Pasion de Las Pasiones - Core Rulebook

CREDITS
Published by Magpie Games

Printed by Taylor Speciality Books
Writing and Design: Brandon Leon-Gambetta

Additional Writing: Brendan Conway & Claudia Sánchez Quiroz
Project Management: Brendan Conway
Developmental Editing: Mark Diaz Truman
Copy Editing: Monte Lin
Layout: Miguel Ángel Espinoza
Art Direction: Marissa Kelly
Proofreading: Katherine Fackrell
Additional Proofreading: Claudia Sánchez Quiroz
Staff Support: Jen Adcock, Kate Bullock, Sarah Doom, J. Derrick
Kapchinsky, Adam McEwen, Chris Samson, Sarah “Sam” Satiel, and
Valerie Osbourn
Indexing: J. Derrick Kapchinsky
All art is either licensed under the CC0 license, licensed directly
from Shutterstock, licensed directly from DepositPhotos, or used
under the license of Pixabay, Pexels, or Unsplash. Photographers
include but are not limited to Renato Abati, Rene Asmussen, Artem
Beliaikin, Christian Buehner, Keira Burton, Sarah Cervantes, Lucas
da Miranda, Zachary DeBottis, Marcelo Dias, Ron Lach, Jennifer
Marquez, Joanna Nix-Walkup, Gabriela Pereira, Luis Quintero,
Hermes Rivera, Kelly Sikkema, Mihai Stefan, Liza Summer, Polina
Tankilevitch, and Anthony Tran.
Special thanks to Meguey and Vincent Baker for creating

Apocalypse World and the more than 1000 Kickstarter backers
who made Pasión de las Pasiones possible. We are humbled by your
collective encouragement and support.
Acknowledgments
I could never have written this game, much less
this book, without an absolutely indescribable
amount of support from so many people who
put their love and passion into it. To have the
experience of sharing in that has been fulfilling
in ways I cannot express. I am, for only the second
or third time in my life, lost for words because there
is no way I can express how much this experience has
meant for me.
I want to dedicate the book to my family; to my abuelos and my tios for
instilling in me a love of our culture, for my parents for making sure I didn’t
drift from it, for my siblings and primos celebrating our love for it (even
though they don’t play these nerdy games), and my child who I try every
day to pass along that same connection. ¡Viva Perú!
Thanks to Mark for taking a chance on me, Brendan for showing me
how to go from idea to design, and all of the Magpies who put in so
much work on this. I say with full honesty that I came into this project
starstruck to be working with my heroes and am now so happy to have
made this with my friends.
Thanks to James Malloy, my podcast partner and constant collaborator,
for working with me on the very first draft of this game and pushing me to
keep fine tuning and improving it. If it weren’t for Stop, Hack, & Roll, I don’t
think I’d ever have tried making a game.
Thanks to the Kickstarter backers who believed in this project enough to
support it. Thanks to the streamers and podcasters who shared their games
with the world. Thanks to the people who brought the ashcan or the quick
start to their table, for playing and talking it up. Thank you.
A final special dedication to Erin, amor de mi vida, the first person I even
mentioned this game to, for supporting me in this and in our beautiful
life together, and for watching telenovelas with me to call out perfect
playbook moves. Thank you all so much. I could never have done this
without you. I hope you all love this game as much as I love all of you. I
am so thankful for all of you.
—Brandon Leon-Gambetta
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................... 5 Running The Game..................... 101
What is Pasión de las Pasiones?.................. 6 The Master of Ceremonies.....................102
The Stars and the Audience...................... 7 Agendas....................................................103
Principles...................................................105
Telenovelas......................................11
MC Moves.................................................113
What Are Telenovelas?.............................. 13 Running for the Playbooks......................120
A Latinx Game............................................18
Playsets......................................... 127
Basics............................................... 19
Why Use Playsets?...................................128
The Conversation..................................... 20 Session Zero.............................................130
Starting the Game.................................... 30 Playset Construction...............................134
Why Do We Play?......................................36 Example Playset: La Rosa Querida........145
The Characters.............................. 37 Example Playset: El Sabor del Amor......150
Choosing a Playbook.................................38 The Series......................................155

The Playbooks........................................... 45 The First Session...................................... 156
La Belleza................................................... 46 The Season............................................... 165
El Caballero............................................... 49 The Finale.................................................168
La Doña.......................................................52 The Long Example................................... 171
La Empleada............................................... 55
El Gemelo...................................................59 Custom Moves............................. 177
El Jefe......................................................... 62 What is a Custom Move?........................178
Building Custom Moves......................... 180
The Moves......................................65
The Show Is Yours...................................187
Basic Moves............................................... 68
Peripheral Moves...................................... 87
Conditions..................................................95
Last Time On............................................ 98
Advancement............................................ 99
4 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Introduction
WHAT IS Pasión de las Pasiones?
Pasión de las Pasiones is a game that tells stories, specifically
stories of love, loss, betrayal, and—above all else—emotion!
The game is a set of rules and guides to help you build intricate
romances interwoven with devious plots, shocking twists of
fate, and explosions of emotion. Using these rules, you play the
moments that have audience members on the edges of their
seats, the scenes where music swells in your mind and your
breath catches in your throat. ¡Órale!
When you play Pasión de las Pasiones, you tell the story of
your very own telenovela (we talk more about what a telenovela
is in Chapter 2: Telenovelas), episode by episode. You and your
friends take on the roles of the stars of the show with your
own motivations and goals, often in direct conflict with each
other. You might lie and deceive—manipulating to get what you
need—or perhaps lay bare your heart to those you truly love.
Whatever happens, your shared goal is to tell the story like a
conversation, saying what your characters do, what happens,
and how the camera shows these things.
Speaking of surprises, Pasión de las Pasiones has rules to
keep the story surprising. When you cut the brake lines of your
lover’s husband’s car and it goes careening off a cliff, you don’t
get to say that he has died. Instead, the dice and rules fill in
what happens and guide the story, so you can feel the audience’s
delight when they see him climbing out of the sea, soaked and
angry…or perhaps waking up next to his wrecked car with no
knowledge of who he is.
Pasión de las Pasiones is a game in which you can take on the
role of a dashing gentleman, a powerful heiress, a cruel leader,
or a kind soul who simply wants love. Lies are exposed, plots and
schemes shattered, hearts broken. This is a game that helps you
tell the romantic, tragic, uplifting stories of the novelas, pushing
you and your characters to the emotional highs that make
millions of people tune in every week.

The Stars and the Audience
In Pasión de las Pasiones, you play the leading characters of a popular
telenovela. The show has been going on for some time, to give you some
things to flash back to from previous episodes, but you play from the
moment the show picks up, and you can play to the end of the series. Your
characters have a mess of relationships, a host of problems and weaknesses,
and hearts full of desire; they are driven by their want of a better future.
Some of the players may be playing people with pure hearts and desires;
others may be playing antagonistic characters who can be terribly cruel.
Regardless, all of you have wants and motivations that make you human.
You play as these characters within the show because that is where the
action, drama, and story lie. You want to live in their most dramatic
moments and don’t want to waste time. You are the main characters of
your show—not side characters ignored by the camera or ordinary people
not in the world of the telenovela. You want just the excitement, the joy,
the loss, and love shown between the commercials because you want your
story to be as direct and intense as possible.
What you aren’t playing in Pasión de las Pasiones is the actors.
While there’s certainly some level of drama behind the curtains of most
telenovelas, you’re focused on what happens on screen. That’s where things
get truly explosive! Don’t let yourself be distracted from the story being
told by what might happen off-screen. Additionally, while you’re telling the
story, you don’t need to worry about the production side. It’s alright to call
out a camera angle or an exceptional prop, but don’t get bogged down with
how the scriptwriter or director connects to your character. All of that’s
behind the curtain. Leave all of that to TVyNovelas.
There’s one other role you will be picking up though: the audience! When
you aren’t directly involved with a scene, you take on the role of audience
members, the familia sitting down to watch their favorite novela after
dinner. As this adorable family, don’t sit back and tune out; lean forward
and watch because sometimes the rules ask for the opinions of the
audience! Also, you don’t want to be the only person looking at their phone
when Teresa and Ramón finally kiss.
Chapter 1 Introduction u 7
Powered by the Apocalypse
Pasión de las Pasiones is based on the revolutionary 2010 roleplaying
game Apocalypse World by Meguey and D. Vincent Baker. It takes the rules
framework, some terminology, and many ideas about how to play a story,
focusing on dynamic characters who react to constantly changing and
shifting relationships and settings. It’s a framework that makes stories
that constantly surprise, a perfect fit for a telenovela! It’s also perfect
for Apocalypse World’s very mature post-apocalyptic setting filled with
hardholders and gunluggers, but Pasión de las Pasiones is clearly a very
different game, one built for the romance and drama of telenovelas!
You don’t need Apocalypse World to play Pasión de las Pasiones;
everything you need to play the game is included in this book. Once you
understand how Pasión de las Pasiones works, however, you’ll have a leg
up in playing all manner of games Powered by the Apocalypse and I’d highly
recommend trying them out too. They don’t tell the same stories as Pasión
de las Pasiones, of course, but I won’t fault you for liking other genres
like urban fantasy (Urban Shadows), teenage superheroes (Masks: A New
Generation), narcofiction (Cartel), and paranormal romance (Monsterhearts).

What you Need
To play Pasión de las Pasiones you need to get some friends to agree to
play at least one 2- to 4-hour session. A single session gives you plenty of time
to get deep into betrayal, passion, and love, but you’ll get even more out of
the game if you play multiple linked sessions that make up a season of your
show. The default season length for Pasión de las Pasiones is six sessions:
the last is a finale tying together loose ends to bring everything together!
Pasión de las Pasiones needs one player to be the Master of Ceremonies
(MC). Rather than playing one character on your show, the MC has other
responsibilities that work a little differently—they set the scenes for the
table, bring consequences after dice rolls, and play any side-characters your
show needs. For more, see Chapter 6: Running the Game. Other than the
MC, you need three to five players to play the main characters of the show,
the player characters (PCs).
You also need some additional supplies. Often the MC brings a lot of these
resources, but it doesn’t really matter who brings them as long as someone
does. If you have this book at the table, you could use it as a reference as well!
Dice
You need at least two six-sided dice, the ordinary ones that come in board
games. You can play with just one pair because you never roll more than
two dice at a time, but with all of the betrayal and backstabbing going on...
you may be better off with each player having their own pair.
Playbooks
Pasión de las Pasiones uses playbooks to help players make characters
and keep track of special moves and extras. You can download all the
playbooks you need at www.magpiegames.com/pasion. Print all six out
and let players peruse them! You’ll also want a copy of the basic moves
for each player. Whether you want to include the core playbooks alone or
add some of the limited edition ones is up to you, but you probably want
to have a variety of choices!
Playset
You need a playset to play this game, a setting for your show that frames
the main conflicts week-to-week. This may be chosen ahead of the game
or you can decide as a group right before you play. This book comes with
two playsets; La Rosa Querida—a dramatic telenovela based in a grand
hotel whose ownership is in great dispute—and El Sabor del Amor—a light-
hearted telenovela focused on multiple generations working at the same
family restaurant!
Chapter 1 Introduction u 9
Pencils and Papers
During the game, you need pencils to track your conditions and
experience, note down changes to your moves, and write characters’ names
with hearts all around them on your playbook’s margins. Pencil is much
better than pen! You may also want to bring index cards to use as name
tents and maybe some extra scrap paper for jotting down notes.
Additional Materials
You may also want to bring:
ͪ Some photos for your stars or less important characters. This can be
helpful to keep characters straight in your mind. For visual learners or
shows with a lot of characters, this can be especially helpful. If you have
the Supporting Cast Deck, you already have a stack of faces you can use!
ͪ A printed copy of the MC materials beyond the playset. These pages
have reminders of ways for the MC to keep the tension high, some names,
and a couple of other little things for whoever is running the game.
ͪ A way to play music. The introduction of your show will need to play
a song, but after that you may also want some moody music to keep
everyone feeling that theme.

Telenovelas
A dull shine of sequins among a room glittering with gold and
diamond, Rosa moves with hesitant steps in her off-the-rack
dress, making quick awkward glances at the staff around her
through the ballroom. Marco’s invitation to the gala had been
a surprise; after all, her name was on the schedule as wait staff
until this week. Still, he loved her and he was beautiful. She
smooths her dress and walks into the ballroom, trying to glide.
“Ooooh, so elegant,” says the madre with a growing smile of pride
at beloved Rosa taking hold of her own destiny.
From the first dance, she is watching Marco for some hint,
some crack suggesting that he knows, that he recognizes her from
more than just that night out by the pier. Some sign he might
recognize her as the pink-cheeked cook who has so long toiled at
his mother’s estate—surely he knows she’s not fit for these fine
surroundings. But by the second dance and the third champagne,
he’s laughing and professing his love. Halfway through the fourth
champagne, both are stumbling together down a hallway, giggling
like young lovers on their wedding day…
The father shakes his daughter’s shoulder a little and jokes, “Hija,
don’t stare too much. You’re going to fall off the couch.”
“Dad!”
“I feel I know everything about you,” whispers Marco on the
balcony, holding Rosa’s hand in his. “Even though we’ve known
each other for so little time.” The two lean in, lips trembling, her
hand on his chest.
Abuela clicks her tongue in irritation, “¿Por qué siempre tienen que
hacer eso? Hay niños viendo!”
Rosa pauses to whisper, her voice huskier and throatier than
he’d heard before. “Did you know I have a twin?” Marco’s brow
furrows for a moment in confusion as he notices for the first
time that Rosa’s eyes are green instead of the deep brown that he
knows. After that, all it takes is a gentle push...
A collective gasp comes from the couch as Marco topples off
the edge of the balcony, his arms swinging to find purchase...
and the episode ends.

What Are Telenovelas?
Telenovelas are a type of Latin American serialized drama that punches
more action into a single episode than many shows manage in an entire
series. They are tightly plotted stories that deliver constant drama and
frequently intense emotion; the creators have no expectation they have
time to wrap things up in a later season! They have to bring the audience
through from the beginning of the character’s story to the end, which
means twists and turns in every episode, dramatic reveals in every scene.
This format also means that you can’t miss an episode because something
important happens in every single one. We’re not talking about slow burn
here, the story moves along fast. Luckily, so does Pasión de las Pasiones.
Soap Operas in Prime Time

While the English equivalent of soap operas may seem obvious, they don’t
capture the sheer cultural magnitude of telenovelas. When Yo Soy Betty, La
Fea showed in the United States in 2009, over one million viewers tuned
in…for a rerun of the show which had come out a decade earlier!
Telenovelas are often picked up by the whole family, everyone sitting down
to keep up with the latest wild turns. There’s something for everyone:
romance, violence, intrigue, betrayal. Given their rapid production, this
audience can actually have an effect on how stories unfold; an urban legend
surrounding telenovelas described a show granting a divorce to a leading
character after being threatened by protesters who so hated the marriage
that they threatened the writer in a grocery store!
But Will You Truly Bare Your Soul?

So how does Pasión de las Pasiones help you and your friends create
those kinds of stories? How can we be sure that the events at your table
feel like a telenovela? How can we get every moment of passion and need
and spark? How do we know we’re not writing an American soap opera
or British television drama? And if you aren’t familiar with telenovelas
personally, how can you bring them to life at your table?
Luckily, you have a guide. This book and the rules within help shape play
in a way that puts the feeling and the drama of telenovelas front and
center. But it helps to be a little informed ahead of time, so while no two
telenovelas are identical—Sua Vida Me Pertence doesn’t play like Reina del
Sur doesn’t play like Jane the Virgin—a few elements do show up again and
again. Let’s take a stroll through some of the most common features, and
you’ll be listo para la acción!
Chapter 2 Telenovelas u 13
Beautiful People Trying to Find Love
One of the most tried and true plots for a telenovela is a simple one.
The couple you root for from the beginning faces increasingly difficult
obstacles keeping them apart and risks everything to come together in the
final episode. I’m already on board. Sometimes there may be another love,
possibly someone tied up in something sinister, and watching we can feel
the tear in our hearts because one week’s perfect match can be the next
week’s perfect disaster. Sure, we may have learned early on that Guillermo
is a terrible villain, but maybe his riches and his handsome features will be
enough to win the heroine’s heart.
It may sound simplistic, but most telenovelas are in part about romance.
Part of the fun is wondering who will end up together at the end, but
another part is the stolen intimate moments, the build up to the kiss,
the embrace. Every main character can be on a quest to find connection
and every character can draw stares. That’s also helpful in keeping things
interesting…everyone trying to find romance is more interesting than only
two people struggling to connect. Don’t think couples. Think love triangles.
Or even love rectangles!
Melancholy and Joy

The telenovela parody of wind blowing through a woman’s hair as tears go
down her face and she cries out into the night may be oft used, but it didn’t
come from nowhere. The root and core of telenovelas is taking emotion
and cranking it all the way up. It isn’t sad when two young lovers are
separated; it’s devastating. It isn’t just a happy day when a mother sees her
son taking a step toward control of his life; it’s the happiest day of her life.
People don’t talk out their feelings, they shout them and throw wine.
It may initially feel silly to play up emotions in this way, but it’s also what
makes telenovelas so compelling. Because the emotions matter to the
characters, they matter to the audience. In a telenovela there isn’t time to
waste with slowly escalating emotional displays. They only have so much
time and there’s a lot to cover! This works well for a game as well; it’s more
fun to play an episode with big swings of emotion than to play a game of
someone getting slowly frustrated until they finally act on their feelings.
Bigger emotions also make the betrayals that much worse; how can you
forgive someone when they’ve ripped your heart straight out of your chest
(possibly for the third time in 15 episodes)? The conflicts aren’t mild slights;
they are public and loud. Importantly, they are also intentional—when
characters express their most passionately held feelings every chance they get,
nobody can claim that they didn’t know how in love Marco is with Daniela.

Wealth and Status
Status plays a pivotal role in telenovelas; characters wield their influence
over others like a paintbrush tied to a sledgehammer. Families and names
matter. Characters have control of wealth and power, but only until they
lose their inheritance or someone learns that they are the illegitimate twin
who secretly lives on the other side of the tracks and has weaseled their
way into society by coaxing a sham marriage out of...you get the idea.
Status is usually shown in direct and glamorous ways. Telenovelas show
that somebody is rich or powerful by covering them in fine silk and
diamonds. The characters carry themselves taller, look confidently down
their nose on their “inferiors.” A powerful, wealthy character doesn’t go to
a casual lunch between friends without putting on their finery and if we’re
going to bother with something as drab as a lunch, at the very least it can
be on the veranda.
By presenting the world in this obviously stratified way, it makes it more
clear when someone is pushing the bounds of social graces. Characters
with power make demands of people and simply expect them to follow
through; characters who are less powerful need to fool or trick powerful
characters into doing what they want. This tension pushes conflict in many
of these stories; all of that wealth and power can buy many pretty trinkets,
but it can’t buy love. And for someone who already has meaning and
purpose, the temptation to sacrifice something real for a chance to make a
huge profit is always deadly sweet.
What About K-Drama?
Since the start of writing Pasión de las Pasiones, people have asked
me whether the rules could be used to play American soap operas, Korean
dramas, and a variety of other high romance, high drama, plot-saturated
television. Ultimately, I don’t know! Pasión de las Pasiones is written to
run telenovelas. It may be a good starting place, but I couldn’t tell you exactly
how those other genres work.
If you want to make another drama game, consider what assumptions the
world of your genre makes and see if they line up with those in telenovelas. A
big part of the genre-lifting done in Pasión de las Pasiones is the ques-
tions related to the moves (page 25); make sure those especially fit your
new focus. If they do, it may be you only need to make a playset to make it
work! But I hope you write a whole game. The world needs more dramatic
games filled with romance, schemes, and beautiful settings!
Reality
The majority of telenovelas tend to stick with settings that aren’t full on
fantastic or science fiction. Often the most impressive magic or weirdest
future-tech is face-imitation surgery that lets one character look exactly like
another. The grounded realism keeps the show accessible to people who
don’t have a lot of interest or knowledge about other genres. When shows
do have magic or other weirdness, they usually don’t spend too much time
explaining how or why those things work; we’re here for the story. A good
rule of thumb for sticking with how most telenovelas feel is to not go beyond
what a character could do with a whole lot of money, i.e. get fancy surgery,
buy amazing real estate, show up in unexpected places with gifts.
That doesn’t mean telenovelas can’t have fantastical events! Plenty of
shows have faith and prayer as tangible forces. For that matter, there are
plenty of shows about soulmates who somehow find each other even
against wildly improbable opposition! The settings can provide some of
this; a specific song playing each time characters meet, threatening winds
of change that blow, loved ones from the past showing approval in tiny
miracles. Some shows take this on even more directly; there are multiple
telenovelas about vampires and the story of a witch traveling through time
to reunite with her lost love is perfectly allowable.

On the other hand, the consistency of the show should be questioned on a
regular basis. Just because the audience believes something has happened
a certain way doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be wrong. The trope of
telenovelas showing characters dead and then revealing soon after that
they still live is common because…well, that kind of thing happens all
the time. Such a twist is almost uniquely telenovela; the audience knows
that there’s nothing they can trust so the writers are freed up to change
anything they need in order to tell their best story!
Being Better than the Source Material

Sitting down with loved ones to watch a telenovela is great. That doesn’t
mean that everything in them is always welcoming. Most early telenovelas
and a good amount of more modern ones have very regressive social politics
built into the stories or characters. That doesn’t mean that your game has
to do the same thing! Playing Pasión de las Pasiones is an opportunity to
tell stories within the tropes of telenovelas without perpetuating toxic ideas.
Some tropes you should consider challenging in your game:
ͪ When LGBTQ characters are shown in telenovelas (which is rarely),
they are frequently used as jokes or aren’t involved in romantic plots.
This is an easy one to challenge! Include queer content in your game. If
you need resources for doing so inclusively and respectfully, check out
resources from queer creators like Monsterhearts by Avery Alder and the
Game Closet podcast by Riverhouse Games.
ͪ Take care with how you approach social class and who is deserving.
Don’t fall into the common judgment that people without money are
poor because they are lazy or happier being poor. Not everyone needs
to desire fabulous wealth, but everybody wants to eat, have a roof over
their head, and enjoy things important to them.
ͪ If you look up the casts of popular telenovelas, you’ll see that most of
the actors fit a specific profile. Despite the wide range of Latinx people
across all of Latin America, telenovela actors tend to be white, thin,
able-bodied, with dark hair and light eyes. People who don’t match that
description in telenovelas tend to be lower class or villains. Expand
your view of what a Latinx person looks like and include them.
A Latinx Game
As a Latino game designer (¡viva Perú!), I wrote Pasión de las Pasiones to
show a slice of culture that I grew up with. From the beginning this game
was meant to be a telenovela, not a soap opera. I wrote this game to show
my love of a genre to people who didn’t have the same love, and even more
importantly to provide a way for people who DO have the same love to
dive into something important to their identity. It’s not meant to be the
definitive text on Latinidad in gaming but a part of a growing tapestry of
games that bring Latinx experiences into the tabletop rpg world.
This game is about Latinx characters. There’s no place on your sheet
to choose that you are Latinx because if you are playing Pasión de las
Pasiones, you should be playing a Latinx character. Additionally, the
NPCs presented in this game and the ones introduced by the MC should be
Latinx unless there’s a very good reason for them not to be (hello, American
businessman coming in to buy up the family restaurant).
I designed everything in this game with the intention for players to portray
a telenovela, from the name lists to the moves to the playsets. Embrace
that. Challenge assumptions that media can’t “sell” without white leads and
live out the most passionate stories that exist. Don’t be afraid to embrace
the Latinidad of the game in full!

Basics
The Conversation
The play that happens at the table during Pasión de las
Pasiones is a conversation. It’s sitting down with friends—dice,
pencils, and sheets of paper in hand—and talking together.
Mostly this conversation is about your characters and what
happens on camera during your telenovela. You say what
the characters do and how they react; the MC structures the
story around your characters, providing the settings and side
characters that your telenovela needs to best highlight your
passionate drama.
But you can do so much more at your table! You can also show your
character’s thoughts, emotions, and feelings to the other players
and the MC, the internal life that goes beyond what a television
show with static cameras can represent. You might say exactly what
your character thinks as they do something or relay to the group
how a current moment brings back memories of the past.
There are also times during play when you go from describing
your character’s actions to slipping into your character’s shoes.
You say what they say, gesture what they do, and get directly
into the banter with someone else. For most people, this is a
natural thing that they slip into without even trying. It’s normal,
instinctive, and often more engaging to dive right in and feel
what your character feels!
As you play your character and interact with others, you
naturally create the conversation. But it’s the job of everyone
at the table to keep the conversation interesting, engaging, and
most of all continuing! The rules in Pasión de las Pasiones
are designed to do some of that heavy lifting and push you in
the direction of conflict and interest, but you as a player are
responsible for expressing your deep emotions and hurtling
yourself into the romance and intrigue!
Framing Scenes
The conversation can only be headed toward interesting places
when it’s going, period. The best way to keep the conversation
going is to frame scenes. It can be tempting to talk vaguely about
how incredible the characters are, who they are, who you ship
them with, and why they deserve a happily ever after, but the
story evolves when you put characters into concrete locations

Playsets
Playsets are a tool Pasión de las Pasiones uses to frame the action of the
story and help guide your first session of your game—a broad setting to get
everyone on the same page, questions to tie your characters together, side
characters to add some spice, and moves and setting details to ground you in
that specific space.
The playsets included in this book are:
• La Rosa Querida (page 145): A glamorous hotel embroiled
in scandal after the untimely death of its proprietor throws
various shareholders into a contest over ownership.
• El Sabor del Amor (page 150): An upscale restaurant battling to stay
open as an outside buyer threatens the entire town around it.
with concrete goals. Don’t just talk about how Rosa would put her heart
on the line if Camila would only just see her; put Rosa in a slinky dress at
Camila’s Año Nuevo party and watch the sparks fly.
Think about your story like a real telenovela or a romantic movie. Cut
directly to conflict or passion, show immediately what is at stake and
act on that tension, have characters begin their scenes with their wants
on their sleeves. If it’s boring or filler, skip it. Get right to what’s actually
happening. We may care that Nando is wearing a fancy suit, but unless
something happens when he’s getting it tailored, we can cut right to him
cornering Ranato in the hallway. Framing scenes may sound complicated,
but the rules help shape the conversation into this kind of quick, action-
packed story. The MC can take the lead in setting scenes in a way that
keeps the story moving, but it’s the responsibility of everyone in the group
to make sure that every scene in your story starts out interesting and goes
somewhere meaningful.
One way that telenovelas differ from some other genres is how they
construct reality and timelines. While most shows display a definitive truth
of the world and handle events mostly sequentially, telenovelas often have
a more fluid sense of real; even if you saw someone slipping poison into a
wine decanter 15 minutes ago, you can’t be sure that’s what happened. A
show can spend an entire episode establishing someone’s bloodline only
to show definitive proof that all of it was a plot hatched to wrestle an
inheritance away from them.
The same is true for this game. Always come back to the game as a
telenovela and embrace what that means. Flashing back to reveal new
truths and overwrite old truths is a perfectly legitimate thing to do!
Chapter 3 Basics u 21
That means that what you understand to be the truth may shift with time
(and there are several moves that alter the “truth” established in a previous
scene; see accuse someone of lying (page 70) and flashback moves (page
87). The only thing that can’t change is what the audience has seen;
new information adds an additional layer of questions or details that may
undermine everything, but it can never mean the home audience never saw
something they know they saw!
Hard Framing
While scene framing often happens as part of the group conversation at the
table, sometimes it makes more sense for the MC to take full control and
throw the PCs directly into a difficult situation. The MC may hit you with the
fallout from previously promised threats—your lover’s husband bursts into
the room with proof of your philandering or you find your brakes cut after a
run-in with some shady characters—or the MC may just want to kick up some
drama. Either way, you don’t get to work out whether things are happening or
not; the MC tells you how you’re in the thick of it and you react!
Additionally, some moves allow players to frame hard scenes. When a
player uses such a move (like process your feelings out loud), the player
sets the scene just as if they were the MC. However, like the MC they
should be following the fiction, being a fan of characters, and making
drama that stirs up secrets! If the player hasn’t read that section of the
text, the MC can help them to line up the scene so it has teeth, but doesn’t
disrupt the whole table.
“What do you do?”

Telenovelas are not slow burn dramas. Plots move fast and the end of
every episode can leave you feeling like you watched a season finale. It’s
important for players to always aim toward advancing the plot and taking
meaningful action. The MC can prompt this by frequently asking the
players, “What do you do?” This may be in response to when they set up a
difficult situation or just when another player does something shocking.
We want to know not only what happens next, but what you, the main
characters, the heroes, the stars do next.
By focusing on what characters do, you can cut through the time spent
talking about what people are thinking, planning, or worrying about. We
want to keep the punch of emotionality expressed firmly and without
question; the audience can still understand the characters’ motivations
through the characters’ actions! Remember that you are making a
telenovela—the characters can show their sadness by letting out choked
cries or establish they are anxious by foolishly confronting their problems.
By keeping “What do you do?” on your tongue and in the mind of the
players, the game continues to move quickly!

Following the Fiction
A phrase that we will come back to later in this book is “play to find out what
happens.” The goal of all of the players sitting at the table is to find out what
happens next. We don’t follow a script premade by the MC or an outline
written by the players; we follow the fiction as it emerges from the table.
When the dice give a surprising result or a player says something unexpected,
follow that thread. The fiction can be what drives the game forward; if things
slow down, drive quickly toward where the fiction points to next!
The opposite side of this is to not focus where the fiction isn’t. This isn’t a
game where we need to know everything that every side character thinks
or sees or does. The fiction is about our star characters, the players at the
table. Keep the spotlight on them, highlighting the things they do that
make the story interesting.
Moves and Dice

While framing scenes into interesting situations gets you started, the true
action of your telenovela doesn’t kick in until you start making moves.
A move is a little rule morsel you use when the table needs to know how
something went, what new information the players can have, or how the
story unfolds. Moves give a direction in the fiction for the players to follow
and set up how scenes continue to unfold!
The basic moves are the core of the game and any PC can trigger them
from the start of play. Additionally, each character gets their own playbook
moves, specific moves that help define how their playbook fits within an
archetype. For the most part, the basic moves drive the play. They cover
the situations that come up all the time while the playbook moves are used
more sparingly.
All moves are worded with a trigger and a result. “When you do this
specific thing (the trigger), then this other specific thing happens (the
result).” The moves come into play when player characters take the actions
that trigger them. The trigger is a fictional event that the player has control
over, a thing that their character does within the narrative of the show.
When they do, the move takes over for a moment and the ball gets rolling!
The result is what happens in the fiction and the game when using the
move. It may be as simple as giving a result, or it might involve another
move, but importantly it shows that something happens. You can never
have a move trigger without a result; we only care about the trigger as far
as it helps us get to the result!
Octavio (played by Luis) and Dolores (played by Isabel) are standing on the
balcony of Octavio’s country estate while the gathering inside continues.
“How could you do this? You almost blew this whole thing, you fool!” snarls
Octavio, pacing in the small space. His brow is furrowed and his otherwise
perfectly kept suit is rumpled from having pulled Dolores away.
“Are you striking out with voice or violence?” I ask.
“Oh no, I didn’t mean to do that! Let me try it again, maybe softer? ‘How
did this happen? We need to fix this’,” Luis corrects. “He’s still all rumbled and
furious, but he’s not attacking you.”
“Dolores is pissed, however. She pulls back a fist and punches Octavio in the
gut. ‘That’s for my sister, you dirty liar!’” Isabel shouts.
“Alright, that’s definitely striking out with voice or violence,” I say.
When trying to find out if a move applies to the situation, look to the
trigger. If the trigger hasn’t been met, then the move doesn’t happen yet.
If the trigger has been met, it does. Moves don’t happen randomly like
a button labeled “Start the Move”; you need to meet the trigger if you
want to use the move. If you want the results of striking out with voice
or violence, you can’t just say, “I strike out,” you have to tell us what you
do and what it looks like in the scene! Likewise, if you use a move trigger,
you have to follow through with the move. You don’t get to say that you
smashed a bottle of $300 champagne over someone’s head and not strike
out with voice or violence.

On the other hand, sometimes you may be in situations in which you’ve
accidentally triggered a move. If you feel like you were misunderstood, it
might be that you can clarify what exactly happened. We don’t have the
action on screen, so we have to trust each other to explain as best we can.
If you subtly make insinuations of a rival’s misdeed and the MC asks if you
are accusing someone of lying to their face, it may be that you should
clarify that you were just daring them to come after you. On the other
hand, if you slam into the board room with a handful of papers showing
your enemies’ lies and shout in their face that you’ll reveal all of their
secrets, there’s no doubt that you’ve triggered the move! The important
rule here is if you do it, do it! If you do the trigger, roll those dice and see
where the fiction takes you!
Rolling the Dice

Often when you trigger a move, you roll dice to see what happens next.
These are the only times you get to roll dice. Don’t roll dice unless a move
tells you to do so.
It’s tempting, especially if you’re experienced with other roleplaying games,
to roll dice in other situations...but until you’ve done something to trigger
an actual move that tells you to roll, don’t roll! And don’t forget your
trigger! Sometimes you might want to trigger a move and go straight to
rolling without describing an action, but you can’t roll until you’ve done
something in the game that triggers the move. Always attend to the fiction
first; showing the actions that set off the trigger is half of the game!
Not all moves actually use a dice roll. They just tell you that when the
trigger occurs, something happens immediately. You still can’t get the
result without actually enacting the trigger, but there’s no dice roll (see
Direct Effects on page 186 for an example).
When a move tells you to roll, pick up two six-sided dice (2d6) and roll
them. The move often tells you to add something to the roll as well, like
questions or conditions. That means that the number from that source
adds to your combined 2d6 to make your result. You also sometimes add
other modifiers, but those are usually highly situational and specific.
Rolling with Questions

Almost all of the moves that do take a dice roll tell you to “roll with the
questions” and feature questions listed below the move’s trigger. Nearly all
moves in Pasión de las Pasiones—basic moves, playbook moves, custom
moves, playset moves—use questions to determine how the character’s
actions play out. When making any move, don’t worry about remembering
the questions—they’re always listed right there with the move!
When you make one of these moves, don’t start with rolling the dice. First,
you need to answer some questions!
Most moves have two listed questions associated with them. Ask those out
loud for the table to hear and answer them truthfully based on the fiction.
If you answer yes to a question, add 1 to your roll, making it more likely you
get a higher result (which is usually good!). If you answer no, bad news, you
don’t get to add 1. If the truth is somewhere in the middle, make a decision
with the table about which answer feels more true.
You also answer one more question: your playbook question. Every player
except for the MC has a playbook in front of them that has important
mechanical information about their character. One of the most important
pieces is your playbook question. Answer that question just like the move
questions, but instead of depending upon what move you’re rolling, it
depends upon which playbook you’re using!
For example, La Empleada, an often demure servant or employee desperate
for love, has the playbook question: “Are you in over your head?” Any move
rolled by La Empleada asks this question alongside any other question—it
doesn’t matter if La Empleada confronts someone, pleads for forgiveness, or
throws a glass of champagne. This question is answered just like the move
questions; a yes gives a +1 and a no gives a +0. So when La Empleada is in
over their head, they do a bit better!
On the other hand, El Jefe has the question: “Are you taking control of this
situation?” When El Jefe is in control of things, they get that +1. That means
that El Jefe should try to make sure they’re in charge.
La Empleada expressing their love passionately:
When you express your love passionately, roll with the questions:
ͪ Are you dressed to impress?
ͪ Do they believe that you are single?
ͪ Are you in over your head?
El Jefe expressing their love passionately:
ͪ Are you taking control of this situation?
For most moves that roll with questions, you get between a +0 to a +3, one
from your playbook question and two from the move itself. Occasionally a
move may give you additional questions you can ask, but you can never roll
more than +4 or less than -3, no matter what else is happening.
Again, to reiterate: You can never roll more than +4 or less than -3, no

Hold, +1 Forward, and +1 Ongoing
Some moves describe your character getting hold as a result of the move,
such as “hold 1” or “hold 3.” These are temporary points you can spend
according to the move, often with the phrase “spend hold 1-for-1” meaning
“spend one point of hold for one effect as the move describes.” Usually hold
has to be spent during a given conversation or scene, but moves tell you how
long you have before the hold expires. If there’s ambiguity, ask the MC for
clarification.
Other moves describe your character “taking +1 forward” or “taking +1 ongo-
ing.” +1 forward means your character gets +1 to the next applicable roll; +1
ongoing means your character gets +1 to all applicable rolls moving forward
as the move describes. +1 forward always lasts only for the very next applica-
ble roll, and the move always indicates how long the +1 ongoing lasts.
matter what else is happening. That’s to keep the game fair; a roll should
never be so bad you can’t possibly succeed or so good you can’t possibly miss!
Hits and Misses

Once you have your result—the total of your 2d6 and your modifiers—you
look to the move to see what happens next. All of the moves with rolls have
the same basic structure of results. A total of 7 or higher is a hit, and a total
of 6 or lower is a miss. A total of 10 or higher is a strong hit, while 7 to 9 is
a weak hit.
Any move with a roll tells you what happens mechanically and fictionally
on these different outcomes. Some moves may tell you what happens on a
6- specifically, but if the move doesn’t say anything more specific, the MC
tells you what happens next. Follow what the move says when you roll it;
just like with triggers, if you made the move you follow the fiction of the
result! When the dice hit the table, you’re committed to the heartbreak or
elation that comes with the results!
Usually a hit means you get more or less what you want. It might not be
exactly what you want or everything you want, but it’s at least going to be
some version of a happy result. On a weak hit (7-9), you might get what
you want with some major strings attached or a partial or distorted version
of what you hoped for. On a strong hit (10+), you probably get what you
wanted and may even get a better version of what you were aiming for. You
almost always want to get a 10+ when you roll because it gives you the most
flexibility and control (though watch out for face certain death which is
inverted—a 10+ on that means you’re in some serious trouble).
Triggers and Uncertainty
The rules that most structure Pasión de las Pasiones are the basic moves.
You may notice that there are only eight of those. Does that mean you can
only do eight different things? Why would the game limit your options?
How could I do this to you?
I would never betray you, amigos! Your options aren’t limited—the moves
are. And those are limited intentionally because they identify the moments
in which nobody knows what happens next. They are specifically when
we are tearing at the couch needing to know what happens next but the
uncertainty is too great to know!
If you are a trained hot air balloon pilot flying off into the sunset with your
lover, leaving your many enemies far behind, then there’s no uncertainty.
The players and the MC all know exactly what happens next. You clink
bubbling champagne flutes together as an explosion blasts the windows out
of the evil general’s mansion before you embrace above the seafoam and
splendor and the credits roll.
If you, with the powerful imposing stature of a stallion-training cowboy in
the peak of your prime, decide to knock out a completely unprepared big
city banker who’s halfway through a bottle of wine more expensive than
your whole ranch, there’s no uncertainty. They can’t stop you, and your
fist to the back of their head leaves them slumped in their fancy, pillow-
covered seat.
If you want to tell someone where you hid something earlier in the
episode, and the revelation doesn’t really mean anything to them, there’s no
uncertainty. You just tell them, and now they know.
But if you’re flying your hot air balloon and your lover’s twin takes off their
wig before cutting the lines to the balloon and you try to take control of the
descent to avoid scattering your bodies on the cliffs below…then no one
knows what happens. That’s when a move triggers (in this case, probably
act with desperation).
When you’re standing toe to toe on the edge of a balcony pushing and
punching against someone prepared, strong, and looking to hurt you...
then no one knows what happens next. That’s when a move triggers (in this
case, probably strike out with voice or violence, possibly followed soon
after by face certain death!).
When you’re trying to lure a wealthy heir into a trap by telling them that
you stowed away a letter that guarantees their inheritance...then no one
knows what happens next. That’s when a move triggers (in this case,
probably manipulate a superior).

