[MightyK]

I'm happy to find so many others with the same experience and feelings, and have enjoyed reading the responses.

I have been in a clique before as ForgottenMUD suggested I join one, when I was in the staff of a now-closed MUD, and though I never abused the power maliciously, there were great benefits bestowed to my player character by other staff mortals that definitely wouldn't have otherwise been allotted, which even then I felt guilty about. When a new staffer did start to abuse their power maliciously towards a specific player it created a rift in the staff, and an extremely negative effect on the playerbase because it caused other things about the staff that had been kept secret to spill open.

Even on games where RP is not required, there is large amount of goal-oriented and competitive abuse opportunity.

One of the ways I have seen corruption handled well, and the "least corrupt" (with only some cronyism problems) MUD I have seen, is one where there was a heavy tier and restricted abilities among the Immortals, where the most trusted Immortals policed the newer Immortals very closely. Of course, nothing ever stops the Creators from being corrupt themselves, but if the opportunity for a clique to form is very limited to a senior clade that doesn't grow over time, it can help.

I am interested to try out a couple of the games I have heard here. Corruption and cronyism isn't a barrier for me to play, I play a couple games now that are ran by cliques, but it is a negative. I think even the staff members who participate in it will admit that it is a flaw themselves, in games where people should rise and fall on their own character's merit.