams /yell with RAWR.

I don't know what to do about Mr. Green. I have him muted in Vent, but that doesn't make him invisible. I am a core healer so I can't even skip out on raiding when he is in the raid. We are short-handed, so not having him in the raid would have us under-manned for our 25-mans. I have stated to officers that we would almost be better off without him. Oh, it might be noteworthy to add I am not the only person to have a seething dislike for Mr. Green. Please, please help me!

Sincerely,
RAWR <3

1. There's a better way to react than blowing your stack at Mr. Green -- so don't. Everything about your letter tells me you already know this, too. Don't let an immature GM and guild officers egg you into behavior you clearly feel bad about afterwards. This is your "fun" time, RAWR; don't pee in your own nest.
2. Give your guild leadership a wakeup call. Tell your GM in no uncertain terms that you and other members are fed up with their lack of action. Either they need to handle this situation, or you and the other members who feel the same way will be forced to consider moving on to another guild.
3. In the meantime, cushion yourself from interacting with Mr. Green. It's possible to be firm yet polite with someone who needs to tune up his game and social skills.
4. Try helping the poor guy out. We've talked before about ways to help problem players improve their game. If you think you have the patience for it, continue to implement the cushioning maneuvers during raids and then try some of our suggestions when the pressure's off.
5. Help recruit more guild members. If your guild weren't stretched so thin, there'd be more flexibility for working around low-performance members like Mr. Green. Do some pugging and find some new blood.

• Make the leap. Join up. See how you like a more focused pace. You may love it ... You may lose interest after the initial adrenaline rush ... Or you may not find the schedule or the guild such a good fit after all. You'll never know unless you try.
• Don't burn any bridges with your casual friends. "I'd like to try more raiding, and I've got this window to try things out before I get back into school" is different than "You all suck Cracked Eggs and I never want to hear from you again."

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Filed under: Drama Mamas