Officers' Quarters: More loot-rolling shenanigans

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Last week, I addressed a situation where a married couple who leads a guild were using the old double-rolling scam to get extra loot for each other. Normally I don't like to address the same topic two weeks in a row, but based on some of the comments from that post and the following e-mail that I received, some people still don't get why this is a problem.

So here we go again!

I read your article and while I understand it I disagree in principle. Myself (holy priest) and one of our other guild officers(Lock) routinely run in pugs for 25 Naxx, we have on several occasions rolled for gear that neither of us need. Why? Long story short, we do not need the gear but we also try to make sure than one of our less geared guildies in cloth is along for the ride, and now that we can trade the stuff to them we can use three rolls per item to help them gear up faster. We are not selling the stuff to them merely giving it to them so they can gear up faster. If I do not need gear from the raid and niether does the lock, there is a reason we are there, I don't have a problem with it and would not have any problem with anyone else doing the same thing, in fact I would commend them on the efforts on their behalf to help their guildmates.

The only time I have an issue with loot distribution is when it is a straight ninja job, player looses a roll and still gets an item or there is no roll at all and Lootmaster gives it to someone anyhow.

You're welcome to disagree with me, and I appreciate that you and another officer are willing to help out a guildmate by pugging Naxx with him or her.

I have two questions for you, however.

1. Are you telling the other members of the PUG that you are doing this?

2. If so, do these players agree to it?

If the answer to either of these questions is no, then you are stealing loot, plain and simple. You can justify it however you want, but at the end of the day you're no better than the "lootmaster ninja" you're (ironically) complaining about.

It doesn't matter why you're stealing loot. Just because you're trying to help out a friend doesn't make it right. You're still stealing from other players. And if you're not telling them what you're doing (which I have to assume you're not), you're also lying about it. It's a lie of omission, but that's a far cry from honesty.

In fact, a ninja like the one you describe at least has the decency to steal loot openly and face the consequences. You're stealing loot behind other players' backs while pretending that everything's on the level. Which is worse?

You are intentionally manipulating the random element of the situation so that one person is three times as likely to receive loot as anyone else. It's completely unfair to the remaining players in the raid, who aren't aware of the circumstances. They're being honest, and they're being robbed. Sure, you three may not always win the rolls, but that doesn't change the fact that you're loading the dice.

If there's a loot cap in place, which is often the case for 25-player PUGs, you are also circumventing that rule.

Any way you slice it, unless you've expressly asked permission from the raid to roll this way, what you're doing is underhanded and dishonest.

I would strongly encourage you (and everyone else out there who might be pulling these scams) to stop before you ruin the reputation of your guild. Sooner or later someone is going to inspect you and question why you're rolling on a Naxx item when you're wearing Tier 9 in that slot.

You'll have to come clean, and your guild will be exposed as cheats. Word will spread. Players on your realm may not accept your members into PUGs anymore, and then no one in your guild will be able to gear up that way.

Is it worth all that grief just for some Naxx gear for one person? You'd be better off in the long run helping that player run Heroics for badges. He or she will get much better gear for their efforts and, considering you can run Heroics every day instead of once per week, that player could potentially gear up a lot faster, too.

The alternative is a world where PUGs are loaded up with 5 players who need gear and 20 players who are just there to roll for them. Nobody wants that, so knock it off!

/salute

Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott.andrews@weblogsinc.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters!