I, well, kinda jumped on this.
I know I have been fatally absent, and if others wouldn't have done their share in keeping this group alive I'd not be here today. So thanks for that and sorry that I'm not much of a help or collaboration as I'd like.
So, I just got back here and noticed the discussion going on, about natures, trades and the like.
As for natures, Kine essentially narrows it down in the second paragraph, spot-on. The thing about "natures" or "behaviours" it they can be called that is that they have to be enforced by both genetic pruning and teaching for them to be effective. In the same way an absent-minded Nidoran won't get past the street, Careful Nidoran will eventually survive and breed, and teach their offspring to be careful. An absent-minded Nidoran would have to be a consequence of something particular going on in the environment, such as the sudden construction of a Team Evil base in the vicinity of their den, which sparks their curiosity.
That said, I'd rather like to think more about natures as a "state of mind" than a "hardwiring of thought". Although once captured a Careful Nidoran won't have to be
that much careful anymore, since food and shelter are provided, their natural/acquired need to
be careful means their energy and attention need to be redirected to something else.
They'll end up being very leery on battles and gradually be more prone to full-fledged, largely disabling attacks since whereas their natural instinct would tell them to run, once in battle they're forced to stay (and ideally win) and they'll naturally try to minimize presence of threat, the most direct way being "removing threat from battlefield as early as possible" or something to that effect; in a similar way, maybe they turn more kinky towards mates, since they'll be in need to remain as the focus of attention to have competitors stay at at "arms length" where they can watch what's going on; or they'll end up as a sort of "Nidoran walks you" kind of companion once they gain confidence, experience, and maybe return with their trainer to a known habitat, since they will naturally believe that they "know better". All in all, behaviours that do not directly translated as "being careful" but are rooted in the same basic instinctive premise, just tweaked and adapted around for their current environment.
That and I'd personally like to see a Modest-natured or Lax-natured Nidorino. They just have the
look for it. :D
I'm almost sure I do not have much that I can contribute to this group... I still draw humans as stick figures so art is out of question; if he group topics moved to game-related themes the only think I'd have to talk about would be my trusty Nidorino in LG; so far it seems that for me taking part in debates and discussions is the way to go.
I
could write a fanfic about Nidos since that's the sort of thing almost never seen, but that would take quite some time. I have a Nido in one of my fics, but I have yet to develop the trainer's character and make him
actually appear in the story...

-- I'll try to be more active or at least check that this is being run every once in a while, though. And do some promotion where I can.