Your character can do anything it makes sense they can do. Moves resolve
situations in which both player and MC aren’t sure what happens next. For
these beautiful moments of tension and uncertainty, we let the dice tell us
what happens next! These moments of tension can swing into some of the
greatest twists you’ll see in Pasión de las Pasiones, as the dice push the
story in a direction no one saw coming.
Agreeing on Uncertainty
Sometimes it may make sense to talk at the table to make sure everyone
sees uncertainty the same way in that situation. For example, a PC wants
to hotwire a car and the MC feels that it’s uncertain because the audience
hasn’t seen them do that before. But the player feels that the character’s
life of crime has included this enough times that it is practically rote. The
player and the MC have to quickly figure out if this is actually uncertain.
The point of moves is to keep us on the edge of our seats, excited and
interested in what will happen next. If someone doesn’t feel excitement
around the uncertainty, then it’s a good sign that either a move isn’t being
triggered, or someone doesn’t fully understand the situation. Talk it out,
then make a move that fits or don’t make a move at all.
This goes beyond moves as well! When the charming but oblivious
bartender stumbles upon something dangerous and is shot, in plenty
of media that’s the end of the road. For a telenovela, you may want this,
but isn’t it tastier if he stumbles back through a window and falls down
to the crashing surf below? When you play, look for opportunities for
this uncertainty and don’t be afraid to call it out at the table. It may feel
dramatic to say that the evil sheriff falls from his horse and disappears
among the rolling hills around the ranch, but it is wonderful when he
comes back later in the story.
The only thing to be sure of is the table having fun. Be upfront about
wanting to keep things mysteriously uncertain or solid truth!
Starting the Game
Before you play Pasión de las Pasiones, there are a few things you need
to prepare for the game and a few things you need to think about before
you start. You can’t go to the ball without a dress, chica!
Preparing to Play
First, you need someplace to play. If you’re playing in person, you want a
table big enough for everybody to sit around, spread out a bit, put their
character sheets down, and roll dice. You also ideally want to have some
space in the middle to throw index cards with important NPCs and enough
room that a firm dismissing gesture won’t send someone’s materials flying.
Make sure you’ve got printed copies of the basic moves, the playset, and the
playbooks ready to go, along with a pair of dice for each player, a handful of
index cards or sticky notes, and a bunch of pencils.
If you aren’t playing in person, you still have options! It’s a wide world
full of passionate people looking for a fun evening and Pasión de las
Pasiones can easily be played online through video calls. For that, you
want each person to have their basic moves and playbook ideally printed
out or in a shared digital space or character keeper. You probably still want
somewhere to keep notes, but it’s up to you if those are shared with the
group or private for each player.
There are so many solutions to playing online that I won’t get too deep
into them here, but perhaps this is an opportunity to get yourself a real
audience and stream! Pasión de las Pasiones’s twists and turns may just
be perfect for an audience. Or perhaps you’ll write an incredible romance
novel and play by post! In any case, you’ll want to replicate the same things
you use in real life: your playbook, your notes, shared space for NPCs, and a
flare for the dramatic.
During play, establish some boundaries so you aren’t disturbed by people
around you. Also, maybe check in to be sure you won’t be disturbing people
around you! Pasión de las Pasiones can sometimes get a little louder
than some other roleplaying games. Also, don’t feel like you need to wait
for the end of the episode to take a break, we’re all used to commercials.
Take those chances to stretch, use the bathroom, or have a snack. You
won’t miss anything before you get back!

A Playset of Your Own
Some MCs and some players don’t like the idea of playing within an es-
tablished setting, even one as open and flexible as a playset of Pasión de
las Pasiones! The good news is that you can make your own playsets for
the kind of telenovela you want, as long as you put thought into things like
what’s happened in the story so far, the aesthetics of the show, a few import-
ant NPCs, and questions to tie the PCs together.
These elements can be done at the table, but if you wish for Pasión de las
Pasiones to feel like a “pick up and go” game, then you’ll want to have them
done ahead of time! For more information, see page 134.
Playsets
When you start a game of Pasión de las Pasiones, the assumption is that
you are diving into the middle of a telenovela. This lets you skip a whole
bunch of plot introductions to get right into the meatiest parts of our
story! To help with this, Pasión de las Pasiones uses playsets, brief write-
ups of settings, questions, moves, and NPCs for your telenovela. These
playsets give you a jumping off point likely to lead you to all of the tricks,
betrayal, and romance of the telenovela.
Selecting Your Playset

The biggest advantage of playsets is that they essentially stand on their
own as preparation for your game. Between character creation and your
playset, you have everything you need to run your first session. This means
that as a MC, you won’t have to write a plot ahead of time, come up with
various interesting hook characters, or worry about mechanics to fit your
individual setting. You can simply choose a playset and go!
While the role of choosing a playset probably falls upon the MC, it is also
very possible for players to collaboratively decide which one they want to
play. Either reach out ahead of time or toss a couple of options on the table
and decide however works best for your group. From there you can also
always tinker with characters, play with details, and flesh out your world
a little bit. This just gives you a skeleton to hang your telenovela on and
keeps all the pieces in the right place.
For more on playsets and how they work, see Chapter 7: Playsets.
Safety at the Table: Romance and Sex
In case it hasn’t become obvious, there’s a lot of romance in this game.
Characters are searching for love, power, love-to-get-power, and power-
to-get-love regardless of their playbook. That means a level of intimacy at
the table that may be new for players unused to getting into romance! For
that matter, while violence is more common in roleplaying games, there’s
a potential higher level of “realness” when you are essentially playing a
normal person that you don’t feel when you’re a high elf wind sorcerer
battling orcs. As you play, it’s important to take care of your fellow players.
Before you start your game, be sure to talk about how explicit you’d like
your game to be. The majority of telenovelas tend to stick around the PG
to PG-13 range. Plenty of leeway for things to get passionate and sensual,
but not to a point that abuela will have a heart attack. On TV, you see
plenty of kissing, a little suggestion, and then the camera moves or fades to
black. Don’t be afraid to do that at the table as well; even if your telenovela
definitely has sex in it, you don’t need to show it on-screen.
For that matter, your game doesn’t need to include sex at all. Perhaps when
you declare your love passionately, your group is more comfortable with a
chaste kiss! That’s totally okay! Just keep the emotional stakes high!
In any game that includes this kind of content, it’s important to have a plan
to keep everyone safe and comfortable. No game is worth making people
feel unsafe or hurt. There are a lot of different ways to do this, so if you
have one that works well for your group, use it! If not, I suggest Lines and
Veils, the X-Card, and the Safety Toolkit for more ideas!

Lines and Veils
Lines and Veils is a procedure designed to help tables set and maintain
boundaries of all of the players involved (including the MC). Before you
even set down background questions or relationships for your characters,
introduce the idea of Lines and Veils and have each person discuss theirs.
A Line is a concept, situation, or event that will ruin the safety or fun of a
player if it is present in the game. It is a hard limit. If something is set as a
Line, it should not under any circumstances appear in play.
A Veil is a concept, situation, or event that someone doesn’t want to see
“on camera.” It’s a softer limit than a Line; the player doesn’t want to play
out or see a scene with this content played out. If this content comes up, it
should be faded to black or take place without detail. Additionally, if a Veil
is being touched upon, extra care should be taken at the table.
Lines and Veils are designed to be a pre-emptive line of defense for the
players. Encourage your fellow players to be open here. When I do Lines
and Veils, I always make sure to give a Line and Veil of my own before
asking players to share theirs. I introduce the concept, walk through an
explanation, and raise both a Line and a Veil. As a Line, I set cruelty to
animals—we won’t have any in our game, at all—and I set torture as a Veil.
Torture might show up as an event, but it won’t be on-screen. There’s really
no need for either of those in a telenovela, but it demonstrates that we can
manage what is and isn’t in the game, as well as what is and isn’t on screen.
X-Card
An X-Card is a real-time content calibration tool that lets anyone edit
out any content that appears in the game—for whatever reason. Most
importantly, you can use the X-Card to remove troubling subject matter.
To create an X-Card, simply draw an X on a card or piece of paper and place
it on the table where everyone can reach it.
To use the X-Card just tap it, hold it up, say X-Card, or if in a digital space,
type X or hold up your arms in an x pattern on camera. Let the table know
what you want to be removed. You never have to explain why.
After it has been tapped, remove the content from the game and add it
to your Lines and Veils document. You can also fade to black, change the
content up, or take a break. Talk to the table to see what works best.
Be sure to include the X-Card before character creation. Anyone can then
use the X-Card to ensure nothing ruins their fun or enjoyment of the game,
even during character creation.
The X-Card was created by John Stavropoulos and more details on the
X-Card can be found at http://tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg.
Other Tools
While Lines and Veils and the X-Card are great play practices for the table,
they may not be the best fit for your game. There are many other fantastic
support and safety tools available for your game. To find out more about
various safety tools, please check out the TTRPG Safety Toolkit.
The TTRPG Safety Toolkit is a resource co-curated by Kienna Shaw and
Lauren Bryant-Monk. The TTRPG Safety Toolkit is a compilation of safety
tools that have been designed by members of the tabletop roleplaying
games community for use by players and MCs at the table. You can find it
at bit.ly/ttrpgsafetytoolkit.
Assumptions of the Game

There are some assumptions of Pasión de las Pasiones that should
be raised when you discuss the game. The most obvious, and possibly
most important, is that this is a game for playing romance stories. It
assumes that romance will happen in the game and that characters will be
enthusiastically interested in pursuing romance.
The game is the most fun when all player characters could become involved
in romance with all of the others; even if someone is antagonistic to other
player characters, we want them to still be a romantically feasible option.
This game requires enthusiastic romantic consent. There can be one-sided
romance, pining from a distance while the other person just doesn’t see
you...but romance and actual hatred don’t mix.
Similarly, having romance in your game means that the romance may not
work out. That’s perfect for fun, engaging stories, so long as everyone in
the game is prepared for the idea that just because their characters are in a
deep, passionate love affair right now, that doesn’t mean it’s going to last.
And if their love affair does fall apart, then that doesn’t mean they won’t get
back together later! Pasión de las Pasiones has a lot of action in it, and
that action includes emotional, relationship action—breaking up, getting
back together, getting married, getting divorced, getting remarried, starting
an affair, and so on!
All players need to know that these states are going to shift, flow, and
change. A player can get their heart set on a particular romantic pairing, for
sure, having their character desperately vie for the heart of their beloved...
just so long as they’re okay with it not ultimately working out. Heartbreak
and true love are both major elements of a good Pasión de las Pasiones
tale, in equal measure!

Additionally, the game assumes that violence is brief and not the focus of
play—Pasión de las Pasiones doesn’t have in-depth rules for combat, and
violence is primarily resolved as either “you were hurt emotionally” or “you
are possibly going to die.” The stakes of violence are high, but it shouldn’t
be a character’s or the show’s whole purpose. If you want to be a gruff, no-
nonsense ex-soldier with no time for romance, then you’re either setting
yourself up for an arc in which that character discovers what love truly is
and what a fool they’ve been...or this probably isn’t the right game!
Another assumption involves the use of manipulation, lying, and
deception. While romance is the point of a telenovela, deception is the
obstacle. Many telenovelas could honestly be wrapped up with a nice bow
by just having characters communicate honestly with each other. We
can’t have that! Without deception, the game kind of falls apart. For that
matter, characters should also not just walk away from drama! Just because
someone has lied to you a dozen times doesn’t mean you can’t trust them
this time, you know, just this once.
Why Do We Play?
So why go to all of this effort? There are dozens of telenovelas you could
watch today and just binge through to your heart’s content. Why play
Pasión de las Pasiones?
Sure, the stories you can watch are filled with the drama, desire, and intrigue
that Pasión de las Pasiones explores, but what you get from playing is
different. It’s yours! You don’t get one person’s point of view, one person’s
story; you get all of the characters that matter most to your group, every
moment dripping with passion, revenge, and drama right at your table.
Don’t lie! You’ve sat watching a TV show and thought, “I want to know more
about them! What if they could have a happy ending?” This is your chance.
Your antagonistic schemers can show their hearts, their feelings, their
purposes in a way that television can’t give you. If you want to know more
about a pairing of characters, you can push together the people you want
to see together. You get to see the arc and change and hope within all of the
characters, the moments of tenderness and belonging, the moments where
they show what they need as humans. You don’t have to be satisfied with
moustache-twirling evil; these characters feel and want just like the “heroes.”
As you’re doing this, you’re gathering with your friends, building tight
bonds of story that you’ll remember, moments of romance that existed
at your table in fleeting seconds. You’ll all remember when Esmerelda
and Marco fell into each other’s arms and when Javier destroyed the birth
certificate and when Lina made the ultimate sacrifice. And they’ll draw
to a close. Pasión de las Pasiones is meant to tell you the whole story,
beginning to end, and to give closure to these characters.
So pull up a chair or cuddle onto the couch, the greatest telenovela of all
time—starring you!—starts right now!

The Characters
Choosing a Playbook
The characters you create for Pasión de las Pasiones are the
stars of your telenovela. They aren’t necessarily heroes or even
protagonists, but they are the movers and shakers of your TV
show, the characters the audience finds most interesting.
To make sure you have characters who feel straight out of a
telenovela, Pasión de las Pasiones uses playbooks, each one
providing the basics for an archetype of a telenovela character.
There are six core playbooks in this book: La Belleza, El Caballero,
La Doña, La Empleada, El Gemelo, and El Jefe. You can also find
additional playbooks in the supplement Tormentas del Corazón!
Each player (except the MC) chooses a single playbook at the
start of play and uses it to create their own characters. No two
players can pick the same playbook; Pasión de las Pasiones
works best when players lean in to the tropes of their archetype;
they need space to do that without two people competing for
the same tropes. Having two Jefes means someone gets stuck
being less of a Jefe than the other. If two players want the same
playbook, the MC can suggest alternatives—maybe another
playbook would work for a similar character concept—or resolve
the issue with a coin flip or dice roll.
The playbooks don’t tell you exactly who you’re playing; they
just give you a starting point and core conflicts for that type of
character. Essentially, they provide a skeleton to build upon;
if you focus on the issues, complications, and themes of your
selected playbook, you’ll likely create a satisfying telenovela
character! It’s important that whichever playbook you choose,
you pick one that interests you. (For more on the individual
playbooks and their particular stories, see page 45).
Vanesa is making a character to play using El Sabor del Amor playset

(see page 150). Talking through possibilities with her group, she
goes through a couple of ideas and iterations. She has a vague idea
that she wants to be a smoking hot mysterious man—Artemio—
who breaks hearts morning, day, and night, so she’s looking at La
Belleza and El Caballero. Torn between the two playbooks, she
soon finds out Elena (another player) wants to be a tough-as-nails
Caballero, so Artemio becomes La Belleza. All the better to break
hearts! Setting the archetype in the restaurant-focused playset, she
decides Artemio will be a bartender.

Now that you’ve got your playbook, you can start filling in some of the
information on it! Some of the playbook is filled out basically alone—you
can fill in the details without much need for collaboration, but some parts
are best completed with a group. Some groups still spend some time talking
through these personal pieces; things like character names don’t seem like
they should be a group activity until you realize that everybody’s name
starts with “A”!
Name & Look

One of the first things to do is choose your name. There are several names
listed on each character sheet, some of which will be familiar to telenovela
watchers, that should fit the feel of the playbook. That doesn’t mean that
you must stick with those names! If you’re going “off book” consider taking
a look at the listed names and finding one that has a similar feel.
Beneath that list, you have your character’s “look.” Obviously, this list
of descriptions doesn’t fully cover the beautiful moments of glamour
you’re going to describe later, but it’s a good starting place for both your
description and for people picturing your character. Choose at least one
from each list and think about how those come together to form your
character. Also, feel free to interpret how these work best for you! Your
elegant clothing doesn’t need to be the same as anybody else’s!
Vanesa came in with the name Artemio because she likes how it feels to say and
isn’t too similar to what other people at the table have. She picks a couple of
options under look and expands them a little: he’s masculine looking, with hair
that’s messy in a very intentional way, thoughtful cunning eyes, and really big
arms. She chooses risqué clothes and professional clothes, explaining that
he wears the professional, fine dining uniform of the restaurant, but keeps his
sleeves rolled up past his elbows and has the top three buttons undone.
Your Question
In Pasión de las Pasiones, the majority of rolls you make say “roll
with the questions.” Those moves list two questions related to what is
happening currently in the scene in that moment. Additionally, you always
ask your playbook question (under Your Question)! This question works just
like other questions from moves; if your answer is yes, take a +1, if it isn’t,
take a +0. For more on questions and how moves work, see page 25.
Most of the time, your question remains the same on your playbook, a
lifeline to your playbook’s archetype. Chances are if you get “yes” often, then
you’re playing on theme to how this archetype behaves in telenovelas. This
is one tool to make sure Pasión de las Pasiones feels like a telenovela; when
you play “on theme” you’re more likely to get high results on your moves!
Chapter 4 The Characters u 39

On the other hand, if you answer “no” most of the time, that’s also not the
end of the world! One of your playbook advances is “swap your question for
a different playbook question.” If you find you’re a Doña who prefers to get
their hands dirty and handle things head on, perhaps El Caballero’s question
would do you better! (For more on advancement, see page 99).
Vanesa checks the playbook and sees Artemio’s question is “Are you the center
of attention?” As long as he stays front and center, he gets a bonus; that should
be easy enough for Artemio to do!
Conditions & Meltdowns

Good news! This next step is an easy one—you just need to look at the
conditions assigned to your playbook! Bad news, conditions are how things
go from good to bad to worse in Pasión de las Pasiones!
Each playbook has four conditions, emotional states of distress that your
characters struggle against through play. While these conditions differ
playbook to playbook, they all have a similar mechanical effect: they add
+1 to results for one basic move and subtract -2 from results of another
one. If you have more than one condition marked, they all apply, even if
they affect the same roll. This shouldn’t happen unless you’ve swapped
some conditions around, however; see page 99 for more on changing
conditions!
Of course, in addition to the mechanical effect, you are always encouraged
to play toward your conditions. Each condition points to the emotional
responses in line with your character’s archetype. Think of them as
excuses! If you mark Raging then go for that, live in that rage, play up that
rage. Likewise, if you are Lovelorn, this is a perfect time to practice your
desperate sighs. And there’s good news: if you act in a manner in line with
those conditions, you’ll likely be making the move that those conditions
boost! Not a bad setup!
Under your conditions is another bit to look over: your meltdown. When
you need to mark a condition but can’t because they’re all already marked,
your character goes into meltdown. Immediately read out and then act
on the Meltdown paragraph in your playbook, throwing aside all calm and
control! Once you have done so, you may clear all of your conditions, so
hopefully that embarrassing display was worth it! For more on meltdowns
seepage 97.
Vanesa checks through Artemio’s conditions to see what kinds of trouble she’s
going to get caught up in. La Belleza has Obsessed, Zealous, Lustful, and
Raging—each one with a different mechanical impact on her moves and the
perfect list for someone who wants to get aggressive when things go badly!

As for the meltdown, Artemio has the following:
“They think they can spurn you, treat you like trash? Not anymore. You throw
yourself at the object of your greatest affection. You confess how long you’ve
needed them and how desperately. Maybe you show them how good they
could have it. Maybe you destroy something beautiful so they can only see you.
Tomorrow they’ll see you through eyes that know your fragility...but tonight
you’ll be without walls.”
That sounds like a perfect opportunity to smash up the bar and go in for a kiss.
Picking Moves & Features

The basic moves are the core of everything you do in Pasión de las
Pasiones. These moves are available to all PCs at the start of play, and
all you have to do is take action in the fiction that triggers the move.
Once a move is triggered, you follow through on the mechanics, probably
answering some questions and rolling some dice to see how the fiction has
changed. Very simple!
In addition to those basic moves, you also get some playbook moves
specific to your archetype. These may grant new abilities with their own
rolls, change the way basic moves work, or even just be tricks you can pull
without a roll. Every playbook has its own small collection of playbook
moves, and over the course of play, you might earn more move, or even

take moves from other playbooks!
Each playbook has its own rules for how many playbook moves you can
take at the start of play. Just check how many it is, read through your
options, and make your choices. Try to think of what kinds of situations
within a telenovela interest you and pick moves related to those. In
addition to giving you more fictional control when you hit those times, it’s
also a good way to signal to the MC that you want to play a certain way!
Many of the playbooks also have features. While features may look like
moves, they do their own work as special additional pieces of the playbook
that help to define them and make them more distinct. For example, La
Empleada’s feature has them torn between two Suitors. Make any necessary
decisions about your feature as you go through your playbook.
As you play, you may be able to take moves from other playbooks when
your character earns an advance (page 99). There’s space to write those
in on your sheet (or to write someone’s name surrounded by hearts, I
don’t judge). Adding a playbook move doesn’t mean you can take another
playbook’s feature, so avoid moves that directly reference a feature you
don’t have. Some playbooks get access to another playbook’s feature, but
only when the feature is an option built directly into the advancement list.
Vanesa’s Belleza playbook doesn’t have a feature, so she picks two moves as
instructed. She wants Artemio to be seductive and aloof, so she picks Up, Boy
to give him an advantage in declaring his love…as long as he’s touching his
partner and keeping emotional distance. After that, it’s a tough choice between
Ice Queen and Hard to Pin Down…Artemio gets Ice Queen; he knows
exactly how beautiful he is and uses it as a weapon. Vanesa will be back for
Hard to Pin Down, maybe in an episode or two.
Backstory Questions
Backstory questions aren’t on your playbook; instead, they are located
on the playset for your overarching game. These are a set of prompts to
get you thinking about who your character is, how they connect to the
show you’re presenting, and how they are tied up with other people. Write
the answers to these down in little notes so you can bring them up in
character introductions. You may feel free to use other PCs to answer these
questions; they form the stitching that binds you all together.
The table has decided to play El Sabor del Amor playset. Vanesa will be in charge
of answering an appropriate role question from the playbook, and collaboratively
answering a couple more. Artemio’s question is “What opportunity has being
seen around La Náutica presented you with?” She answers that Artemio joined
an amateur soccer league that some of the patrons take part in after work.

The MC starts going through the Previous Episodes prompts and one catches
Vanesa’s attention. “Ooo, for ‘tell us about the kitchen fight that almost went
really badly’ can we say that Artemio and Elena’s character fought? I think it
started with simple arguing about tips or something and it just escalated and
punches were thrown. Oh! Artemio almost fell back on the plancha!”
Elena agrees and adds, “And they almost kissed?” Perfect.
For the Bottom Lines questions, Artemio has easy answers. “What does Artemio do
at La Náutica? He’s their best bartender. And ‘What is the one signature dish that
nobody can make better than you?’ I want it to be a drink. How about chilcanos?”
For now, you can skip Relationships and Last Time On. You need to know
who the people around the table are before you choose these.
Introductions
Once everyone finishes filling out most of their playbook (remember, you
haven’t chosen your Relationships or Last Time On yet), then it’s time for
character introductions.
One at a time, each player takes a few minutes to share their name, their
look, the answer to their backstory questions, and anything else important
that the other characters might know about them. They can just read off
the information from the look section, but they should feel free to expand
as well. During this time, the other players and especially the MC can and
should ask them questions to better understand their character.
Relationships
Once you have introduced each of the characters at the table, it’s time to fill
out each character’s relationships with the others. Each playbook has two
relationships on it, sentences with blanks in them. One at a time, each player
reads one sentence from their playbook, and fills in the name of a fellow
PC. If no PC fits, you can use an NPC, but try to tie a relationship to a PC as
much as possible! This sets an initial relationship between those characters.
It’s completely okay and encouraged to discuss those relationships as you
go! Feel free to add steamy details and build out a little, but don’t pre-write
the story by defining every last thing that’s ever happened!
Each player has final say over whose name they put into each blank, but
it’s okay to turn to the table for suggestions or ideas. This is a time that
adds a lot of drama to the beginning of the story, but remember that these
relationships don’t need to hold true for your entire game! Go with your
gut and make complicated triangles and setups. If players pair off in stable
couples, that’s unlikely to make the messy triangles of telenovelas!
Also keep in mind that the more connected the characters are to each

other, the better the game will go! While you certainly can choose someone
who already has a relationship with you, it’s great to make sure that you
connect to as many people as possible. There’s often also time to add some
additional connections in the playset questions (page 132) or Last Time
On (page 98) sections, as well.
Vanesa has two relationships from La Belleza:

________ has been a source of entertainment and flirtation, kept at arm’s length.
________ is the person you go to when you’re truly ready to cut loose.
She chooses the owner of the restaurant (an NPC) for the first one; twisting
him around his little finger is what got him this gig and he enjoys the chase.
For the other, she chooses La Empleada, a waitress. Vanesa and La Empleada’s
player go back and forth to work out why, settling on Artemio having spotted
her arguing with an ex one time and taking her under his wing by bringing her
to his favorite club. La Empleada, for her part, puts Artemio down as one of her
Suitors. Who wouldn’t?
Last Time On
The last thing to check off in character creation is your Last Time On.
This series of prompts gives you an idea of what happened in the episode
previous to the one you’re playing through at the start of the game—
referring to events that you haven’t actually played through at the table, but
that are nonetheless true in the fiction! Remember, when you start Pasión
de las Pasiones, you are jumping in the middle of an ongoing show, so
you always want as many instigating events as you can have! This adds an
extra wrinkle, possibility, and hook to the story. This will also be a step
completed at the beginning of each session, but how you start out can help
give a clear image of what your character has been doing prior to this game!
For this step, simply cross out the Last Time On you select and describe a
quick scene to the table about what exactly happened. Feel free to include
other characters, but if someone gives you push-back about being involved,
pause to discuss before moving forward. Try to make sure that you decide
things that make the world more complicated, not more simple or boring!
When you cross off the final Last Time On for your sheet, you have entered
the finale of the series. For more on finales, check out page 168.
It’s like Artemio’s story writes itself at this point. Vanesa checks with La
Empleada’s player first, but chooses “You fell into the arms of a lover of a lower
station.” With a bit of expanding, we know that Artemio and La Empleada
hooked up at the restaurant after hours, that they haven’t talked about it, and
that things are VERY awkward. Absolutely perfect to start things off!

The Playbooks
Earlier we mentioned playbooks and it simply
wouldn’t be fair to keep you waiting any longer. And
so, they are presented here, in all their glory.
Each of the playbooks presents an archetype or trope
common in telenovelas and provides an interesting
beginning to the story. Except for the MC, every player
uses one playbook to bring their character to life!
While you might add new playbooks to your game
from other sources, the rest of this chapter covers the
six core playbooks in this edition of the book.
Below is a brief description of each of the playbooks,
followed by the playbooks themselves. A print-
formatted playbook file may be found online at
magpiegames.com/pages/pasion. After each of the
playbooks is also a section on what to pay attention
to during play!

La Belleza
Choose a Name:
Constanza, Marcela, Soraya, Regina, Verónica
Armando, Guillermo, Rafael, Rolando, Vicente
Look:
Choose at least one from each list:
ͪ luxurious hair, smooth hair, voluminous hair, messy hair
ͪ cunning eyes, flirtatious eyes, wide eyes, wild eyes
ͪ designer clothes, risqué clothes, high fashion clothes, professional clothes
Your Question
-Are you the center of attention?
Relationships
ͪ _________ has been a source of entertainment and flirtation, kept at arm’s length.
ͪ _________ is the person you go to when you’re truly ready to cut loose.
Last Time On:

At the beginning of each episode, choose one from the list below and cross
it off. Once all are gone, it’s time for the series finale.
ͪ You spotted something worth taking while on the arm of another character
ͪ You signed a contract with a flourishing stroke
ͪ You slammed your beautiful, shiny car into something
ͪ You befriended someone dangerous and passionate
ͪ You threw wine in someone’s face in a fit of rage
ͪ You fell into the arms of a lover of a lower station
ͪ You slipped something into somebody’s possession without them knowing
Conditions
■ Lustful (+1 to Express Your Love & -2 to Process Your Feelings)
■ Raging (+1 to Strike Out & -2 to Spot Something)
■ Underhanded (+1 to Manipulate a Superior & -2 to Accuse Someone of Lying)
■ Zealous (+1 to Demand What You Deserve & -2 to Act With Desperation)
Meltdown
They think they can spurn you, treat you like trash? Not anymore. You throw yourself at the object of your
greatest affection. You confess how long you’ve needed them and how desperately. Maybe you show
them how good they could have it. Maybe you destroy something beautiful so they can only see you.
Tomorrow they’ll see you through eyes that know your fragility...but tonight you’ll be without walls.

Moves
CHOOSE TWO
■Big Entrance
When you enter a room ready to make a scene, roll +1 for each person
in the room with whom you’ve been intimate (max+4). On a hit, anyone
you’ve been intimate with is surprised, frightened, or confused. On a 10+,
you’ve seized control of the room; take +1 ongoing as long as you keep
attention on yourself and don’t let anyone stand in your way. On a miss,
they don’t give you the reaction you wanted; mark a condition and blurt
out a secret or pour out your emotions for all to see, your choice...
■Hard to Pin Down

When someone tries to express their love passionately to you, accuses
you of lying, or tries to spot something out of place about you, you can
interfere by remaining aloof or coy. Roll with the questions:
ͪ Are they being cruel?
ͪ Are you in public?
On a hit, they take -2 on their roll. On a 10+, they also reveal their true
feelings to you. On a miss, they can improve their roll to a 10+ or make you
mark a condition, their choice.
■Ice Queen
When you reject someone immediately after expressing your love
passionately, clear a condition or inflict a condition on them.
■Up, Boy
When you express your love passionately or demand what you deserve
by riling someone up while remaining aloof, add the question “Are you
physically touching them?” to the list of questions for the move.

Playing La Belleza
The center of attention. Flirtatious, luxurious, and gorgeous. Hard to pin
down, but the master of the grand entrance.
La Belleza is the playbook that most leans into the beauty of a telenovela.
They are perfect and graceful, catching the center of attention each time
they enter the scene. They also know their beauty well and know the power
that can come from controlling attention. When they want something,
they know they can get it from someone just by asking nicely.
In the presence of your La Belleza, NPCs provide you the spotlight you
deserve. They see how your mere existence lights up a room, and whether
they react with jealousy or admiration, they have to look to you. This
doesn’t mean they have to take you seriously; you may have power on
an individual level that doesn’t fully translate to institutional power. Of
course, you have plenty of ways to claim other kinds of power as well.
Your character is all about figuring out what you want and building the
stepping stones to get it. While everyone else is busy wanting you, work
out the things you most want. Everything you desire is in reach as you play
emotions like a harp. Getting what you want is wonderful, of course, but
how will people react when they learn you are more than just a pretty face?
Your Moves
Once you’ve broken a heart or two, Big Entrance helps to make sure
that they understand your presence is one to note. “As long as you
keep attention on yourself” doesn’t mean hogging the out-of-character
spotlight, but it does mean making sure that you don’t let someone speak
for you or do things for you. It lets you rock people back on their heels and
it helps make sure the answer to your question remains yes.
Hard to Pin Down keeps you in control of situations, especially public ones.
When you know that someone is in a good position to make you vulnerable,
you can turn things on them and possibly put them in a bad spot. Learning
their true feelings towards you is just a little bonus. You can only interfere
when it matters, however—if someone rolls a 5 or a 12, your -2 won’t matter.
Ice Queen allows you to use other people’s emotions as a weapon. It lets
you receive the adoration, information, or benefits of express your love
passionately followed by an additional effect, all for the small price of
rejecting someone who wants you. It may keep people at arm’s length, but
that only makes your pursuit of your true feelings all the sweeter.
If you want to get closer than arm’s length, take Up, Boy and show some of that
aloofness ahead of time. This lets you add an additional question to aim for
higher bonuses or to help yourself out when other questions don’t apply well.

El Caballero
Choose a Name:
Dolores, Guadalupe, Lourdes, Malena, Raquel
Álvaro, Domingo, José, Lorenzo, Mariano
Look:
ͪ Smoothed hair, ragged hair, shaved hair, cascading hair
ͪ Sharp eyes, angry eyes, tired eyes, searching eyes
ͪ Casual clothes, professional clothes, uniform clothes, protective clothes
Your Question:
-Are you handling things straightforwardly and without guile?
Relationships:
ͪ ______ is the person you go to when you’re stuck. They have seen your softer side.
ͪ ______ knew you when you used to get in trouble. They have seen your harder side.
Last Time On:

ͪ You got into a scrap that you barely got out of alive
ͪ You uncovered a letter that ties you deeply to someone
ͪ You bare-handedly touched a weapon that has since gone missing
ͪ You agreed to work with the authorities to trick someone
ͪ You spilled a piece of your sordid past, tears in your eyes
ͪ You spotted two people embracing through a window
ͪ You put in some hard work to get something fixed
Conditions
■ Condemning (+1 to Accuse Someone of Lying to & -2 to Manipulate a Superior)
■ Cornered (+1 to Act Desperately & -2 to Demand What You Deserve)
■ Engrossed (+1 to Spot Something & -2 to Express Your Love)
■ Vicious (+1 to Strike Out & -2 to Process Your Feelings)
Meltdown
There’s a line between justice and vengeance. Sometimes. That’s done now. You go directly to the
object of your enmity and bring them that justice. You throw their sins in their face and mete out
punishment. Maybe you lock them up in a jail or a cellar. Maybe you finish things once and for all.
Tomorrow they’ll know you’ve always been a brute...but tonight they’ll face you and know truth.

Moves
CHOOSE TWO
■For Your Protection

When you offer your protection to someone and they accept, hold 1. Spend
that hold to appear in a scene with them at any time or move to exactly
where you need to be to protect them before anyone can interfere.
■Grand Gesture
When you express your love passionately add the question “Are you
making this absurdly elaborate and excessive?” If your target gives themselves
to you or tells you they love you, clear a condition.
■Size Up
When you try to spot something out of place, ask one of these questions,
even on a miss:
ͪ Where is the nearest weapon?
ͪ What are they trying to hide?
ͪ What’s their way out?
■Take a Stand
When you step in to defend someone, roll with the questions:
ͪ Are you trying to impress them?
ͪ Is the law being broken?
On a 7–9, hold 1. On a 10+, hold 3. While you stand in their defense, spend
hold one-for-one to:
ͪ Protect them from an attack; take the hit instead of them.
ͪ Keep someone from leaving a room unless they go through you.
ͪ Take +1 on striking out with violence against someone who threatens
harm.
On a miss, you show your hand too soon; you’re at their mercy, and the
aggressor can inflict a condition on you or the target.

Playing El Caballero
The kind of person who handles things head on. Excessive, protective, and
direct. Prone to grand gestures and taking stands.
El Caballero is the person you go to when you need a problem solved
quickly and directly. They are focused, loyal, and capable in ways the
wealthy society members around them are not. Whether they are a friend
or an enemy, they take action and achieve results...and quickly. Of course,
they also have a dangerous past, and—perhaps—a dangerous present.
As El Caballero, you have different strengths than those of the manipulative
schemers all around you. You can probably blend in a bit, but NPCs will
likely spot you as less wealthy and sophisticated than the others. NPCs that
befriend you admire your loyalty and straightforwardness, but they also
hold you to a standard of honesty and righteousness.
Playing El Caballero is like being a bull in a world of glass. You could roll over
just about anyone in your way, and there was a time when you did so, but the
rules are different now. Everything you do is big, your anger and your love.
Keep your emotions on your sleeves and when you want something, don’t
hesitate. If there’s anyone who can get away with it, it’s you.
Your Moves
For Your Protection makes sure that the people you care about can be safe.
You can keep that hold for as long as you are ready to protect them, so don’t
hesitate to make the offer. Your arrival in the scene can be sneaky, stepping
out of shadows, or loud and grandiose, smashing through a window.
With a Grand Gesture, you can show that your protection is more than
just duty, making things elaborate and beautiful. You know you need to
work harder, so you don’t show up with one flower, you bring a bouquet.
Maybe you should spend your dwindling paycheck on a band! If they give
themselves to you, immediately clear a condition. All that work paid off.
Size Up helps you be prepared going into a volatile situation. Even if you
miss, you gain insight. It also gives you a clear path to follow: grab the
weapon, find them, or block their path and enjoy the +1 from your question.
Take a Stand gives you more options to control a fight. As soon as you step
in, be sure to roll Take a Stand so you know how much hold you have! If
you take a hit for someone, you receive any consequences of that strike, but
you’ve kept them safe for now. If you keep someone from leaving a room,
they need to knock you out, talk you down, or otherwise deal with you
before they get past. This move is primarily about violent confrontation,
but as long as you’re protecting someone specific, feel free to use it for a
shouting match at dinner as well.

La Doña
Choose a Name
Altagracia, Angélica, Camila, Carmina, Graciela
Bernardo, Isidro, Octavio, Santiago, Valencio
Look
ͪ controlled hair, dyed hair, silvering hair, luxurious hair
ͪ measuring eyes, skeptical eyes, thoughtful eyes, welcoming eyes
ͪ formal clothes, professional clothes, tailored clothes, youthful clothes
Your Question
-Are you keeping your hands clean?
Relationships:
ͪ ______ is someone you’ve sparred with for a very long time.
ͪ ______ is like a broken little bird you take care of.
Last Time On:

ͪ You manipulated your name onto a lease, contract, or deed
ͪ You comforted someone in their time of need and meant it
ͪ You handed someone a weapon with whispers of encouragement
ͪ You shouted someone down and left them distraught
ͪ You used your resources to buy someone out of a bad spot
ͪ You called in a favor but nobody came to your aid
ͪ You showed your deep, hidden feelings to someone you shouldn’t have
Conditions
■ Cautious (+1 to Spot Something & -2 to Act With Desperation)
■ Chiding (+1 to Accuse Someone of Lying & -2 to Strike Out)
■ Righteous (+1 to Demand What You Deserve & -2 to Manipulate a Superior)
■ Ruminative (+1 to Process Your Feelings & -2 to Express Your Love)
Meltdown
The ungrateful whelps take and take. It’s time to cut off the worms leeching off of you. You put
them in line and show them how grateful they should be. Maybe you throw them out onto the
street and let them work for a change. Maybe you make public changes to your estate and show
where your favor lies. Tomorrow you’ll find yourself alone...but tonight you’ll show them what it is
to live without your protection and generosity.
Your Network
Choose two Schemes on which your network has been working. Tell everyone the Schemes you’ve
chosen. You may not have more than two Schemes at a time, but you may halt one and begin a
new one at the beginning of any session.
■ Bring Them Together: Choose two characters. You convinced society that they belong and
are together. When they are intimate with others, you learn of it.
■ Keep Them Apart: Choose two characters. Through your machinations, you are keeping them
apart. When they make plans to meet, you learn of them.
■ Opportunity: Choose someone who has, in your opinion, wronged you. Your network will let
you know immediately when they are alone.
■ Protection: Choose a character or thing your network protects. They keep them safe from
death and serious harm as long as they are under your protection.
■ Seize Property: Choose a known property or valuable object. You have someone keeping an
eye on it full time. When it changes hands, you know.
Moves
CHOOSE TWO
■You Did What?

