We played WWW last week (for reference – I wrote a WWW playtest Nathan shared here:
https://plus.google.com/+NathanPaoletta/posts/6gwFw9PsSyP) and this is more of a feedback question/answer post since the summary of the game was there.
One of the things +Nathan Paoletta asked in my original post was:
I’m really interested in the quasi-GMless structure you used, which sounds very functional, especially when Creative is the less-wrestling-knowledgeable player (for all the playtests so far that I know about, Creative has been a total wrestling nerd). I’ve been worried that this would cause trouble, but it sounds like you guys solved it pretty well.
So I have read the rules, but I was really weak-sauce on the layout of an episode – but I can follow directions ^_~ So in your advice for game 1 you say: discuss story arcs, and write simple plots. And in general GM advice you say: Book for maximum drama.
So after our characters were done I posited to the guys: what’s standard episode layout? So knowing that it’s two hours, I knew I wanted to book ~4-5 matches – which discounting commercial breaks, interviews and the like makes the matches a bit long (they talked about different types of matches, like squash matches) – but we decided to run with it.
The guys explained that usually folks cut promos before they are due to go on stage to build momentum and audience investment, so I had a rough idea of when each person had to have a non-wrestling segment inserted before and after a match. And I personally decided to have one or two ‘off-camera’ moments for folks to discuss their career and build up +Real type of goals and interactions. I asked for a list of ideas of stuff to stick in these segments (promos, interviews which are just excuses for promos, actual locker room stuff, camera placed to record locker room stuff as if it were candid, obvious on-camera Creative talking to wrestlers about goals etc. etc. etc.).
This was my version of ‘draw maps, leave blanks’. The matches were set, but I wanted to be flexible for the surrounding material, because after a good match you might want a post-interview. You might want an off-camera Talent moment (when they’re at +4 audience) demanding a match. You might want to throw curve balls. You might just want something real to have as a downbeat. So I wanted to be able to use these to control player energy and game pacing without being blank when it came time to call for something. So I had my pics list, but was open and flexible, with some ideas about where I could put promos for the general gist of flow.
We also made a list of NTC names we could pull from. Just name, and quick gimmick.
* The Puma. Big cat gimmick. Technical/strength wrestler.
* Fighter Hayabusa. Jobber. Sells hard. Crowd loves him.
Taking a cue from Danger Patrol I did a: LAST SEASON ON World Wide Wrestling! And I had everyone talk about a major highlight from last season. We did two rounds: everyone say one thing about their character, and one thing involving an NTC. Why? Because it’s hard to create stories in a vacuum. Wrestling stories flow into one another. I asked some leading questions to get us started.
“So the WWW version of Wrestlemania just ended. What’s the name of the Big Belt, and who won it? Now, why didn’t they deserve it, and why are the fans upset?”
When we found out that Puma beat the Amazon for the Jungle Belt, and found out that he cheated – we knew he had heel turned. The Veteran wanted to bring honor and justice back to the League. Similarly when we talked about The Condor making his big debut, and wrestling (sometimes in tag, and sometimes just with coaching) from the Baron, I knew that this was his time to get his own legs and shine, so the arc was going to be the split/fight between the Baron and the Condor.
So by doing ‘last season on’ I got a good sense of what this season’s story arcs were going to be.
Next I need to book matches. I knew I wanted to see how the three different match types worked, so I wanted an NTC/NTC matchup, an NTC/Talent matchup, and a Talent/Talent one. I book accordingly, and rank according to Audience. Then I add a tag-team-match so we could talk about that a bit at least. Where I can I match Face to Heel. And we make sure everyone knows roughly the story of the match going in. Just a sentence since it might change due to promos and such.
Then I secretly underlined who I wanted to win. This was the only secret action on my part as Creative. It wasn’t too complicated – we’re early season. We want to get the crowd worked up and invested. I book mostly heels to win, so that folks get that ‘over the top’ storyline as the faces fight back. Book for maximum drama right?
One last note I wanted to give about doing it a bit more GMless – it’s that one thing you can do is have the announcer interpret the die rolls. The players say what they do (moves leading up to the spot, the spot, make the roll, choose their pick and announce) and the announcer will interpret that into the fiction.
When did you announce the booked winner of matches (especially in that final General-Puma match)? Or did you all go into matches already knowing the booking?
I did that later in the match. Usually right as it looked like the face was winning and in control. I wanted to make them really question if they were going to win by breaking Kayfabe, or stick with the call. They knew most of the parameters, except who was going to win going in.
The matches run largely without Creative interference. The players will pass to each other. They collaborate to form the story and technique. The announcer often narrates crowd reaction. The only time I had to step in was usually to make hard moves on misses (which due to momentum don’t happen often). The players and announcers largely work together to run everything. You just have to tell them who wins, throw in a few curve balls (like El Toro running in to pull out the pin), throw in some color with the jumbotron and crowd reactions – and shake things up.
