[quote=@Silly]
You bring up an interesting point, and there is understandable concerns around the cliques and it’s an important topic in any community, especially roleplay groups. Fundamentally with this hobby, we are creating temporary close-knit communities whenever a GM makes a game. These can sometimes feel exclusionary or difficult enter, especially when it is a game in progress.

However, it is important to distinguish the difference between harmful exclusion, such as elitism or GM’s being ‘Warlords of their Domain’, with the balance of RP groups needing healthy boundaries. Communities thrive when everyone feels safe, respected, and free to express themselves. RP is an intimate experience both in-character and out-character, so trust is important.

Sometimes our decisions to exclude certain individuals from an role-play wasn’t about forming an elitist clique or being unkind to people. This can be making sure that people who join are a ‘Good Fit’ to enter the RP. These decisions can be around ensuring the safety and well-being of our members which has to be the foundation of any healthy community.

So, when someone engages in behaviours like harassment or makes others feel unsafe, it just doesn’t work, and things fall apart.  it undermines the trust and enjoyment that makes these roleplay communities so fulfilling. So, addressing those issues is necessary to maintain a positive environment for us all to thrive in.

I think it is good to be open to discussing ways we can make the community more welcoming for our members.
[/quote]

This is (relative in Internet terms) a long standing community, with equally long standing members comprising it; if we go back to the old vBulletin forum that was once the Guild, there's close to/over two decades that have lead it to where it is now. 

Inevitably, a place that's been around a while, playing host to people that have been around a while will see the development of groups that are more tight-knit than the average one-off RP cast: people who have been in multiple RPs together, people that have migrated as collectives from one site to the next for whatever reasons, people who have established a sort of lore between their OCs or have collaborated extensively in the past. This is the territory wherein cliques start to lean into exclusionary behavior, I think moreso than people coming together for an RP of common interest. 

Wanting to maintain the effiency and consistency of the creative group is one thing. But then, maybe don't open it for the RPing public? Or if if the intent is hold a higher level of skill as a standard, set up shop in the Advanced section wherein the talent sought is more likely to come around. 

My personal experiences with cliques in RPing have been situations wherein a few people with history together seemed to relegate those not of the in-group to background noise, and their characters being kneecapped into irrelevance either from conception or through the collaboration and plotting; GMs at the core of it. Fundamentally a GM should bd able and willing to account for players and characters outside of the clique, especially in RPs not driven by an official central plot. When you try to iron out character relations with the GM and their adjacent circle and get told to instead work with the other newcomers... that is kind of a red flag; "you can play near us, but not with us." In essence, a clique within an RP. 

This was in the Casual RP section. 

If I were in any position to GM, I might well have taken a stab at running my own RP.