Add the question “Are you taking advantage of someone’s shame?” as a playbook
question. You may choose which playbook question to use each time you roll.
■Tell Me Everything
When you offer to take the burden of someone’s guilt, ask them if they accept
or reject your advice. If they accept your advice and follow it, they clear a
condition. If they reject your advice or fail to follow it, they mark a condition.
■Into the Lion’s Den

When you arrive at someone’s doorstep to meet with them in good faith, tell
them you are here to deal under the rules of decency—while you are in their
abode, neither of you can attack, steal from, record, or otherwise physically act
against the other. If they admit you, they clear a condition. After they admit
you, if they are an NPC, they must follow the rules. If a PC (either La Doña
or the other party) breaks these rules, then they can no longer take +1 for the
questions on any moves until they are forgiven or the session ends.

Playing La Doña
The spider behind the scenes. Manipulative, vengeful, and powerful.
Scheming, but perhaps with fond memories of what they once were.
La Doña is the smartest person in the room. They have been playing high
society for years and know every trick in the book. They’re dangerous; they
know secrets and exactly how to exploit them. That doesn’t mean they
aren’t ever warm; people who come under their wing can rise beyond their
hopes…with the knowledge that they still owe La Doña everything.
As La Doña, you command a certain degree of respect from NPCs. You are
known to reward your allies and punish your enemies. Many jump to your
command, but others want promises. If you start letting those promises
slip you may find the seas growing choppy. After all, you’ve been on top
long enough that there are surely people who would love to see you fall.
Your biggest advantage is that you can gain dangerous info and trade it for
access or favors. Make deals, maneuver, and claim loyalty from everyone.
Keep yourself safe with a wall of pawns. All this power could paint a
crosshair on your back, but who would dare actually come after you?
Your Moves
Your Network and your Schemes are like moves that happen in the
background; they represent your network of spies and friends who keep
you well-informed. Use them to control information, build alliances, and
keep a close eye on people who matter to you or you wish to harm.
You Did What? gives you a second playbook question that you can use with
any move that rolls with questions. So when your hands aren’t clean (but you
are taking advantage of someone’s shame), you can still get +1. When you
make your move, choose which playbo0k question you use; this gives you
advantage on a broad range of actions instead of a +2 from both questions.
Tell Me Everything lets you offer solace to someone who is hurting,
offering to help them figure out what to do to absolve themselves. Given
you likely already know their sins from your Schemes, you’re in a good
position to swoop in and provide guidance. Of course, if they don’t do as
you say, they’ll end up even more distraught than they started.
Into the Lion’s Den is useful for playing to your strengths. You aren’t
set up well for violent encounters; this move makes sure things don’t
escalate when you need to strike a deal. When you use this move, make
sure the other player knows the rules and consequences. You are also
bound to them. Breaking the rules puts you (or them) in an enormously
disadvantaged situation—not being able to add +1 from questions means
you roll either flat or based on condition modifiers exclusively.

La Empleada
Choose a Name
Aurora, Beatriz, Juana, María, Reina
Gabriel, Juan, Luis, Rubin, Sergio
Look
ͪ messy hair, pulled back hair, unassuming hair, braided hair
ͪ beautiful eyes, demure eyes, intelligent eyes, wide eyes
ͪ casual clothes, concealing clothes, professional clothes, work clothes
Your Question:
-Are you in over your head?
Relationships:
ͪ _____ looms large in your life as your employer.
ͪ _____ was the first person who was nice to you despite your humble beginnings.
Last Time On:

ͪ You came so very, very close to kissing someone you shouldn’t
ͪ You acquired the most beautiful, elegant outfit you’ve ever seen
ͪ You pushed someone in a fit of anger and hurt them more than you wanted
ͪ You intercepted a letter meant for someone else
ͪ You witnessed something horrible but don’t know who did it
ͪ You hid something where it will hopefully be safe
ͪ You told a dear friend a secret that should have stayed undisclosed
Conditions
■ Cagey (+1 to Manipulate a Superior & -2 to Demand What You Deserve)
■ Hopeless (+1 to Spot Something & -2 to Accuse Someone of Lying)
■ Introspective (+1 to Process Your Feelings & -2 to Strike Out)
■ Lovelorn (+1 to Express Your Love & -2 to Act With Desperation)
Meltdown
All of this deception and plotting is simply too much for your pure heart. You seek solace in the arms
of the closest sympathetic person. You spill your guts to them about all your feelings. Maybe you fall
into the arms of an old love. Maybe you go back to someone who’s burned you before. Tomorrow
you’ll have to face the consequences...but tonight you’ll take comfort where you can find it.

Your Suitors
Choose two people (ideally player characters) to be your Suitors; they are actively courting you,
even if you’re already in a relationship. At the beginning of play, choose one to be your Love.
____________________ u ____________________ u
Take +1 ongoing with your Love when you act to strengthen the relationship.
When you share intimacy or feelings with a Suitor who is not currently your Love, make them your
new Love. If you initiated the intimacy, clear a condition. If they initiated the intimacy, they clear
a condition.
At any time that you insult, break up with, or are disappointed by a Suitor, you can break the ties
with them and choose someone else to take their place.
Moves
CHOOSE ONE
■Confesión
When you tell someone of your wrongdoings, roll with the questions:
ͪ Do you view the other as pure of heart?
ͪ Do you invoke religion or family?
On a hit, you feel your soul lightened and clear a condition. On a 7–9, you
give them enough detail that they can later prove your wrongdoings or
they can immediately clear a condition themselves, their choice. On a miss,
the worst person possible overhears you.
■Keys to the Castle

When you reveal that you’ve been secretly listening to a whole
conversation, roll with the questions:
ͪ Do you work here?
ͪ Are you dressed to blend in?
On a 7–9, you get away, but someone saw you—you pick who it was. On
a 10+, you got away without being spotted or you ask the conspirators a
follow-up question, your choice. On a miss, you stumble, knock something
over, or otherwise reveal yourself. You’re in the thick of it.

■You Brute!
When you strike out with voice or violence or accuse someone of
lying while you have four conditions marked, ignore all penalties from
conditions for those moves. When you strike out at your Love or accuse
your Love of lying, you may immediately swap your Love to the other
Suitor to take a 10+ on the move.
Playing La Empleada
The naive hard-working innocent. Heartfelt, downtrodden, and loving.
Searching for a better life in all things, love especially.
La Empleada is forever surrounded by finery, but unable to truly taste it.
They must work while the privileged elite play with people’s lives all around
them. But their heart isn’t set on an easier life...it’s set on love. Constantly
pulled between their two Suitors and their obligations, La Empleada is
frequently a protagonist that everyone can root for.
As La Empleada, you are at the bottom of the social ladder for PCs and
probably near to it for NPCs as well. Expect NPCs to boss you around when
they need to get things done for other players, to tie you into the problems
happening behind the scenes. In turn, that means you can nearly always
trigger manipulate a superior on anyone—being at the bottom of the
social ladder gives you a clear path to manipulate your “betters”!
But even under such pressure, you can always find comfort in the arms of
your Suitors. Remember that it’s best if your Suitors are PCs—that way,
they’re other main characters of the telenovela—but your Suitors can
always be NPCs if that makes the most sense for your game.
While you may not have the power that money or control brings, you
certainly aren’t working with nothing. You have the ears and heart of at
least one person with resources likely to help you—your current Love is
likely to do things for you, and if they do not, your other Suitor certainly
can. Use these two against each other to further your own aims and to
decide whom you end up with in the end (and whether it’s even either of
them). You also likely have the hearts of the audience; La Empleada is so
often in over their head that you may find yourself able to take advantage
of processing through your feelings out loud.

Your Moves
Your Suitors provide you with a constant pull back towards romance, but
they also provide more tangible benefits. For one thing, if you initiate
intimacy to swap your Love, you clear a condition. For another, you always
take that +1 ongoing when you’re trying to strengthen your relationship
with your Love—and a lot of moves might qualify, as long as your heart is
in the right place! Another big benefit is that your Suitor knows that they
can clear a condition if they initiate intimacy with you. By managing who
you spend the most time with, you can always have someone ready to fight
for you. Don’t hesitate to switch up your Suitors and your Love regularly...
including going back to prior Suitors you had insulted!
When you get up to some questionable business, you thankfully have
Confesión. While it won’t necessarily fix the problems you find yourself
in, it gives you an opportunity to clear a condition and be ready for more
problems to come your way. Just be sure to pick the right person to confess
to—after all, you can only trigger the move if you’re really confessing
something you consider a wrongdoing!
Keys to the Castle allows you to move among the elite despite your lack
of social standing. You’re unnoticeable by so many, you nearly always
have justification to say you were nearby, listening the whole time. By
picking up rumors you can make yourself constantly helpful, but beware
that knowledge may also make you a threat in others’ eyes. On a 10+, the
question you ask of the people in the conversation is knowledge you have
in-character, but doesn’t need to be actually said in-character. If you choose
this option, you get noticed, but at least you get to pick who saw you.
While the conditions of Introspective and Hopeless can suggest a character
that doesn’t strike out at those around them, you can take You Brute! to
reclaim some of your ability to fight back. Once filled up on conditions, you
are no longer affected by negative penalties when you strike out with voice
or violence or accuse someone of lying; perfect for standing up for yourself
when nobody thinks you will! If you use the second ability to swap your
Love to your other Suitor to take a 10+ on those moves, you get the move
result and change your Love immediately! That means that you can’t treat
them as your Love twice in one scene, so make it count!

El Gemelo
Before you start, ask the other players if they are
willing to be your twin. Choose from among those who
agree, or work with the MC to pick an important NPC!
Choose a Name Like Your Twin’s: ___________________
Look:
ͪ bouncier hair, darker hair, longer hair, slicker hair
ͪ angrier eyes, colder eyes, darker eyes, sexier eyes
ͪ expensive clothes, risqué clothes, fashionable clothes, dark clothes
Your Question:
-Are you taking advantage of your twin’s reputation?
Relationships:
ͪ _____ is your twin and has something you want more than anything else in the world.
ͪ _____ met you before they met your twin and can usually tell it’s you.
Last Time On:

ͪ You got into your twin’s home and left something behind
ͪ You fought with your twin and one of you nearly died
ͪ You received a large sum of money from a mysterious benefactor
ͪ You acquired proof of your parentage
ͪ You were approached by someone who threatened to spill your secret
ͪ You watched your twin, unaware someone was watching you
ͪ You showed up at an event with your twin
Conditions
■ Brooding (+1 to Process Your Feelings Out Loud & -2 to Spot Something)
■ Cornered (+1 to Act With Desperation & -2 to Demand What You Deserve)
■ Driven (+1 to Accuse Someone of Lying & -2 to Express Your Love)
■ Guarded (+1 to Manipulate a Superior & -2 to Strike Out)
Meltdown
For too long you’ve measured success by your twin. No more. You claim the thing that they most
treasure. Maybe you enjoy the riches, power, or delights you stole. Maybe you light it up and
watch it burn. Tomorrow you’ll surely have to face your twin...but tonight you’ll show them you
can take their life if you truly want it.
Moves
CHOOSE ONE
■Almost the Same

When you express your love passionately to someone that your twin
loves, treat a miss as a 7–9 and a 7–9 as a 10+.
■Story Spinner
When you coyly attempt to learn about someone while you are pretending
to be your twin, roll with the questions:
ͪ Do they love your twin?
ͪ Is there an ample distraction?
On a 7–9, hold 1. On a 10+, hold 3. Spend hold one-for-one to ask any of

these questions:
ͪ What moment of intimacy have you and my twin shared?
ͪ How do you feel about my twin?
ͪ What do you owe my twin?
ͪ How could I make you angry at my twin?
On a miss, you show your hand; they realize you aren’t who you claim to be.
■That Wasn’t Me
When someone sets a scene with you or your twin, mark a condition to
switch which one of you is really there.
■Twin Tied
When pretending to be your twin, you may mark a condition to use one of
their moves as if it was yours.

Playing El Gemelo
The dastardly twin. Jealous, destructive, and misunderstood. Almost the
same as their twin, but a spinner of lies and half-truths.
El Gemelo is devious and clever, constantly keeping the audience on their
toes. Their mechanics challenge the truth of the narrative and pull the
rug out from under the story. Their power lies in their perfect match: the
twin, a person who looks exactly like them regardless of actual relation, and
taking advantage of that similarity to climb the ranks of society.
As El Gemelo, how you are treated by NPCs varies greatly by who your twin
is. If your identity is public, they have their own relationships to you, but if
you are a secret twin, you may find yourself dragged around by your twin’s
actions as much as they are by yours. As NPCs begin to figure out who you
are, you can bet they will try to factor you into their own plans. Luckily, they
are no match for your own dastardly mind. You can keep everyone guessing.
One important aspect of El Gemelo is that you want something from your
twin’s life. Regardless of what it is, it’s not as simple as just taking it from
them and vanishing. After all, once you’ve taken that first thing from them,
perhaps you can take something else. And once you have that, maybe you
can keep on taking or maybe they come for you.
Your Moves
Story Spinner is used to gain information about people and their
relationship with your twin. The questions provide you opportunities to
either connect with them, make them believe they owe you something,
or just make life harder for your twin. It may be an opportunity for you to
learn things that you can put into effect immediately or just to keep in your
back pocket. This works well with Almost the Same to take advantage of
the people who care about your twin.
That Wasn’t Me plays with the narrative on a deeper level. When someone
is first introducing that you or your twin are in a scene, you may mark a
condition to immediately swap who is there. The people involved in the
scene do not need to know you swapped, indeed they probably shouldn’t.
If there is a question about what they know, you and the MC should
decide together.
Twin Tied is a move that represents the things you share with your twin;
you can use their moves because you share so much in common. Note that
you have to mark a condition to do so; your deceptions come at a cost. Also
note that this move doesn’t work with an NPC twin—if your twin is an
NPC, you should avoid this move.

El Jefe
Choose a Name:
Eladio, Ernesto, Federico, Octavio, Roberto
Catalina, Dulcina, Evangelina, Marcia, Soraya
Look:
ͪ business-like hair, gelled hair, jet hair, styled hair
ͪ angry eyes, paranoid eyes, searching eyes, sultry eyes
ͪ formal clothes, uniform clothes, expensive clothes, understated clothes
Your Question:
-Are you taking control of this situation?
Relationships:
ͪ _______ has been a thorn in your side and a constant irritation.
ͪ _______ is an object of beauty you have sworn to possess.
Last Time On:

ͪ You showed someone a moment of tender weakness
ͪ You swore to take revenge against someone important
ͪ You took over a business or political seat as an interim leader
ͪ You revealed that you know a secret truth hidden from someone
ͪ You lost something truly valuable that you must recover
ͪ You lost your temper and hurt one of your associates
ͪ You tightened your grip on something until it snapped
Conditions
■ Lustful (+1 to Express Your Love & -2 to Process Your Feelings)
■ Raging (+1 to Strike Out & -2 to Spot Something)
■ Reactive (+1 to Act With Desperation & -2 to Accuse Someone of Lying)
■ Righteous (+1 to Demand What You Deserve & -2 to Manipulate a Superior)
Meltdown
They think they can manipulate you, displace you. They don’t understand—you own them! You directly
confront the worst offender and hurt them. You show them that you don’t need money or backup.
Maybe you destroy things they love. Maybe you cut some throats. Tomorrow you’ll have to wash your
hands and play nice...but tonight the blood on your knuckles will match the rage in your heart.

Thugs
You have a small crew ready to enforce your plans, about 4–6 people. Give them names. When
you send them to rough up a target, roll with the questions:
ͪ Is it an easy assignment?
ͪ Is the crew well rested and in good health?
On a hit, they show up to rough up your target. On a 7–9, your target chooses one. On a 10+, your
target chooses two.
ͪ The crew makes a clear demand; your target gives your crew what you’re looking for.
ͪ The crew beats up your target; your target marks a condition.
ͪ The crew intimidates your target; your target gives up something else of value to appease them.
Moves
CHOOSE ONE
■Bitter Rage
While you have Raging marked, take an extra +1 to the bonus to strike
out. When you have Raging marked and roll a 10+ on strike out while
physically attacking someone, you may choose to immediately knock
them out.
■Dangerous Passion
When you angrily express your love, you may mark a condition to move a
miss to a 7–9 or a 7–9 to a 10+.
■Plata o Plomo
When you demand what you deserve and you have the physical upper
hand, they mark an additional condition if they refuse and escalate.

Playing El Jefe
El Jefe—beyond any of the other playbooks—starts with power. They expect
to be respected and have the means by which to demand that respect. El
Jefe’s power comes from might, both their crew of lackeys and their own
wealth, political, and physical power. They can handle things with dealings
under the table, but they can just as easily send their muscle to rough
somebody up and fix it…or rough somebody up themselves.
As El Jefe, NPCs tend to react to you as an important, but frightening
person. They will likely want to remain outside of your notice. If an NPC is
drawn into your notice, they’ll likely do what they can to get out of it. The
exception to this is your lackeys. They will look to you for direction, but
also advancement.
You obviously have the strength to take power. That’s not your problem. Your
problem is that once you have power, what can you use it for? Set your sights
on whatever you wish to take and go after it fully. You may end up playing a
more antagonistic role, but you can still try to get what you deserve.
Your Moves
Your Thugs are your muscle. They let you get things done quickly and
efficiently, especially from NPCs. Be careful about using them for everything
though or they may get resentful about handling everything for you. It’s
important for people to recognize where the power truly comes from.
Plata o Plomo helps to ensure that people do what you say. With it, the
consequences for not following through with your immediate demands is
made radically worse. Your disapproval becomes a hammer when people
don’t obey.
Dangerous Passion allows you to change some of the tenderness of
expressing your love passionately to an angry declaration. After the roll,
you may choose to mark a condition to bump a 6- up to a 7–9, or a 7–9 up
to a 10+. The additional condition’s modifiers do not affect your roll; the
result of “7–9” or “10+” is the final result. Similarly, a move like Hard to Pin
Down cannot change this result; Hard to Pin Down might reduce your
result to a 6-, prompting you to use Dangerous Passion to boost it back to
a 7-9. But once you have used Dangerous Passion, Hard to Pin Down and
similar moves cannot change the result.
When all else fails, Bitter Rage gives you an additional +1 to strike out
when you are Raging. And don’t forget that rolling a 10+ while Raging
means you can knock someone out completely!

The Moves
The building blocks of Pasión de las Pasiones’s rules are
moves, bite-sized rules that help expand the fiction when you
come to interesting, uncertain moments. When we most want
to know what happens next, moves spice up the dish, directing
the story to interesting and unexpected places. Moves have a
couple of structures, which we get into later, but remember that
they essentially tell you, “When you do [something], [something
interesting] happens.”
The moves in Pasión de las Pasiones are presented in a couple
of different locations and it’s not a bad idea to have some in
front of you as you flip through these pages. The moves that
most form the action of a telenovela are on the basic move
sheet. For character specific moves, look at the playbooks—
these moves apply only to the interesting things an individual
character might do. You can also find moves in playsets (page
144) and on cards in the Supporting Cast Deck, and the MC
might even make custom moves (see Chapter 9: Custom Moves)!
To Do It, Do It
If there is one thing you take away from reading this book,
remember that when you want to use a move, to do it, you do it.
Each move has two sides that work together: the mechanical
side and the fictional side. The mechanical side is the part where
you mark things on your sheet or roll dice, figuring out whether
your outcome is a full hit, partial hit, or miss, and then finding
out what happens next based on the move. The fictional side
is your character throwing wine in someone’s face or jumping
from a balcony into the sea or holding their lover’s hands as
you both cry out. But these two halves are sides of the same
coin! If you want to roll dice and mark conditions you need to
take action in the fiction, and if you take action in the fiction, it
engages the mechanics! To do it, you do it!

But always remember that the mechanical side of moves isn’t triggered
unless the fictional action has been taken. If you want to demand what you
deserve and get the outcomes that come from the move, you’d better make
it clear in the fiction that you want someone to do something for you now.
If you want to turn up the romance by expressing your love passionately,
you have to show a heartfelt plea for their affection in the fiction!
Other times, you won’t even be thinking about your moves, you just say
the next piece of the story! When you shout in someone’s face to give you
the briefcase, you are demanding what you deserve and it’s time to use the
move. When you tearfully exclaim how much your twin’s lover means to
you, you’ve just expressed your love passionately whether you meant to
use the mechanics or not. When an action is taken in the fiction, the move
happens, whether it’s part of a mechanically guided plan or the result of
what you’ve blurted out in a moment of passion!
All throughout play, the MC is watching for fictional moments that trigger
moves. Sometimes you describe something and the MC tells you that it
sounds like you’re triggering a move—perfect! Other times you’ll describe
an action knowing what move you want to make. Whatever way guides
you through telling your story and keeps you making moves is the way that
works best. You can even just focus on saying what your character says or
does and leave it to the MC to call out when you trigger a move.
Of course, you can always take actions for which there are no moves or
triggers. The absence of a “slipping a note into someone’s hand” move
doesn’t mean you can’t pass a note! In cases where there isn’t uncertainty
(or uncertainty isn’t interesting), you don’t need to use a move. You just do
it! Slipping someone a note where there’s no direct threat or opposition
isn’t a move at all. It’s more interesting for them to receive the note than
for us to slow down and see how the story may twist or turn. But if you slip
someone a note in the middle of a hostage situation, then we may want
you to act with desperation (see page 68) to make sure nobody notices
the password to the vault changing hands!
Chapter 5 The Moves u 67

Basic Moves
These moves are the engine of the game, keeping the story going. Every
player has access to these throughout the game and can trigger them
when fictionally appropriate. While some playbook moves may make small
changes to some of the moves, most moves operate consistently in the
same way to give a specific telenovela feel.
The eight basic moves are accuse someone of lying; act with desperation;
demand what you deserve; express your love passionately; manipulate a
superior; process your feelings out loud; spot something out of place; and
strike out with voice or violence. Here’s a little bit more about each of the
moves as well as some examples for how they work.
Act With Desperation

When you act with desperation, tell the MC what situation you want to
avoid, and roll with the questions:
ͪ Are you doing this for love?
ͪ Are you doing this for vengeance?
On a hit, you avoid the situation you wanted to avoid. On a 10+, you also
manage to hold everything together and avoid further complication. On a
7–9, mark a condition or the MC will give you an unforeseen consequence
or added complication.
Act with desperation is the move you make when things have gotten out
of control, the pressure is on, and you need to just act to avoid something
horrible or achieve a difficult goal. It’s only for situations with real pressure
and risk, so unless that threat is present, don’t make the roll. Someone or
something else must have already put the pressure on you!
When you trigger act with desperation, first get everyone clear on the
situation you’re trying to avoid. If you jump into the ocean to avoid El Jefe’s
thugs shooting you, you might say, “I don’t want to get shot.” If you hang
off of the balcony of your lover to avoid their wife catching you, maybe you
say, “I don’t want them to notice me.” Either way, say the bad thing you
don’t want. There are other moves for getting what you do want.

As you answer your questions, be sure to pay attention to the immediate
situation. If you’re trying not to get shot as you run away, you’re probably
not doing it for love. If you’re tackling your lover to stop them from being
shot, on the other hand, you might be motivated by your passionate
corazón! Same goes for vengeance—you should only answer yes if you can
say how specifically this gets you closer to your vengeance if you succeed.
It’s not enough to say, “If I survive this, I will eventually get closer to getting
my revenge.”
On a 10+, you’ve avoided the bad situation and are on safer ground, and
you dodge further complication or consequence—but that doesn’t mean
it was easy. You’re probably showing some emotion with how close that
was; because it’s a telenovela, it’s always close. On a 7–9, the MC offers
some kind of a wrinkle, but you did get a hit—they can’t threaten you with
the situation you wanted to avoid! Instead, they’ll tell you an unexpected
consequence, give you a less ideal outcome, or offer you a hard choice.
Alternately if things are already too precarious to get more tangled, you
may choose to mark a condition representing how stressed and flustered
this whole situation has left you!
Act with desperation is the most generic move in Pasión de las
Pasiones. It fills in spaces when a player wants to do something risky, but
other moves don’t quite cover it. When the MC is stuck, they’ll probably fall
back on this move! If you wanted something different, let them know what
move you thought you triggered and talk that out! And if either you or the
MC thinks another move fits what you did better, then it’s probably the
right one to trigger instead of act with desperation.
Lorenzo, El Caballero—dashing with a bandana over his face—rides his horse

hard along the pier with the poisoned bottle of whiskey tucked under his arm as
Violeta’s lackeys drive after him taking potshots. Lorenzo would like very much
to get away from them without being shot, so his player describes pushing the
horse and ducking his head down, acting with desperation to try to avoid the
shot. He gets a +1 on the roll because he is doing this for revenge; the whiskey is
proof that Violeta poisoned Sra. Rosa! The roll comes to an 8, and Lorenzo gets
away from Violeta’s lackeys…but the MC describes zooming in to see a security
camera that caught Lorenzo’s face when the bandana slipped. Violeta won’t be
kept in the dark as to who robbed her for long.

Accuse Someone of Lying
When you accuse someone of lying to their face, roll with the questions:
ͪ Do you have an audience?
ͪ Do you have evidence?
On a 7–9, choose one. On a 10+, choose two:

ͪ You are right despite what the audience has already seen.
ͪ They must admit their falsehood or mark a condition (their choice).
ͪ They’re surprised, scared, or flustered; they must act with desperation
before they can act against you.
Lying is such a common part of telenovelas that the game frankly wouldn’t
work if you had to roll every single time you lie. If you just want to roll dice
all day, play Perudo! Instead, we’re interested in the moment that somebody
directly accuses someone of lying, that moment where voices are raised,
accusations fly, and we learn the truth.
Don’t use this every time someone lies and you suspect they’re lying; to
hit the trigger you have to accuse them in a dramatic way. When you are
face to face with Alfonso ripping apart the lies that he always spews, that’s
accusing someone of lying! When you tell Ignacio that Alfonso’s a liar,
that’s not.
The question “Do you have an audience?” refers to an audience within
the fiction of the TV show, not the audience of the TV show. If you
corner someone in an empty hallway, you have no audience. If there’s a
disinterested person or two, that’s no audience. If you’re at a dinner party,
then you definitely have an audience for your accusations. If you make a
scene in a public place, that’s definitely a yes too.
The question “Do you have evidence?” is looking for something firm enough
that isn’t just a belief. You don’t necessarily have to have the physical
evidence there with you, but you should be able to produce it and you
definitely need to be able to threaten them with it. Make sure you get the
evidence before you make your roll if you want to get that bonus. This isn’t
for retroactively establishing evidence!
It may be tempting to immediately shoot back at someone who has
accused you of lying by saying that they are lying about you lying. Just
from this sentence, it should be clear how that could be confusing! In
general, players can’t just accuse back and forth at each other. If a player
wishes to air some different dirty laundry, that’s fine, but don’t just go back
and forth and relitigate the same fact!

The only exception to what can be challenged is a truth that has been
established using the reveal a shocking truth flashback move (see page
90). These moments are important, meaningful shifts in what the
audience has seen and should be pivotal moments for the show!
Options for Accuse Someone of Lying

If you choose “you are right despite what the audience has already seen”,
you’re saying that even if we retroactively need to change something, you
are right in your accusations. The important part of this is the “despite
what the audience has already seen;” you are retroactively changing the
fiction that has already been established! Sure, the audience saw that the
gun was placed by Blanca, but you found the real truth and we get a little
moment showing Sophia putting on Blanca’s signature black gloves! We
just thought we saw Blanca!
The actual fiction of the story as has been established at your table can
be altered or upended by this choice! This can be a good time to describe
camera work or music changes, then give a couple flashes of that scene that
show the truth you are now revealing—for more advice on flashbacks, see
page 87. You don’t need to choose this option to be right—you might
be right anyway, based on what we already know and understand in the
fiction—but you do need to change it to alter the truth of the show, to
make sure you’re right even though the audience believes the opposite!

“They must admit their falsehood or mark a condition” means that they admit
they lied to you or they face an emotional consequence. If you want them
to admit they lied for all to hear, choose this one! This applies even if they
didn’t actually lie; you are placing social pressure that forces them into
an error! You apply so much ferocity that they break under your pressure.
They can still dodge the truth by marking a condition, but you’ve kicked
them back on their heels. If you don’t choose this one, they never need
to admit that they lied at all—you can change the fiction the audience
saw or fluster them for time, but they don’t need to admit anything! And
if they didn’t lie? Well, maybe they’re just admitting they lied to stop you
screaming in their face!
If you choose to “surprise, scare, or fluster them,” you’re buying yourself a
little bit of time. You’ve taken control of the room away from them, gotten
eyes on you, and they need to compose themselves before they can take
action. NPCs are at your mercy; if a PC does decide to act against you, they
first need to act with desperation to compose themselves. If you choose
only this option, you’re not changing the fiction and you aren’t pulling
out a confession, but you’re flustering them enough that you get a couple
moments to do something drastic!
Marcela and Octavio are throwing a rehearsal dinner before their wedding, the
event of a century that will put Marcela’s family trust in her control and cement
Octavio as the most powerful person in the city. Madrid, La Doña, sits at their
table as the clean-shaven, perfectly dressed Octavio speaks glowingly of his love
for Marcela and how tragic it was that Marcela’s old lover fell into the sea and
drowned. At this, Madrid puts down their wine glass and snaps at him, “This is
below you, Octavio. Disgusting enough that you’d fool our dear Marcela, but
I’m not going to let you insult her to her face. Why don’t you tell her what you
did to her love, Gabriel?” They certainly have an audience as they accuse him
of lying, but Madrid definitely doesn’t have evidence of this (all the audience
has seen is a man with a thick beard pushing Gabriel into the waves). Their
playbook question, “Are you keeping your hands clean?” seems like a definite
no—Madrid is doing this directly, themself! Madrid’s player rolls with a +1
total and gets a 12! They choose to be right despite what the audience has seen
and that Octavio must admit their falsehood or mark a condition. The table
discusses for a minute, then Madrid describes a flashback showing the bearded
man pushing Gabriel into the sea, then turning and pulling down the fake facial
hair to reveal Octavio. Back in the present, Octavio looks at his conditions—
he’s only got one left to mark—and decides to fess up, smashing his dishes off
the table and shouting, “Yes, I threw him to the wake after he betrayed me!
What of it? From that moment of weakness, Marcela and I found love.”

Demand What You Deserve
When you demand what you deserve, roll with the questions:
ͪ Are you offering something of value in return?
ͪ Do they love you in this moment?
On a hit, the target of your demand chooses one (if targeting an NPC, the
MC chooses). On a 10+, remove one of their options and they choose one
from the remaining:
ͪ They concede to you; they can clear a condition.
ͪ They refuse and escalate; they mark a condition.
ͪ They run away; you take something from them.
Demand what you deserve is about directly demanding a person take an

action or give you an item that you believe is rightfully owed to you. That
doesn’t necessarily mean you have a final claim to it, just that you are
deserving of it! It’s not about being tricky or coy. It’s not about convincing
someone in a subtle way. It’s about the moment when you are at an
impasse with the other person, and you choose to put it all on the line: they
either do what you want or things are going to escalate.
The question “Are you offering something of value in return?” should be black
and white. If all they get out of giving into you is that your rise improves
their social standing, that’s not actually offering something. If they don’t
know what they get out of it, you aren’t actually offering it. Take a moment
with this to make it explicit what you are offering and see if the table agrees
that it’s valuable.
The question “Do they love you in this moment?” is essentially asking your
target directly. If they say no, the answer is no. Of course, this doesn’t need
to be romantic love; it can be the love of family or friendship. The last part
of the question of “in this moment” can be important in either direction.
If someone usually loves you, but at this very moment hates your guts for
kissing their father then they don’t love you in this moment!
The order of options on this move is a little stranger than other moves. If
you roll a 7–9, the target player makes the choice of their three options.
If you roll a 10+, then you (the player who triggered the move) get to first
eliminate an option, so the target isn’t allowed to choose it!

Options for Demand What You Deserve
If you (the move’s target) concede, you must follow through with the
triggering character’s demand as soon as possible—you don’t get to clear
the condition until you meet the demand. You can choose which condition
you clear when you fully concede—getting out of their way, getting the
documents from another room, killing someone they hate—but everyone
at the table should be in agreement that the demand was met. If the acting
character takes away the option to concede, it means the target must either
refuse and escalate or run away!
If you refuse and escalate, you’re not just saying no. You’re making the
situation more tense, more dangerous, or more involved. You’re also not
tricking the acting character into thinking you did it. You refused and
they know it. Immediately mark a condition (your choice) and tell them
you won’t give in to their demands. If the acting character takes away the
option to refuse, it means the target must either give in or run away!
If you run away, you’re getting out of the situation by turning tail. This may
not be literally running, but it’s definitely squirming out of the conflict.
The acting character knows you ran, they know you haven’t agreed, but
they’re still getting something from you. When you run away, the person
who made the roll gets to decide what they take from you. If it turns out
you don’t want to lose that, oops! Guess you’ve got to find some way to get
it back. If the acting character takes away the option to run away, it means
the target must either give in or refuse!
With the night ruined and his reputation in tatters, Octavio (El Jefe) stalks
through the dark halls of his estate with an old, crumpled piece of paper in his
hand. He turns the corner to find Madrid sipping their evening tea and watching
the news that shows Octavio’s downfall. “Turn it off,” snaps Octavio. “You will
tell me where the diamonds were buried, now.” He approaches the fireplace
holding up the paper. “Or you’ll never know which of the boys is your son
and which is the imposter.” He holds the paper above the licking flames. He’s
definitely offering something of value to Madrid, who has spent all series trying
to figure out who their true heir is...but it’s been a long, long time since Madrid
loved him. His playbook question, “Are you taking control of this situation?”
seems a bit tough—he’s both acting out and making demands, seemingly taking
control, but he’s off-balance and needs Madrid as much as they need him. The
MC and players agree that the answer to El Jefe’s question is no. With only a +1,
he gets lucky and scratches by with a 10. Octavio’s player decides that Madrid
cannot run from him, he’s standing in front of the door to block that. Madrid’s
player decides to relent, clearing a condition, and saying, “There’s a grave with
your name on it just outside of town. The diamonds are there. Go on then.”

Express Your Love Passionately
On a hit, your target gives themself to you or reveals a secret they probably
shouldn’t. On a 10+, they also tell you whether they love you or not, and
who else they love.
Express your love passionately is a move for showing another person how
much you love or want them. It’s not a move to just be a little flirty or cast
shy glances. If someone witnesses you expressing your love passionately,
they unequivocally understand what just happened. It’s direct and
emotional and big. You’re not subtly attempting to turn someone on; you
put your emotions out on the line here in an open display of your passions.
The question “Are you dressed to impress?” is asking whether you are dressed
in a way that plays into what makes you attractive. If you’re in fancy, well-
fitting clothing, that’s almost certainly a yes, but people can be dressed to
impress without preparing for a black-tie affair. If your character pulls it
off, you may even be dressed to impress in less-than-ideal circumstances;
perhaps your leather jacket and undershirt were ripped in a fight and you
were hurled into the ocean before finding your love. That still counts, the
torn undershirt clinging to your body as you shake water from your hair
before turning your steamy eyes to meet your lover’s gaze and....just be
honest about what feels right and be sure to describe your look!
“Do they believe that you are single?” is less about you being actually single than
the other person believing you are available to them romantically—”single”
here is a stand-in for that idea of availability. If you’ve not been socially
seeing somebody, then the answer to this is probably yes. If the person you’re
expressing your love to is the only person you’ve been socially seeing, the
answer is also probably yes—you’re available to them romantically. If they
just caught you flirting with someone else, aim towards no.
When making this move, the target of the move makes the decisions.
You’ve expressed your love and now they’re under pressure to do the same.

Options for Express Your Love Passionately
If you rolled express your love passionately, your job is done. All of the
choice goes into the hands of the target on this one!
“Gives themself to you” is a term that can cover a wide variety of situations
depending upon the show, your characters’ previous relationship, and your
table’s comfort level. In pretty much any case, choosing this option signals
that your character is engaging in some level of physical or emotional
intimacy. This could be a passionate kiss, a sex scene, or an oath of love; it’s
just making clear that in this moment, you are theirs.
If you tell a secret, it should be something interesting and ideally
actionable. Think of how telling this secret to this person could make
things more complicated and dramatic in the future! It’s easy to fall into a
trap of wanting to protect your character, but this isn’t a time for that. If
you give a secret you “probably shouldn’t,” make sure it’s one that counts
(in part at least because your table just missed out on a killer kiss, so a
secret can hook them right back in)!
If the character triggering the move gets a 10+, you (the move’s target)
choose one of the above and you say whether you love them. Your
expression isn’t about whether or not you’re attracted to them; we’re
talking about love! This doesn’t mean you can’t give yourself to them and
then tell them you don’t love them; you were carried away by lust and

desire but your heart belongs to another! You also tell them who else you
love. Assuming you aren’t a heartless fiend with no love in your heart, this
can go three ways: you tell them you love them and nobody else; you tell
them your heart belongs to another; or you tell them you love them and
also someone else! Any way you choose, it’s a fantastic reveal! And if you
truly love nobody, reveal that and they know it to be true.
There are a number of ways that you can express this last bit, but the
important thing is that the targeted character says it aloud and the
triggering character understands it. You don’t have to stop everything and
say, “I love you and also your brother”—maybe you blurt it out between
frenzied kisses, maybe they see the guilt in your eyes, maybe the screen
goes black and white and voice-over explains it. Either way, you have to fess
up and the character who rolled gets the scoop!
After dragging Dolores’s unconscious body from the wreckage of the burning
yacht, Marcela (La Belleza) brings her back to consciousness. Their eyes
meet and Marcela, still dressed in her beautiful (and only partially ruined)
ballgown clutches Dolores’s hands. Marcela’s player says, “I thought I lost
you, I thought—” pausing for an intense intake of breath. “It’s you, it’s always
been you, I thought I lost you and my entire world was gone, Dolores my love.”
Everybody knows that Marcela was publicly dumped at the yacht party (do they
believe you are single?) and there’s no question that a couple tears and a bit
of ash doesn’t invalidate the beauty of her dress (are you dressed to impress?).
With a burning ship in the background, she’s hardly the center of attention (La
Belleza’s playbook question: Are you the center of attention?), but the +2 from
the first two questions is enough to bring her to an 11 on her roll. Dolores’s
player chooses that Dolores gives herself to Marcela, kissing her passionately
as the roaring blaze from the yacht lights them, pausing for just a moment to
admit her love for Marcela. As the scene fades out, Dolores’s player describes a
moment of hesitation on her face, hesitation that means Marcela knows that
Dolores also still loves Octavio.

