Avatar World: Major Changes Late In The Game, also the Airbender's Fiddly Bits

FZ is a remix album of the Fez soundtrack, split into two discs, Side F and Side Z. They have some awesome artist names in the list, from the obvious (Disasterpiece of course) to the awesome (Jim Guthrie, Big Giant Circles, C418, Souleye) to the surprising (Decktonic, Ben Prunty, Stemage, Solar fuckin' Fields). This is by Br1ght Pr1mate, an awesome chiptune artist who I do the mutual following thing with on Twitter. This song gets a LOT out of having lyrics, and I liked it in the first place even!
Check out the album, it's absolutely worth it.

So, uh, even though I think about Avatar World pretty much constantly I don't make tons of progress. See, the big really-interesting stuff is the move writing, and, well, I'm pretty much done with the bulk work of move writing, so I mostly have fiddly bits that I have to force myself to sit down and write.

A big thought for me, brought on by The Walking Eye's podcast about cultural appropriation in games, was whether or not I was doing naughty-bad things including the real-world baggage-carrying Ninja and Samurai but using them in a generalized context rather than keeping completely true to the historical fact of the words. After a little discussion there and then some more over on Story Games, I was significantly convinced to stay away from Samurai. Ninja was still on the fence, due to the excessive appropriation that's already happened in the 90s, but hey.
The original plan was to rename the Samurai. That plan wasn't really going well to me, stuff didn't feel right.

So last night I was feeling particularly bold and finally took action. The results? The Samurai playbook no longer exists. Neither does the Ninja technically. Most of the Ninja found its way into the new playbook, The Warrior. I abandoned the move Ambush (safely stowed in the loose moves section), and replaced it with Samurai - a much more focused use of the word, focused enough that I feel comfortable using it. Here, check it out:

Samurai: You are trained in open combat, and may wear up to 2-armor (with the associated penalty). Being a Samurai comes with extra baggage: to whom have you sworn loyalty? Do you still feel loyal to them? Make an oath with yourself reflecting your commitment to them.

I'm feeling it. I have vague intentions to make The Samurai a complete sub-playbook, which I feel okay with because I can make it really specific to the real thing and not have to generalize (which I did before because it was one of the nine playbooks that needed to cover everything). Those intentions only come after I've written all the other pieces of the game.

Oh yeah, I also altered the Monk's Calm Stability!

Calm Stability: Until you personally show aggression toward a foe (or their allies), whenever you are still and unflinching in the face of imminent harm, roll+Solid. On a 10+, the danger washes over you harmlessly. On a 7-9, you still come through unscathed except (choose one):
     * the experience is painful (take 1 Harm) but you are unphazed.
     * your resolve is broken, take the Tag Shaken.
     * you can no longer stand by and immediately act against the target that attacked you.

This is pretty experimental still, but I'm pretty okay with it! The Tag option feels weak, but the "you get mad" option feels really nice.
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Anyway, let's get on those fiddly bits for the Airbender, huh? Let's go down the list:
Flavor Text:

The wind is a fickle force, prone to changing direction on a whim. So too with the airbender: swift, always moving, quick to decide and slow to commit.

Stat (Pick One Array):

* Natural +2, Hot -1, Solid+0, Keen+1, Fluid+1
* Natural +2, Hot +1, Solid-1, Keen+0, Fluid+1
* Natural +2, Hot -1, Solid+1, Keen+1, Fluid+0
* Natural +2, Hot +0, Solid-1, Keen+1, Fluid+1

Look (Pick One From Each Set):

* Hairless, tattooed body, wild and unkept hair, short and maintained hair.

* Traveler's clothes, temple clothes, commoner's clothes, loose meditation clothes.

Gear:

* A glider staff, which allows you to fly by spending a point of Momentum.
* A trinket from the ones who taught you airbending.

Oaths:

* You've promised another player that you would do whatever it took to aid them in their own quest. Who was it, and what are you helping to do?

* You owe someone a debt from some time traveling alone. Who? What do you owe?

Chi:

* Spacey and whimsical
* Hasty and quick to act
* Indecisive and quick to change your mind
* Emotional and sensitive

Special:

Once you've trained with a master airbender, whenever you Move With Intention, you also get 1 Momentum on a hit.

Improvement:

When you have 5 XP, you can gain no more. Reduce your XP from 5 to 0 at any point to take an advancement:
__ You have +1 Hot (max +3)
__ You have +1 Solid (max +3)
__ You have +1 Keen (max +3)
__ You have +1 Fluid (max +3)
__ gain a new "Chi Key" from the list, or write your own.
__ gain a new Airbender move
__ gain a new Airbender move
__ gain a new Airbender move
__ gain a move from another playbook
__ gain a move from another playbook
///////////////////////// (these improvements can only be taken once you've taken 5 of the above improvements)
__ You have +1 to any stat (max +3)
__ Retire your character to safety
__ create a second character to play side-by-side with this one
__ change your character to a new type

I think that's it. All I need to do is doodle up an Airbender and this one'll be totally complete. Just 5 more (cuz the Waterbender and Scholar are already complete)!

End Recording,
Ego.