Shattered Kingdoms

You're quite right - you do state that. So I took another look at the files to see how I got off the track.

Part of it is that clades came about when griffons became slaves. (Griffon-culture, paragraph 4) I may be reading way too much into that, but it suggests relatively long-term and accurate knowledge, or that clades were actual political organizations.

A bigger part is griffon-clans, paragraph 1. The first few sentences strongly imply that clans are mere subdivisions of a clade, and not very important ones at that. While this is correct as a classification scheme, it doesn't fit the picture of "We observe many clans, and then characterize them by a few clades." I think this is a place where a little amplification could go a long way.

That applies somewhat to the actual clade descriptions as well. They start off expressing perfectly known histories, instead of noticing cultural and historical similarities. Maybe it should simply be said that clan history determines clade? Then all this would fit nicely.

I'm getting more used to the clade descriptions. It's not the disaster I first thought, especially since clades are just rough classifications. But there still are a few things I'd like to see toned down:

* For Imperium, last sentence: "Even the wildest among them are gentle and wise ..." is too restrictive. I wouldn't so characterize the Talon bounty-hunters, and they're probably the best NPCs for the category. Nor should any clade be essentially forced to principled alignment.

* For Razorbeak: The phrase "cynical about the realms" is fine. Continuing on to include other griffon clades is not. It's been well established in-game that the mainland griffons are quite friendly to each other. That's hardly surprising for a small minority under pressure.

Just for the record, Thuban's huge post is the size of a book, not a help file. Agreed?

I just want to say, and it is a bit off-topic, that with the exception of Peso's sarcastic remark, here is a thread where someone made a suggestion and people took it seriously, acted like polite adults, and debated the issue in non-offensive ways. It is a breath of fresh air to see something done in a constructive and positive manner. Kudos to you all.

p.s. any typos are due to a lack of sleep.

+1 to making it clear that these writings are NOT neutral PoV. If you prefer to keep the current tone, then I suggest framing the deliberately misleading parts as IC works, e.g. more excerpts from the encyclopedia of Pyrathia, writings of an obviously biased human scholar, etc. Maybe it's just me, but help files should try to preserve the quality of being unbiased, objective sources - therefore anything that presents an IC view (especially if inaccurate) should be clearly marked as flavor text.

Do the subtle machinations in the IC world and make the help files concise and explicit.

First of all, it's 6 separate helpfiles. Secondly, it'd be a lot more constructive to tell me "part X can probably be left out, for reason Y" than "LAWL TAHT IS TO LONG THUBAN" :p

I should probably jump in and say that, in general, help files should be factual and stick to the point. Help files should be most often used to get as a newbie introduction to the race so they don't go completely off track. Long descriptive writing and details that are not factually part of the game world should probably be left to a book.

That's not a hard rule, but it does look like there is enough material here to make both a help file and a book that can go in every realms library.

Well, we are getting a great deal of maybe-itis, including the entire clade structure at this point. That's not helping newbies understand what's required of griffons. Nor do they need to know historical details not relevant to racial roleplay. Frankly, what they do need to know is getting a bit lost in all this.

I'd like to suggest reducing things down to two or three help files, and then putting the rest in books.

"Help griffon" could be what every player should know about griffons. Thuban's help griffon, with paragraph 3 and the Razorbeak reference removed, would be excellent.

"Help griffon-culture" could be what griffon players should know about griffons. Paragraph 3 from help griffon should go in (possibly with the mating stuff removed, which is getting maybe-itis). So should the first paragraph of help griffon-culture. Then we can select from the best and most definite of the other material.

"Help griffon-clans" could be what griffon players should know to create a clan for their backstory. I'm not sure this is even necessary. But if we want the clade system to be official, here's the place. Again, limiting this to a few paragraphs would be nice.

I'm happy to take a stab at such help-files if there's any interest. People who complain should do their share of the work.

Go for it. While I reserve the right to make some final revisions, I'll be glad to see what you come up with.

If any help file needs changing its Dulriks.

One thing at a time.