Manipulate a Superior
When you manipulate a social superior, tell them what you want them to
do and roll with the questions:
ͪ Have you caught them in a good mood?
ͪ Does your well-being directly affect theirs?
On a hit, they give into your wiles and agree to do it. On a 7–9, they need a
bit more convincing. You choose:
ͪ Humble or abase yourself; mark a condition.
ͪ Give them something they want first.
Manipulate a superior is used when a character of lower social standing

wants to use their emotions, wiles, or other trickery to get someone of
higher social standing to do something for them. It’s not just lying to
somebody or spreading information; for that, just talk and see if they
accuse you of lying (page 70). This move is only used when you want to
get someone of higher status to do something for you.
If you’re someone of equal or higher social standing than your target, you
would likely demand what you deserve instead of manipulating them. If
it’s unclear who is of higher social station, then manipulating a superior
probably isn’t a good move for the situation!
The question “Have you caught them in a good mood?” is exactly what it
asks. Have they been having a good day? Are they feeling charitable? By
the time this move is triggered, it’s hard to change their mood, but a savvy
underling makes sure their boss has a good day before asking for favors.
The answer to this question is essentially up to the target, but you can try
to cheer them up a little beforehand to convince them.
The question “Does your well-being directly affect theirs?” goes to the
question of why they want to help you. If you are disconnected from them,
why should they care if you have what you want or need? If you are a family
member, work directly for them, or otherwise can have an effect on their
well-being on a regular basis, it’s probably a yes. This question can really be
answered by you or your target; if either of you think it’s a yes, take that +1.
Options for Manipulate a Superior

On a hit, your superior gives in to you and agrees to do what you asked.
This agreement is definitely made out explicitly. If people are there to hear
it, they know about the promise! How your superior follows through with
this agreement is in their hands though—they’re still the boss.

On a 7–9, you have to choose a way to further convince them. If you abase
yourself, you beg, grovel, or cry to turn their cold heart. When you do that,
mark a condition of your choice, in line with how you abased yourself. If
you give them something they want first, you have to be ready to deliver.
This can’t be a promise for a promise down the road.
Gabriel, a demure but charming waiter (La Empleada), is in hysterics with his
abuelo in the hospital when he gets a notice from his employer that he’s being
fired. Knowing this is Marcela’s doing, he rushes to confront her, “Why? You
know I need the money? Please.” Unimpressed, Marcela reaches for the button
under her desk to summon security. Gabriel steps it up fully manipulating a
superior: “Ms. Marcela, please, I’m begging you, I need this job. This job is my
life and there’s people depending on me, my abuelo, you remember meeting him?
He needs me, please.” Marcela’s player admits that Marcela is in a good mood—
her wedding is tomorrow after all—but both players agree that her wellbeing
doesn’t depend upon Gabriel’s. La Empleada’s question, “Are you in over your
head?”, seems to be a yes to the players and MC—after all, Gabriel is on the
brink of losing everything! The roll comes up a 7 total. Gabriel already has all
four conditions marked, so he chooses to give her something she wants. “I know
where Octavio keeps his most important files. If I steal them for you, will you
please give me my job back?” Satisfied that her scheme worked so well, Marcela
agrees to give Gabriel the job back now that he’s under her thumb…

Process Your Feelings Out Loud
When you process your feelings out loud, ask each member of the
audience if they are rooting for you, each one giving you a +1 or +0 (max
+3), and roll. On a hit, choose one. Take +1 ongoing while following up on
this information.
ͪ The audience reveals a crucial event going on outside of view.
ͪ The audience tells you how you might find love with a partner of their
choosing.
ͪ The audience tells you how to get ______ to _______.
On a 10+, set the scene where you follow that information immediately.
When emotions are turbulent waters that toss you from place to place,
you may be simply in need of something to hold onto. When that happens,
you may turn to a rain-streaked window or stare out at the ocean or watch
the headlights flashing down the street. What matters is that you have a
moment to think through, process your feelings...and then tell everyone at
the table what those feelings are! In a telenovela, we might see a deepening
frown followed by a look of elation at possibility! Here you can tell us what
each crease meant, what every moment looking to the distance contained.
When you take a moment to process your feelings, first speak through
what your character feels and thinks, what kinds of troubles or decisions
they are mulling over. Then ask the members of the audience—the players
sitting around the table—if they are rooting for you. If as an audience
member they want you to succeed, they should vote yes! If they don’t think
you deserve an answer to help find happiness, they vote no. The audience
members for this move likely include every other player whose character
isn’t somehow actively involved in the scene—this moment of reflection is
about you. For each audience member who says they are rooting for you,
take a +1 on the roll (maximum of +3).
Options for Process Your Feelings

On a hit, you get an important piece of information provided by the
audience. For information about player characters, you get the information
from the player. For information about NPCs or other events, you get
consensus from the table. Think of this as a moment where the audience
at home is shouting out to the TV, “Tell him that your song was about
spending the night on the beach in his arms!” and then just going wild
when the character follows through with it. Either way, the answer should
be honest and interesting! This puts your fate in their hands, but they are
rooting for you, what’s the worst that could happen?

If you choose “the audience reveals a crucial event going on outside of
view,” the audience will tell you something interesting, important, and
relevant to you happening outside of your awareness. It could be anything
from your lover cheating to the events of final contract negotiations.
If you choose “the audience tells you how you might find love with a
partner of their choosing,” the audience gets to tell you who that love
match may be. Don’t pretend you’ve never watched a telenovela and wished
for two characters to kiss! They’re presenting a romantic picture of that
character, along with advice for pursuing romance. If the potential partner
is a PC, their player says how you can catch their affections!
If you choose “The audience tells you how to get ______ to _______,” you
ask the audience, “How can I get [a character] to [do something]?” The thing
in question must be specific, clear, and possible. The audience answers
honestly, to the best of their understanding of the fiction!
For every option, you get a +1 ongoing while acting on their information.
If you roll a 10+, you get the information from the audience and then you
get to set a scene! On the screen, we would see your character thinking,
trying to decide, and then going immediately to seize the moment. If you
need help setting a scene, the MC can assist, but make sure to:
ͪ Choose an interesting location.
ͪ Decide who is in the scene.
ͪ Start when the interesting thing is going to happen.
Make it sizzle! You want to interrupt a wedding at the gorgeous park with
everyone just arriving, not storm into a quiet chapel while people open
their hymnals. Don’t set the scene too late or with too few people—storm
into the office with a gun, not with a body on the floor and no one around!
Marcela, La Belleza, is at the altar alone, abandoned on her wedding day.

She stands in her wedding dress among the finery. Shaking for a moment, she
drops to the ground, surrounded by waves of white lace. Marcela says, “I don’t
understand, I did…I did everything right. I gave up my sinful ways, I gave my
heart to Gabriel completely, why, why would he abandon me?” The MC calls out
that this sounds like processing her feelings out loud and votes come in from
two players that they are rooting for Marcela! She rolls with that +2 and gets
an 11, starting out by picking the first option. The audience quickly reveals to
her that Gabriel had been kidnapped by Octavio and is being kept tied up in the
hotel’s walk-in freezer. Marcela’s player describes her mind racing and Marcela
saying, “Gabriel wouldn’t have abandoned me…This is Octavio’s doing.”
With the 10+, Marcela gets to set a scene based on this knowledge. Lucky her,
she knows exactly what she wants. BOOM! The freezer door slams open and
Marcela walks inside to where Octavio is threatening Gabriel, who looks cold and
exhausted. Marcela raises her gun and says, “It’s over, Octavio. Let. Him. Go.”

Spot Something Out of Place
When you try to spot something out of place in a social interaction or
someone’s personal space, roll with the questions:
ͪ Have you been intimate with them recently?
ͪ Are you free of other distractions?
On a hit, ask two questions. On a 7–9, they ask you one question, too.
ͪ How does your character feel about ______?
ͪ What are you planning?
ͪ How could I get your character to ______?
ͪ What do you have of value or use?
ͪ What do you hope to get from ______?
With all of these people trying to take advantage of you, you need to find
every trick and advantage you can to stay ahead! You can’t manipulate
people if you don’t even know what they want!
When you take the time to spy on someone, you’re trying to spot
something out of place. You don’t use this if you just casually walk by
someone; think more of moments when you peer at them across the bar
running your finger idly along the rim of your glass or observe them from
a secret position where they might not notice you. You can also use this
move if you’re looking through someone’s stuff! A glance in a purse as
they walk by won’t do it, though—this is for rifling through their personal
possessions.
The question “Have you been intimate with this person recently?” may refer to
romantic intimacy, but it could just as easily refer to emotional intimacy.
If you’ve kissed, cried on their shoulder, or offered some other human
connection more meaningfully intimate than simple friendship, say yes.
“Recently” may depend upon your time scale, but anything longer ago than
a couple of days probably wasn’t recently.
The question “Are you free of other distractions?” refers to specific things that
would distract you in your vicinity. If you are spying on someone while that
chatty security guard babbles on and on in your ear about their kid’s soccer
game, you’re not free of distractions. If you’re on the phone with someone
while you turn over their room, you’re not free of distractions. Feeling
unsure of yourself isn’t enough to distract you unless you really think you
can’t concentrate.

Options for Spot Something Out of Place
On a hit of any kind, you get to ask the other player two questions. The MC
is the player for any NPCs of whom you ask questions. They must answer
these questions honestly. Note that it’s asking the player not the character,
so the character doesn’t necessarily know that you gained this information.
You’re learning by watching closesly and carefully, picking up subtle cues
and tics, not by directly interorgating them! On a 7–9, their player also asks
you one question. Again, you answer them as a player and honestly! This
move loses its teeth if you lie right now!
“How does your character feel about ____?” can be used to ask about a
person, a situation, an item—anything. This is primarily an emotional
question; it doesn’t tell you everything they know about the new boss,
it tells you how they feel about them! If it’s true, the other player might
respond that their character doesn’t really care about the object of the
question...but everyone is encouraged to feel intensely and in complicated
ways about everything!
“What are you planning?” may be a general question about their overall
plans or it may be more immediate. Pay attention to the situation; if they’re
talking through their plans with someone you should learn about those
plans! If you’re searching their room, maybe you can find something that
shows their greater desires! The MC can help make sure what kinds of
answers are appropriate to the fiction in that moment.
“How could I get your character to ____?” tells you what it would take for
them to do something specific for you. This doesn’t necessarily need to
be easy, but it’ll be more interesting if it’s something possible! It doesn’t
need to be immediate, but it certainly can be. What’s more exciting than
someone asking, “How could I get your character to kiss me?” and getting
an answer of “Lean in just a tiny bit?” If the answer is truly and genuinely
“There’s no way you could get me to do that,” then that’s a fair answer to
give, but every player should interrogate whether that’s an honest answer.
“What do you have of value or use?” helps you figure out what you might
want from them. If you’re looking to take something from somebody, it
helps to know what they have that may be interesting to you! It’s probably a
physical object, but if they’ve got a compelling non-physical one, go for it! I
know I’d be interested to know if someone has access to the greatest music
producer of all time or family secrets my character desperately sought!
“What’s your character hoping to get from ____?” is usually asking about
someone, but it may also be asking about a course of action they are taking.
You don’t get whether they’ll be successful in this, of course, just what
they’re trying to gain. The likelihood of their success doesn’t change what
they’re hoping for!

With the knowledge that Madrid is up to something, Dolores (El Gemelo) and
Gabriel hatch a plan. Madrid still believes that Dolores is in the hospital, so
Gabriel will keep them distracted while Dolores searches their room. Dolores
climbs in through Madrid’s window when she gets the go ahead and starts
searching for some proof that they are up to something, triggering spot
something out of place. Dolores and Madrid have never been intimate,
but having Gabriel keeping Madrid distracted means that Dolores can work
without having to focus on anything else. El Gemelo’s question, “Are you taking
advantage of your twin’s reputation?”, seems like a definite no. Dolores’s player
rolls and just barely squeaks by with a 7 giving her two questions and leaving
Madrid the option to ask a question as well. Dolores asks, “How does your
character feel about Gabriel?” and “What do you have of value or use?” Madrid
answers that they enjoy Gabriel’s company, but he’s a fun time only…not
someone they truly love. Madrid also calls out that they have an unsent email
to Octavio with evidence of some of his wrongdoing, an email that’s plenty
valuable. For their question, Madrid asks Dolores, “What are you planning?”
and Dolores describes how, when Madrid comes back to the room later, they
find their computer opened to that email and immediately know that Dolores is
going to spill Octavio’s secrets before Madrid can blackmail him.

Strike Out With Voice or Violence
When you strike out at someone with voice or violence, roll with the
questions:
ͪ Have you caught them off guard?
ͪ Have they just wronged you?
On a hit, your strike lands and you each mark a condition. On a 10+, you
also take something from them or avoid marking a condition.
Sometimes you aren’t trying to get information or love or favors.

Sometimes you just want to hurt someone. That is when you strike out
with voice or violence; when you are so angry that you lash out at the
target of your ire with the intent to push them away or hurt them. If you
yell at someone or call them cruel names, you’re striking out with voice.
If you punch, kick, headbutt, push (like really push), or hit someone, you’re
striking out with violence. Those both work the same way because we’re
interested mostly in the emotional fallout!
If you are being mean but you’re focused on trying to get something from
someone, you’re probably demanding what you deserve. If you throw
some champagne in someone’s face, you probably haven’t delivered a blow
powerful enough to trigger the move. Whether it’s words or fists, we want
the opportunity for it to sting.
“Have you caught them off guard?” is asking about their preparedness for
this escalation. You don’t need to jump out of the shadows with a blackjack
(but if you did you definitely can say yes), but it does need to be a surprise
that things escalated in this way to get the yes. If you’ve both been yelling
at each other and then you throw a personal attack, they were probably
ready. If you put your fists up like a boxer and wait for them to do the same,
you haven’t caught them off guard. If they’re terrified you’re going to attack
them, you haven’t caught them off guard.
“Have they just wronged you?” is asking about just now. It’s not asking about
earlier today. It means did they hurt you or get in your way in some way?
When you’re lashing out because someone just made you so mad—those
ungrateful whelps—well, you’re probably saying yes. After all, they did
something that wronged you enough to provoke you!

Options for Strike Out With Voice or Violence
When your strike lands, you get to describe how that happened. Think
about what sorts of levels of violence your table has talked about having
and has had in previous episodes. If things are exceptionally bad from this,
there’s a possibility the target might need to act with desperation to avoid
facing certain death, but that should probably be the exception not the
rule. Normally, violence in telenovelas is a slap to the face or a punch to the
gut, not a bullet to the head.
On any hit, you each mark a condition of your choice; your words or hits
affected them and the emotion behind it affected you! Think about what
was said or done and how that strike against you stands in the way of
what you want. Have they been a pain in your side and it’s finally come to
a head? Sounds like Raging. Are they standing between you and true love?
Amor, you’re Lovelorn!
On a 10+, you can choose to either take something from them or not mark
a condition. Taking something from them can be something physical
on them, pulling someone away from them, or taking their position. It
probably shouldn’t be too ethereal (taking their place on a stage is fine,
taking their bravado is a bit much). If you don’t mark the condition, it
means that your blow lands on them…but the costs you pay are minimal.
The moment that Dolores (El Gemelo) learned of Octavio humiliating Gabriel,
she jumped on her motorcycle and went straight to his compound. Dolores’s
player simply narrates knocking out the guards at the door—the table agrees
that we don’t care enough about those goons to roll dice! Dolores kicks the
door of his office in and strides in as Octavio’s still on the phone.
As Octavio scrambles in his desk for his gun, she closes the distance between
them and swings a haymaker for his face. Octavio definitely wasn’t expecting
this sudden attack, so she’s got him off guard and humiliating the love of her
life is certainly wronging her! Octavio points out that he shouted at Gabriel
yesterday, not “just now,” but everyone agrees Dolores gets a total of +2 because
it’s fresh enough to count as “just wronging” because it matters so much to her.
Dolores is also doing this as herself—she’s definitely not taking advantage of her
twin’s reputation. She rolls an 11 total! In addition to both characters marking
a condition, she decides to take something from Octavio, specifically that gun
from his desk.

Peripheral Moves
In addition to the basic moves, a couple of other moves show up regularly
up in any Pasión de las Pasiones campaign. They don’t come up as often as
the basic moves, possibly only once or twice every couple of sessions, but
they’re still important moments to have in your telenovela! Specific playsets
or situations may also call for additional moves (see page 133), but those
are specific enough that there’s no need for them to always be on the table.
Flashback Moves
In stories of deceit, trickery, and manipulation, there’s hardly a more
useful technique than flashbacks. After all, the audience is along with the
characters attempting to piece everything together. That’s hard enough on
television where upcoming twists can be lampshaded or foreshadowed, but
that’s harder to do with a table of people who don’t really know what the
others are thinking! That’s why we have flashback moves!
Flashback moves are narratively powerful, because they change the fiction.
Sometimes, the fiction has been established in a hard-won way, battled out
over sessions before. Given that, it’s important that flashback moves aren’t
too powerful on their own. You shouldn’t spend your entire game in the
past, although it’s possible to switch between past and present.
Flashing Back Without Moves

In Pasión de las Pasiones, you can use flashbacks to fill in all manner of
interesting detail—even without the flashback moves! While both flashback
moves have a significant effect upon the story being told, there are certainly
other times that a good flashback will make a huge difference! Some good
times to consider adding a little sepia and stepping back are:
• When two characters discuss something from their past
• When two characters kiss after a long time leading up to it
• When a flashback will give background information on a current conflict
• When a character demands reparations for something from the past
But how do you play those scenes? Keep them simple, short, and answer
questions as a team. This isn’t a time for rolling dice, making moves, or using
standard Pasión de las Pasiones mechanics; we want to see what we are
talking about but we don’t want to spend too much time in the past. The last
thing you want is to work out when a roll mattered. Just work for consensus,
but keep the flashback short and get back to the present!

Flash Back to Preparations
When you flash back to a time you made preparations, roll with the
questions:
ͪ Did you have plenty of time to do it?
ͪ Did you have someone looking out for trouble?
On a hit, choose one. On a 7–9, mark a condition or the MC will tell you
how your plotting is flawed or got you caught up in another problem.
ͪ You have fabricated a piece of evidence; tell us what it is.
ͪ You arranged for somebody to be in the right place at the right time.
ͪ You stowed away something hidden.
On a miss, choose one, but the MC says who was lurking in the
background and what they did to interfere before the flashback ends.
Often we learn in novelas that somebody did work behind the scenes to set
things up so that everything is absolutely perfect. This may be as simple as
stowing a gun under a coffee table or as elaborate as ensuring the police are
just outside the door when your rival starts strangling you. Either way, these
are moments when we want something that we clearly should have prepared
for—but it’s hard to predict when one of these moments will arise!
This move is used to insert a little advantage into a situation, a hook that
you can follow up on. It can’t be used to add in something that doesn’t
fit the setting; the innocent pool boy Raul is probably not going to be
delivering a truck full of rocket launchers with just this move. It also can’t
be used to hide something that you couldn’t conceivably have; if you don’t
have the document that shows that Eliza’s claim to the mansion is a lie, you
can’t hide it. You can forge it though!
The question “Did you have plenty of time to do it?” is asking whether you
had enough opportunity to pull this off. If you were only in the office for 15
seconds, you maybe tossed a knife under the couch, but you certainly didn’t
rig the place to explode. If doing the task would be difficult, but possible,
it’s a no. If you had a lot of extra time, that’s a yes. If it couldn’t possibly be
done in the time you claim, you don’t get to make this roll!
The question “Did you have someone looking out for trouble?” could refer to
a PC conspiring with you or a well-placed NPC. Think of which NPCs you
have control over and whether they would have been accessible and likely
to back you up on it!

Options for Flash Back to Preparations
If you introduce forged evidence, it holds up to initial examination even
by those with a fair amount of know-how. It will be initially difficult to
determine which is the true document when comparing it to an original.
If the evidence is a photo, video, or audio, it’s convincing enough, though
obviously the people in the document know it isn’t them! Additionally,
given enough time and work, it can certainly be proven to be a fake!
If you hid something, you get your hands on it before anyone else can. You
know where and what it is, but you should tell the other players and the
MC both of those! For one, it means your group can follow the narrative
more honestly and for another it lets the other players set up the inherent
drama of people waiting for the second shoe to drop!
If you arrange for someone to be in the right place at the right time, you
tell your group who they are and when they enter. If they are an existing
NPC, you make sure that they witness what you want them to, but you
cannot automatically make them friendly to you. Certainly though, if
you’ve played your cards right it’ll be to your advantage! If you introduce
a fully new character, they have to be someone implied by the setting and
can’t be terribly specific; a police officer or private eye is totally fine, their
long lost never-before-mentioned sister isn’t...though you might reveal a
shocking truth (page 90) instead!
Madrid (La Doña) glides into the conference room in which they had arranged
to meet Octavio and his attorneys with quick, flipped footsteps. Madrid and
Octavio have a tense conversation between the two moguls before Octavio
stands and says, “You have no leverage, Madrid. I’m buying you out. Sign
the paper. You’re through.” Madrid’s player asks, “Can I do a flashback? I’m
flashing back to yesterday when I doctored video of Octavio watching his
crew unload illegal weapons into the hotel. It was actually just boxes of wine,
but there’s some writing on the boxes now to make them look like smuggled
guns.” Madrid would have had time to work on it, but they didn’t have anyone
specifically looking out for trouble while they filmed it. They also doctored the
video themself, so their own playbook question—“Are you keeping your hands
clean?”—doesn’t provide any help. Their roll comes up with an 8 total. Madrid
marks Chiding (+1 to Accuse Someone of Lying, -2 to Strike Out) and the
video pops up on the phones of Octavio’s attorneys.

Reveal a Shocking Truth
When you flash back to reveal a shocking truth about a PC in front of
you, roll with conditions marked and then mark a condition. On a hit,
the news is staggering; before acting against you, they must act with
desperation. On a 7–9, choose one. On a 10+, choose two.
ͪ You have unequivocal evidence this is true.
ͪ The shocking truth gives you rightful claim to something they value.
ͪ You introduce a shocking new character who has your back.
On a miss, it blows up in your face—hard. The MC will tell you how.
This move is for putting all your cards on the table. It’s an accusation, it’s
a flashback, it’s new information, and above all it’s staggering and huge.
Revealing a shocking truth shouldn’t be overused (though the cost of
the move ensures it won’t always be the first option). It isn’t for accusing
someone of lying or just striking out with words or exposing someone’s
plan. It’s about a big, compelling, shocking moment, a twist that makes
jaws drop on- and off-screen.
“Make your roll and then mark a condition” means that you roll with
the number of conditions you had before you marked. Simply add your
number of marked conditions and roll otherwise as normal, not asking any
questions. When you do mark a condition, gain the effects immediately.
If all of your conditions were previously marked, you immediately go into
meltdown (page 97); weave the result in with your delivery of the news
and prepare for things to get really dramatic.
Options for Reveal a Shocking Truth

If you choose to have “unequivocal evidence this is true,” it means that
nobody acting in good faith can find holes in it. Maybe someone still tries
to poke holes, but we all know (and importantly the audience knows) what
the truth is. This thing has been blown wide open. By choosing this, you
also set it off limits for changes if another PC accuses you of lying (page
70). It sets a reality that cannot be altered like other facts of the story.
If you choose “the shocking truth gives you rightful claim to something they
value,” it means that legal authorities would stand by you if you took legal
means to gain control of it. This doesn’t mean that you can bring in a team
of police right now to seize the building, but it does mean that if you tell
the other character to get out of the building you now own, they probably
should or they might face legal consequences.

If you “introduce a shocking new character,” tell us about this non-player
character. They’re likely either someone from the other player’s past or
someone who has dug up some dirt. Either way, they have loyalty to you in
this instant and some degree of trust moving forward. That doesn’t mean
they can’t be turned against you though!
On a miss, things should get bad. This is more than just marking a
condition. This is a time for truly hard moves from the MC (see page
115). When you reveal that you stole the $10,000,000 painting because
you know that the mild-mannered heiress is actually the internationally
known art thief La Gata Invisible, that’s a fantastic time for her to call in
the federal agents under her command through the door.
With a thoughtful frown on his face, Gabriel (La Empleada) listens to Madrid
explaining how after the death of Octavio the hotel will be liquidated to pay
back investors. As he listens and Madrid gloats, Gabriel reaches into his pocket
and announces that he’s going to flash back to reveal a shocking truth. He
describes Octavio, panicked and wide eyed dragging him into a back room,
shoving a paper into his hands and snarling out, “They won’t destroy what I’ve
created. It’s yours, boy. Until I return.” He rolls plus his conditions marked, a +2
with how bad things have been, and gets an 11. Gabriel’s player marks another
condition and chooses two options; the shocking truth gives you rightful claim to
something of value and you have unequivocal evidence this is true. Gabriel brings
out the notarized amendment to Octavio’s will and slides it across the table. “We
won’t be selling. Thank you, Madrid, but you’ve done all you need to do today.”

Face Certain Death
When you face certain death, roll with conditions marked. On a miss,
your death was less certain than we thought; tell us about your daring
escape. On a 7–9, you choose one from the list. On a 10+, the audience
chooses one from the list. When an option is chosen, it is crossed off and
nobody may choose it again.
ͪ Someone (you choose) saves you just in time.
ͪ Take a distinctive, but sexy scar.
ͪ Gain a permanent debility (a limp, an eyepatch, etc.).
ͪ Become a twisted, evil version of yourself.
ͪ Suffer amnesia.
ͪ Return with a new face.
ͪ Wind up in a (possibly) long term coma.
ͪ Wind up actually dead (may always be chosen).
Let’s be honest. Not every character introduced in the first session of your
telenovela will make it to the end of the series without dying, possibly a
couple of times.
One of the core truths of novelas is that characters almost certainly being
dead doesn’t mean that they actually are. Characters come back from wildly
improbable situations none the worse for the wear. When your character
is in a dangerous situation, it’s often a good time to act with desperation.
When things have moved beyond that (or sometimes if they miss on that
roll!), it’s time to face certain death.
As with all moves, you have to do it to do it. Describe the scene of your
slick red convertible careening off the cliff, shattering against rocks,
disappearing beneath dark waves. Give us the last moment of your
character stumbling backwards and toppling out the window after being
stabbed. Revel in the melodrama—it’s not every day you get to have a
telenovela death!
When you (or the audience) select an option from the list, immediately
cross it off on everybody’s sheet. While an amnesia storyline is interesting,
it starts to lose its appeal after the first time! Once one character has used
up an option, it’s used up for everyone else in the story. The only option
that sticks around is winding up actually dead. If this happens, it doesn’t
get crossed out. If every other option has been used, there’s always death
waiting for you.

If you choose any option but actual death, you can return to the story
whenever it makes sense to do so. It may be a good idea to let us spend
some time with your character dead, but when you come back make it clear
exactly what you chose. If you’ve turned truly evil, show us what kind of
antagonist you’re going to be! If you have amnesia, show us how you don’t
know anyone right away!
An important note about this move—it’s reversed! Getting a miss on
this move is a “better” result than getting a 10+, at least as far as your
survivability is concerned!
If you roll a 6-, things were way better than they looked. The car went
off the cliff, sure, but you’re crouching behind the bastard who cut your
brakes! You were never in the car! Or perhaps you were in the car, but your
swimming is good enough that you simply swam into an underwater grotto
and are down there drying off. Or perhaps they shot you and you rip aside
your jacket to show a flattened flask against your chest. Either way, your
cool or competence kept you alive! Don’t undersell yourself!
If you roll a 7–9, you get to choose from the options that remain on the list.
Choose whatever feels interesting, fun, or fitting to the situation!
If you roll a 10+, your life is in the hands of the audience—meaning, the
other players. The audience gets to discuss briefly what is most narratively
interesting and chooses it. Whatever they choose, your fate was sealed as
soon as the dice hit the table! As discussed in process your feelings out
loud (page 80), the audience is the other players in the game who aren’t
directly involved! You don’t need to ask the person who shot you through
the confessional door!
Options for Face Certain Death

It’s worth explaining to some degree what some of the death options mean.
They are up to some interpretation and your table’s usage may vary, so go
with what makes sense at that moment, in the fiction. After all, at moments
like these, drama, intensity, and excitement take precedence over nearly
anything else! Still, here’s some tips.
Someone (you choose) saves you just in time: This should likely be someone who
wasn’t immediately available in the scene but conceivably could have been
watching the whole time. This may be a PC or an NPC of your choice.
Take a distinctive, but sexy, scar: This should be something distinguishing that
acts as a reminder of what you’ve endured, but ultimately only contributes to
your attractiveness—purely cosmetic in form, but never fully hidden.
Gain a permanent debility: There are no penalties or mechanical effects if
you gain a debility through this option. Instead, this is a mark that you’ve
tussled with death and come out on the other side. Be sure to describe it.

Become a twisted, evil version of yourself: If you take this option, it’s time for
you to stop playing nice. Go after what you want and crush anyone who
gets in your way. Maybe you return to yourself, you can always choose how.
This can be a great time to take on a new look, maybe it’s all black clothes
for a while or a shocking new hair color.
Suffer amnesia: This could mean forgetting who you are or just forgetting
what’s happened in recent episodes. Either way, it means you’ll be playing
catch up.
Return with a new face: In this case, you’re probably assumed to be dead, but
return with an entirely new face, likely a result of surgery. People from your
previous life won’t recognize you.
Wind up in a (possibly) long term coma: When you get this option, you have
a choice. You can either play some scenes in a hospital (what a fantastic
time for some gorgeous doctors!) or if you find it more interesting, pick up
a different character.
Wind up actually dead (may always be chosen): Ah…That’s it then.
Definitely work with the moment to make sure we get a proper goodbye
to your character. If you need a monologue, take it. If you need to be
cradled in someone’s arms as you declare your love one last time, do so.
But then…that’s it.
Rain pelts the dock and tiny boat that Marcela has prepared for her escape
plan. Lightning cracks and the form of Octavio (El Jefe) is shown in the night.
“You thought you could just walk away from this?” he calls out as he stomps
down the pier towards her. “This isn’t over. Not until one of us is in the ground.”
Octavio raises his gun towards her and fires, striking out with violence. The
move misses and Marcela gets an opportunity to act, jumping forward and
getting hold of the gun by acting with desperation. The two wrestle for a
moment and Marcela jams the gun into Octavio’s chest before firing. He falls
back into the icy cold water…
Octavio had only one condition marked going into this. Rolling with a +1 he
gets unlucky and rolls boxcars, a 13 total. Octavio’s fate goes to the audience’s
hands. After a little discussion, the audience chooses that Octavio survives and
returns with amnesia. Octavio’s player agrees and the table moves forward with
Marcela sitting on the pier in the rain...
Later on in the session, Octavio’s player describes a man looking into a mirror,
ocean water dripping from his hair and ruined clothing. He describes Octavio’s
recognizable features and his signature frown coming across his face. “Who are
you…? And why did someone try to kill you?” he mutters to himself.

Conditions
Rather than traditional hit point totals or harm tracks that measure how
many injuries your character can take before succumbing to their wounds,
Pasión de las Pasiones uses conditions to determine a character’s current
well-being. While mortal danger can certainly happen (see face certain
death on page 92), Pasión de las Pasiones is much more interested in
the emotional ramifications of actions!
Each playbook has four conditions that follow a similar format: a
descriptive word for your character’s emotional state (Hopeless, Lustful,
etc.) that gives a +1 to one move and a -2 to another move. Conditions tilt
your character toward one move and away from another, weakening your
ability to solve problems in some ways. On the other hand, if you know
you’re going to be throwing some punches soon, having a +1 to strike out
with voice or violence is not bad news at all!
While many conditions are shared, each playbook has a distinct set of four.
In the core rules of Pasión de las Pasiones, no two playbooks share the
same spread of conditions, although players can change their conditions
through advancement (page 99).

Core Conditions List
The conditions used in the core game are as follows:

ͪ Brooding: +1 to process your feelings, -2 to spot something
ͪ Cagey: +1 to manipulate a superior, -2 to demand what you deserve
ͪ Cautious: +1 to spot something, -2 to act with desperation
ͪ Chiding: +1 to accuse someone of lying, -2 to strike out
ͪ Condemning: +1 to accuse someone of lying, -2 to manipulate a superior
ͪ Cornered: +1 to act with desperation, -2 to demand what you deserve
ͪ Driven: +1 to accuse someone of lying, -2 to express your love
ͪ Engrossed: +1 to spot something, -2 to express your love
ͪ Guarded: +1 to manipulate a superior, -2 to strike out
ͪ Hopeless: +1 to spot something, -2 to accuse someone of lying
ͪ Introspective: +1 to process your feelings, -2 to strike out
ͪ Lovelorn: +1 to express your love, -2 to act with desperation
ͪ Lustful: +1 to express your love, -2 to process your feelings
ͪ Raging: +1 to strike out, -2 to spot something
ͪ Reactive: +1 to act with desperation, -2 to accuse someone of lying
ͪ Righteous: +1 to demand what you deserve, -2 to manipulate a superior
ͪ Ruminative: +1 to process your feelings, -2 to express your love
ͪ Underhanded: +1 to manipulate a superior, -2 to accuse someone of lying
ͪ Vicious: +1 to strike out, -2 to process your feelings
ͪ Zealous: +1 to demand what you deserve, -2 to act with desperation
Gabriel is running down a tight alley trying to get away from Octavio’s thugs
with the car keys he stole to keep Octavio from chasing after Marcela. His
player describes climbing a fence to try to lose them and the MC calls for him
to act with desperation. Gabriel rolls a 5, and the MC tells him that he gets
about halfway up the chain-link fence before Flacco grabs his leg and drags him
back to the ground. “Go ahead and mark a condition,” says the MC. Gabriel
takes a look at his playbook conditions (from La Empleada) and picks Hopeless
(+1 to spot something, -2 to accuse someone of lying) and says “Ah, I guess
I’m totally Hopeless at this point. I don’t even try to fight back!”

Meltdowns
When you must mark a condition but all four of your conditions are
already marked, you go into meltdown. Meltdown is the moment when
your character just can’t take any more; their emotions are churning and
screaming and they just need to find a way to let it all out! Each playbook
has its own meltdown that activates when your character is pushed beyond
their limits! Often this may require getting out of a scene or setting a new
scene. If it does, work with the MC to make it happen, but in general this
should happen right away! Now’s a good time to storm out of a room,
crying or shouting or screaming.
When you go into meltdown, read aloud your playbook’s meltdown to
the table. From there, begin following its path, immediately and without
distraction. If you’re in meltdown, you can’t bring yourself to do other
things; you’re moving toward disaster without thinking. Until you
complete your meltdown, you keep all of your marked conditions and
cannot mark more conditions. Remember: because of this you may not
select options that cause you to mark a condition. You are simply too
emotional already to hold anything in!
You can, however, still make moves, roll, and push forward in the story. As
long as everything you do is in pursuit of your meltdown!
When you complete your meltdown, immediately clear all of your
conditions. You’ve thrown yourself into relief and the consequences…
well, you already read those. The MC and other players will make sure they
come to pass…
After an exceptionally judgmental accusation of lying from Gabriel, Marcela (La

Belleza) chooses to mark a condition to avoid admitting her lies…but Marcela’s
conditions are already full. She immediately goes into meltdown from her playbook:
“They think they can spurn you, treat you like trash? Not anymore. You throw
yourself at the object of your greatest affection. You confess how long you’ve
needed them and how desperately. Maybe you show them how good they
could have it. Maybe you destroy something beautiful so they can only see you.
Tomorrow they’ll see you through eyes that know your fragility...but tonight
you’ll be without walls.”
Marcela storms from the room and immediately sets a scene arriving at
Dolores’s room. She pushes into the room, kissing Dolores, wild and desperate.
Dolores asks, “What about Octavio? You’re going to be married tomorrow.”
Marcela just shakes her head, hair cascading around her shoulders, “I don’t care.
I need you.” The scene fades to black and we pick up the next morning with
Dolores watching Marcela from the foot of the bed.
But hey, at least Marcela gets to clear her conditions.

Last Time On
Pasión de las Pasiones represents the ever-flowing stories of telenovelas,
such that the status quo is never entirely stable. The Last Time On
mechanic helps ensure that your telenovela is never entirely predictable!
As described in Chapter 4: The Characters, every PC picks a different Last
Time On from their playbook’s list at the start of each new session. The
players cross off their chosen options, and then one at a time (in any order,
MC’s choice), they describe a quick scene to the table about what exactly
happened. They may include other characters, PCs and NPCs, as long as
everyone agrees.
These scenes are all things that happened in the past. They might have
happened on episodes prior to your very first session of play, callbacks to
things in the show’s far past; they might have happened on “last episode,”
implying that another episode took place between last session and this
one; and they might even be scenes that you never saw on-screen, but took
place in the same episode as your very last session of play! In all cases, these
scenes add more fiction and complication to the game. They might even
retroactively alter what everyone thinks they know about the story!
Because every player is using one Last Time On per session, they will all
usually run out at the same time. But if any PC crosses off their final Last
Time On, then the overall season of Pasión de las Pasiones has entered
the finale. For more on finales, check out page 168.

Advancement
In telenovelas, characters don’t tend to “level up” the way we expect from
other tabletop games. Telenovela characters don’t necessarily become
better or stronger, they just change slowly as the show goes on. For that
reason, advancement in Pasión de las Pasiones isn’t about becoming
more powerful but about changing how you address problems.
It’s also extremely simple. Each time you finish a session, all players
advance. Check off one of the advancements on your playbook and make
the necessary change to your character. If you exchanged something, erase
(or at least cross out) the previous information and write in the new. If you
add something, write it on your sheet.
Each playbook has its own list of advancements, though there is some
overlap! The general forms of each advancement are listed below.
ͪ You gain a new move from your playbook
When you choose this option, select one of the playbook moves that you
did not select upon creating your character. It’s yours now!
ͪ You gain a move from another playbook
When you choose this option, you may select any one move from another
playbook. Note that features are not considered to be moves. You cannot,
for example, use this advance to gain La Empleada’s Your Suitors feature.
Features differ from moves in that they are a core part of each playbook,
often serving as the basis for other moves.
When you do select a move from another playbook, be sure that it is not
dependent upon having that playbook’s feature. A move for La Doña that
modifies how their Schemes work won’t make a difference for someone
who doesn’t have Schemes!
ͪ Change one of your conditions
When you choose this option, cross out one of your conditions and change
it to a new one. While you can use the existing conditions as a starting
point (page 95), you may also create a new one. Discuss this with your
MC and make sure you pick an emotion that puts you in a state of unrest!
Conditions gained in this way follow the same +1/-2 format! You could
swap the bonus and penalty for the condition you’re replacing, or choose
entirely different moves. This could cause a move to have a +2 or a -4 with
two conditions marked on it! Just don’t make a condition exactly the same
as one you have. And get ready for a hard time if you’re rolling with a -4!

