Author: Mike Espinoza (Azlath)

Moving forward with the new Playbooks for my #NahualRPG. Doing the finishing touches on the Jaguar playbook.

Ok, I mentioned a while ago how hopeless I am because I keep adding basic stuff every time I sit to work on #NahualRPG.

Well, this is the new special stat I’ve come up with. I would love to hear your feedback everyone!

Here, the short description for the new playbook concepts for #NahualRPG

The Jaguar

You are the perfect predator, a creature of the night. Lethal in combat and stealth. Strong, fearless, proud, solitary and ever stern. You always push yourself—and others—too hard. You are at the top of the food chain.

The Serpent

You are a sensual manipulator. Very social, charming, but without any real relation or attachment. Merciless. You have the power to heal, but also the power to kill with your venom. You are patient and cold blooded, always waiting for the right moment to strike.

The Dog

You have a gregarious personality and a very loyal nature. But you can be pretty violent when provoked. And even though you possess a strong sense of duty, you have an inner wild side that can get out of control. You are the ultimate tracker and a perfect guide on the underworld.

The Eagle

A born leader, you project security and a regal bearing. With a strong character and stubborn temperament, you can’t stand taking orders. You are arrogant, because you fly above everyone else, way high. This position, though, allows you to analyze situations with great precision.

The Armadillo

With a noble and peaceful heart, you usually shield it with a strong shell that makes you seem cold and distant. You are an incorruptible protector, an example of resistance and perseverance. You reaction to any threat is always to stand and endure, rather than fight back.

The Bat

Stealthy assassin. You have a taciturn and somber demeanor. Although you are blind, you can see beyond the mundane world. As a creature of the underworld, you keep a connection between the material world and the spiritual one. You have a dark side that you try to hide.

The Deer

With enviable beauty and grace. Nimble and slippery, you prefer to keep your distance when threatened, even if you have an outstanding physical potential. You run like brother wind, and strike with lightning speed.

The Monkey

You are smart, inquisitive and creative, with artistic and scientific tendencies. A genius techie. Your curiosity is always getting you in trouble, and you rarely take life seriously. You always put fun first, obligations later.

The Tlacuache

You are a scoundrel and party animal. A talented thief and skillful deceiver. You love drinking and the good life. You hate duty and commitments. Although you are not very brave, you are cunning and pretty resilient. When you play death, you can withstand literally anything.

The Axolotl

You are unique, with qualities so weird that you are wanted by many. You posses great mental and regenerative powers. You are an eternal infant and a shapeshifter. You fear death above anything else, and you’ll do anything to keep it away. Despite all of this, you always bear a happy smile.

http://www.patreon.com/nahual

I’ve been pondering long about this issue in my #NahualRPG : How I handle the playbooks and the nahual animals.

Because in Mexican culture a Nahual is most commonly a brujo or shaman that can transform into an animal.

So far, I have defined the playbooks as common character archetypes: the tough character, the stealthy character, the smart character, the sexy character, etc. And then I would have the animals as a second layer.

The thing is, for a while now, I’ve been thinking that my archetype playbooks lack originality (after all, can an archetype be original?), they are too universal, and by that I mean that you can apply them to any game, theme or genre. They are cool, sure, but are lacking on theme and flavor. Specially in a Mexican game about brujos nahuales.

Then I saw mister Jason Morningstar in a conference in Finland (on youtube of course, I don’t have the pleasure of visiting Finland yet) about hacking AW. And as I listened to him talking about early stages of Night Witches and how they had these other playbooks, but in the end they were only noise, so they removed them, I realize that this may be my case too.

I’ve been trying hard to keep my early choice of playbooks for one main reason (I think), I feel that getting rid of them will be a huge setback and that may discourage the people that is supporting me in Patreon. I’ve already took too long in writing this game, and even with the late revisions some people had been already stepping out. And I don’t blame them, I feel really bad about that because the fault is mine alone. I feel I’ve disappointed them!

But then, at the same time, I feel an obligation to my patrons, and to myself, to do a good job. I know my game won’t be perfect, I’m a novice designer and of course there will be a lot of things I won’t be doing right, but I’m sure about one thing, I don’t want to be left with a feeling that I didn’t give my best, and that’s what matters to me the most.

So, I have this strong feeling that my first choice of playbooks is lacking theme, and that it will be better to base those playbooks on specific animals with a strong Mexican folkloric feel. I guess I have to go that route and start my playbooks from scratch, even if that means ending up with only a few patrons. I apologize to those who may feel disappointed by my decision and thank them for the support so far.

As for everything else, it will stay pretty much as is, the stats, the basic moves, etc.

All that said, from now on the old playbooks (the Hard, the Shield, the Opportunist, the Sneaky, the Nerd, the Seducer, the Leader and the Tumbler) will change to:

-The Jaguar

-The Serpent

-The Dog

-The Eagle

-The Armadillo

-The Bat

-The Deer

-The Monkey

-The Tlacuache

-The Axolotl

Thanks for reading this far.

Fin del comunicado.

The Basic Moves sheet for the #NahualRPG Beta v2.0. Nahual is a Mexican RPG Powered by the Apocalypse. (Support us at www.patreon.com/nahual)

https://www.patreon.com/posts/nahual-basic-7071776?utm_medium=social&utm_source=googleplus&utm_campaign=postshare

Working on my playbooks for #NahualRPG, I’m realizing that they’ll have a lot (about 20ish) of improvements options to buy with “XP”. What do you think about it? Is that too much?

OK, I’m in trouble… I’m thinking on adding (again) new concepts to my #NahualRPG game!

But I’m kind of happy, I’ve being brooding long (since the beginning) about the inclusion of specific animals for players to transform, and I’m finally going for it: Jaguar, Águila, Tlacuache, Venado… what else, what else?