Guidebook expansion?

When editing your profile, there are these sort of references above the Species and Appearance fields that say something to the effect of "check the Guidebook for permissible species/appearances" and then, looking at the Guidebook, I can't really find any of this information besides a short blurb reminding joiners to use "semi-realistic" appearances. Nothing wrong with this in of itself, as it hasn't seemed to bother anyone or affect a new joiner's ability to join - and I actually kinda like being able to get away with just putting "Wolf" down as my character's subspecies - but I just think it would be nice, for our more thorough-minded people, to have a simple onsite reference for the actual permissible wolf breeds and appearances, even if it's just a paragraph linking you to dawnthieves for a reference of basic wolf appearances.

And speaking of linking people to some basic information, I understand this is a semi-realistic site, but I think it also wouldn't hurt to provide a link to some general information about wolves, for those who might not feel inclined to do any extraneous digging, and for those who may have some slight misconceptions about wolf facts and behaviors. For example, I think it gets overlooked that wolves, when dispersing from their natal packs, tend to do so during the winter, and that living through these months (unless it's a hard BWP winter) aren't often that difficult to survive.

Something as simple as having a link around here to The International Wolf Center would be a great help towards getting everyone standing on a more accurate foundation for each wolf's behavior. If needed, I'm sure volunteers like myself would be willing to throw something together.

I'd be more than willing to compile and format something.

Something like height and weight limits would be also a great thing to add if anything at all (if i may put my two cents in). Just so we don't wind up with people competing for biggest and wind up with odd proportioned beasts.

I just wanted to throw in a response since I know the Cms are busy with the holiday <3

We did use to have a much more comprehensive guidebook in terms of character creation - so you are probably seeing the vestigial remnants of that referenced.

Over time some parts of the Guidebook, especially the parts that limited a lot of player creativity, were taken out - I believe this was player driven. The CMs can correct me if I am wrong but I was under the impression that the more limiting parts of the GB were removed because they wanted to foster a less strict and controlling, more forgiving atmosphere. CM (and players) wanted a casual game so a lot of the more hardcore rules got revised to reflect that.

As it stands now, any species native to our setting is allowed. I believe there is actually an exhaustive list linked, for the wild faunas (which is region specific) -- but for the sake of character diversity I believe any NA species of wolf or coyote is allowed.

I do love the idea of a nice off-site reference for canine behavior though, and I don't think that is a bad idea to add at all! If you guys have any resources you'd like to see included somewhere in the GB, I think that's something that could easily be added in - you can PM or DM me any time and I can add!

As far as height and weight limits go.. the CMs historically do not actively police that in already active characters - but during account approval, if there is a character that exceeds the realistic morphology of the species, we have denied them in the past. I think the understanding is, that CMs trust the player-base to decide height/weight within reason. Most players don't include height and weight in their profiles, and disputes over size difference[s] in fights are thankfully few and far in between.

Over time some parts of the Guidebook, especially the parts that limited a lot of player creativity, were taken out - I believe this was player driven. The CMs can correct me if I am wrong but I was under the impression that the more limiting parts of the GB were removed because they wanted to foster a less strict and controlling, more forgiving atmosphere. CM (and players) wanted a casual game so a lot of the more hardcore rules got revised to reflect that.

As it stands now, any species native to our setting is allowed. I believe there is actually an exhaustive list linked, for the wild faunas (which is region specific) -- but for the sake of character diversity I believe any NA species of wolf or coyote is allowed.

To be clear, I would not like to see (the return of) more restrictions/policing on what is and isn't allowed around here. I want the forgiving atmosphere and a short, comprehensive guide for generalized wolf appearances and behaviors. So when all someone has in their profile is "average agouti male with rainbow eyes and a spotted tail," there's an onsite reference to at least what the first part of that description might look like.

I realize that these are things that can be researched by individuals as they feel they need to, but if we have our "own" sources listed here for what "we" think wolves think and act like, then ideally we would all start with the same clay to mold our characters with.

I think my main problem is that I feel as if a lot of us take for granted the fact that we're mostly long-time friends around here. We all know "the rules" and the descriptions, been doing this half our lives, and yadda yadda, but every now and again we get a crowd of new faces - a surge of young people looking to get into this RP genre the same way we were a million years ago - and I think providing some accurate examples, as opposed to "guidelines", would be a good introduction/invitation for newcomers, and serve as a nice refresher for old-timers.

(Also, also, re: height/weight -- somewhere on the FAQ I linked to in my first post, there's actually a factoid on the ranges of wolf sizes, so if we ended up linking to that page from Wolf, then I think that might act as a good enough "reminder" for what may be too big or too small for a wolf.)

I don't think expanding on the official guide section is necessary but if someone wanted to compile something for reference as an optional helper i def would be for it personally!

not to be a pick me ass bitch but i would absolutely be willing to take on this project