ͪ Swap your question for another playbook’s question
When you choose this option, cross out your playbook question and
replace it with one from another playbook. You can alternately work with
the MC to come up with a question that makes sense! Remember that you
use this question for essentially all of the rolls you make.
This advancement represents your character beginning to handle things
in a new manner. If your Caballero starts working behind the scenes
more than in people’s faces, perhaps it’s time to go from “handling things
straightforwardly and without guile” to “keeping your hands clean.”
ͪ Introduce a new NPC
For an NPC, you need a name, a brief idea of how they look, a hook by
which to control them, and a move that you have access to if you control
them. You could take a look at another playset, the Supporting Cast
Deck, or work with the MC to design them.
Introducing a new NPC doesn’t fundamentally mean they will always
remain close or connected to you. Still, you are establishing a starting place
for them! This puts them on the table and makes them available, but when
they first come into play, they start with you having control of them.
ͪ Take permanent control of an existing NPC
Just like you can use hooks to get control of an NPC (and the benefit they
give!), you can permanently lock in a hook under your control. In the
fiction, be sure to explain how you became so tightly connected to them
that nobody can wrest them away from you.
When you take permanent control of an existing NPC, you gain all of
the benefits of having control over them! These benefits stay around
permanently, even if another player completes the NPC’s hook. Indeed, you
can just cross that hook right off, they’re under your guile now.
See page 142 for more on NPCs, the benefits they offer, and taking
control of them.
ͪ Take _____ from the ____ playbook
While you can take any of the playbook moves as any playbook, this
advance is a little different, granting you a feature from another playbook.
Features of a playbook represent something inherent to the playbook itself;
they aren’t simply moves that could fall easily into every other usage. For
that reason, which features can be picked up by different playbooks vary!
When you take a feature, immediately make the decisions required for that
feature (choose Schemes, designate Suitors, name Thugs, etc.). You gain the
full feature and can use it immediately!

Running
The Game
The Master of Ceremonies
Much of what you’ve read so far in this book is aimed towards
every player at the table. This section is a little different and
while it doesn’t hurt for anyone to read, it’s specifically for the
Master of Ceremonies (MC) to learn how to run the game.
While everyone else is playing one character and delving deep
into their own personal drama, you have a different job. Your
goals are the same—pushing for desperate love, passionate need,
betrayal, lies, and drama like every player—but you pursue those
themes through all the other characters in the show.
When you act as the MC, it’s your job to challenge the players
with plots and entanglements, to mix them up and hide the way
to their dreams. It falls upon you to make sure that love is always
there if they could simply reach far enough. It’s your job to bring
the next big twist that rocks everybody back on their heels and
to ask the players, “Now, what do you do?”
But how?
This chapter is all about how to make Pasión de las Pasiones play as
an interesting, engaging telenovela. It might feel scary—especially if
you don’t know telenovelas that well—to take on the responsibility
for running the game, but you’re going to do great!
Be sure to take a look at the previous chapters. You don’t need
to have them memorized or anything like that, but get familiar
with the moves, the playbooks, and the structure of the game!
And just like the players have a set of rules for their side of the
conversation, the MC does as well. Follow these rules and you’ll
do great! Don’t feel like you need to memorize everything word
by word. Instead, plan on coming back here after you run a
session, finding ways to improve your MCing as you play.
To dive into how to run Pasión de las Pasiones, we talk about
agendas, principles, and moves, the elements of an MC’s play
structure. Agendas are broad goals for your table that point you
towards telenovela drama. Principles are best practices, ways to
look at play that ensure the game flows in a manner consistent
with the genre. Moves are specific actions you can take that
propel the story forward! If you focus on these three major ideas,
you’ll be MCing Pasión de las Pasiones like a pro in no time!

Agendas
Agendas are your primary goals, the reason you are playing this game
specifically. They aren’t actions you do once and then let them be, they
are the key ideas that you strive to include through every moment of your
game. Focusing on these three key ideas are how you keep the feel of your
game like a telenovela, and how you ensure your sessions are dramatic,
romantic, and constantly evolving.
ͪ Make the telenovela feel heightened and romantic
ͪ Keep the characters’ lives volatile and unstable
ͪ Play to find out what happens
Make the telenovela

feel heightened and romantic
Telenovelas are big. They aren’t slow and creeping or plodding in muted
colors. They are vibrant and full of life. Don’t be afraid of their drama.
When you have an opportunity to escalate, do it! Go for the big response!
Hit the tense moment! Make every moment sing and sting! There’s time for
long discussions in other games, here you keep your story moving! Pasión
de las Pasiones isn’t a game in which three sessions cover just one or
two things changing; drive the game at a breakneck pace and move things
forward. Every episode of a telenovela feels like a finale!
But just because events ravel and unravel rapidly doesn’t mean your show
lacks space for affairs of the heart! Push romance into every scene, make
characters’ motivations doubled or doubted by their love, give the players
beautiful settings and opportunities for flirtatious joy. Consider how any
scene could quickly become a romantic one and invite the players to do the
same. You have an unlimited budget; fill the world with flowers!
If you lose sight of this agenda, you lose the punch of a telenovela. You
don’t want to have the slow burn of a literary novel; you want each scene
to have immediate consequences and dramatic changes to the story that
happen in an instant. If you aren’t providing opportunities for romance, it
may yet blossom, but it’s an uphill climb instead of a natural progression of
feelings. If you finish a session and can’t come up with several things that
dramatically changed, you probably need to revisit this agenda!
Chapter 6 Running the Game u 103

Keep the characters’
lives volatile and unstable
The death of a telenovela is stability. When you see things getting stagnant
or slow, push to change it! Keep an eye out for characters (and players!)
getting too comfortable with the current state of affairs. If they seem to
have things figured out, find the tool best suited to freeing them from their
expectations. This is especially true of the player characters! Remember,
they are the leads of your show and if they aren’t juggling interpersonal
drama and swirling life changes, the show won’t be fun!
The players may try to quiet things down, seeking romantic entanglements
that aren’t complicated or finding ways to live peacefully with their enemies.
When they find a stagnant position, push on their other obligations and see
if they can still maintain balance. If they have a functional truce, throw them
into a difficult situation with their rival. If they have a love story perfectly
balanced, give one edge a push and challenge the relationship hard.
The last thing you want in your telenovela is characters just satisfied where
they are. Some PCs are motivated to constantly look for the next thing to
improve their lives, but others need the push of worsening circumstances
or major upheaval to really chase their goals. Don’t destroy everything they
build, but keep the situation fluid to inspire the PCs to stay on their toes.
Play to find out what happens

Everything in your heart wants you to be aimed at the ending. It’s normal—
you want to know which of the PCs end up together, who gets what they
want, who ends up burned. That’s okay! You’re a member of the audience
too. But as the MC running the game, your focus should be on what’s
happening right now. Every scene is an opportunity for situations and
people to change dramatically; be excited about the moments that go
against what you happily dream about during commercial breaks! Revel in
the emotions of the romantic moment you have right now, the tension of
the characters falling into each other’s arms whether they should be or not!
Since Pasión de las Pasiones includes flashbacks, you might be tempted to
spend all of your time trying to figure out past entanglements. Try to avoid
that; we only truly care about past entanglements as far as they lead to
present ones. Likewise, when you think of consequences, try not to get too
far into the future: the consequence of PCs’ actions can come right away!
You can forget to play to find out what happens in two ways: you can
overplan—writing your telenovela as if the players didn’t exist—or you can
worry so much about the future and past that nothing happens right now.
Stay focused on what is happening now and only the very next thing that
happens, and you and your players will find the heart of telenovela drama!

Principles
We have our agendas, our goals, what we want our game to be when we
play. But you’re not going to get there by hoping things work out. Your
principles are the way you plan to run the game to fulfill those agendas.
They aren’t just goals or ideas, but instead rules you must follow to get your
best results. Be true and honest to them and they will guide you well!
ͪ Shoot each scene like a telenovela
ͪ Make social status matter
ͪ Address yourself to the characters, not the players
ͪ Make your move, but misdirect
ͪ Reward cruelty now, reward kindness later
ͪ Be a fan of the players’ characters
ͪ Push them off balance when they get comfortable
ͪ Keep truth liquid, keep history moving
ͪ Draw love with tangles, not lines
ͪ Intertwine public and private lives
ͪ Dangle temptation of all flavors
ͪ Sometimes, declaim decision making
Shoot each scene like a telenovela

When you describe a scene, you take on the role of the camera. What you
say is what the audience sees, so this is an opportunity to really hit the
genre! Do more than say what is in the room with the PCs, say what details
and images are witnessed by the millions of people watching at home!
There are some cheap tricks that evoke (especially older) telenovelas such
as green-screened oceans and blowing hair. But you’re more sophisticated
than that! Give them quickening music as things get heated and dangerous
or romantic musical themes when people come together. Encourage
players to highlight visual themes when their characters kiss or squabble or
scheme. Set scenes primarily with two or three people and show tight shots
of their faces. Soften the camera focus as the tears start.
You might be tempted to get “meta,” to move what you describe beyond
just the fiction itself. For example, you might try to spend time on the
actors and production staff instead of what the camera sees, emphasizing
what’s going on in the “real world” of your telenovela, instead of what’s
going on within the telenovela itself. Generally, however, focusing on the
construction of the show makes the game feel silly and less immediate.
Stay with what the camera sees and use audience reactions to highlight
moments of drama!

Make social status matter
From an outside view, some of the social dynamics of telenovelas can seem
unlikely. Someone being a society darling doesn’t necessarily imbue them
with direct power. In Pasión de las Pasiones, it does. Fame, respect, and
power are synonymous with each other and should feel real. If someone
with status threatens to destroy someone without, it’s not just bluster. The
hottest new face on the social scene has the power of a monarch for as long
as they stay relevant, and the old guard and known names are as strong
as stone. La Belleza having a word with La Empleada’s manager should be
terrifying and put the latter’s livelihood in actual peril.
By that same token, make people take the use of social power seriously.
Someone who constantly uses their power to cut people down could
have a fearsome and petulant reputation. If a PC never pays back their
debts, NPCs should be hesitant to do them favors. If they’ve embarrassed
themselves, their reputation should be ruined and their allies may turn
their backs on them. Remind people—no matter their power—that they are
as beholden to social rules as anyone else.
At the same time, lacking social status doesn’t leave you utterly powerless.
One of the basic moves of the game—manipulate a superior—requires a
constant assessment of social status, and is only available to PCs without
status! La Empleada can manipulate La Belleza—not the other way around!
Address yourself to the characters,

not the players
The focus of you and your players should be upon the world that the
characters inhabit. Specifically, the characters that exist within the world of
the telenovela. You aren’t asking their actor, you aren’t asking their player
when you ask a question of a character. You are asking, “What do you do?”
This helps players to stay focused on the reality of the drama and stops
them from thinking too hard about it; the last thing you want is Dolores’s
player deciding to take the rational path because she can’t see in-world how
gorgeous Gabriel is! And then when they get those victories? Ah, even sweeter.
Remember also that you provide everything the players know about the
world through the eyes of their characters. If you don’t show them the
world, their characters can’t see it. Speak truthfully when you tell them
about the world as they see and know it, as if they were right there in the
moment. If they need to know whether their grip can hold their beloved
from falling into the sea, the only way for them to know is you telling
them, even if you’re telling them that it’s a risk and a move is triggered.
Without the information you provide, they can’t possibly throw themselves
into the moment fully.

Make your move, but misdirect
Immediately after these principles are your moves (page 113), the specific
things you do and say during play to keep the gaming moving. Using those
moves helps make the game feel alive and active! But don’t just tell the
players what you’ve done when you make your move!
In the same way that players have to do it to do it, you have to describe
what happens to make a move. When the chef and the host slip away to
hide from their tyrannical boss, don’t tell them “I’m making a moment
romantic.” Instead, describe the balcony that they find themselves on, the
swirl of the wind, fluttering petals spinning around them for a moment,
standing so close together they could just—
Doesn’t this feel more satisfying? You’ve done what you wanted, you made
a moment romantic in ways that lead to drama, but it’s so much more
interesting this way! It builds out from the fiction, it makes sense in the
story! Sure, you pull from a limited list of moves, but if you describe your
actions well enough, the players don’t ever have to see that! Hide the levers
and pulleys of your moves behind the curtains of description and the story
feels infinite.
There are times you have to address mechanics, of course. If a move caused
a player to mark a condition, you need to tell them to do so or they just
won’t! But also put that into your fiction. Don’t say, “I’m making you mark
Raging.” That’s boring. Fill the world with story. “The insolent whelp got
in your way for the last time. He dares to stand in your way? You feel fury
welling up in you—mark Raging.”

Reward cruelty now, reward kindness later
One of the tenets of a telenovela is that good can triumph over evil. This
may seem tough from a standpoint of a game where players may be starting
out as clear antagonists! Don’t be discouraged though, many of the worst
villains at the beginning of many telenovelas end up being the greatest
heroes! But how do you keep people sliding along the Hero/Villain axis
during play? Shouldn’t everyone always just want to be the hero so they get
their best ending? Who wants to be a villain and lose all the time?
The best way to avoid simple answers is to make being kind and good and
honorable hard. Create situations where players have an easy, but cruel, way
to achieve what they want. If they are willing to be cruel, give their immediate
desires to them, but make their victory fleeting. On the other hand, when they
show kindness and goodness, shine a light on the fact that they did something
kind, but don’t reward them yet. Let them feel that their kindness was for
nothing and then bring back the person they were kind to later!
Perhaps La Belleza shows kindness to some grizzled farmhand, giving
something up even when they could have taken an easy, cruel path instead.
Maybe not this session, maybe not next session, but before we come to an
end, bring him back and repay the kindness. Perhaps at their impromptu
wedding at the end he shows up with a beautiful horse to get them to the
church on time, repaying the favor in a way they never saw coming.
Be a fan of the players’ characters

The player characters in Pasión de las Pasiones are the stars—the most
important characters, the characters that everybody tunes in to see. Maybe
a couple of other characters show up in every episode, but they aren’t the
focus of the story or the action. The MC’s job isn’t to play the character
with the hottest smolder or most dramatic plotline; they are producción
and their job is to make the player characters look good! Keep the PCs
central to the plot and push yourself to fall in love with them. Find their
best traits and romanticize them like your audience does, let your heart
flutter for their greatest moments and your stomach sink for their darkest!
When you are invested in your players’ characters, your story will be better.
This also means you should keep your story focused on them. Remember
earlier we talked about setting small scenes? As much as you can, set these
scenes with two or three PCs! Unless you’re at a massive event or the PCs
need a direct shove, try to keep yourself to one or two NPCs in a scene! As
discussed later, NPCs should have goals and wants, but whenever possible
make them dependent upon the PCs. For that matter, if a PC goal and an
NPC goal are opposed in an uninteresting conflict, err on the side of the
PC! NPCs should act like whispering shoulder devils, driving them against
each other, and encouraging them to do your dirty work!

You can also be a fan of the PCs by giving them the appropriate benefit of
the doubt about uncertainty. If a PC ever acts against another PC, there’s
almost always plenty of uncertainty...but La Doña can probably order
around the wait staff constantly, without any uncertainty—she’s La Doña,
after all! Honor what makes the PCs special by sometimes acknowledging
that there is no uncertainty.
But don’t think that being a fan of the players’ characters means you should
let them get off easy. No! You should make them struggle, make them
choose between tough options, make them work for their victories and
earn their defeats. Any good telenovela thrives on conflicts and drama;
being a fan means wanting to see your favorite character be challenged in
ways that make them the star of the show!
Push them off balance when

they get comfortable
There is a time for things to get comfortable, start working out, and wrap
up. But if you’re not at the finale, then you’re not there yet! When characters
get too comfortable in their circumstances, that’s the time to get a good
push in. It won’t always be as clear as a sigh of relief (though sometimes it is,
preferably while staring out the window at a harbor!) but keep an eye out for
characters who have prematurely found their happy ending.
Of course, if two PCs find happiness too early, you can’t simply break them
up—you need to put things in their path. Push on existing relationships
and jealousy, offer them everything they thought they wanted before they
found love. This can seem like it isn’t being a fan of the characters, but
remember that for a telenovela those ups and downs form the very basis of
the audience’s love! Don’t be cruel yourself, just make them ask, “Now that
we have everything together…Can we make it through this next thing?” No
matter what answer they give, it will be fun and interesting for everyone!
One of the patterns by which comfort and balance tend to come along in
telenovelas is that the beginning of an episode (or in our case a session)
has characters desperately trying to figure things out. As the episode goes
on, they piece things together, work things out, find a bit of stability.
That’s great, it lets your players experiment with different romantic
configurations and social partnerships! By the end, things may start to even
be really good! Two characters come together, they hold each other, and
they kiss and everyone in the audience gets to feel that joy. Then your job
comes in to push them off balance, introduce a new twist that leaves you
with a delightful cliffhanger for the next session. The bigger the kiss, the
bigger the twist.

Keep truth liquid, keep history moving
With most shows and stories, there’s an assumption of truth; if something is
shown in a novel or movie or television show, it happened. We expect that
if a character has died, they won’t be back. Telenovelas do not play by these
same rules of reality. They tell you that the heiress poisoned her guests, then
make a turn and show you the same scene, but with a different perspective
that shows that the poison was actually sprinkled by the heiress’s brother!
But there is a proper balance of how real truth is. If everything you show
the players is true, there’s no surprise or twist; if nothing can be trusted, you
don’t have anything to hold onto as the story twists and turns.
One thing that helps with this balance is to ensure that all of the characters
have secrets that tie them together. Give them lots of scenes to form these
threads of secrets between each other, building out into a web that makes
it difficult to tell who exactly has the best grip on the truth. From there,
collapse the web by bringing characters with shared secrets together. Let
the moves do the rest and sort which strands of the truth hold strongest!
Remember that what you see on screen is relative. If you can explain how
things changed when the camera moved away or that there was something
hidden and different, then you can always change things. The classic
example, of course, is “death without a body.” Maybe the victim is simply
dead...but maybe they weren’t in their biplane when it crashed into a cliff!
We just may not realize that until five episodes after the funeral. That’s
okay, that isn’t so much of a reality shift that it won’t play. Be mindful you
don’t accidentally unwrite the plot you’ve developed as a table; if the dead
proprietor of the hotel turns up alive, your players’ conniving and plotting
shouldn’t be completely ignored and overlooked upon their return!
Draw love with tangles, not lines

The popular image for complicated love is triangles, but you’re better off
thinking in lines or tangles. Lines are simple, they may go through two
points or three points or however many. One can connect two points also
connected to another set of points. But ultimately, if your only obstacle is
another suitor, you don’t have that difficult of a climb to work things out.
Instead, draw love that tangles around people, intersecting with stories,
connecting people haphazardly and freely, tied around obstacles and stops
and problems. Two lovers in competition is fine for other romances, but
to hit the drama of a telenovela you need one lover to be the boss of the
other and both of them under investigation for crimes uncovered by your
sister who also had a fling with one of them and—you get the idea! No two
characters should share only one relationship, you should be able to place
a finger on a relationship map and twist all around the page with all of the
ways that the characters are tied together.

Intertwine public and private lives
It isn’t interesting that the businessman is in love; everyone falls in love.
It’s not interesting that the businessman has a rival; all business has
competition. It’s interesting that the businessman is in love with his rival.
That’s drama worthy of a telenovela!
Telenovelas really shine when a character’s public and private lives tie
together in complicated ways. If everything was private life, there wouldn’t
be an actual issue, things would be simple and solved behind closed
doors. If we only played out the public section of the character’s lives, our
story would probably be a bit boring, no relationships or secrets. When
you combine the two, you get the most real opportunity for scintillating
scenes. Set scenes where private knowledge is shared by some characters,
but not all of them, especially in places where secrets coming out could
be disastrous. Having the chance of reputations being dashed makes the
furtive glances all the more dangerous and tempting!
When players attempt to set scenes with romantic subplots, work with them
to make those scenes occur in public. Discourage players from always being
behind closed doors, or make it risky to do so. Be ready with nosy neighbors
or hotel staff to notice when people step away together. Instead, give them
plentiful opportunities to sit together in public so they have to hide their
feelings or bare moments out of view of everyone to finally speak freely! By
setting your scenes in more public settings, you also give yourself an easy MC
move (such as demand they play their part or bring rivals face to face) if
things start going poorly or if love starts becoming too uncomplicated!
Dangle temptation of all flavors

Play in Pasión de las Pasiones follows characters chasing goals.
Sometimes they are very clear in the paths they want to take, but if play
slows down or you want to introduce another layer of complication, you
can give them a little pull by offering them attractive diversions on their
path. This can (and should) be all kinds of temptations; don’t feel trapped
by a player’s end plan! Offering the money-obsessed Jefe a chance to make
an illicit business deal will probably catch their eye, but a good enough
financial offer is also tempting to the love-torn Caballero!
These temptations and pulls and offers push the PCs into taking a more
twisted, tangled path, leaving behind the straightforward journey toward
their goals. This job of the MC is one of the most fun bits; the choices that
players make between their short term gain of money, power, or romance
and building something more meaningful creates back and forth tension
that surely keeps things lively.

Sometimes, declaim decision making
There are times when anyone MCing feels stuck or lost for a moment.
It may be tempting to go back on old ways, use the twists that you’ve
practiced, and do what you do every time you panic. The players probably
won’t mind another amnesia storyline, right?
Another good option is to declaim decision making. This means taking
a second where you give the choice to the table or to another player. Ask
pointed questions that lead to something interesting! “What’s the worst
thing that could happen here?” “Who has a bone to pick with Eduardo who
arrives right now?” You can usually get a great moment from the players,
your whole table gets more involved, and now you know a lot more about
what interests your players! This is why telenovelas have more than one
writer! It just works.
You also declaim responsibility when you turn to a move. If you aren’t quite
sure whether danger should escalate to a PC getting hurt now, ask the
player to act with desperation. If you don’t know whether or not an NPC
will go along with something, ask the player pressuring them to demand
what they deserve.

MC Moves
MC moves are the actions you take to bring the agendas and principles of the
game to life. Unlike player moves, your moves never require a roll and happen
instantly as you say them. Keep these moves in mind as options for when
players roll a miss (6-) or a golden opportunity comes along—or even just when
the players get bored and the show starts to stall. Always vary up your moves
and include some of the MC moves for the playbooks in play (page 120) to
keep the players (and the audience!) guessing about what may come next!
Here are your moves:
ͪ Inflict a condition
ͪ Make a moment romantic
ͪ Bring rivals face to face
ͪ Reveal a devastating secret
ͪ Show the audience an overlooked complication
ͪ Put someone in a spot
ͪ Offer them an easy way out for a price
ͪ Turn their move back on them
ͪ Foreshadow future loss
ͪ Demand they play their part
ͪ Make a playbook or playset move
ͪ After every move, ask “What do you do?”
Inflict a condition
Sometimes the most important result of a tense moment is the character
getting more stressed out or upset. When that is the case, inflict a
condition—tell the character how things have gone wrong or intensified,
and ask them to mark a condition. Make sure the player tells the group what
condition they marked, what it means, and what it looks like in the fiction! If
El Jefe marks Raging, they should say the bonus and penalty they get from it
as well as describing their hands forming into tight, white knuckled fists.
Generally, the player chooses which condition they mark, but if needed,
the MC can choose one specifically. If you choose the condition, make sure
that the PC has it—each playbook has a different set of four conditions!
“Madrid, you run down the hallway with the stolen package containing
the knife with your fingerprints all over it. The pounding of your feet feels
deafeningly loud but the exit is just ahead. You get to the door and pull, but it’s
locked. Turning around, you find Octavio’s thugs walking slowly after you. Go
ahead and mark a condition and let us know what it is.”

Make a moment romantic
You have at your disposal the entire funds of a telenovela studio. That
means you can do all kinds of things to up the romance! Dim the lights,
bring in music, drop flowers from the sky, make it windy or starlit or
otherwise beautiful. While this move is often softer, it still puts characters
into positions in which they have to consider their feelings.
You can also make this move harder by making a moment romantic and
then having someone else spot the people involved, seeing just how
romantic it really is! It may seem like a real softball when you describe the
lights dimming as El Caballero and La Doña’s hands touch, but when La
Empleada, who is in a relationship with El Caballero, glances over and sees
the touch...everyone sits up to take notice! Similarly, having a romantic
moment spring up between two characters, who then have to make sure no
one saw the spark of chemistry that arced between them, is another great
way to amp up the tension!
“Gabriel and Marcela, you can still hear the party roaring inside as you’re
hiding out on the balcony, trying to keep Octavio from knowing you’re there.
You see him walk down the drive to his car and step inside. Marcela, as the
engine purrs to life, a soft wind blows across Gabriel’s face, and in the soft
light of the moon, you remember how beautiful he is. Inside the band starts to
play an orchestral version of your song and it drifts gently out to the two of
you. What do you do?”
Bring rivals face to face

Nobody in a telenovela is without enemies. Remind them of this by putting
them face to face with their foes. When people have been loathing each
other from a distance, bring them together and make them face each other.
Bring their conflict to the front and make them deal with it right now
where the audience can enjoy it. You can even use this move to suddenly
unveil who has actually been opposing someone else, quietly and covertly,
doing their best to try to undermine their true foe. If you do this one well,
players will be lining up when it’s time for an MC move, hoping to be the
surprising reveal.
“Dolores, you have the flowers clutched in your hand as you climb in through
the window to Marcela’s apartment. There’s just a single light on up there,
probably the bedside table. You pull yourself in and find yourself face to face
with Veronica. She’s holding the letter you sent declaring your love to Marcela.
What do you do?”

Harder and Softer Moves
Sometimes, I refer to moves being harder or softer. Think of it as a scale with
harder on one end and softer on the other. The harder the move, the harder
it is to stop or take back more serious consequences.
A softer move announces what is going to happen or makes something bad
more likely to come up; the heiress points the broken bottle at you, mascara
streaking down her face. A harder move means it’s already too late; the heiress
lunges forward and stabs you with the bottle. Of course, you can make that
hard move even harder by adding “And you’re dead” to the end of it! There’s no
taking that back (unless a body wasn’t found or it turns out you were in a tem-
porary coma or your body was frozen before you died or it was actually a body
double or the bottle shattered off of a book in your breast pocket or…).
While moves won’t tell you how hard or soft of a move to make, you should
vary up how hard your moves are as you play. If you always choose softer
moves, no meaningful consequences ever truly happen; the PCs just keep
floating along in a strange world of escalating worries that something may
happen. If you always choose harder moves, you’re going to whittle away or
kill your characters before they get to do anything meaningful. Aim to move
the tension up and keep players poised on the edge of their seats by making
harder moves an ever-present danger, but sometimes letting off the gas to
give players a moment to breathe.
Reveal a devastating secret

Every time your players introduce a new secret, jot it down. They love
secrets, but they’re also giving you opportunities. When you need to make
a move, you can bring one out and parade it in front of everyone present.
Make sure there’s an audience, the absolute worst person to learn this or
enough of society to truly sting. Sometimes this is as simple as a trusted
NPC breaking down and revealing the truth; put their confession on
screen. It’ll hit harder.
“Octavio, the lawyer is getting set to read aloud your father Sr. Marín’s will
granting you control of the estate. His estranged wife is seated nearby looking
like the cat that’s caught the mouse. Something’s wrong. The lawyer takes out
the first paper, a birth certificate with your name on it and another, older, more
weathered one with a second name. Your stepmother says in an almost sing-
song voice, ‘It seems you’re less of a Marín than we thought.’ What do you do?”

Show the audience an
overlooked complication
With plots upon plots, there’s always an opportunity for someone to make
a small mistake, a tiny misstep that could cost them everything, even
when they think it’s all gone off perfectly. Show the audience what the
character didn’t notice that will come back to get them later. At this point,
the characters don’t get to know so the players just need to sit and fester in
that knowledge...although, if an opposing PC noticed the same overlooked
complication, that can be a fantastic opportunity to make the move even
harder and let the opposing PC take advantage of the complication for their
own benefits. Regardless, when you use this move, don’t be coy about what
was missed but also definitely don’t let the PC go back and fix it!
“Gabriel, you get into Madrid’s office and plug in the drive. It slowly ticks up, bit
by bit as you stare at the door half hidden in shadows. Just as it gets to 100%,
you pull it out and step into the hall. Madrid comes around the corner, nearly
bumping into you. There’s a quick awkward shuffle and you’re past, but the
camera draws back into their office and shows a tiny red light beeping from a
bookshelf. A hidden security camera!”
Put someone in a spot

Show them a threat and cage them in. The goal with this move is to
provoke them to act, quickly and decisively because where they are isn’t
great. You want them to know how they could be caught, endangered,
whatever it is and that they need to do something to fix it. Show them
that they need to move and quick, but put obstacles in their way. It may
be as simple as a locked door, especially if someone is on their way over
to investigate or confront the PC. Maybe it’s a high-stakes, high-manners
dinner party, and you can’t stand up from the table without losing face
even as you receive a text message warning you that your enemies are
closing in on your loved one. Make sure that the danger is present and
available—just sitting it out can’t be an option. Turn up the temperature
and see how they worm their way out of it.
“Marcela, you crack the safe and pull out the blackmail that Octavio planned
on using against you. The boat rocks as you make your way up to the deck
clutching the folder under your arm. As you step out into the night, you’re hit
with half a dozen bright beams as a voice calls over a speaker, ‘Hands where we
can see them!’ What do you do?”

Offer them an easy way out for a price
When everything has tightened in on the characters and it’s life and death,
stop and offer them an out. Give them a breath of safety and security with
a high price, costing them what they’ve worked for. Maybe they have to
sign over their estate, maybe they have to give up their love. Make the price
high, but honor the safety. Essentially this offers security in exchange for a
sacrifice. Put the ball in their corner and let them choose. If they take the
offer, then honor their choice by making things easy in exactly the way they
wanted...at least for the moment. But remind them of the cost they paid to
get here—they see their love later, or the estate they signed over begins to
transform day by day. If they stick by what they believe in, put them in the
crosshairs—the only way to honor the choice they made is to actually face
them with a storm.
“Dolores, you’re standing in the stables and Señor Marín comes out from the
shadows. He’s alone, for the first time you’ve ever seen him without his guards.
‘Listen to me, we’ve not seen eye to eye in the past. But all you’ve done, I respect
it. You want to provide for your family and the hotel’s one way to do it.’ He puts
a suitcase on the ground and it opens revealing stacks and stacks of bills. ‘Here’s
another. Take the money and leave. Your father wouldn’t want you dying to
hold the hotel. He’d want you to be happy.’ What do you do?”
Turn their move back on them

One of the great things about player characters is that they are driven by
their goals. So when they come at another character with a move, turning
it against them can be extremely effective. Show them what happens
with their fury when it’s tossed back in their face. Let them show more of
themselves than they intended. Or perhaps their false claims of love do stir
something…in their own heart.
This move can be exceptionally handy when PCs make moves against
other PCs. Because you have the results from the move available, you can
mechanically treat it as though the other player just made the move. If
Ana just professed her love passionately to Dr. Gonzales, perhaps she has
to tell him who she truly loves, as if he hit a 10+ on his own move. This is
especially effective when characters strike out with voice or violence—it
goes against them, and their foes get a chance to strike back in return.
Always default to offering the move as if the other PC had rolled a 10+ if
you’re turning a PC’s move against them.
“Madrid, you’re shouting at Gabriel. All around you the party goers are standing
aghast at the viciousness of your attack, with all eyes turned to Gabi. Gabriel,
that all blew right past you. You could burn them with a word, as if you rolled a
10+ to strike out with voice or violence. What do you do?”

Foreshadow future loss
When things are working and golden and beautiful, you may not be
immediately able to step in with some chaos. Instead, give yourself a
bit of time. You can show a threat to a PC’s happiness, a hidden bit of
information that shows how tenuous everything is. Or perhaps you can use
narration or a flash forward to give the players a bit of knowledge. Either
way, this is meant to just give a little shadow of doubt. It’s an especially
good move towards the end of an episode.
By default, this is a pretty soft move, intended to set up the specter of a
future problem instead of delivering on a threat right now. But it’s the
perfect move for seeding chaos that you can reap later, especially if the PCs
have just been through a storm. They can have a little time for respite right
now, but they can already see the clouds brewing in the distance as they
hear rumors about the return of an old foe, or they receive a letter from an
old flame planning to return...
“Dolores, you hold Madrid in your arms for a moment and the wind swirls
around you. The music rises and there’s a pause, as you shiver at the feel of
Octavio’s eyes drilling into the two of you. Is that rage? Is that hatred? Is that
jealousy? Whatever it is, it’s gone in a flash and he’s all smiles as he begins to
approach, thumbs hooked into his beltloop, right next to his heavy shining
pistol. What do you do?”

Demand they play their part
The characters have responsibilities, expectations, and a world that believes
them to fit into a role. Put the pressure of that role on them. If they have
painted themselves as cruel and unyielding, put a harsh choice in front of
them and make them follow through or watch their entire organization
crumble before them. If they have a job to do, make it clear that if they
want to live through the night they do it. If they are supposed to be a
leader, make them lead or give their world to their greatest rival.
This is also exactly the right move for bringing a difference in social
standing to bear on the current fiction. Having La Empleada’s immediate
superior demand that he get back to work and move away from one of his
suitors is demanding he play his part in a dramatic and tense way!
“Octavio, your gang has brought in the thief ransacking your yacht. He’s got a
sack over his head and his clothes are ripped. They toss him to the ground and
pull off the hood, it’s Gabriel, who you shared that beautiful night with not a
week ago. Your gang watches you expectantly as they wait for you to execute
him as you have so many others. What do you do?”
Make a playbook or playset move

In addition to these options, each playset also comes with a list of MC
moves, additional options that help to hit the feel of the individual playset
and style of telenovela. If you’re writing your own, Chapter 9: Custom
Moves has advice on how to write great moves!
Additionally, all of the playbooks have advice for how to run the game with
them at your table. Think of those as specialized versions of these MC
moves; they hone your ability to directly influence that character in the
moments that matter most.
Don’t worry about trying to memorize all these moves at once! Instead,
if you’re looking for something to say next, you can always look to the
appropriate playset or playbook moves for additional inspiration suited to
the situation. They’re here to help, not to put more of a burden on you!
Gabriel, La Empleada, has just finished stealing the will that gives La Rosa back
to its rightful heir. The MC decides to use a playbook move from La Empleada:
“make them the center of attention.” Gabriel has been careful moving through
the dark hotel room, but his elbow brushes a tray of champagne flutes which
fall with an enormous crash. The MC says, ‘Dolores, you’re walking past the
room when you hear the shattering of glass. Gabriel, you see her in the security
camera, the glint of the ring that you returned to her last night shining in the
pale light as she turns to the door.’ What do you do?”

After every move, ask “What do you do?”
Pasión de las Pasiones is all about action. You don’t watch a telenovela to
listen to three hours of planning out how two people are going to negotiate
a contract! You watch because things keep happening! When you make a
move at a player’s character, they should immediately react and push the
narrative. Instead of just telling them what happened, make sure they act!
“Dolores, you throw an elbow back and catch one of them in the face, but
seconds later you’re bagged and tossed in a trunk. You feel the car turn on and
hear wheels screeching. You’re in darkness. The trunk smells of air freshener and
luggage, like an older rental car that’s made too many trips to the airport. What
do you do?”
Running for the Playbooks

Just as each of the playbooks brings a new set of player-facing rules, it also
introduces new challenges and options for the MC. The choices a player
makes in terms of playbooks and moves can act as goalposts for you; their
choice to take a move that makes them physically dangerous is a clue that
they would like to get in a brawl! Pay attention to what they chose at the
beginning because that’s what initially hooked them into the playbook.
Additionally, as they progress and advance, pay attention to what new
moves they are drawn to for their character. Are they pulling from a specific
other playbook? Maybe consider using some of the MC moves from that
playbook as well.
Here you’ll find more specific advice for each playbook, including some
specific MC moves for each of them. Although each of these moves can
theoretically apply to any playbook, they’re assigned to particular playbooks
because they more effectively address the playbook’s characterization and
moves. They pick at their weaknesses and give opportunities for their
strengths. When you want to remind them of who they are and how they
fit into this show, this is a fantastic way to do so.

La Belleza
La Belleza controls the world as they
enter it. This playbook is about
that control, how easily it can be
established, how quickly you can
establish it. La Belleza gets this by
turning people’s emotions up and
shutting them down when they aren’t
interesting anymore.
Whatever moves they choose, La Belleza
needs pawns. Let them wrap NPCs around their
finger and weave promises. When the promises fall
apart, leave them scorned and hurt, and don’t hesitate to have them seek
vengeance. La Belleza also needs places to make their big entrance; give
them events, parties, maybe even funerals.
MC Moves:
ͪ Set them up against an impossible standard
ͪ Go over their head with real business
ͪ Bring back a scorned pawn
ͪ Parade their dirty laundry
ͪ Offer them conditional love
Answering La Belleza’s Question:

Are you the center of attention?
Look for situations where the majority of characters (PCs and NPCs) focus
on La Belleza. In big scenes, La Belleza is probably the center of attention
if they draw that attention to themself. In small scenes, see if the other
characters are focused on them or if they are distracted or thinking of
someone else.

El Caballero
El Caballero is a tremendous physical
force in a world of silk. They may
not be able to bring as much finesse
as everyone else, but they get things
done. El Caballero has a hard past
and is often closed off because of
that; encourage that pressure to keep
building and growing until it has to pop.
Remember to introduce NPCs from their
past who still think of them as the violent
person they used to be!
El Caballero needs two things: rough, gruff options and tender, noble
options. Set them up with big problems that could be solved easily with
their fists and challenge them to keep following the requirements of polite
society. This is especially effective when they have someone to take care of
or protect who wants them to live up to societal standards. Don’t be afraid
to push on them! El Caballero wants someone to push them so they can
push back. Just be ready for them to finish what you start.
MC Moves:
ͪ Put them in a physical altercation
ͪ Bring up visions of their past
ͪ Give them an obviously dangerous lead
ͪ Challenge them where propriety demands decorum
ͪ Show them the consequences of violence
Answering El Caballero’s Question:

Are you handling things straightforwardly and without guile?
Most of the time, this is a relatively simple question to answer. If El
Caballero runs in swinging fists or cutting off manipulations by blurting out
the truth, that’s a definite yes. If they’re manipulating people or lying, that’s
probably a no.

La Doña
La Doña is a sword made of words.
They are always set to push their goals
and make meaningful movement
on their Schemes. Expect them to
gather resources and use them! Their
Schemes give them enormous amounts
of power through knowledge so be sure
that when their Schemes trigger you give
them all the relevant information! After all,
the knowledge can help them but also paints a
target on their back.
Give La Doña plenty of access to pliant NPCs. When they have control
over them, make things more complicated by making them dependent and
asking for plenty of direction. If their Schemes tie together and mix up the
NPCs and PCs, that’s great! If not, try to intertwine their plots with each
other to keep things messy. Remember that La Doña is respected; even
NPCs who normally solve problems with violence shouldn’t try to take
them on with force.
MC Moves:
ͪ Throw a complication into a Scheme
ͪ Threaten someone they love
ͪ Ask them to solve a problem for an NPC
ͪ Reveal their scheming to someone
ͪ Give them a gift with strings attached
Answering La Doña’s Question:

Are you keeping your hands clean?
If La Doña does a thing above board or helps someone out of the goodness
of their heart, that’s an obvious yes. When they act more manipulative or
self-serving, they get a yes if they have made sure that there’s some distance
between their actions and the results. If they work behind the scenes,
they’re good to go.

