No, this isn’t a love song. This is my take on Raiding and Couples. Having a couple in your raid can be the awesomest awesome that ever awesomed when both people are well adjusted, talented players who enjoy the game, enjoy the guild, and enjoy the content.  Let me say right up front, I LOVE THOSE TYPES OF COUPLES AND WOULD HAVE MANY OF THEM IN MY RAID.

But then there’s the other 90 percent of the time.

Chaos has historically had issues with couples in the raid. The most common problem is one person in said couple being well liked, well respected, and a joy to be around, and then they sell us on how great and shiny their significant other is, and we end up Hating Them. Why? Usually because New Significant Other Raider doesn’t take raiding as seriously as their counterpart. Inevitably, one person in said couple takes their Warcraft time more seriously than the other and it shows in performance. It then presents a problem for the officers: how do you talk to the under-producer and somehow manage to not infuriate their spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/loveslave. It’s a delicate balancing act, that.

Because we’ve had such poor luck with this issue in the past (I won’t even get started on the What Happens When They Break Up thing), I’ve implemented a few rules that have helped me get through The Couple Gauntlet.

  • When you recruit a couple, explain that there are no guarantees right off the bat. Package deals are fine in theory, but if we have to sub someone on any given night, it may in fact be your wife/husband/loveslave. You can – if you’re not an utter dink – try to sub both of them on those evenings, but if one plays an integral role and the other doesn’t, there are no promises. Setting that expectation will defunct a lot of arguments later on.
  • When talking to a raider about performance, allow them to decide if they want their counterpart there for the discussion. Look, if they both raid together, and they live together, the likelihood is whatever you say to your raider is going to get filtered back to their partner anyway. Cutting the middle man out, allowing both people in the relationship to give feedback right up front eliminates details being misrepresented in a retelling.
  • Should the raider decide they do NOT want their significant other taking part in the discussion, be a good enough person to not talk about their performance with the spouse behind their back. If the spouse approaches you, tell them you’d be happy to discuss it when both parties are present. Respect your raiders boundaries.
  • Keeping conversations about performance to facts – ie WWS reports – works much better than subjective opinion. It’s hard to dispute numbers. Mary might love Tom a lot, but when she sees that Tom does ¼ the DPS of the rest of the raid, she might catch on that your problem with Tom is not a personal one.
  • Advise that relationship drama is to be kept outside of the game, and indicators that it’s carrying over into the raid will result in a conversation at the least, discipline at the most.  I advise a zero tolerance policy for this.  Setting the precedent that it’s okay to take real life angst out during raid hours adversely affects twenty three other people, and that’s not fair.

I’m tossing these rules/tips out there in case anyone else gets to deal with this particular flavor of annoyance, and as always, would love to hear feedback from other folks. I’m sure everyone deals with this issue differently.  Ta!