Talk:Gritaur (4e Race)

Comments on Race Please

I have made some small changes to this. I would be very glad if someone would like to look them over and comment on balance and any rule errors! --Sabelkatten 08:58, 29 November 2009 (MST)

9 comments, a whole lot of edits, and the only actual response to the race itself is the addition of a "needs balance" template.

So, rather than arguing about how the *race designer* should write his fluff, how about some comments on the race itself? I *will* continue to revert edits that change *how the race is supposed to be described* until someone can come up with a *very* good alternative!

So, do someone want to comment on:

1) General balance,

2) A better (cleaner) way of writing up the race features,

3) The balance of allowing (limited) combat flight and overland flight for starting characters?

IMHO flight isn't really a balance issue unless the whole party can fly. Short-term combat flight doesn't really provide much that f.ex. Eladrin teleport doesn't do (longer range, but doesn't ignore OAs, grabs and similar hindrances).

Stub

Small edit: I added two more example charachters to the 4e writeup. --Sabelkatten 13:12, 2 December 2009 (MST)

I removed Template:Stub as such. --Green Dragon 13:33, 2 December 2009 (MST)

Gritaur Grammar

When I edit my article, I'd like to have those changes stay! There's a reason for why things are written the way they are!--Sabelkatten 04:21, 16 December 2009 (MST)

You mean the change from "She" to "Shi" and "her" to "hir"? I reverted them back — after this discussion, depending, we can see what happens. My issue is that they sound beyond dumb and do not make sense. One: that's not English, two why would a "Small winged griffon-centaurs" race change common to change "She" "her" to "Shi" and "Hir" etc? It makes them just seem more childish too. --Green Dragon 14:08, 16 December 2009 (MST)

Because "s/he", "hesh" or "it" sounds even more stupid. Being hermaphrodites gritaurs aren't specifically male or female. I use "shi" and "hir" because it's the best suggestion for pronouns I've found this far.

If you objections to a description please start by 'asking' why the description is the way it is. Making unannounced changes to an article only starts fights.--Sabelkatten 05:11, 17 December 2009 (MST)

Simultaneous hermaphrodites normally occur in smaller less advanced species to the best of my knowledge (e.g. pulmonate land snails and land slugs, banana slugs, hamlet fish, earthworms, pond snails, sponges, sea anemones, tapeworms, etc). Griffons and Humans (no matter mixed are not) I do not think would end up as simultaneous hermaphrodites (they would need defined sexes to maintain their species). Your thoughts? --Green Dragon 08:36, 18 December 2009 (MST)

We're talking about magical fantasy creatures here, not reality (hermaphrodism actually occurs in some reptile as well, not just simpler species). While standard D&D griffons have males and females (thought I'm not sure if it's ever actually defined), who's to say that a new species created with that as a base needs to be designed that way? It should also be pointed out that gritaurs are only periphially related to griffons. Both species are created out of mixing large raptors and felines, but they're completely different creations.

In this case the primary reason for the choice was because I wanted to try out the roleplaying opportunity. I had hoped to play in a campaign with a rather strict gender herarchy and the idea of a character that couldn't fit was interesting (unfortunately none of the campaigns turned out that way :( ). It also fit the backstory - having every new gritaur capable of bearing children gave their creators more options both in fine-tuning their new race and in increasing their numbers.--Sabelkatten 17:52, 18 December 2009 (MST)

Simultaneous hermaphrodites normally occur in smaller less advanced species to the best of my knowledge (e.g. pulmonate land snails and land slugs, banana slugs, hamlet fish, earthworms, pond snails, sponges, sea anemones, tapeworms, etc). Griffons and Humans (no matter mixed are not) I do not think would end up as simultaneous hermaphrodites (they would need defined sexes to maintain their species).

Haven't in some rare cases their been human simultaneous hermaphrodites? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vrail (talk • contribs) 22:44, 2 April 2010 (MST). Please sign your posts.

Are you referring to things like ovotestis? It's classified under intersexuality, not simultaneous hermaphrodites. Correct me if I am wrong please. --Green Dragon 18:24, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I get where your coming from as the author wanting to preserve this part of your race idea, but it's very confusing for a reader. I'd personally recommend you pick a gender, and use it. It seems to me, from a linguistic standpoint, that gendered pronouns wouldn't exist in the Gritaur language. Instead of "where is his book", a gritaur would say "where is Eriann's book", and so on. I think you should be able to rewrite the sections to remove any gendered pronoun. For example, " Shi prefers using hir longbow in combat, resorting to hir sword and shield only if pressed." would become " Iramin prefers using a longbow in combat, only resorting to sword and shield if pressed." --Badger 07:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