La Empleada
La Empleada is about being in and out
of your depths and about trying to find
love. Players who choose La Empleada
have signed on to romance, even more
than other Pasión de las Pasiones
players! Make sure that you give them
plenty of opportunities. Just because
their Suitors are PCs doesn’t mean that
you can’t introduce NPCs who also might
catch their eye!
La Empleada’s feature is largely player driven. That
doesn’t mean you can’t stick your hands in! Turn the romance slider up and
down by managing private time for La Empleada and their Suitors. Without
time with either of them alone, it’s hard to form meaningful bonds.
Without time with both of them together, it’s hard to get an explosion
worthy of a season finale.
MC Moves:
ͪ Turn up the romantic vibes
ͪ Point out their best features or worst faults
ͪ Drop a Suitor in the scene
ͪ Show what love could be
ͪ Make them the center of attention
Answering La Empleada’s Question:

Are you in over your head?
One of the key points of La Empleada is that they are surrounded by a
society richer, higher class, and more political than they are. When they
run up against those factors and struggle to keep up, they’re in over their
head. Feeling overwhelmed by a sexy Suitor being romantic isn’t enough to
be over their head; trying to navigate a sexy Suitor proposing in front of La
Empleada’s boss or their other Suitor is.

El Gemelo
El Gemelo is trying to make their way
by taking what doesn’t belong to
them. They get their goals in short
term ways, brief manipulations that
bring them something right now.
There may be some short sightedness
in these machinations, but there’s always
something else to take. When they are
confronted with the victories of their twin,
that’s usually where they head next.
Their twin is an excellent resource for you; when in
doubt threaten what lets them blend in. Fully outing their existence is a
very hard move if they are mysterious, but spreading ideas slowly, a softer
move, complicates their position. Also, use the threat in their background
to keep them running. A comfortable Gemelo won’t take the risks you need
them to take to make the story interesting.
MC Moves:
ͪ Show their pursuers in the rearview
ͪ Give them a problem only their twin can solve
ͪ Erode their disguise
ͪ Send an agent of their pursuer
ͪ Compare them to their twin unfavorably
Answering El Gemelo’s Question:

Are you taking advantage of your twin’s reputation?
There are two primary ways to hit a yes for this question. The first is
situations where El Gemelo masquerades as their twin and their twin’s
actions, status, or skills are relevant. The other is when they manipulate
someone by reminding them of their twin’s behavior; El Gemelo knows
their twin better than anyone, so they’ll be talking about them often!

El Jefe
El Jefe is ultimately about being in
charge (or taking control if they aren’t
yet fully in control). Their power is
obvious to everyone around them;
they are not behind the scenes pulling
strings as much as they are in front
yelling orders. They’ve got a good start
on being the powerhouse of the telenovela
with their Thugs providing muscle and
connections, or otherwise giving them a place
of strength to work from. As El Jefe, your player will
likely look to the biggest prize and seek it.
When using El Jefe’s Thugs, consider them to be usually more narratively
powerful than other NPCs, but not necessarily more powerful than PCs.
Players can roll against and deal with them, but try not to let the NPCs
take the entire spotlight from El Jefe. If El Jefe does everything through their
Thugs, make situations that demand face to face meetings. La Doña can
be an excellent foil to El Jefe, as can whoever they define as the beauty they
wish to possess.
MC Moves:
ͪ Put their illegal work under a microscope
ͪ Remind them of the pressures of power
ͪ Paint them as a villain
ͪ Sow discontent among their associates
ͪ Show them something power can’t steal
Answering El Jefe’s Question:

Are you taking control of this situation?
The simplest example of a yes is when El Jefe acts to stop a moment of
chaos or wrest control from someone else. More generally, look for times
when El Jefe tries to directly affect the situation to have more power and
less unpredictability in the moment.

Playsets
While the playbooks tell us who your telenovela is about,
the playsets tell us about the rest of the show. They provide
everything you need to understand the setting of your telenovela,
give it some flavor and mechanics, and get play started with a
jumping off point. Pasión de las Pasiones playsets are designed
to shove the players directly into the action!
This chapter explains how to use playsets and how to make
NPCs. It also introduces the two playsets that come with this
book, La Rosa Querida and El Sabor del Amor. It gives you some
tools to write your own playsets, and it talks about the use of the
NPCs included in the playsets. If you’re looking for more NPCs,
you can also make your own or check out the Supporting Cast
Deck (available from Magpie Games).
Why Use Playsets?

The first major benefit of playsets lies in setting expectations
for play. When you start a new game, players may have wildly
different expectations, especially if they don’t have experience
with telenovelas! A playset helps to share the intended feel ahead
of time, avoiding the need to recalibrate three sessions into a
campaign. Knowing the setting, roles of players, goals, level of
danger or drama, and what kinds of ancillary characters are
involved all make sure that players build the same story.
Playsets also provide players with a direction that feels established
from “previous episodes.” While some games have a clear
direction (explore the dungeon, catch the villain), Pasión de
las Pasiones has specific character goals instead of a goal for
the whole group. Playsets give characters goals to chase from
the beginning; if you’re playing La Rosa Querida there’s a good
chance you want to own the hotel. By clarifying the characters’
goals early, players know which other characters they have to
jockey against, who they can ally with, and how to formulate
their scheming moves. The less time you can spend with players
wondering what their motivations are, the better!

Powered by the Apocalypse and Prep
If you have played or run other Powered by the Apocalypse games, the playsets
of Pasión de las Pasiones may seem unusual. In many PbtA games, a big part
of Session Zero is building out the world from story seeds in the playbooks and
player ideas! While that certainly can be done, Pasión de las Pasiones gets
your game off the ground quicker and gives more space for building relation-
ships by using playsets to get broad agreement on the setting. Focus on those
instead of the world—chances are the characters stay in one or two locations
and the broader world can be drawn from common knowledge of the real
world!
That said, if your telenovela takes place in space or a world of magic or capes,
feel free to bring world generation back in! Ask lots of questions about how
people fit in it and what makes their roles different because of their world!
Finally, playsets are designed to be helpful to MCs, especially new MCs. One
of the difficult tasks of running a game is coming up with prep ahead of
time! Having a playset means that no single player at your table needs to do
pre-planning, working out setting details, writing NPCs, or creating custom
moves. While certainly details, NPCs, and custom moves can come up during
play, at that point you have the whole table to pull from. Additionally, if the
MC (or any other player) wants to spend some time writing a playset for the
game they absolutely can! Having established playsets even gives a structure
to make this “lonely fun” a little easier to approach.
You can still play Pasión de las Pasiones without using a playset, of
course, but you’ll most likely wind up more or less creating a new playset as
you fill in the necessary details for your game to be played. For example, just
in deciding where the game is set, who the characters involved are, and what
the conflicts of the telenovela currently are, you’ve done a lot of the work to
establish a playset! It’s probably worth your time at that point to try to fill out
the rest of the playset—NPCs, custom moves, musical choices, all the other
things that help flesh out your particular telenovela and help all the other
players get on the same page.
If you’re playing a single session of play, we recommend using a playset to
help immediately frame the game and put all the PCs on the same page for
the game. You might not wind up using the full scope of the playset’s details,
but it can still be enormously useful to get you playing quickly, operating for
Pasión de las Pasiones the same way that a one-shot adventure might for
another tabletop roleplaying game.
Chapter 7 Playsets u 129

Session Zero
The first time you sit down with your table for Pasión de las Pasiones is
Session Zero, the pre-play session you do together to assemble all of the
disparate pieces that you need for the story, go over expectations of play,
and foreshadow for the table the drama and intrigue to come. It makes
sure that everybody is on the same page in terms of character, story, and
personal comfort before the gameplay begins.
This doesn’t mean that Session Zero has to be boring; there are important
decisions to make but this time can also include fun discussion and pave
the way for the exact character relationships we are here for!
Choosing a Playset
The first thing to do is choose what playset you’ll be using for your show.
The MC can pick this ahead of time (and definitely should in convention
games or one-shots) but given that you can jump almost immediately from
choosing to playing, you can also select as a group. If you are selecting as
a group, be sure to listen to all players and follow safety protocols (page
32) before you start. While the playsets provided with this book are in
the PG to PG-13 range, the safety and comfort of your table is important
enough to start early.
The MC should have the playset sheet in front of them as well as some
paper for taking notes.
Playset Introductions
Read aloud (or have a player read aloud) the introduction to the playset and
the show. The first explains what is going on in the show and establishes
some broad character hooks; if someone describes what the show is about to
a friend, this is what they’d likely say. The introduction provides information
that the characters in the show know, the pressing dramas on their minds.
While there may be some secrets in there that not every character is aware of,
this paragraph has little meta-fictional data about the show!
The second paragraph is for that meta-layer, how the audience of your
show has interacted with it, how long it’s been running, and a bit of a
jumping off point. The PCs don’t know this information, but the players
should so they can guide the story toward dramatically interesting and
satisfying directions for the audience watching the show at home.

PCs
From there, begin character creation and introductions. Remember that
the PCs are the most important people in your show! They are the stars, so
make sure that nobody makes a side character! Remind them that everyone
in the audience back home is tuning in to watch them!
After finishing their character, each player should, one at time, take a few
minutes to introduce their character by sharing their name, look, backstory
questions, and anything else that the group should know. Give the players
space to introduce themselves and ask questions to pull more out of them.
Make sure they describe their physical look and style, but remember that
you can always learn more during play. If other players also have questions,
they can ask them as well, we all want to know who these characters are!
As they are being introduced, look for overlap between PCs and the NPCs
from your playset. If the show has a head chef NPC on the playset, but a
PC wants to be the head chef, that’s okay! The NPCs serve to fill in the
story and are always less important than the PCs. Always err on the side of
giving the PCs the roles they want—maybe the NPC head chef can become
a sommelier or you can swap to an entirely different NPC! Worst case
scenario if you feel unprepared to make a swap or substitute, just cut the
NPC. Most playsets should come with four NPCs, so if you end up playing
with three it still works fine.
Additionally pay attention to the Pivotal Characters. Some playsets may
require that a character exists, and those characters are marked as such
on the playset! Ideally, that role (or a role similar to it) should be played by
a PC, but if no PC fits the bill, create an NPC to fill the role. If you are all
gathering for Elena’s wedding then we need someone to be Elena!
Introduce NPCs
While your players are the primary characters of your telenovela, other
characters can help to advance the action. Generally in a playset, these
additional characters should cover two goals: provide touchstone
characters that make the setting feel meaningful and ensure that necessary
roles the PCs aren’t interested in still get filled. Each playset has four
characters that can be introduced with a quick description of their role,
their name, their pronouns, and a couple lines about their look. They
additionally have a hook and a move (page 132).
These four NPCs aren’t the only NPCs in the setting or playset, obviously.
You can invent and add new NPCs as needed to fill appropriate roles during
play. These four are useful and important, likely to be necessary as you play.
What’s more, they help ground the setting in additional detail, and they
reinforce the themes of the playset.

Introduce the NPCs quickly without getting too bogged down. If a player
has something they want to add to an NPC—like a relationship or history—
let them, but don’t slow down too much for a character that ultimately isn’t
the focus of the show. If players get too invested in detailing NPCs, gently
remind them that we’re playing to find out what happens and move along.
If you have printed NPC photos, this is a good time to put them on the
table. Alternatively, if players have other ideas for how they look, let them
contribute their thoughts!
If you are using the Supporting Cast Deck, deal out the cards on the
table and give the players a chance to check them out. Each NPC card
shapes the show a bit, so make sure that they are interesting to the players!
Each NPC has three primary mechanical pieces—a hook, a move, and an
impulse.
ͪ Hook: A hook is the thing a player can do to or for the NPC in order
to gain influence over the NPC. That influence acts as a general level
of control over the NPC; they don’t play the character but the NPC is
invested in helping them. Only one PC can control each NPC at any
one time; if someone else satisfies the NPC’s hook, they take control
away from the other PC. Read every hook as if it said, “To take control
of this NPC, you must…”
ͪ Move: NPC moves can only be used if you have control over an NPC—
i.e. you’re the last person to satisfy their hook. Each move can be used
freely within the narrative with mechanics determined by the move.
ͪ Impulse: The NPC’s impulse is primarily for the MC. It is an instruction
on what the NPC should do when they get into a tough spot or
pressured beyond their comfort, the way that they react under pressure.
Connect Players to the Setting

From here, go directly into character relationships. More about introducing
your characters is available on page 43, but remember to ask a bunch of
questions, encourage players to pursue ideas that interest them, and bind
plotlines together wherever you can!
Once you have relationships more or less worked out, look to the playset
character introduction questions and ask them out loud for the group. What
order you ask role questions isn’t too important, but start with the “Who
here…” questions, they do a great job of making sure players have similar
goals that interfere with each other! Make sure you get a definitive yes or no
from each player and feel free to clarify! This may give additional depth or
more questions to previously determined relationships which is perfect.
Then ask the role questions for the playset. A role question aims at a
particular role—biggest heartbreaker, most roguish, most manipulative,
most downtrodden, most powerful, or most jealous—that can refer to any

given PC with any playbook, although some playbooks likely come up for
certain roles more often. Based on shared information about the PCs, the
MC assigns these roles and asks each PC one question based on the role
best suited for them. Each PC must be assigned a different role. You can
always use the other players as your audience to help figure out which roles
are most appropriate for which PCs if you’re stumped.
Go in the order that the role questions are listed on the playset in general,
but if there’s a good reason to jump around go for it. If a question doesn’t
fit the situation as it’s evolved, don’t be afraid to change it. You should be
asking plenty of questions to understand all the twists and turns of the
relationships in the show, so any change isn’t the end of the world!
Using Playsets in Play

From here, you have the show ready to go. Session Zero has, of course, its
own set of joys and challenges, but afterward you’re off to the races! Follow
your MC’s agendas, principles, and moves, focus on the player characters
and their choices, and go wherever drama is thickest! There are a few
things left that your playset can be used for, though, so keep it around!
ͪ Recurring NPCs: Where possible, when you introduce a new NPC,
see if you can instead go back to an NPC that already exists. This helps
to keep the focus of play on a small group of characters which makes
it easier to tie multiple PCs into a single drama! This also makes sure
players keep taking hold of those hooks as you repeatedly remind them
the hooks exist!
ͪ Describe with Motifs: Playsets provide a number of motifs through
the introduction section and locations. Go back to these. By revisiting
similar ways to describe locations it feels more like returning to a
familiar set. Don’t feel constrained by the list, but use it to give a firm
sense of place.
ͪ Playset Specific Moves: During play, remind players of playset moves
when you feel they are appropriate—perhaps they enter a location with
a move attached to it or they trigger one of the playset moves without
knowing it. Keeping these moves close by essentially lets you have
custom moves appropriate to your setting without needing to make
your own.

Playset Construction
While you can play hours of satisfying, dramatic telenovelas exclusively using
pre-existing playsets, you may also be interested in writing your own. Well
worry not, you won’t be simply thrown to the wolves, this section explains how
to write a playset either for your home table or to show off for others.
The previous section lists playset items in order, but writing a playset is a
slightly more fluid process. The core thing to remember is to check back
as you write, tying together your theme from introduction to the end by
incorporating motifs and ideas throughout the playset.
The Pitch
Assuming you have an idea for your telenovela (and if not, maybe you have
some watching to do!) you can launch into writing. Be sure before you
start, you know:
ͪ The tone
ͪ The setting
ͪ A leading event

Tone is most important to really nail down because it sets up your entire
show. Every question, move, and detail informs tone. Have a firm idea and
it will lead you. El Sabor del Amor (page 150) is lighter and lower stakes
than La Rosa Querida (page 145). If the playset had the question, “Who
did you murder?” it would change the entire feel of the show.
Setting is also an important factor. While telenovelas can have a variety of
locations, many of them stick to one or two general locations. This doesn’t
necessarily mean two sets; a hospital has a wide variety of rooms after all!
But a telenovela set in a hospital with occasional scenes at the bar down the
street is very easy to imagine! Even if they do roam, a setting that speaks
to that helps you ground yourself. This also helps with tonal drift and
keeping PCs available for each other. If El Jefe and El Caballero have their
confrontation in the ball pit of an arcade, it’s probably going to feel strange
after episodes on the ranch.
Thirdly, you want your leading event. What has changed recently that
makes this a particularly exciting part of your telenovela? This should take
existing tensions and ratchet them up, get relationships ready to blow!
Your leading event may also foretell a big event in the novela: a funeral, a
wedding, a change in business ownership. Just be sure to not put the start
of the action too far from the event! Don’t say that we’re a year from the
wedding; you want the fallout and the action to come right now! It’s the
hook that makes the drama matter now.
Introduction
With those in mind, you’ll write the introduction to the game. In standard
format, this is two paragraphs that you read aloud or describe to players at
your table. Make sure you make the show feel real and hit the three points
you found earlier! The paragraphs break down as such:
Basic Description
Your basic description is a couple of sentences that provides a general idea
of what your telenovela is about. Try to make it evocative, something that
pulls in potential readers! That’s probably what people will most likely read
when trying to decide what playset to play. Make it inviting and fun, make
it evocative. And if you can end it with something to pull them in a little
more…well, it never hurts. This part should be as dramatic and story rich as
your game!
El Sabor del Amor is going to be a fun, flirty show that has family as an
important aspect of the show and pride as a major theme. The things to hit in
the description of the show should back that up.

The Salazar family has owned La Náutica for generations—a restaurant that
has surpassed the taste and composition of any establishment in the city. Rising
up from a hole in the wall to an elegant must-see, La Náutica has been through
a lot. Every dish is created with recipes handed down and constantly improved;
the kitchen sizzles with the stress of constantly pursuing perfection.
Between the steam and the clattering of pots will love taste as perfect as it looks?
The Show
In addition to the setting, you also want to give an idea here of the sort of
audience your show has and their expectations for the show itself. This
provides a lot of guidance into how to handle the story. Giving an idea of
how far you are into the show, for example, can also be helpful. It lets you
know how much space you have for flashbacks! Be sure to include what
has changed recently, because that perfect hook puts you on track to get
the drama you want. Make sure that this hook points to what you want the
show to look like but doesn’t pre-write it!
El Sabor Del Amor is a reboot of a previous telenovela from the early 80s, but
this version has already dramatically changed course by keeping a much lighter
feel than the sometimes crushing original. It’s only been 20 episodes, but with
the introduction of the love-to-hate-them villain from the original show, the
charming real estate developer here to purchase La Náutica from underneath
the family, everyone has an opinion on the restaurant’s future!
Keep your introduction focused and brief, and remember that people will
read it out loud! Don’t bury the lede. Make the show seem like it needs to
be played!
Questions
From there, you need to tie your players into the setting. You do this by
introducing a bunch of drama and asking players how they are tied into
it! These questions tie the characters to each other and the conflicts of
the playset. You want to be sure that there’s always something interesting
to pursue in the show above and beyond the relationships between the
characters! Even if the conflict your playset creates ends up resolved part
way through your series, it ripples in the relationships.
First, write the role questions. Think of these as questions oriented toward
PCs who fill particular roles in your show. You might be playing with a
smaller set of playbooks than the full six in this core book, and you might
be playing with playbooks from Tormentas del Corazón. Role questions
are thus not keyed to particular playbooks, but instead to the idea of a
niche in your show. Role questions should always be aimed at the following
six open roles—any PC from any playbook might fulfill any role in a given

game. That said, some roles are more likely to be filled by certain playbooks
than others, just based on the role and the nature of the playbook.
ͪ Biggest Heartbreaker: The biggest heartbreaker is the PC who
breaks the most hearts. They’re very romantic, actively involved in
relationships, but those relationships don’t seem to last or end well. In
the core playbooks, the biggest heartbreaker is likely to be La Belleza or
El Caballero.
ͪ Most Roguish: The most roguish is the PC who is the most scoundrel-
like. This covers both being a charming rogue with a heart of gold—a
rule-breaker and a rebel with a smirk—and being a thief or miscreant.
This PC is understood by audiences, and likely by other PCs, to be a
scoundrel. In the core playbooks, the most roguish is likely El Gemelo or
El Caballero.
ͪ Most Manipulative: The most manipulative is the PC who is the most
deceitful, using trickery and lies to get what they want. They’re different
from the roguish character in that they use words to get what they want,
while the roguish character more likely takes direct action. In the core
playbooks, the most manipulative is likely to be La Doña or La Belleza.
ͪ Most Downtrodden: The most downtrodden is the biggest underdog,
the PC with the least power for whom the audience roots for. It’s not
enough for them to just be the least wealthy; the most downtrodden
is the character who has been most flattened by life so far. In the core
playbooks, the most downtrodden is likely La Empleada or El Caballero.
ͪ Most Powerful: The most powerful is the PC who has the greatest
power. The PC actually has this power—a PC perceived to be powerful,
but who is actually weak, isn’t the most powerful. A PC who secretly
pulls all the strings, on the other hand, is a good candidate. In the core
playbooks, the most powerful is likely to be La Doña or El Jefe.
ͪ Most Jealous: The most jealous is the PC who is covetous, greedy, or
trying to take what doesn’t belong to them. They look at other PCs and
want what those characters have. They’re the hungriest, most likely
to take action on their own desires, where those desires point them at
other PCs. In the core playbooks, the most jealous is likely El Gemelo or
La Empleada.
Each role question you write should tie to conflicts, mysteries, or reasons
to be present in the telenovela. Go for questions that ask for definitive facts
(not “why do you think—”) and aren’t answered with a simple yes or no. If
the player is encouraged to elaborate on an answer, it’ll be even better!
In practice, when using the role questions, the MC decides which PC fulfills
each role, although they can always put it to the audience to decide, as well.
It’s fine if not every role is used, but be sure to set up your role questions so
that none of them require any of the others to be present.

If a recent event in this playset is a sudden murder of a crucial individual...
ͪ Bad: Did you see the murder?
ͪ Okay: What did you see left at the scene?
ͪ Better: What did you take from the scene; why?
ͪ Great: Who is hiding something for you that you took from the scene; why?
We want to tie characters into both the setting of La Náutica and into the
drama sure to emerge. Since the central conflict is the potential sale of the
restaurant, we want to address that with the questions.
For the Most Manipulative role, we ask “How did you know the investor before
this run in?” Perfect. The Most Manipulative character needs social connections
to play on, and this question creates a valuable one to an important aspect of
the playset.
For the Most Powerful role, we start out with “Why are you selling La Náutica?”
but that doesn’t quite work; if the Most Powerful role isn’t used, or someone
else is meant to be the owner, then it wouldn’t quite work. Instead let’s try out
“What sketchy business is the investor hoping to use La Náutica for?” The Most
Powerful character then has a say on what the investor’s goals are, and likely is
invested themself in either stopping that sketchy business…or profiting from it.
From there, write your previous episode questions. These are asked of
the table as a whole to flesh out the world of the show and learn a little
more on the meta-layer. Previous episode questions are firmly grounded

in the fiction; these straddle the line between the reality of the show and
audience reaction. They provide the MC with notes for the future and
twists to use, but should be grounded in the part of the telenovela that has
already played out. The audience has already seen this, players can flash
back to it certainly but it’s not in and of itself a big reveal.
Again, avoid yes or no questions, but don’t let your questions require too
much explanation. We’ve seen it, it was exciting when it happened, and
we’re ready for the next drama. It is helpful to word them “Tell us about…”
because it draws out a little more information and makes people excited to
present without requiring too much back and forth.
This is all set in the past of the show, and we established in the introduction
that the investor has just showed up on the scene. So we want to make sure
that these aren’t about the investor but about other things that have happened
since the beginning of the show.
• Tell us about the time La Náutica almost burned down.
• Tell us about the recipe that’s gotten wildly popular among viewers.
• Tell us about the argument in the kitchen that led to someone grabbing a knife.
• Tell us about a big event La Náutica recently threw to make money.
Finally, create your big picture questions. These exist to make sure players
are all on the same page with relevant details. They are yes or no questions
or quick answers that everybody provides their own response for. Their
function is to highlight PCs who may have similar or opposed goals so that
they can jump straight to maneuvering.
Ask questions that highlight shared interests (who relies on the casino for
their livelihood?) and that highlight differences (who has been cooperating
with the police?). If a question takes more than a quick phrase to answer, it’s
too open ended. There is time to expand in play so try to pull it a little tighter!
A good amount of the drama is already kind of set up, so here we try to
establish how the people involved connect to the plotline.
• What do you do at La Náutica?
That helps us out in making sure we understand how characters interact with
each other and the setting of La Náutica. We know how they interact with the
major problem of the show (the investor). They’ll set up how they interact with
each other from relationships…What’s left to ask? Probably plenty of specific at
the table things, but for now let’s make it something fun and light.
• What is the one signature dish that nobody can make better than you?
At this point, look back at your questions and make sure they still point at
the show you intended to play! See if the introduction needs tweaking or if
you’re still good to go.

Details
You now have the pieces of the playset that create the overall broad view
of the themes and story of your telenovela. But remember that telenovelas
aren’t all about high concept. You need to know how your show looks, what
side characters are involved, all of the things that add additional flare.
Locations
One of the things that will give your game the telenovela feel is to have a
selection of locations that are signature to your show. By having a set of
signature locations, you can shape where characters tend to be, be ready to
set scenes, and have easy access to bringing characters in. After all, if you
only establish a couple of important locations, we know that the characters
are most interested to go to those places!
In part because your show focuses on only a small handful of locations, you
want each of them to feel different and individual from each other! Be sure
to have (and use) a specific set of visual, audio, and color cues each time
the PCs are in that location. Set these up ahead of time, because otherwise
you’ll probably find yourself declaring that the romantic scene you’ve been
waiting so long for is in a vague hallway. While you can have some color
overlap, try giving each location a different color palette to differentiate it
from the others. Then each time you describe the place, someone from it,
or something in it, you can use the same colors.
Given that most of the play is going to take place at the restaurant, we
definitely want the eatery to be one of the locations. As a matter of fact, we
might want the restaurant to be more than one location. The dining room and
the kitchen are both going to be used so often, we want to define both.
For the kitchen, we want steam, noise, and heat. It has a lot of bright metal, it’s
clean and bright with silverware and appliances that gleam.
For the dining room, we want silk (napkins, tablecloths), and some kind of a
color scheme. That’s probably less important strictly than the reflective silver,
but we want to establish a color. That way in play, the MC doesn’t need to
come up with something. Let’s go with white and red, it feels romantic and
that’s perfect!
Opening Details
Even more specific than the locations (but building off of those!), each
playset contains details to help flesh out the introduction. At the beginning
of play as you introduce your show, you want to provide the flashes of
imagery common in television show intros. These should be quick, single
moments that take a couple of seconds to say and a couple to show; if it
takes you 30 seconds to describe a glove being put on you’ve lost the speed

of the intro. Those quick little snaps of imagery keep your introduction
punchy and quick, as well as give guidance to your players to do so as well.
Be sure there’s a first shot that gives a broad overview of where things are
happening and is striking enough to set itself apart from other playsets.
From there, come up with six other quick shots of something exciting or
visually interesting. These details go between character introductions, so
don’t worry that six won’t be enough; that’s enough for seven players!
Begin with a gas stove bursting flame up around the bottom of a pan, flickering
red for a moment as a hiss of steam and the sizzle of searing comes from it.
• A shot of a heavy knife cutting long, thin slices of onion
• A shot of fancy cocktails being prepared with a flourish
• A shot of bright silverware being carefully arranged
• A shot of steam exploding upward as an oven is opened
• A shot of two hands reaching for a knife and pulling away at the last moment
• A shot of a perfectly clean silk napkin wiping up crimson red wine

Non-Player Characters
Each playset should come with three to four NPCs. In play, you can always
add more, whether you’re using the Supporting Cast Deck, borrowing
from other playsets, or writing your own. But three to four prepared NPCs
is a good starting point for a playset—it’s enough to make sure you’ve got
levers to amp up the drama!
For creating NPCs, there are two categories: necessary characters and
supporting cast. If your playset is about the chaos surrounding a wedding,
you need at least one esposa! Hopefully that is a PC, but taking one NPC
slot to make sure this happens isn’t bad.
When making the playset, you can ensure things go smoothly by assuming
a PC won’t fill that role and by creating a necessary character. You can
decide if a character is necessary or not by thinking of whether the show
could work without ever showing the character. If they are necessary
enough that it would be difficult or bizarre to not have them shown, they’re
probably a necessary character.
On the other hand, supporting cast are characters not important enough
for a PC to play them. Instead they make your world feel lived in, they can
be the cogs that power your show’s movement!
For each NPC you need:
ͪ A name
ͪ Pronouns
ͪ Their role in the show
ͪ A picture or a look
ͪ A hook
ͪ A move
Names are simple, choose one with roots that fit your setting. Try to make
them evocative—you want your players to already have a feeling about the
NPC when you first mention their name.
Unless you have a compelling reason not to, such as a single gender show,
be sure to include characters with a variety of genders. The easiest way to
express this is to write down character pronouns, including a large mix—
he/him, she/her, they/them, etc. Variety is the spice of life, amigo!
The NPC’s role is a simple, one-line description showcasing their
connection to the playset, which gives the MC some roleplaying notes.
“Hunky pool boy” is better than “pool boy.” Center the NPC in what their
purpose is to the show.
If they are a necessary character, explain why in their role. “Artistic bride
in the wedding of the century” explains why Elena matters better than
“Romantic artist.” You want the MC and the players to be comfortable

with the role the NPC plays. Also, consider filling in an alternate role for
that character in case a PC wants to take over that role! Remember that it’s
always better to have stories centered on PCs, and even necessary NPCs
shouldn’t hog the spotlight.
The look of the NPC is next. When you first introduce an NPC, you want
the players to get a picture of them in their minds. This can be done by
providing a physical picture (like with the Supporting Cast Deck) or
with a line of description. Look to playbooks as an example for writing out
looks. They don’t need to be read aloud as box text, but having a quick list
of traits to mention is handy! Useful categories for look include hair, eyes,
clothing, build, mood, voice…
Aim for a diversity of looks. It makes the world more realistic and helps
players tell NPCs apart! If the only thing you know about every NPC is that
they always have short dark hair, a muscular build, and dazzling green eyes
it gets tough to differentiate them in play!
From there, work out how that NPC would most likely be useful to PCs
during play. That becomes their move! Then think about what that NPC
really wants to get or what authority they respect. That becomes their hook!
A hook should be a short-term action that can be repeated by other
characters to take control of that NPC. It shouldn’t be so simple that it
happens in every conversation, but it is okay to have some NPCs who can
be activated often! An NPC who just needs to be treated nicely will be
passed from PC to PC rapidly while one who needs to see legal proof of
control of a property is more steady. It’s okay for you to have an NPC who
gets kissed often as PCs vie to keep their hold!
With their control, players get a single move tied to the NPC. It should be
a fast and easy move, it doesn’t need to be involved and really shouldn’t be.
Instead aim for narrative results, information gathering, or opportunities.
As you put together your NPCs for a playset, be sure you aren’t giving
multiple characters essentially the same benefit. Some good ways to control
the effects of these NPC moves is to make them a specific opportunity in
a location or a specific kind of information. Either of those causes some
trouble without slowing things down too much!
For El Sabor del Amor, we want to have the investor in the game in some kind
of a way. They may end up being a PC, but in case nobody wants to play them
it’s good to be ready. They are definitely a necessary character!
We grab a name for him, Nacio Ibarra—gonna be a little sleazy, a little
charming, but we try not to give him too much detail because we want to give
the players some space to work with him. Mostly we think about some look
options and try to envision how an MC might portray him in a few different
ways, to make sure that Nacio will make sense across the board.

For a hook, we want something that players will be willing to do. How about
“Do something to make it easier for Nacio to buy La Náutica”? That way we
encourage players to get closer and closer to selling the restaurant, so it keeps
the plot moving forward!
For the move, we want something that shows how much money he has
available to him. Perhaps “When you express your love passionately to Nacio,
on a hit you may ask him for an expensive gift. He brings it to you the next time
he sees you.” Simple and direct!
Playset Moves
Each playset also can, depending upon what you are playing, have one or two
playset moves. These moves function like basic moves; they are available to
everybody during play but are specific to the story you are telling.
Aim for moves that enforce the setting, give a direction for the feeling of
the telenovela, and don’t overlap too strongly with existing basic moves.
Remember that everybody in the game should be able to use them; they are
not just for a single character role in the story. It can be helpful to attach
these moves to a location, but that isn’t necessarily useful unless you want
the location to be more important and impactful to the story.
We want to really encourage people to be in the steamy kitchen, cooking for

others to show feelings and sharing space while actually cooking. That could be
one move, but it may break down better into two. Neither of them need to be
terribly complex, but we want them to feel interesting enough that players want
to do that!
When you cook with someone, you may roll to express your love
passionately with the following questions instead of the normal questions:
• Is there previous romantic tension?

• Are you cooking your signature dish?
On a hit, in addition to the standard results, you make something amazing,

a masterpiece dish that you both will always remember. Both of you take +1
forward the next time you express your love passionately by invoking the
memory of the dish you shared.
Nice and steamy there! Now let’s address making a meal for someone…
When someone eats a dish you made for them, describe what it tastes like,
tell them how you feel about them, and tell them to mark or clear a condition
(your choice).

EXAMPLE PLAYSET
La Rosa Querida
La Rosa Querida provides a very clear
and simple point of conflict ideal for
introducing people who don’t have very
much telenovela knowledge to Pasión
de las Pasiones. It comes with built-in
direction for the players that doesn’t
require any previous experience with
telenovela tropes; there is a mystery in
what happened to the owner and a prize
to be claimed in controlling the hotel. This
doesn’t mean it isn’t fun for people with
more experience; the halls of La Rosa leave
plenty of opportunity for twisted plotlines.
Basic Description
La Rosa Querida is a posh upper-class hotel nestled in the cliffs above a crystal
clear bay. The hotel is lavish with white marble, beautifully tiled mosaics, and
seafoam green backsplashes. Enormous twisting pools circle the hotel with
numerous bars dotted along the patio. The elite come to La Rosa not simply
to sleep and dine in the finest accommodations, but to rub elbows, make
deals, and further enrich themselves.
It is among this finery that our story unfolds, the fine crystal and
shimmering chandeliers offering myriad reflections of the sins that most
make us feel alive.
The Show
Now 70 episodes into its run, La Rosa Querida has been beloved for
bringing a new passion to an often formulaic setting. It began strong, the
introductions of betrayals and mistrusts hitting near immediately and
leaving watchers gasping. But of late, there was a sudden horrible twist.
The kind owner of La Rosa Querida hotel has been declared missing along
with a sizeable fortune. The hotel must retain its finery and grace, even as
it teeters upon financial ruin.

NPCs
Alma Lacasa
The maître d’ of the hotel, she knows everything that happens in the public
facing side of the hotel. She had a close relationship with the previous
owner and is used to completing requests at their behest.
ͪ Hook: Show Alma your name on the hotel deed.
ͪ Move: When you ask Alma to keep an eye on someone, she will tell
you when they go into a room that isn’t theirs.
Santino Pinto
One of La Rosa’s in-house security staff, Santino is used to following
instructions. During this upsetting time, he is looking for some stability.
ͪ Hook: Show Santino emotional vulnerability.
ͪ Move: When you ask Santino to kick someone out of the hotel, he
escorts them out of the hotel.
Efraim Sánchez
Efraim has been staying at La Rosa Querida for long enough that they have
essentially become part of the building. Their shrewd ears are drawn to
gossip and information.
ͪ Hook: Tell Efraim some hot gossip.
ͪ Move: When you ask Efraim who someone was last seen with, they
tell you who it was, layered with hints and innuendos.
Raul Galindo
A daydreaming pool boy who doesn’t know better, Raul is willing to step up
even if he can’t back it up.
ͪ Hook: Show Raul physical intimacy.
ͪ Move: When you flee a scene Raul is in, he blocks people from chasing
you for the time you need to escape.

LOCATIONS
The Hotel Proper
From the grand foyer to the individual rooms, La Rosa has a dignified
and glamorous air. Although it would be easy to get lost in the twisting
hallways, the space feels welcoming and bright. From every room, a
beautiful view of the sea.
Colors: Turquoise, marble u Scents: Fresh flowers, the sea u Motifs: Reflections, chandeliers
The Pool House
La Rosa’s pool is beautiful, pristine, sparkling, pulling in all the hottest
guests on the hottest days. There are drinks to be had, good times to be
shared, and glistening bodies to be glimpsed.
Colors: Aqua, silver u Scents: Chlorine, fruity drinks u Motifs: Waves, condensation, sweat
The Bar Near the Hotel
This bar isn’t for guests from the hotel; this is a place for staff, for locals,
for those who seek an escape from the hotel’s perfect lie to just have a stiff
drink in a dark, dingy place with smoke in the air. Those who go don’t even
really think of its name; to locals and staff, “the bar” means this place, not
the hotel’s drink dispensary.
Colors: Brown, dingy yellow u Scents: Smoke, beer u Motifs: Photos of patrons, hazy glasses
Role Questions
ͪ Biggest Heartbreaker: The owner’s will mentions you specifically and
offers a considerable amount of the missing money. What stipulation
does the will have before you can inherit?
ͪ Most Roguish: You were brought into the hotel by someone prior to
the disappearance of the owner. Who’s paying for your room and why
did they tell you?
ͪ Most Manipulative: You were the last person to speak with the
previous owner of the hotel. What did you discuss and why does it
draw eyes to you?
ͪ Most Downtrodden: You stumbled upon a dark secret of somebody
associated with the hotel as you went about your work there. What was
it and why have you lost the proof you had?
ͪ Most Powerful: You stepped into control of the hotel in the immediate
aftermath of the owner’s death. What potential scandal or crime did
this partially unveil?
ͪ Most Jealous: Somebody mistook you for another important person at
the hotel on the night the owner disappeared. What mischief were you
up to and what did they quickly hand you?

Previous Episodes
ͪ Tell us a character who used to be on the show, but was cut.
ͪ Tell us a romantic scene that had people gasping.
ͪ Tell us about something hidden in one of the rooms that only the
viewers have seen.
ͪ Tell us about the tragic accident that apparently befell the previous
owner.
Bottom Lines
For these questions, ask everyone at the table. More than one person can
volunteer information on these.
ͪ Who has a claim on the hotel?
ͪ Who participates in the day to day business of the hotel?
Introduction
Aim for songs that feel bright and classy, but with a hint of some danger in
the background. If you’re going for an instrumental, Spanish guitar is a must.
Instrumental:
“Lorca” by NovaMenco
Vocal Tracks:
“Suena El Dembow” by Joey Montana and Sebastián Yatra
“Reggaetón Lento (Bailemos)” by CNCO, though the cover by Xandra
Garsem y Juacko is also real good...
Details for Introduction

Begin with a shot of the hotel from the front, all marble and seafoam,
people walking in and out of it but mostly waiters in white uniforms
bringing sparkling drinks around.
ͪ A shot shows a window out over the sea and flies out towards the
sunset
ͪ A shot of glasses clinking together, champagne fizzing and a ring
sparkling in a glass
ͪ A shot of the kitchen inside, chaos and steam, then the crisp clarity of
the dining area
ͪ A shot of a crisp, tied stack of bills being handed beneath a table by a
white gloved hand
ͪ A shot of a band softly playing as guests dance and laugh
ͪ A shot of a knife being hurriedly stuffed beneath a mattress

Extra Moves
When you check the security tapes to find who was at a location at a
certain time, roll with the questions:
ͪ Are you viewing the footage with more than just the security guards?
ͪ Do you also have something to hide on the tapes?
On a hit, you get video evidence suggesting who was there and what they
did. On a 7–9, choose one. On a 10+, choose two.
ͪ The sound is good enough to hear what people in the video are saying.
ͪ The video is good enough to definitively identify people in the video.
ͪ You discover a secret that you weren’t looking for; the MC tells you what.
When someone attempts to strike out at you or demand what you

deserve while by the pool, you may immediately mark a condition to throw
them into the pool and escape their wrath, interrupting their move and
preventing them from rolling. If you do this, they may immediately mark a
condition to drag you in with them.
Tips for La Rosa Querida

La Rosa Querida as a playset is all about the battle over inheritance and
the hotel’s ownership. Not every PC might care about that ownership,
but every PC should be affected by that ownership. La Empleada is almost
certainly employed at the hotel, and whoever ultimately comes to own it
will become their boss! El Jefe might be the figure currently operating the
hotel...but they don’t yet have a cemented legal claim! And so on.
The bottom line question, “Who has a claim on the hotel?” is vital to the
playset. It’s far better if every single player in the game raises their hand
to signify their character has a claim on the hotel, than if none of them
raise their hand. As the MC, encourage players to lay claim to the hotel in
some way or another—even surprising characters might have a “claim,”
considering that a “claim” doesn’t have to be a super firm legal claim so
much as an emotional claim!
This playset’s NPCs don’t come with any automatic villains or opponents—
none of them should have a realistic claim on the hotel, unless they
are being remade into a PC. They exist instead as supporting cast, and
particularly valuable allies for any PC to have in their pursuit of the hotel.
As the MC, have these NPCs take sides and offer aid to prove their value,
and provoke PCs to fight over their allegiance!

EXAMPLE PLAYSET
El Sabor del Amor

El Sabor del Amor is a playset that focuses
upon keeping things flirty, light, and
bright. It attempts to capture the feel of
suddenly blossoming flirtatious love while
also giving space for familial drama. It
keeps things fun and cheerful…mostly. It’s
a little off-beat and quirky, but that’s part
of the joy of it.
Basic Description
The Salazar family has owned La Náutica for generations—a restaurant
that has surpassed the taste and composition of any establishment in the
city. Rising up from a hole in the wall to an elegant must-see, La Náutica
has been through a lot. Every dish is created with recipes handed down and
constantly improved; the kitchen sizzles with the stress that comes from
constantly pursuing—and sometimes achieving— perfection.
Between the steam and the clattering of pots will love taste as perfect
as it looks?
The Show
El Sabor Del Amor is a reboot of a previous telenovela from the early 80s,
but this version has already dramatically changed course by keeping a
much lighter feel than the sometimes crushing original. It’s only been 20
episodes, but with the introduction of the love-to-hate-them villain from
the original show, the charming real estate developer here to purchase La
Náutica from underneath the Salazar family, everyone has an opinion on
the restaurant’s future!

NPCs
Nacio Ibarra
An upstart restaurateur with deep pockets and shallow integrity. He’s
charming, if a bit sleazy, and will do whatever it takes to own La Náutica.
ͪ Hook: Do something to make it easier for Nacio to buy La Náutica.
ͪ Move: When you express your love passionately to Nacio, on a hit you
may ask him for an expensive gift. He brings it to you the next time he
sees you.
Horacio Cabello
Horacio was La Náutica’s first patron and will probably be its last. He and
his boys have lunch at La Náutica every day.
ͪ Hook: Join Horacio for a meal and honestly answer his probing
personal question.
ͪ Move: When you ask Horacio to move someone or something
covertly from La Náutica, the boys will bring his truck around and
smuggle them out. Unfortunately they will insist upon finishing their
meal or let slip to the kitchen staff the next day (player’s choice).
Cruz Villar
Cruz plays guitar and sings every night at La Náutica hoping for a big break.
She is passionately dedicated to her craft
ͪ Hook: Insult or spurn Nacio in front of Cruz.
ͪ Move: When you ask Cruz to distract someone, she approaches the
table and sings an elaborate ballad to the target. NPCs can’t break the
distraction but are aware that something sly just happened. PCs may
only break out of the awkward situation by marking a condition.
Ale Montaña
Ale is a local grocer who provides La Náutica with a variety of fresh
ingredients. They hang around in the morning before the restaurant opens
and help brighten all manner of dishes.
ͪ Hook: Get Ale to take a break from work.
ͪ Move: When you cook with someone while you have control over Ale,
say the special ingredient they provided and roll with an extra +1.

LOCATIONS
The Kitchen
Filled with steam and brightly shining silver surfaces, the kitchen is hot and
uncomfortable and home. The space isn’t sprawling, but all of you know
every inch of it like the back of your hand. Everyone has a little space that
they know is theirs.
Colors: Bright silver u Scents: Delicious food u Motifs: Chopping knives, open flame
The Dining Room
The dining room at La Náutica is ornate if perhaps a bit outdated-looking.
But it’s one of the key sets of the show, with views of the sea and plenty of
tables and space for all diners.
Colors: White, red u Scents: Steaming meals, the sweet sea u Motifs: Silk and candles
The Office
The backroom office of La Náutica, where business is conducted, contracts
are signed, and threats and enticing offers are made over the weathered
wooden desk.
Colors: Brown, yellow u Scents: Dust, paper, wood u Motifs: Direct light from the arm lamp
Role Questions
ͪ Biggest Heartbreaker: What opportunity has being seen around La
Náutica presented you with?
ͪ Most Roguish: Why was getting a job at La Náutica the best chance for
you to get out of trouble?
ͪ Most Manipulative: How did you know the investor before this run in?
ͪ Most Downtrodden: How have you been picking up the slack without
anybody noticing?
ͪ Most Powerful: What sketchy business is the investor hoping to use La
Náutica for? How do you know about it?
ͪ Most Jealous: Whose secret recipe have you been secretly trying to
learn?

Previous Episodes
ͪ Tell us about the time La Náutica almost burned down.
ͪ Tell us about the recipe that’s gotten wildly popular among viewers.
ͪ Tell us about the argument in the kitchen that led to someone grabbing
a knife.
ͪ Tell us about a big event La Náutica recently threw to make money.
Bottom Lines
For these questions, ask everyone at the table. More than one person can
volunteer information on these.
ͪ What do you do at La Náutica?
ͪ What is the one signature dish that nobody can make better than you?
Introduction
Songs with an upbeat summery feel capture the lighter parts of El Sabor Del
Amor, but songs with a more ‘80’s heart-breaker melancholic style suit the
show’s reboot nature!
Instrumental:
ͪ “Échame la culpa” by VioDance
Vocal Tracks:
ͪ “Si nos quedara poco tiempo” by Chayanne
ͪ “Imaginándote” by Reykon
Details for Introduction

Begin with a gas stove bursting flame up around the bottom of a pan,
flickering red for a moment as a hiss of steam and the sizzle of searing
comes from it.
ͪ A shot of a heavy knife cutting long, thin slices of onion
ͪ A shot of fancy cocktails being prepared with a flourish
ͪ A shot of bright silverware being carefully arranged
ͪ A shot of steam exploding upward as an oven is opened
ͪ A shot of two hands reaching for a knife and pulling away at the last
moment
ͪ A shot of a perfectly clean silk napkin wiping up crimson red wine

Extra Moves
When you cook with someone, you may roll to express your love
passionately with the following questions instead of the normal questions:
ͪ Is there previous romantic tension?
ͪ Are you cooking your signature dish?
On a hit, in addition to the standard results, you make something amazing,

a masterpiece dish that you both will always remember. Both of you take +1
forward the next time you express your love passionately by invoking the
memory of the dish you shared.
When someone eats a dish you made for them, describe what it tastes
like, tell them how you feel about them, and tell them to mark or clear a
condition (your choice).
Tips for El Sabor del Amor

El Sabor del Amor as a playset creates a tighter space for the PCs to
constantly interact and butt into each other, without providing a pressure
cooker of tension. The PCs must all be involved with La Náutica in
some way, but that could just mean they’re regulars who care about the
restaurant as much as it might mean that they are employees, or even
owners. La Náutica becomes a common arena, a place all the PCs are
invested in and likely want to protect to greater or lesser extents. That set
up helps the PCs have lighter, flirtier interactions where they brush up
against each other!
Nacio Ibarra, the NPC, is a crucial part of the playset overall—he represents
a villain, a foe who is threatening La Náutica by trying to purchase it. If a
player wants to play Nacio, great! But if Nacio remains an NPC, then as
the MC, make sure you use him to create trouble and threaten La Náutica’s
pleasant existence. Nacio has lots of resources and few scruples, so he can
create all manner of trouble as he tries to purchase La Náutica!
In general, El Sabor del Amor isn’t quite as intense as many other Pasión de
las Pasiones playsets. It’s meant to be a bit lighter, a bit softer, with more
chances to have pleasant interactions and fewer catastrophically-huge
stakes. But that means as the MC, you have to be on the ball even more
to make sure that the stakes never drain away entirely—to make sure that
even if Nacio is dealt with, for example, there are more threats or problems
coming to the fore.

The Series
Thus far we’ve mostly talked about playing a single session
of Pasión de las Pasiones. The truth is you can’t tell a full
telenovela in a single session of the game. That’s alright—you
can still get a delicious taste of the drama with one sitting—but
the game truly shines when given space to tell the full story.
Think of one session being like an episode of your show. Each
time you play, you play another episode in that same show right
up until the finale.
That said, you don’t need to think too hard about how to make
the entire arc of the series work while you play. Focus on the
episode in front of you while you’re at the table with your
friends! This chapter focuses on tips and tricks for making all
your sessions work together, including how to make your first
session great!
The First Session

As the MC, you end up with some specific tasks to help the game
to take off! While this game attempts to minimize requirements
for your time outside of each session, there are still some things to
get done at each phase of the game. Starting with these steps and
keeping these principles in mind will help you to achieve a smooth
launch of your game that sets you up to have a great series!
Before the First Session

This game requires some physical materials; usually it’s the job
of the MC to bring them. No matter who supplies the materials,
though, the game can’t be played without them! You need to
have pencils, dice, and printouts as mentioned in Chapter 1:
Introduction, along with printed sheets. Specifically you need to
print out:
ͪ The basic moves, ideally one copy for each person at the table
ͪ Playbooks, at least one for each of the players
ͪ A playset

You also want to have a copy of the Supporting Cast Deck (if you
have it) on hand to make it easier to create NPCs. If you’re doing musical
introductions for your show, you also need a way to play music. And it
never hurts to have a few pictures ready to go to showcase your favorite
sets and locations.
You can split the responsibility for the game’s components up, of course!
Just because you’re bringing the game, doesn’t mean you can’t ask someone
else to bring the dice or do the printing. Many hands make light work!
Before you run Pasión de las Pasiones, you want to have a good grasp of
the game. Some good chapters to review right before play focus on the way
that player moves work (Chapter 5: The Moves) and which MC moves you
have available to you and how they help you shape your game (Chapter 6:
Running the Game). If you know which playbooks your players intend to
play, also be sure to look at Running for the Playbooks (page 120) for the
ones they plan to use! If you only find out during play, no big deal, you can
review those for future sessions.
The last thing you need to do is choose or make a playset. If you’re using
a pre-made one, you can wait until you’re at the table with your players to
pick, but there’s also nothing wrong with pitching a specific playset to your
group. If you’re bringing the option for players to choose, be sure you print
out all of the playsets that you are interested in running!
Starting the First Session

Once you get started, the first thing you want to do in your very first
session is set expectations. There are two parts to this: discussion of safety
and content, and planning your show’s theme.
Safety and Content

Discussion of safety and content is important for any collaborative
storytelling, but this is exceptionally true for games that by default include
themes of emotional vulnerability, romance, sexuality, and betrayal. By
asking players to play vulnerable characters, we are asking on some level for
them to be vulnerable themselves. Having a discussion ahead of time about
the content of your game and making sure everyone is on the same page
will help everyone feel safe enough to engage!
There are certain aspects of Pasión de las Pasiones that are core to the the
game. The first is that this is a game of enthusiastically consensual romance.
We want characters to fall in and out of love, to fall into each other’s arms, to
kiss amid a swirl of petals and music. Pining from a distance is great, and we
can enjoy the drama of unrequited love, but it’s important for the safety of the
players and the health of the game to keep romance and romantic physicality
between characters who are enthusiastically consenting.
Chapter 8 The Series u 157

The second aspect of safety and content core to Pasión de las Pasiones
is that betrayal, lies, and manipulation are present in play. The characters
have all kinds of ways they can interact with each other, but telenovelas
don’t really work if people do an excellent job expressing their feelings and
communicating like adults. It’s really hard to tell telenovela stories without
characters in intimate relationships lying to each other.
To protect player safety, the most important thing to do is to keep
communication open and fair. This begins with this discussion of safety
and content, but it should be carried into play as well. We recommend
three resources to help you communicate safely at your table, but feel free
to use others you might prefer! Make sure you review the section Safety at
the Table: Romance and Sex on page 32 for more support.
Lines and Veils are a tool that attempts to proactively prevent players from
experiencing uncomfortable content ruining their enjoyment of the game.
As a table, have a discussion of what content you do not want your story
to have (lines) and what content you want to move quickly past (veils). If a
single player introduces a line or veil, the table must respect it. Players and
the MC can all add lines or veils to the game at any time.
Another helpful approach is the X-Card by John Stavropoulos. Place a
piece of paper with an X on it in the middle of the table. If any player taps,
reaches for the card, or says “X,” play stops for a moment and pulls back
to move in a different direction. Using this tool, players can nonverbally
express that they need for the game to change. More information about the
X-Card can be found at http://tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg.
Finally, you can find more tools in the TTRPG Safety Toolkit, a resource
co-curated by Kienna Shaw and Lauren Bryant-Monk. The TTRPG Safety
Toolkit is a compilation of safety tools that have been designed by members
of the tabletop roleplaying games community for use by players and GMs at
the table. You can find it at bit.ly/ttrpgsafetytoolkit.
Next Steps
Once you’ve established safety and content parameters and introduced
the game’s theme, introduce the playset (page 130). Make sure that the
players understand the general setting and content of the show so that
they can fit their characters into it! Also keep open to player changes to the
playset; if there’s a change your players want to make it’s probably worth
doing. Think of playsets as starting places for the conversation.
Once you’ve gotten your playset settled, it’s time to select playbooks.
Introduce the playbooks to your players. Any combination of playbooks
should work well enough, but we don’t want multiples of the same playbook.
The playbooks are pretty tightly defined, so while two Jefes likely have as
many differences as they do similarities, they’ll end up with mechanically

similar characters. Having different playbooks ensures that all of the players
have fun mechanics with which to engage the world and each other.
All throughout the character creation process and the entire first session,
always be asking questions. Figure out what PCs are after, what things
make them tick, and perhaps most importantly what they are feeling right
now. During character creation, focus your questions primarily about what
has happened and what the PCs intend to do. Once you’re in play, shift
your questions to find the truth of what they are feeling or thinking.
One common thing players say during character creation is that their
character thinks something is true; for example “Marta thinks that her
husband died in that shipwreck.” That can be really useful, but don’t be
afraid to ask for clarification on that! Does the audience think that also?
Did we see him die? Did we see him survive? Any of those can be just as
interesting and some players really enjoy telling you that they are wrong
about what happened!
During the First Session

Your first session is your opportunity to hook your players. The good news
is that your players will do a lot of that work for you! They probably are
already interested in forming dramatic messes that they want to see played
out in more detail, but you can facilitate this to make sure that they’ll want
to turn your one-shot into a campaign. After all, you want them to be
hooked so they can’t just watch one episode!
The First Scene

One of the hardest pieces in Pasión de las Pasiones is launching into
your first moments of play. Often there won’t appear to be a single clear
starting point—unlike a party-based roleplaying game, you can’t just set a
scene with everyone going into a dungeon or getting ready for a heist.
Instead, try to find one of the exciting things that happened in the Last
Time On or relationship establishing sections and dive right into it. Don’t
be afraid to go right to what’s interesting. Each scene you set in your
telenovela likely sets up several others. If someone saw somebody holding
a murder weapon, let them confront them right now. If someone wants to
profess love, let them. From this jumping-off point, move the spotlight and
make sure that every player gets scenes to pursue their goals.
The table has just finished introducing their characters, setting up relationships,
and describing the show introduction. The MC has been paying attention to
the details from all of this and knows that there’s mystery to be had, but more
than anything the players want to play through romance. Of course, we aren’t
jumping straight into a romance scene; it’s more fun to lead into that with some
tension between the romantic hero, Gabriel, and some of the other characters!

MC: The introduction music fades and we get a shot that shows Gabriel
taking care of opening up the restaurant. Half the lights are on, there’s some
movement from the back where the kitchen is getting ready, and Gabriel is
dressed for work. What’s that look like, Gabriel?
Dani playing Gabriel: Oh, he’s in a just perfectly starched white shirt, but his
pants are kind of wrinkled. Gabriel is moving from table to table arranging
utensils that don’t really need to be adjusted. He’s looking stressed. He’s always
looking stressed.
MC: Nice, let’s bring Octavio into the scene.
Luis playing Octavio: Oh good, I need to ask Gabriel about the missing
security tape.
Dani playing Gabriel: Uh oh.
Luis playing Octavio: Yeah, and I storm in hard. The door to the kitchen slams
open and I go right for Gabi.
Dani playing Gabriel: Can I try to hide?
MC: Sure! Let’s have you act with desperation…

Trigger Moves
During the first session (and really all sessions), be on the lookout for
players triggering the basic moves. Ideally, you’ll use all of the basic moves
in this first session. That way players can see not just how the game works
but how to respond to problems and move the fiction. That may seem
challenging to manage, but the structure in Pasión de las Pasiones
brings all the moves to the fore.
You can help keep the fiction interesting by setting scenes likely to force
the characters to make use of their moves. For example:
ͪ Act with desperation: Put a character into a dangerous situation or
force them to act so they don’t get caught doing something.
ͪ Express your love passionately: Put characters into romantic situations
and provide NPCs that are romantically interesting.
ͪ Demand what you deserve: Provide an NPC who could help a player
but doesn’t jump to do so.
ͪ Manipulate a superior: Confront your low-status characters with
higher status NPCs or put PCs with different social status together.
ͪ Accuse someone of lying: Encourage PCs to call people on falsehoods
or have NPCs lie about PCs.
ͪ Spot something out of place: Listen for moments where characters are
trying to understand someone or find evidence, then ask if they want to
make the move.
ͪ Strike out at someone with voice or violence: Put characters into
situations where NPCs intend to harm them or stick furious PCs
somewhere socially safe to fight.
These moves are likely to more or less happen in play; the difficulty is often
less with making them happen and more with noticing when they do!
Additionally, you want to introduce people to some of the core ideas of
Pasión de las Pasiones. Conditions are an important part of gameplay,
as is the understanding that they can and should be in flux. Every time a
player marks a condition (either from another PC making a move against
them or from a MC move), make sure to ask them to say out loud what
condition they marked and explain that the playbooks have different
conditions. If players aren’t choosing to inflict conditions on each other,
you can always inflict one on a miss. Just make things worse for the
character in the fiction and ask them to mark an appropriate condition.

First Session Principles
In addition to the principles that you use throughout the game, these
specific tips can help to build out your fiction and get your game really
rolling. While they can be useful in later sessions, they are exceptionally
important in this first one.
Bring in Rivals Fast and Early

Don’t hide your confrontations. If PCs are set up as rivals, put them in
the same room and watch sparks fly. Having them together means that
they continue to deepen their animosity, but also offers the risk of other
emotions growing. Stoke whatever feelings they give you. If you are
concerned that they will jump right to violence, put them in situations
where they can throw barbed words at each other but can’t go straight
to knives—like at a formal dinner at the governor’s mansion. Or, for that
matter, stick them in the kitchen and see what happens.
Make Sure You Get to Some Romance

At the beginning of play, you probably have at least one “will they, won’t
they” couple formed just from relationship building. Just as rivals coming
together catches the attention, so does romance! Your players will probably
help pursue some of these romances all on their own, but as the MC you
can put them together and set up scenes by describing romantic settings,
music, flowers, etc.
Build on Character Creation

Your players provided a bunch of hooks for you and the story during
character creation. Build on those by introducing situations that make
problems bubble to the surface. It may be tempting to push players down a
plotline that you see developing, but focusing on the threads they offered
will keep them most engaged and move towards an interesting twisting
story as well! Show how the seeds that players have planted are beginning
to bloom, bring in plotlines and secrets that they started, and develop them
as much as you can.
Ask Questions Constantly

There’s a lot of assumed history and backstory in your show that you’ll
never see all of. Ask lots of questions to get to that information! Ask players
how events have gone previously, ask them how they’ve reacted in the
past, ask them if what we see is true. Also angle towards their internal
experience—ask questions like, “What are you feeling in this moment?”
“What face do you make?” Help them to show the scene on the television.
“What do you look like?” “What are you wearing?” “What does that
movement look like?”

Call Out Moves When They Happen
Be on the lookout for players triggering the basic moves. If you’re able,
also keep an eye out for playbook moves, though this will likely be a little
tougher to manage. If it sounds like a player is triggering a move, they
probably are. You can say, “That sounds like you’re demanding what you
deserve” even if you aren’t quite sure. If they aren’t, they can clarify their
actions but chances are they’ll be happy to give the move a go.
Offer Moves When the Players Flinch

When events happen that catch players off guard, that’s often a good time
for them to make a move. This doesn’t mean that you should prompt them
to roll without triggering a move, but consider how your encouragement
can put them into a position in which they take control again. Ask them
if they’re going to do something about what just happened, remind them
that they can push back in some way, or just ask them what they want to
do. You can frame around the moves if they get stuck, offering options for
them to seize on if they want to use them!
Frame Scenes to Explore Relationships

The important thing that really has to happen in the first session is
not getting a lot of “plot” done. It’s establishing and understanding
relationships. Plot will happen and things will change from the beginning
of your session to the end of it, but you should focus on understanding the
relationship dynamics at play. Set scenes that strain existing relationships
or give players the opportunity to wrestle with how they feel. From that
comes understanding and drama!
Show the Audience the Characters’ Feelings

Along this same thread, be sure that players show and tell their characters’
emotions. In many games, silent brooding in the background is on theme,
but in a telenovela even silent brooding should be turned up to the point
that it becomes processing your feelings out loud. Invite players to give
you more, ask what their face looks like, ask them to tell you how they are
placed in the scene around them. Be sure to remind them of the audience
as well in these moments: “Okay, what does the audience see?”
Give Them a Chance to Talk

In the first session, you are establishing a lot of history, working out
relationships, and figuring out how characters react. For that to work, you
need to give space. Just because something doesn’t immediately happen in
a scene doesn’t mean the scene isn’t valuable; a conversation can be just as
dripping with danger and drama as a fist fight. But don’t let players casually
chat interminably! When the conversation becomes easy, that’s a good cue
to move on or raise the stakes!

After the First Session
There are two things to do at the end of each session, both important to
demonstrate in the first session: the end of session move and advancement.
End of Session Move

When you reach the end of a session, pick a PC who has at least one marked
condition. Tell the table what the audience hopes to learn about their story next
time, and then they clear a condition. If no other PCs have conditions, you may
select any PC.
This move has two functions for your table; it prevents the beginning of
each session from being an enormous meltdown pileup by lowering the
amount of conditions in play, and more importantly it helps you goalpost
for the next session. By knowing what players are interested in seeing next,
you can ruminate on the next episode. Importantly, the players can also
think about what may be about to happen next time!
Advancement
At the end of every session, each player should choose and cross off
an advancement on their playbook. Go around the table and ask each
player what they chose so that everyone can angle towards what they are
interested in! Remember that this game is a collaborative one; it works best
when people are on the same page. If players don’t know what they want to
choose, it’s okay to pick things between this session and next.

The Season
At the end of your first session, stop—after you’ve made the end of session
move and advanced the characters—put the dice aside, and address the
players as the players. Ask each of the players what story or question the
viewers hope is solved by the end of the series. This is a great time to really
encourage the players to come back and view things as members of the
audience, to talk excitedly about plotlines and characters, and to just share
a moment basking in the glow of the amazing story you’ve told so far!
If your players are struggling to find things that they are interested in
pursuing, feel free to shout out your own plotlines you’re excited for. Good
options can be:
ͪ Who will _____ end up with?
ͪ Who killed _____?
ͪ What is ____’s dark past?
Remember that you’re aiming to learn things by the end of the season.
If players just came off a scene in which El Jefe shot someone at a dinner
party, “Who did he shoot” is a bad question because that will be answered
right away! A better question is “Will El Caballero be able to stop El Jefe from
taking over the casino?”
If someone gives a short-term answer, file that away, but also push them to
give you a little more!
Also, feel free to play in the space as a casual discussion among people
watching! If a player wants to ask, “Will Cesar and Teresa kiss?” that’s fine!
Even if it’s different from asking whether they end up together, you still
leave with the same idea. You want to make plot points that encourage and
discourage their romance.
This, maybe more than any other time, is a time for you to be taking lots
of notes. Your players are handing you a list of things they are completely
motivated by. That’s gold and will help make your following sessions
really sing!

Planning Your Season
You don’t think we did that for no reason, do you? Of course not, you’re
onto the tricks and twists and turns by this point!
When you get out of the session and have some time to decompress, take a
look at the list of questions and plotlines that your players are interested in.
Those can essentially provide the serpentine spine of your telenovela! So
let’s do a little work scheming for what to do with their answers!
The questions that your players provide give you goalposts to plot your
telenovela. There’s so much interesting stuff going on in a telenovela at any
one moment, but these questions indicate what plots your players want to
see answered! You can honor those wishes by preparing in a way that keeps
those questions burning until they resolve.
You wrote down those questions the players asked, right? You want to be
sure that session to session, each of those questions comes up at least once.
Those questions don’t need to be answered right away, but you need to
ensure they don’t fade into the background.
Each Question’s Conflict

For each question the players asked, determine what type of conflict the
players have identified. In general, the conflicts you’ll be looking at are:
ͪ Romance: Questions about couples, where will love blossom?
ͪ Power: Questions about who will gain money, property, status, etc.
ͪ Sins: Questions about what terrible things people have done or will do.
ͪ Family: Questions about the stability or instability of family units.
The conflicts tell you how to create two sides for each of the questions.
There might be other resolutions than the two options, but the conflicts
create an idea of the interested parties and how they may try to answer the
questions. They make sure that you can alter the conflict when it gets too
close to resolving or a player rolls a miss!
For each of these sides, try to assign at least one NPC that pulls the plot in
that direction. They may be actively trying to pull the plot in that direction
(like the ex-con best friend who wants El Caballero to sign on for one last job
in a Sins conflict) or they may be more passive (like the family friend facing
difficulties but doesn’t want to get involved in a Family conflict). They may
not even realize they’re a part of a conflict; the next-door neighbor that calls
the police on lovers kissing in the street is inadvertently on the “won’t-they”
team of a Romance conflict.
Each conflict also contains useful moves to use surrounding the conflict.
Those are pulled from the MC move list, think of it as putting a little
underline under that move.

As play goes on, these conflicts will become important to your show. Players
will pull the conflicts in various directions with you making sure someone
tugs back on the opposite side. Eventually though, they resolve; the lovers
fight through the enmity of their families, the iron-fisted heir takes their
family’s fortune. When one side of a conflict seems to have pulled hard
enough ahead of the other, go ahead and strike it off from your planning.
As you go through session to session, pay attention to whether the conflicts
you initially planned for are still interesting. Between solved conflicts and
questions that are just not as interesting anymore, you may find that you’re
no longer curious about which way the conflicts will go. When you start to
feel like your planning has gotten stale, ask players what they hope to find
answered again, write up new conflicts, and dive back in renewed!
Romance
If the question is about whether people will end up together, you probably
have sides of “Will They/Won’t They.” If the question is who someone will
end up with, you probably have sides for all the eligible suitors.
Highlighted Moves: make a moment romantic, reveal a devastating
secret, show the audience an overlooked complication
Power
If the question is about whether one person will gain or lose status/power/
money that doesn’t directly affect other characters, your sides are “Yes” or
“No.” If the question is who will gain power or control, make sides for the
characters pursuing this power the most.
Highlighted Moves: offer them an easy way out for a price, foreshadow
future loss, bring rivals face to face
Sins
If the question is whether someone’s rough past will be revealed or if they
will go back to those behaviors, you have sides of “Yes” or “No.” If the
question is who did a crime or sin, throw in sides who believe they have
identified possible suspects.
Highlighted Moves: reveal a devastating secret, put someone in a spot,
offer them an easy way out for a price
Family
If the question is whether people will solve problems lovingly, the sides
are “Grow apart” or “Grow closer.” If the question is about who belongs or
doesn’t belong, assign sides to argue for inclusion or exile.
Highlighted Moves: foreshadow future loss, demand they play their part,
reveal a devastating secret

The Finale
Up until the finale, each episode of your telenovela works essentially the
same as the one before. You work through the facts and pieces that your
table established last time, keep on making MC moves, follow the fiction,
and keep seeing what happens next. Eventually though, this season of your
show must come to an end. It’s the way of things, and if you end it on your
own terms, it’s much more likely to get a satisfying ending instead of just
allowing it to fall apart!
It is up to you and your table when to do your finale, but a good rule to follow
is that it arrives when any PC has checked off all of the Last Time On options
from their playbook, or when you (the MC) stop seeing love triangles. If a PC
has checked everything off Last Time On and you decide to keep having more
episodes, then you would need to write new Last Time On options or use
unused options from another playbook. If writing new options, mirror those
on the existing playbooks as much as possible.
The end to romantic conflict is a bit harder to notice, but keep an eye out
for it. Pay attention to whether players are being jealous of each other or
not! After all, it’s not much of a telenovela without that roiling jealousy!
If you can, announce to your players at the beginning of the second to last
episode that the finale is coming up. That way players know to continue
ramping up, but to hold off on resolving things “once and for all.” Also, this
lets you focus the end of session move—instead of asking, “What do you
hope to see next time?” you are asking, “What do you hope to see in the
finale?”
As you prepare for your final session, pay special attention to what the
players hope to see and get answered! Ideally you’ll be able to set scenes
that capture these questions for better or for worse. Also think back to the
biggest moments of your novela, especially the ones of incredible cruelty or
kindness that haven’t yet been paid back. The finale is a fantastic time for
payoff to come to those who have loved and cared for others, and for just
desserts to visit those who have been monstrous.

Running the Finale
When you play the finale, you are playing through to the end of a long
romantic saga and seeing characters off for the rest of their lives. You have
seen this ensemble of characters for quite a while through good times and
bad and each of them deserves to have an ending. The players want to see
the climax of the series and this final episode should be putting “The End”
to your show.
While you can start the episode how you wish, I like to pick up with the
character with the noblest of intentions. If you have a character who has
been the most “good” one, who has put others before themself or whom
players are rooting for, show them first. An easy trick to pinpoint this
character is to remember who most often got big tables of raised hands
when they processed their feelings out loud! Don’t jump to their ending—
you still have a lot of session left—but remind us that this character
deserves a happy ending. Whether they get it or not of course depends
upon the other players and the roll of dice, but use your opening scene of
the session to revel in how much they deserve a happy ending.
Dolores has become the table favorite and everybody hopes she can finally catch
a break. We know that later today she’s supposed to run away with Marcela to
get married, but there’s a lot of daylight between then and now—Dolores has to
work a full shift at the hotel!
Setting the scene, the MC wants to highlight how much Dolores has had to deal
with, but also give a chance for some joy. Everyone wants to see Dolores’ story
end happy!
MC: We open with Dolores standing in the front of the church with her
mother. The church is empty apart from them, the flowers haven’t arrived yet so
there’s just a couple of candles on the altar. Dolores, you’ve got a shift to work
still before the wedding, but with the light coming through the wide church
windows, can you just tell us what’s going on in your head?
Isabel as Dolores: Oh, Dolores is just glowing. She reaches out and grabs her
mother’s hand and says, “I can’t believe it’s finally today. There’s still so much to
do.” She looks up to the altar and breathes in an unsteady breath.
MC: Awesome, her mother gives a tight, slightly sad smile, “I’ll make sure the
flowers are here on time, you just go home and get ready.” Dolores, your phone
is ringing…It’s Octavio.
From there, move the spotlight as you would in another episode, but
specifically aim to set scenes where you answer the big questions that
players have put forward. Ideally you want to find answers, but you should
try to avoid answering them as the MC.

Instead, create the situations that your players need to come to their own
answers. If a player asked whether Miguel and Rodrigo will finally be
married, you can set the scene at the wedding but invite other players to
step in and disrupt things—don’t think of it as your job to either defend or
destroy the wedding. If we want to know whether Teresa’s mother will be
revealed, give Teresa the scene to get the information or not—don’t offer it
to her.
But remember, we’re going for final. These questions don’t get asked
anymore, so the answer the players come to shouldn’t be unclear. You don’t
have to say “and they lived happily ever after” but if things end well in this
episode, players should assume they continue to go well into the future!
Despite how good you’ve gotten at putting looming threats over them, this
time don’t. Let them have it. Let their story end presumably happy because
after all this time we want a proper end to the novela; and there are few
things more telenovela than a happy ending.
When setting your scenes, be mindful of what point in the event you’re
setting it. If your players want to see a confrontation between El Caballero
and La Jefa, don’t set the scene too early (El Caballero tries to get into her
compound) or too late (La Jefa stands with a gun to El Caballero’s back). Aim
for the sweet spot where there’s still a lot of questions about what will go
on and the best scenes are still in front of us, but not so far back that we’re
waiting to get to the action! If you’re showing a wedding, go straight to the
church. If you’re showing a proposal, we’re at the site. If you’re having a
confrontation, start with the eyes of the rival parties locking in a bar.
Once you’ve resolved all of your big questions, you’re more or less at the
end of it. Don’t question the answers or make them uncertain again. You
want to make hard and immediate MC moves. Keep this especially in mind
as you get to some happy endings. While in the past you’ve had to throw a
wrench in when things get copacetic, now you get to take a victory lap.
But most of all, your task is to honor the characters and the ending. People
who have been beloved and kind and knocked down deserve a hand up.
Love delayed and delayed can be found. And this is it. There are some
telenovelas that return to previous series even after a finale, but with this
game and this telenovela, the finale is going to be a true ending. Honor that
ending by making it everything it can be. No new plots. No undermining
reveals. Just resolution to everything that has come before now.

The Long Example
ͪ Chris playing Marcela, La Belleza (she/her)
ͪ Isabel playing Dolores, El Caballero (she/her)
ͪ Dani playing Gabriel, La Empleada (he/him)
ͪ Luis playing Octavio, El Jefe (he/him)
ͪ Fran playing Madrid, La Doña (they/them)
All of the PCs are gathered at a climactic scene in our game, the birthday
party of Octavio’s home. Octavio is expecting to take the reins of his father’s
company tonight. The setting is absolutely lavish—Marcela has been trying
to worm her way into a position of power while fending off questions from
Dolores, who believes that Marcela’s money has been ill-gotten. Now Marcela
has photographic evidence of Octavio killing a former rival for the company!
Gabriel is in attendance as Octavio’s personal assistant, torn with love between
his employer and the charming Marcela. Dolores continues to adore Gabriel
secretly, from a distance. Madrid has schemed to put Octavio under their
thumb even as he rises, and now is the culmination of their efforts. There’s
been a lot leading up to this night, tensions are high and characters have been
plotting.
“The hall that’s been rented for this is absolute opulence, pretty much every
character we’ve had so far is here in tuxedos or full gowns. Tables are set up to
keep the stage front and center, but the lights are low enough to make plenty
of dark spaces along the sides for people to sneak away from their tables. Wait
staff move like dancers from table to table refilling tall champagne flutes and
deep wine glasses.”
In setting this scene, I’m working toward several of the principles by making
social status matter by setting a scene where PCs engage at different
social levels and intertwining public and private lives by having Octavio’s
celebration and including everyone who wants to make his life a nightmare. I’m
also making the situation one that gives me flexibility; I’ve established that I
have essentially any NPC I want to throw at them, there’s some candlelight, and
a big audience of onlookers. I’m showing the players that things can be involved
and dramatic by making things dramatic from the start.
“Marcela, there’s a lot of attention being paid to you, though most people at
least try to pretend they aren’t staring,” I say. “Everyone knows Octavio’s getting
the company and a lot of people know you want it. What are you doing?”
“I’m at a table near the side exit. I’m fully decked out, just draped across the
chair watching like I’m ready to pounce. In my purse, I’ve got the blackmail
photos of Octavio. I’m ready, and now I’m just vamping for the camera. Can I
have some friends with me?” asks Chris, Marcela’s player.

“Definitely. They’re arranged all around you like you’re a queen. Gabriel, you’ve
been handling this whole evening so of course you know exactly where Marcela
is. Dolores, if you’re going after Marcela tonight it’s going to be tough to get
her alone. Madrid, we see you seated sort of in the background to the glamor of
Marcela, right, just watching her.”
It’s mild here, but I’m making Marcela the center of attention, a La Belleza MC
move. This isn’t intended to really make things difficult for her yet, it’s a trade off
of her being more able to control things while having to deal with more demands.
“Nah, I’m going after Octavio. Is he backstage?” asks Dolores’s player, Isabel.
“We’ll get to him, but let’s see this first. Gabriel, things are moving along closer
to the speech, what do you do?”
“I’m confronting Marcela while Octavio’s busy.”
“Great, what does that look like?” I want to make sure we put the fiction first
and clarify what it looks like when Gabriel confronts her. Maybe Gabriel has
already triggered a move!
Dani pauses for a moment and says, “Yeah, Gabriel’s just going to cut right
across the dance floor and walk up like it’s official business. ‘Marcela,’ he says,
‘We need to talk.’”
So far, Dani’s Gabriel isn’t hitting a move yet. For now, Gabi is just asking. We’re
looking for him to either demand what he deserves from her or for him to
manipulate her as his social superior. As a fan of the characters, we have to
give Gabriel a chance to spread those wings.
“I totally blow him off,” responds Marcela’s player Chris. “I’m just going to point
at my ear and make a face like I can’t hear him and go back to my phone while
I wait.”
“Okay, hell no, okay, I push the phone down and look at her and say, ‘We need
to talk. You owe me that much.’ My eyes are shining. ‘Even if you don’t love me,
even if you never loved me, then for what we had…you owe me this much.’”
That’s right Gabi! Stand up for yourself! That’s definitely demanding something
specific from Marcela and putting a bit of pressure. I say, “Let’s see that
demand what you deserve.”
Dani counts off her questions, “Am I offering something of value, no, not really.
Do they love you in this moment…” They pause and look to Chris. “No?”
Chris shakes his head, “No, we’re too tense for that, I think.”
“Fair. And my question is ‘Am I in over my head?’ I think so, I don’t even know
Marcela’s going to make a scene tonight. I’m just trying to figure us out.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” I respond, “So that’s a +1. Any conditions affect
this?”
“Nope, all clear.” Dani rolls and gets a 9 on the dice, plus her 1 bringing her to 10
total.