"It", as well, is gender neutral and can be used. I changed one adventurer to match, thoughts? --Green Dragon 18:49, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I personally see "it" as un-gendered, rather than gender-neutral. What I mean is "it" implies that the object in question has no gender, rather than being either gender. "It" strikes me as rather derogatory in that regard. --Badger 18:53, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

"It" looks much worse IMHO. Note the "shi/hir" is only used in writings like this, to establish that there is something different about the race. In "real life" Gritaurs don't speak English, thought I think they'd have a pronoun of some sort (using the full name all the time will be irritating in conversations, a shorthand WILL be invented!) - and as noted most other (dual-gendered) races simply assume that Gritaurs are female and use "she". Of course I could invent a completely new pronoun, but that would be even more confusing (C.J.Cherry used "Gtste" for one race in the Chanur Saga. Try using that in normal conversation!). I will revert the edit for now.--Sabelkatten 12:31, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

"It" shouldn't be used for humans, I guess. I changed it again, thoughts now? --Green Dragon 18:03, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

If you're willing to concede that dual-gendered races refer to all Gritaurs as women, we should, as humans, just change all the pronouns to she. I would, however, leave the bit about how they don't like that and some of them try to be "men".

Green Dragon, you can't just remove the pronoun, you have to change the sentence around so it still makes sense. "The clothing worn many times resembles a human male, although managed with limited success" isn't really a very good sentence. It almost seems as if the clothing resembles a man (not a man's clothing). --Badger 18:20, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

...? That humans *in the game world* usually use "she" doesn't really matter to a referense document written for *real* humans. Non-gritaurs that were actually aware of the truth wouldn't use "she" in the game world as that is actually discourteous!

When talking about gritaurs you can use whatever pronoun you like, but a reference document should use a correct term. Neither "he" nor "she" is correct, thus "shi".--Sabelkatten 14:55, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

←Reverted indentation to one colon

I added Template:Wording to reflect. The reason "Shi" or whatever cannot be used is since that is not English. You need to work something out. I see three solutions to this problem.

1. Since these are not human (they are Grituar), maybe "it" could be used. I do not know what scientists refer to simultaneous hermaphrodites while studying them. This could be correct.
2. Since we are not Grituar you could add a "grammar" section in and say most speakers of languages pick a gender and use it, disregarding the truth.
3. You could do what Badger and I were doing with the English language.

Your thoughts? --Green Dragon 16:56, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you didn't see what I changed before you reverted the edits, Sabelkatten. I completely removed all the instances of shi/hir from the text. However, I did not instead use she/her. I changed the wording of the sentence so that a pronoun was not needed. I think that all the sentences looked pretty understandable and coherent, with only one line that was a little awkward. You'll also notice that I left in the part about Gritaurs using shi/hir. Basically what I did was maintain all the fluff and character depth you wrote, while removing things that made your page look awkward. If you want to keep your pronouns, just be forewarned that they seem awkward and might make people feel that this page is filled with typos. That's what I thought, at least. --Badger 18:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

RE:Badger; Yes, I saw it. Honestly, it was quite well done! However I seem to have failed to make one thing clear: I want the reader to notice the odd pronoun! The idea is that the question of gender should come up - it's a very interesting roleplaying opportunity IMHO. While not a perfect parallel, think of all the fun generated by by Ranma's gender-switching in "Ranma 1/2"!

RE:Green Dragon; On the use of English, what is the basis for acceptable words? I'm quite certain there are words in DnD that aren't in any stadard dictionary... Plus, while shi/hir isn't "official" it's accepted by a fairly large community.

Looking around a bit it seems like the correct word to use is actually "they/their", which, as far as I can find, used to be gender-neutral singularis! But how confusing isn't that going to be?

Would it be acceptable to start the article with a short description of gritaur gender and pronouns, and then use shi/hir in the article? --Sabelkatten 12:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that is a good place to start, a short description of gritaur gender related grammer. --Green Dragon 16:20, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll try to put together a better intro ASAP!--Sabelkatten 21:24, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I moved the grammatical description to "Playing an Gritaur" and fixed the wording once again. Here is the condensed reason: As this article is not written by Gritaurs and as English pronouns are considered a closed set for grammatical reasons they are not used. Please, however, make note about Gritaur's culture.

Thoughts on the "closed set for grammatical reasons"? --Green Dragon 17:42, 7 September 2010 (MDT)

Racial Abilities Edit

Added a detail I'd forgotten: Gritaurs have problem with armor made for bipeds. --Sabelkatten 14:29, 25 December 2009 (MST)