I explain the rule to make sure everyone’s on the same page: “Alright, so Marcela
either concedes to talking with you and clears a condition, escalates the
situation and marks a condition, or runs away and Gabi takes something from
Marcela. And Dani, you get to eliminate one of those choices.”
Dani chooses that Marcela can’t escalate and Chris decides that Marcela runs away.
“I just stand up and stride out, big steps with my face bright red,” Chris says.
“I’m blinking a lot, trying not to cry at all this. I don’t have time to get all tied
up with Gabriel, and what he said hit me hard. So…what do you take?”
“Oh,” Dani replies, “I’m getting that purse. Can we just say that you forgot
about it, and by the time you realized you’d left it, I’m gone and so is the purse?”
“Yeah, that’s great,” Chris says.
“So we cut to Gabi having slipped into a service corridor, opening up the purse
to find the incriminating photos of Octavio and looking through them one by
one,” I say. “What do you do now?”
“Actually, can I cut in?” says Fran. “I’ve been watching, right? So I saw that
whole little exchange, and then Gabriel rushing off with the purse.” I think that
makes perfect sense, and it fits my MC move of bring rivals face to face—
Madrid and Gabriel have always been at odds, with La Doña seeing Gabriel as a
sniveling toady, and La Empleada seeing Madrid as a dangerous spider!
“So I just appear there in the mouth of the corridor over Gabi’s shoulder,” says
Fran. “I look great but also maybe a bit sinister in my black sequined outfit.
‘What’s wrong, Gabriel? Did Marcela say something?’ My face is unreadable.”
“‘Oh, I uh…’ I try to hide the purse behind my back,” says Dani.
“‘Did you take something from Marcela, Gabriel? You shouldn’t have done that,
especially if it spooked you so badly. Why don’t you give it to me? I’ll take care
of it. I’ll make sure it doesn’t trouble anyone.’ Can I use my La Doña move, Tell
Me Everything?” asks Fran.
I check the move quickly: “ When you offer to take the burden of someone’s
guilt, ask them if they accept or reject your advice. If they accept your advice
and follow it, they clear a condition. If they reject your advice or fail to follow it,
they mark a condition.” Seems about right! It might be a little bit of a demand
what you deserve, but I don’t think Madrid is doing all that much demanding
right now, so the playbook move makes more sense.
“Yeah, that fits! Gabriel, do you take Marcela’s advice? Hand over the purse?” I ask.
“I…no, I don’t think I do. I don’t trust Madrid! ‘Back off,’” says Dani as Gabriel.
“I have to mark a condition, right? So I mark Cagey.”
“Yeah, that fits! Alright, Madrid, what do you do? Do you back off?” I ask. I don’t
have to make any additional moves right now—the PCs are bouncing off each
other, the scene is interesting and tense, and I don’t want to get in the way!

“Goodness no,” says Fran. “I advance, and I pull out my little derringer from my
pocket—you know, the one that Octavio gave me? I point it at Gabriel.”
“Gah! As soon as I see Madrid pulling out the gun, I bolt!” says Dani.
The moment could probably be resolved a couple of ways, but the immediate
uncertainty that leaps out to me is in Gabriel trying to get away before Madrid
can even pull the gun. “Sounds like you’re acting with desperation, Gabriel!
You want to avoid getting stuck here with an armed Madrid, right?” Dani nods
furiously. “Great! Let’s hear those questions!”
“I don’t think I’m acting for vengeance, but I think I am acting for love! I still
have feelings for Octavio, and I don’t want Madrid to get this dirt over him! I
need to get out of here!” says Dani. I nod, and we all agree that for the other
question and the playbook question, Gabriel isn’t acting for vengeance, but he is
definitely in over his head. Dani rolls with a +2 and gets a 7 total!
“Awesome! So you avoid the situation, but you either have to mark a condition,
or I tell you how things have gone a bit awry. What do you think?”
“Can I mark Introspective, actually?” asks Dani. “Because what I’d love to do is
flee from Madrid to a place of safety, maybe Octavio’s empty office? And just
have a moment to myself!”
“Sure, I’m good with that,” I say. But I don’t want to just release all the pressure
on Gabriel, so I decide to demand they play their part. “But when you get into
the office, you barely have a moment before Hector, another of Octavio’s guys,
finds you there and says, ‘Boss is asking for you, get your ass downstairs,’ before
ducking back out. You don’t have long here alone. What do you do?”
“I want to process my feelings out loud!” says Dani.
“Great! What does that look like?” I’m making sure that to do it, Gabriel has to
actually do it—no making the move without taking the action.
“I start pacing furiously as I take those photos back out, flipping through
them over and over. ‘What do I do,’ I say. ‘What do I do? I…I always suspected
Octavio did this, but…but I can’t believe he actually did! If I give him these
photos, then he won’t get into trouble, but…maybe…maybe he should be held
accountable? Can I really just give him these pictures?’”
“Perfect!” I say. “Sounds like processing your feelings out loud to me! So,
audience…who’s rooting for Gabriel?”
I go around the table to each player besides Dani. Isabel and Luis both say
they’re rooting for Gabriel, but Chris and Fran say they aren’t—they see Gabriel
as too enslaved by love, and they don’t want him to keep acting like this!
“Okay, that’s a +2!” I say.
“But I have Introspective marked, so that’s another +2 for a +4 total!” says Dani.
He rolls and gets a 12! “I choose to have the audience tell me how I might find
love with a partner of their choosing.”

“Definitely that’s Dolores!” says Isabel.
“Yeah, I agree, I want Gabriel to end up with Dolores, not the murderer
Octavio!” says Fran.
“Aw, Octavio’s not that bad,” says Luis. “I want Gabriel to wind up with
Octavio!”
“You’re on your own there,” says Chris. “I agree, I think it should be Dolores. And
what if this is a turning point? Gabriel bringing these photos to the only person
he thinks he can really trust—Dolores? If he does this, then they have a shot to
find real love together!” Everybody else nods, even Luis, if reluctantly.
“Okay! And because you got a 10+, Gabriel, you get to set the scene where you
follow that information immediately. So let’s just go to it, right? What does that
look like?”
“Oh, I find Dolores in the party, trying to keep my head down and avoid any
sign of Madrid, and I say, ‘Please, come with me. It’s urgent. Right now,’ and I
lead her outside of the house,” says Dani.
“And I’m here, trying to blend in while looking perfect for the party—I’m
wearing a very fashionable kind of halter top and satin pants—while I look for
Octavio. But as soon as I see how serious Gabriel looks, I go along with it him!”
says Isabel.
“Yeah, so we cut to a moonlit lawn, no one else around—everyone’s at the
party—as Gabriel and Dolores face each other!”
“‘What is it, Gabi? What’s so important? Why did we have to come out here?’ I
ask. I’m actually worried about Gabriel, he seems so tense!” says Isabel.
“‘I…found these photos,’” Dani says as Gabriel. “I hesitate for a moment, and
then I hold them out to Dolores. ‘I couldn’t bring them to Octavio. I thought…
you’d know what to do.’”
“I take the photos and look through them,” Isabel says. “‘Gabi…this proves he
killed Juan Carlos!’ I whisper. ‘These are dangerous!’”
“‘I know, but…I had to do something, and I thought that you…’ I kind of go
quiet,” says Dani.
“ ‘Gabi,’ I say, and I put my hand on Gabriel’s cheek,” says Isabel. “ ‘I always saw
the good in you. You’re a beautiful person, inside and out, and this proves it. You
did the right thing, Gabi. I’m so proud of you.’ If Gabriel meets my eyes, then I
kiss him!”
“Oh yeah, Gabi looks away, then he looks back!” says Dani.
“Great! So Dolores is expressing her love passionately, for sure! What are the
questions?” I ask. We all agree that Dolores is dressed to impress—for the party,
obviously—and that Gabi believes Dolores is single and available for a romance.
And Dolores’s El Caballero question, “Are you handling things straightforwardly
and without guile?”, is definitely a yes! Isabel rolls with a +3 and gets a 13!

“So Gabriel gives himself to you, Dolores, or he reveals a secret he probably
shouldn’t have. And he has to tell you whether he loves you or not, and who else
he loves! Gabriel?” I say, having Dani answer the questions.
“I give myself to Dolores, for sure! I kiss her back. And she can tell that in this
moment, I’m not quite sure how I feel, but I definitely feel much more strongly
than I ever expected toward Dolores—I think maybe this is the start, but I think
I do love you! Even though…I still also kind of love Marcela,” Dani says.
“Wait, before we go further,” says Luis. “Can I flash back to preparations? I
want to have set up this whole place with cameras and recording devices—I
knew the party was coming, with everybody here, and I thought something
might happen that I’d want my guys watching.”
“Oh, yeah, I love that!” I say. “Yeah, you’re not in the scene, but it’s easy to
imagine we do one of those shots as Gabriel and Dolores are talking where we
pull back through the camera to see Octavio watching the screen and listening!
Yeah! Let’s hear those questions!”
Luis’s staff set up the whole party, so he definitely had plenty of time to do it,
and he had people looking out for trouble. And what’s more, the question for El
Jefe is “Are you taking control of the situation?”—which he definitely is, turning
what should’ve been a romantic moment between Dolores and Gabriel into a
sinister, watched moment of tension! Luis rolls +3…but only gets a 6 total!
“Oof,” I say. “So that means you still choose one option from the list, but
someone was lurking in the background and interfered with your preparations. I
think that as we flash back to you ordering these cameras and recording devices
to be hidden, we see that some of the employees you’re ordering then ultimately
report back…to Madrid! The recording devices they place are as much Madrid’s
as yours, Octavio—so Madrid sees everything, too!”
“Oh, no, that’s horrible!” says Luis.
“Yeah, it’s perfect! So with all that, let’s cut back to Marcela in the party—what
are you doing, Marcela?”

Custom Moves
The moves provided in Pasión de las Pasiones are designed
to handle most telenovela fiction. There’s a whole bunch of
them—basic moves for everyone, playbook moves for specific
characters, playset moves for specific shows. They aim to
capture the most important moments from telenovelas. But
when you can’t quite find a move that fits the moment (or you
want a more specific set of results), it’s time to make your own
custom move!
Custom moves are helpful for a variety of reasons; they add
something specific and interesting to your game, a specific thing
that matters to your table. They might even lead to you writing
your own playbooks or playsets. You can write moves to focus
on what is most interesting to you in your story, the bits of the
fiction that your table truly wants to focus on during the story.
That said, custom moves aren’t always the easiest thing to get
right, so this chapter helps to explain how to get more hits than
misses when you break out the custom mechanics!
What is a Custom Move?

Custom moves are new moves you create for your game to
handle more specific situations. Remember that basic moves
are more general than playbook moves or playset moves! Both
of these are still more general than custom moves; you make a
custom move when there’s a certain situation that you want to
see in more detail than the moves give you. They’re so specific
that it’s not just what telenovelas do, it’s not just what this kind
of telenovela does, but what specifically your telenovela does!

Here’s an example of a custom move:
When you slip poison into the champagne flute of your rival at the
presentation dinner, roll with the questions:
ͪ Do you have privacy to do the deed?
ͪ Do you have reason or authority to work with the drinks?
On a hit, the poison ends up in your rival's glass; they will drink it before the
evening is done. On a 7–9, the draught is too strong; they will fall stricken as
soon as they swallow the liquid. On a miss, the drinks end up switched; you
poison someone you absolutely, never intended to harm.
Among all of the conniving and plotting, there are those who go for more
sinister routes. This may not be something needed in every telenovela and
certainly isn’t something needed in every episode of one! However, as La
Belleza tinkers with glasses and an old recipe their mother taught them,
we might be curious what happens! This custom move aims to handle this
very specific situation so that we can see where it goes without defaulting
to a more generic move when La Belleza acts with desperation to poison
the drinks.
This custom move is set up like any of the question-based moves; it uses
two questions and a PC’s playbook question and gives results as normal.
On a hit, La Belleza is definitely poisoning their rival, a prime opportunity
for a poisoned player to face certain death (or for an NPC to turn up dead)!
If La Belleza rolls a 7–9, things heat up quite a bit because the moment
of poisoning is immediate, bringing attention to the poison and likely
kicking off some direct confrontational events. This result doesn’t specify
that La Belleza is accused, but perhaps events leading up to this might give
someone the idea that they’re to blame.
The miss condition is present in this custom move because we know the
situation is so specific. In a basic move, you don’t want to have a miss
condition simply because it happens often enough that the MC should
have flexibility! If this were a custom move to be used every session,
you might omit the miss condition; the MC relies on their standard MC
moves. As written, the MC (or the audience if the MC wishes to declaim
responsibility) chooses some other poor person to swig the horrific drink...
and the miss condition makes sure both the MC and the player know
what’s at stake!
Chapter 9 Custom Moves u 179

Building Custom Moves
As with playbook, NPC, and playset moves, custom moves can take on a
variety of structures. Some may be the full question-based moves like the
basic moves, others may alter an existing move by changing an option or
offering additional options. Some may be as simple as a trigger causing a
result without a roll. Some custom moves end up getting used a couple of
times in a campaign or even just once. Different MCs have different styles
and some may use custom moves often while others never use them at
all. Aim simply for what helps your game and your table; there’s no right
answer when it comes to custom moves.
How Moves Work

Moves generally consist of:
ͪ A trigger: “When (something) happens…”
ͪ An outcome “...then (something else) happens." This might include a
roll of the dice or it may just be something that happens.
If a move includes a roll, it also has:
ͪ Stakes: What happens on a 10+, a 7–9, and a 6-.
ͪ Questions: Which questions the player asks to determine their modifier
on the roll.
In general, what you need is a trigger that speaks to an interesting and
uncertain action and an outcome that pushes the fiction forward. You also
want to make sure that the move itself is fun! If you design a move no one
wants to use, then it’s never going to show up at the table.
Move Triggers
As with other moves, the first thing you need is a trigger. With a custom
move, aim to have a trigger that has the specificity that you need for the
situation. It doesn’t need to be generic enough for other tables or even
other sessions, it’s what you specifically need for your game. Given that, it
can even apply to specific characters or situations that won’t come up again
at all! That frees you up to make them interesting and specific!
You don’t want a trigger that goes off all the time nor on things that aren’t
exciting. You definitely don’t want a trigger that interferes with the basic
moves of the game! Think back to the poisoning example: its trigger is
interesting, uncertain, and specific! A bad way to handle the same situation
is to have a custom move with a trigger of “When you hide something…”
That happens all the time!

Triggers are best when they are interesting, uncertain, and specific! Here
are a couple of good starting points:
When you drive along the western cliffs to escape Don Álvaro’s guards…
When you enter La Tinturera’s hideout with hidden weapons…
When you send a secret love letter through the hotel’s staff...
All of these are actions with uncertain resolutions, are interesting questions
that we’d like to see answered, and are specific to the game. They each begin
to tell a story about your world and what’s important in it; the first speaks
of adventure, the second of danger, and the third of illicit romance! They fill
your world and now we know what happens when these come to pass!
Here’s a bad move trigger:
When you hand someone a love note...
This may look like a good trigger! It’s not that different from the secret love
letters above, so why shouldn’t it apply? Let’s break it down.
ͪ Is it interesting? The trigger should ask for a moment that we are
tied deeply into. While love notes are wonderful and interesting,
this specifically calls out “handing someone” that note. Something
interesting could happen soon, but we’ve moved in on the wrong part
of the scene! Who knows when the recipient actually opens that note?
A move that deals with reading a love note or even delivering it secretly
while trying to remain anonymous is far more interesting.
ͪ Is it uncertain? The trigger should ask for a moment that we don’t
know the outcome of. Looking at this one, there’s no uncertainty.
You’ve handed the love note to someone. Unless they drop it for no
apparent reason, there’s no uncertainty—it’s in their hand. This could
be punched up by making the uncertainty about whether you are
spotted handing it over or whether it reaches its intended target (as in
the above example).
ͪ Is it specific? While very slightly more specific than express your love
passionately, it doesn’t separate itself from the other move well enough
to actually make it a different move. If a character handed someone a
passionate love note, that is expressing their love passionately, just
in a specifically flavored way. We don’t need a move with this trigger
because we already have one that covers it! There has to be something
special about the love note that differentiates it from expressing your
love passionately.

Let’s look at another example.
When you escape in a fast car, roll with the questions:

ͪ Are you with the love of your life?
ͪ Are you in a fast car?
On a hit, you escape. On a 10+, clear a condition.
This one is bad for a number of reasons! It’s actually kind of an enormous
disaster!
ͪ Trigger Implies Result: The trigger of the move is “when you escape in
a fast car” and the result is “you escape.” But what happens if you roll a
miss? You already escaped or you wouldn’t have rolled the move! The
fix here: at minimum, the trigger should be “When you try to escape in
a fast car…”
ͪ Trigger Answers Question: The trigger also calls out that you’re in a
fast car…which makes that second question completely guaranteed
to be a +1. Come up with something more interesting! The fix here:
changing the second question to another interesting idea, like “Are you
being pursued by foes in a fast car?”
ͪ Boring Results: You escape? Like, forever? Sure, there’s nothing wrong
with having moves that finish out scenes, but this one ends things and
the 10+ result isn’t interesting either! It doesn’t even have fictional
backing behind it. The fix here: add additional fiction to escaping to
make it more interesting—”On a hit, you escape but you leave a trail
that others can follow later. On a 10+, you can avoid leaving a trail or
you can clear a condition, your choice.”

Writing Moves with Questions
While you may have experience writing moves in other Powered by the
Apocalypse games, rolling with questions may be new to you! Choosing
what questions players answer and roll with help to shape both the
fictional setup of their triggers and the narrative payoff in unique ways!
When writing a move with questions, remember to keep these in mind:
ͪ Each move should have two questions. By default, every move with
questions also has the player ask their playbook question as the third.
ͪ Questions should be unambiguous yes/no questions.
ͪ Each question should stand on its own.
ͪ Each “yes” answer should give a +1.
While it is possible to write satisfying moves that break these rules, they’re
an excellent starting point to stay within the general balance of the game.
Breaking them likely won’t ruin your game, but may shift your probabilities
in surprising ways!
For each question, you want players to give you a yes or no answer. If a
question cannot be answered in that way, then it isn’t working well! “Who
do you love?” is an interesting question, but it doesn’t tell us whether you
should have a +1 on the roll. “Do you love them?” gets the same idea across
and lets us pull a simple yes or no.
Additionally, it should be unambiguous. “Are they the person paying the most
attention to me in the room right now?” is (in addition to being a bit lengthy)
difficult to parse. We need to think about every character, maybe ask other
players, and come to a decision. “Are they watching me closely?” is a much
better question because we know exactly what we’re looking for.
Each question also should stand on its own, such that answering yes to one
doesn’t mean you automatically answer yes or no to the other. If the first
question is “Do you worry about them?” the second question shouldn’t be
“Do you worry about them as a child?” The second answer can never be yes
while the first is no. Having two different questions is more interesting and
gives us more flavor.
Also be sure that each question adds a +1 if the answer is yes. This can take
a little bit of linguistic gymnastics, but it simplifies things to have questions
just add +1 on a yes, as opposed to adding a different amount or adding +1
on a no. If you can, code the questions with a yes being +1 simply to keep
things moving at the table.

Types of Questions
Pasión de las Pasiones has a bunch of different types of questions. Here’s
a short list you can use to think about your own custom moves:
Questions about skill:

“Do you know how to tango?”
Some questions directly ask whether your character is skillful at something.
These tend to remain yes or no for characters throughout a campaign.
Make sure that not all of your questions are focused on skill to vary up
the answers. These questions also help reveal more about a character;
discovering a character can pick locks provides an interesting bit of story.
Questions about situation:

“Do you have a convincing weapon?”
Some questions ask whether your character is in a particular situation.
These tend to shift depending upon whether a character has made some
action leading up to this one. This action may be something that we saw
in the fiction (La Empleada grabbing a butcher’s knife) or something that’s
been established in the past (El Caballero having a hefty pistol). These
questions frequently are a good way to give a little more definition to a
moment; if your player says that they have an eye-catching accessory, now
you can ask them what it is.
Questions about tropes

“Did you promise to enact your revenge earlier?”
Some questions have less to do with fictional ability or power in a realistic
way and more to do with how the genre of telenovelas work. Making a
promise to enact revenge won’t actually help you achieve that revenge in
real life…but telenovelas show us that a declaration of revenge is important
and powerful within that medium. The question reminds players of tropes
and brings them up to speed on the best places to use these moves.
An even more pointed example of this is the question “Do you have an
audience?” under accuse someone of lying. Whether you’re correct about
someone lying clearly has nothing to do with whether there are people
around, but the best accusation moments in telenovelas happen with a
room full of people shouting and gasping upon the reveal.
Some questions may even theoretically look like a problem for the
situation, but if the purpose of asking the question is to get at themes of
a telenovela, you can word it to make that clear! If the question reads “Do
they know you plan to get revenge on them?” it sounds like a liability not an
advantage...but it can still add a +1 in your game!

Balancing Questions
When deciding upon questions, it can be difficult to decide exactly how to
balance them against each other and get the right mix of inputs. In general,
you want characters in an advantageous position to be able to answer yes
to both questions; those in neutral positions should be able to answer
one affirmatively; and those who really haven’t prepared or who are at a
disadvantage should have to say no to both.
However, remember that Pasión de las Pasiones aims to emulate
telenovelas. Moves that should occur successfully more often—like
expressing your love passionately—can be “balanced” in favor of hits over
misses, especially if they are going to be used by all players. The question
of “Are you dressed to impress?” is a soft-ball question, it’s a question likely
to be “yes” most times simply because PCs probably are more or less always
dressed to impress!
The purpose of this question isn’t to actually challenge the idea that people
are or aren’t dressed to impress. It reminds players that their characters are
likely dressed in attractive clothes, looking impressive, and turning heads!
It gives a good reason for the MC to ask the player what their character
is wearing to help all players get that beautiful dramatic shot of them
entering the room. This means that express your love passionately is an
easier move to get a hit on than other moves, which is okay because we
want successful declarations of love—they create their own drama whether
or not the player misses!

On the opposite side of that, act with desperation is a relatively difficult
move to have both answers be yes. Most of the time, characters won’t have
love or revenge to back them up, which increases the chance of that 7–9
range where things get more complicated! However, when they do act out
of revenge and/or love, then those are likely climactic moments where we
want to see that success.
Moves Without Questions

You don’t have to invoke questions when you write custom moves, though;
sometimes the right move is one that just takes effect or relies on some
other core mechanism. Mastering move construction using Powered by the
Apocalypse is a whole new challenge, but here are some tips for the kinds
of effects you might use instead of relying on questions.
Direct Effects
Moves can directly affect the fiction, making changes, causing events,
without touching on any mechanical pieces in between. These effects are in
some ways the most simple; they provide a change to what is happening in
the story without needing to involve any other mechanics immediately.
When you close someone in the wine cellar, they are trapped
inside until they are rescued.
Add Options
Custom moves can add further options to existing moves, expanding how
they’re useful and making them specific to their surroundings.
When you spot something out of place with help from Detective López,
you may add the following questions to the list of options:
ͪ Was there a struggle here?
ͪ Which way did someone go?
Inflict a Condition
You can always have custom moves inflict conditions or clear conditions on
PCs. These moves indicate ways that the PCs’ emotions can be affected and
changed, whether they like it or not.
When you reject the kind offerings of Señora Vásquez,

mark a condition of her choice.

The Show Is Yours
From the minute that you started dreaming up romances and betrayals,
backstabs and meet cutes, this game was about the story you wished to
tell. Your telenovela will never be the same as another table’s, but by using
custom moves you can pull out the very things that make your story, your
world, and your players unique. They will make your story more rich, more
dynamic, and above all more perfect for your table. Don’t be afraid to make
them, be it between sessions or on the fly during a session. You understand
how moves work and every time you use a custom move, your table will
thrill with the excitement that you’ve done a mechanic like no other, telling
a story like no other, celebrating a love like no other.
The key is to always keep your game, your telenovela, alive and thriving.
New custom moves help you capture and support new moments of
uncertainty and excitement that crop up in your specific game, to ensure
that everyone is surprised, engaged, and interested, including you! As you
play, the game will always move, shift, and grow in directions you had
never anticipated, and custom moves are just the last tool to ensure that
you will always be invested in a living experience.
Because the bottom line of Pasión de las Pasiones is that none of the infinite
telenovelas that spring forth from this game can ever exist without you,
without players and MCs to bring them to life. You're the key to the drama,
the romance, and the thrills. So make them yours! Breathe life into them
with your choices and your interests, your own new characters and settings
and custom moves!
Pasión de las Pasiones has been waiting for you—time to tell the stories that
have always dwelt in your heart!

Index
Advancement 42, 99, 100, 164
Agendas 103, 104
Conditions 40, 46, 49, 52, 55, 59, 95, 96, 113, 186
Conversation 20
Features 41, 42, 53, 56, 63
Finales 44, 168—170
Forward 27
Hold 27
Introductions 43
“Last Time On” 44, 46, 49, 52, 55, 59, 62, 98
Master of Ceremonies 9, 20—22, 29, 31, 67, 102—126, 156—170
Meltdowns 40, 46, 49, 52, 55, 59, 97
Moves 23—29, 41, 42, 47, 48, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56—58, 60, 61, 63, 64, 66—100,
113—120, 121—126, 144, 149, 154, 161, 164, 177—187
Basic moves 24, 28, 41, 67—86
Custom moves 66, 177—187
MC moves 107, 113—126
Peripheral moves 87—94
Playbook moves 26, 41, 42, 47, 48, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56—58, 60, 61, 63, 64
Playset moves 144, 149, 154
Ongoing 27
Playbooks 9, 38—64, 120—126
La Belleza 38, 46—48, 121,
El Caballero 38, 49—51, 122,
La Dona 38, 52—54, 123,
La Empleada 26, 38, 55—58, 124,
El Gemelo 38, 59—61, 125,
El Jefe 26, 38, 62—64, 126,
Playset 9, 21, 31, 66, 128—154
La Rosa Querida 9, 21, 145—149
El Sabor del Amor 9, 21, 150—154
Principles 105—112
Questions 25, 39, 40, 46, 49, 52, 55, 59, 68, 70, 73, 75, 78, 80, 82, 85, 88, 90, 92,
121—126, 136—139, 147, 152, 166, 167, 183—186
Relationships 43, 44, 46, 49, 52, 55, 58, 61
Safety tools 32, 33, 34, 157, 158,
Scene framing 20, 21, 22
Session Zero 130

Appendix
Feminine First Names
Alejandra, Alicia, Celeste, Celina, Citlali, Claudia, Daniela, Dulce, María, Elena,
Estrella, Graciela, Irene, Itzel, Karina, Lucía, María Angélica/Angélica María, María
de Lourdes (Lulú), María Fernanda (Marifer), Mariana, Maricela, Marisol, Marta,
Mónica, Regina, Rosa Margarita, Sofía, Teresa, Ximena, Xóchitl, Yadira, Yolanda
Masculine First Names

Adrián, Antonio, Cuauhtémoc, Ezequiel, Fernando, Francisco Javier, Gael,
Gustavo Adolfo, Humberto (Beto), Israel, Jesús, José Luis, José Manuel, Juan
Carlos, Juan Manuel, Luis Felipe, Luis Fernando, Luis Miguel, Mateo, Mario,
Miguel Ángel, Noel, Orlando, Roberto (Beto), Rogelio, Santiago, Saúl, Tonatiuh
Ambiguous First Names

Alex, Andy, Anid, Ariel, Asunción, Azul, Cruz, Francis, Guadalupe, Reyes,
Trinidad, Zoé
Middle Names
Feminine
Alma (Alma Celina), Ana (Ana Laura, Ana María), Belén (Lucía Belén), Berenice
(Blanca Berenice), Blanca (Blanca Julia), de los Ángeles (María de los Ángeles),
del Carmen (Sofía del Carmen), Luz/de la Luz (Clara Luz, Perla de la Luz),
Margarita (Rosa Margarita), Mercedes (María Mercedes), Rosa (Ana Rosa)
Masculine
Carlos (Carlos Alberto), Ignacio (José Ignacio), Isaac (Pedro Isaac), Iván (Jorge
Iván), Jesús (Jesús Alberto), Jorge (Jorge Adrián), José (José Arturo), Juan (Juan
Gabriel), Luis (Luis Enrique)
There are some middle names that can be paired with femenine an masculine
names. Typically, these middle names have their origins in Catholicism, and
therefore are linked to parents’ faith and religious duty to honor God and his saints.
There is a long tradition of naming a child after the saint on whose day that child
was born. And when parents go through difficult pregnancies or the child is born
with some complication, parents pray to God and la Virgen and promise to name
their child after them if they save them. In those cases, you end up with names like
Lourdes Guadalupe, Lourdes after your abuela and Guadalupe after la Virgen.
Concepción, de Jesús (María de Jesús, José de Jesús), Guadalupe (María
Guadalupe, José Guadalupe), José (María José), María (José María), Rosario/del
Rosario (José del Rosario), Sagrario, Trinidad (José Trinidad)
Appendix u 189
Surnames
Altamirano, Álvarez, Andrade, Balam, Ballesteros, Benítez, Castillo, Castro,
Contreras, de la Cruz, de León, del Toro, Díaz, Espinoza, Flores, García, Gómez,
González, Gutiérrez, Hernández, López, Mamani, Martínez, Mejía, Mora,
Padilla, Pérez, Pech, Quirós, Quispe, Reyes, Rivera, Rodríguez, Rojas, Salazar,
Sánchez, Silva, Torres, Vargas, Zambrano
Elegant First Names

Feminine
Altagracia del Rosario, Angustias, Blanca Azucena, Camila, Ana Carlota, Elvira,
Encarnación, Felicia, Gloria Luisa, Julieta, María Antonieta, María Cristina,
Patricia Elizabeth, Santa, Victoria
Masculine
Adalberto, Antonio, Clemente, Dante, Emiliano, Fausto, Joaquín, León,
Leonardo, Lorenzo, Maximiliano, Nicolás, Porfirio, Santiago, Sebastián
Terms of Endearment
Amor, Amorcito, Amorcín, Ángel, Bebé, Bimbollo, Bombón, Caramelo, Cariño,
Chaparrito/chaparrita, Cielo, Corazón, Dulzura, Gordo, Guapo/guapa, Linda/
lindo, Mi amado/mi amada, Mi amor, Mi cielo, Mi corazón, Mi rey/mi reina, Mi
tesoro, Mi vida, Mamacita/papacito, Muñeco/muñeca, Nene/nena, Osito/osita,
Precioso/preciosa, Sol, Vida mía
Place names
1. Cielito Lindo, cantina 17. Museo de Arte de [city name],
2. El gimnasio, bar museum
3. Santa Fe, tianguis 18. Red, night club
4. Hacienda Buendía, hacienda 19. Teatro San Martín, theater
5. Plaza Loretta, shopping mall 20. Mercado de Abastos San Fermín,
6. Rancho Campo Azul, ranch mercado
7. Monteluz, vineyard 21. Academia Anastasia, dance
8. Santa Rosa de Guadalupe, academy
cathedral 22. El Palomar, restaurant
9. Plaza Santa Rosa, main plaza, in 23. Café Lucía, coffee shop
front of the cathedral 24. Club Ángeles, sports club
10. Zoológico [city name], zoo 25. Club de golf El Cielo, golf course
11. Sierra de Otoño, woods 26. Estadio Francisco Buendía,
12. Alameda Santa María, alameda park concert arena
13. Parque Acuático Aguazul, aquatic 27. Puerto San Lucas, marina
park 28. Casino Diamante, casino
14. Lago Rocío, lake 29. Vivaldi, wine club
15. Hotel Grand Versalles, hotel 30. Lavender Hills, spa and resort
16. El Paso Inn, motel

Songs
1. Abrázame muy fuerte, Juan Gabriel 16. La descarada, Reily
2. Ahora quién, Marc Anthony 17. La usurpadora, Pandora
3. ¿Adónde vamos a parar?, Marco 18. Lazos de amor, Lucero
Antonio Solís 19. María la del barrio, Thalía
4. Amigas y rivales, Kabah 20. Marimar, Thalía
5. Amor, amor, amor, Luis Miguel 21. Nada personal, Armando
6. Amor real, Sin Bandera Manzanero y Lisset
7. Amor prohibido, Selena 22. Para siempre, Vicente Fernández
8. Como quien pierde una estrella, 23. Rata de dos patas, Paquita la del
Alejandro Fernández Barrio
9. Cuidarte el alma, Chayanne 24. Rebelde, RBD
10. De pies a cabeza, Maná 25. Se dice de mí, Yolanda Rayo
11. Dime, Aranza 26. Secreto de amor, Joan Sebastian
12. Dos mujeres, un camino, Laura 27. Soñadoras, Sentidos Opuestos
León 28. Te quiero tanto, tanto, La Onda
13. El duelo, La Ley y Ely Guerra Vaselina
14. El privilegio de amar, Manuel 29. Te sigo amando, Juan Gabriel
Mijares y Lucero 30. Vivo por ella, Andrea Bocelli
15. Enloquéceme, OV7
Macguffins
Everyone is losing their minds trying to find…
1. A twenty year old marriage certificate
2. A jump drive of archived emails
3. A packet of incriminating photos
4. A map on the back of a painting
5. A key that opens this mysterious vault
6. A backup of the deleted security cam
7. The other half of a torn photo
8. A phone that shows who was called that night
9. A duffle bag full of untraceable bills
10. An ID badge to get in the door
11. A ring with a priceless diamond
12. The doctor who did the face transplant
13. A handwritten note giving away a fortune
14. A VHS of home videos with a secret
15. The person who left threatening calls
16. A written promise of clemency from the feds
17. An old recipe that connects two people
18. A stolen car belonging to the deceased
19. An actual treasure map marked with an X
20. A flask that proves it was murder
21. A vial of antivenom
22. A hundred year old bottle of wine
Appendix u 191
Telenovela names
1. Alma mía (soul of mine) 17. La estrella de tus ojos (the star of
2. Alma de niña (soul of child) your eyes)
3. Almas perdidas (lost souls) 18. La llama del amor (the flame of
4. Amigas y hermanas (friends and love)
sisters) 19. La voz del corazón (the voice of
5. Arrebato de pasión (rapture of the heart)
passion) 20. Los vientos del amor (the winds
6. Beso prohibido (forbidden kiss) of love)
7. Cariño prohibido (forbidden 21. Lotería del corazón (lottery of the
affection) heart)
8. Cascadas del corazón (waterfalls of 22. Muriendo por ti (dying for you)
the heart) 23. Ojos de amor (eyes of love)
9. Corazones salvajes (wild hearts) 24. Por siempre mi amor (forever my
10. Cruce de pasión (crossing of love)
passion) 25. Por un beso tuyo (for a kiss from
11. Cuna de espinas (crib of thorns) you)
12. Doce rosas (twelve roses) 26. Querida (dear, feminine)
13. El amor que finges (the love you 27. Querido Julio, besos de Alicia (dear
fake) Julio, kisses from Alicia)
14. El milagro de tu amor (the miracle 28. Sólo por ti (just for you)
of your love) 29. Torrente de pasión (stream of
15. Esmeralda passion)
16. Guardián de tu alma (guardian of 30. Un puñado de amor (a handful of
your soul) love)
Telenovela Name Generator/Roller

Coming up with a title Structure (roll 1d6):
for your own telenovela 1. Name it after a character (roll 1d6 below)
can be tough! Roll 1d6 a. (First Name)
on the structure table, b. (Name) El/La (A)
and then fill in the c. Yo soy (Name), El/La (A)
adjectives (A), concepts d. (First and Last Name)
e. (Name) y (Name)
(B), and objects (C) from f. Yo amo a (Name)
the other tables below. 2. (B) de los/las (C)
3. (B) y (B)
4. Corazones (A)s
5. (C) (A)s
6. The playset name
A: Adjectives (roll 1d6) B: Concepts (roll 1d6) C: Objects (roll 1d6)

1. Bello/a (s) 1. Pasión 1. Pasiones
2. Peligroso/a (s) 2. Sangre 2. Amantes
3. Indomable (s) 3. Venganza 3. Familias
4. Amoroso/a (s) 4. Mentiras 4. Lobos
5. Fatal (es) 5. Promesas 5. Paraisos
6. Elegante (s) 6. Destino 6. Fuegos

The music swells as Elena enters the church, her silver dress
dancing around her heels. The camera zooms to her face as she
catches sight of Domingo, el amor de su vida, the man she will
marry in secret tonight. Elena’s eyes light with joy and she starts
forward—gliding, then running—a joyful laugh escaping her lips.
She catches her beloved’s shoulder...but he turns to reveal that he is
her beloved’s evil twin, Juan Carlos!
Pasión de las Pasiones is a tabletop roleplaying game that

guides you and your friends to craft and bring to life your very
own telenovelas, complete with heroes, villains, love, war,
secrets, and revelations! No matter whether you’re playing a
heroic Empleada struggling to connect with her true love, or a
dastardly Jefe trying to quash that burgeoning romance, you’re
guaranteed a thrilling story!
Inside this book you will find:

• 6 unique playbooks, each allowing you to play
a vital and exciting telenovela archetype
• 2 pre-made playsets chock full of tense and
interesting situations to get you playing fast, along
with rules to create playsets of your own
• Explanation and guidance on telenovela-style storytelling,
including ways for the audience to directly affect the game
• Rules for everything from cheating certain death
to retconning the past for dramatic reveals
Players Time Rating

3-5 2-4 hrs Teen

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CREDITS

Published by Magpie Games

Writing and Design: Brandon Leon-Gambetta

Special thanks to Meguey and Vincent Baker for creating

Choosing a Playbook.................................38 The Series......................................155

4 u Pasión de las Pasiones

6 u Pasión de las Pasiones

8 u Pasión de las Pasiones

10 u Pasión de las Pasiones

12 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Soap Operas in Prime Time

But Will You Truly Bare Your Soul?

Melancholy and Joy

14 u Pasión de las Pasiones

16 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Being Better than the Source Material

18 u Pasión de las Pasiones

20 u Pasión de las Pasiones

“What do you do?”

22 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Moves and Dice

24 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Rolling the Dice

Rolling with Questions

ͪ Do they believe that you are single?

ͪ Are you in over your head?

El Jefe expressing their love passionately:

ͪ Do they believe that you are single?

ͪ Are you taking control of this situation?

26 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Hits and Misses

28 u Pasión de las Pasiones

30 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Selecting Your Playset

32 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Assumptions of the Game

34 u Pasión de las Pasiones

36 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Vanesa is making a character to play using El Sabor del Amor playset

38 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Name & Look

Chapter 4 The Characters u 39

Conditions & Meltdowns

40 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Picking Moves & Features

Chapter 4 The Characters u 41

42 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Chapter 4 The Characters u 43

Vanesa has two relationships from La Belleza:

44 u Pasión de las Pasiones

Chapter 4 The Characters u 45

ͪ cunning eyes, flirtatious eyes, wide eyes, wild eyes

ͪ designer clothes, risqué clothes, high fashion clothes, professional clothes

Last Time On:

ͪ You befriended someone dangerous and passionate

ͪ You threw wine in someone’s face in a fit of rage

ͪ You fell into the arms of a lover of a lower station

ͪ You slipped something into somebody’s possession without them knowing

46 u Pasión de las Pasiones