As long as two players aren’t feuding, I was actually comfortable handing someone at the table an NTC for the Talent/NTC matches too. I can always throw curve balls in (adding injuries usually on the NTC side, or problems if I feel like it might make things interesting) but they know what they’re doing, and the player/announcer combo drives the story just fine.
Creative didn’t feel like a hard separation. I didn’t have clocks to push plot, and demand scarcity. Mostly I just called hard moves, came up with storylines, and added some curve balls (largely real relating to future career, and things that might mix up how folks felt outside kayfabe) to keep the players engaged, driven, and anchor the story. So the Co-GMy stuff worked fine for me.
And the flow of Wrestling excitement and knowledge flowed backwards just fine. Watching them mark up and geek out, and play those matches to the hilt was awesome. You could really feel the love.
Ok onto details:
Comments and Suggestions:
Sweet spot in terms of players – This game’s interesting insofar as it seems to want more players rather than fewer. Found the sweet spot to be 2 players wrestling, 1-2 people announcing (I kept finding that I wanted to have a second commentator to bounce ideas or color off of).
Announcer Names at creation – One of the things thrown out as a point is that certain announcers develop personas, styles, catchphrases, things they root for and so on. So establishing an announcer when you make a char is popular. Also introducing who you are as announcing (since heels being jerk guest-announcers is apparently popular, and hilarious when done in game).
Examples – I realize this is a beta, but some examples would go a long way. Some of this is probably unnecessary for die-hard fans (what sort of non-match segments can you have, what sorts of gimmick matches can you have other than tag-teams or big brawls – like the Undertakers Coffin-match) but depending on era, and clarity of memory this might help anyone. I also found that figuring out how the general wrestling move works is a bit hard. Some examples for what is a +work vs +look is tough.
Like ‘the General’ was a veteran, and wanted to do an elbow drop. Couldn’t figure out if this was something Veterans do a lot (gimmick move), if it put anyone in jeopardy (we said no … although most of these might), or if it was just the usual +Work. Might want to have at creation folks write down 2-3 moves they’re well known for (power bombs, elbow drops, piledrivers) so that it’s part of THEIR version of the gimmick for +Look rolls.
Sample Characters and Gimmicks – I wouldn’t mind helping with this, but you could probably use a small stable of characters. For Con play you want to be able to whip up NTCs and a league for folks to play in on short notice. In a stable or at-home game, this will evolve naturally, but when considering if you want to run it zero prep, this would go a long way. We fumbled through it (see old-nintendo wrestling game names) and it was super-fun, but in a tighter 2-hour con slot, I would either have to prep beforehand, or require something like this.
Here’s also some feedback on mechanics:
Stat linking seems wierd – In AW the stats were a reflection of the sorts of scenes characters would spotlight in (hot scenes, hard scenes etc). Here, where there are even fewer hard moves (due to momentum) it’s harder to pin down the sort of things that stats relate to. Real might reflect ‘real’ scenes, but it’s tougher to figure out what’s a ‘look’ scene.
Characters need more questions – there are very few Qs for the characters to start with heat at the beginning, and it feels like they are very hard-set. This becomes further limiting if your’e trying to develop a specific persona (heel/face) that some don’t match, or if your table has more than 4 people at it.
Momentum gain is a feedback loop – Probability on momentum is a bit off. Since 2d6 is a tight percentage, a +1 or -1 can make a huge difference. Once you pick up a little momentum, you can keep spinning it into an infinite pile by playing the odds. +2 is really strong and +3 becomes a monster stat (72% chance you’ll gain at least one momentum) and often it felt like folks would spend a momentum to zero-sum a game, or gain. I’m not sure if you want to lower stats and start with more momentum (audience base), or tweak momentum gain, but this seems like it needs a bit of tweaking.
Momentum as a concept seems pretty solid. In AW hard moves are the sword of damocles, and presumably these folks have a bit more control over their destinies and the show in this setting and won’t have everything fall apart regularly. Moreover, with low stats, you can only really push hard with the crowd on your side (which seems apropos). But hard moves are also a way of moving the story forward. In general getting a 10+ is a termination state (you get everything you want, scene/goal ends). A 6- sets up story/position for more than a few rolls, and 7-9 will give you enough to keep you going, but not enough that the scene is over. Adding plusses will lower the 6- which reduces the amount of moves the GM can make (removing them from the game, and to some extent lowering their agency) and lowers chance and random twists from affecting the story arcs.
I ended up making moves when they got that 6- even if they bought up. It seemed to be ok.
If I may suggest – with things as they stand you may want to think about 12+ effects on moves. Some of the things you keep in the 10 level (+1 Audience) may want to shift up to the advanced success.
Your current game flow seems to be: Start low. Play to your strengths till you can get momentum. Try to ride that into the ring. Play off of your partner and work together to build up a monster quantity, and tag a finisher. Putting certain goals into that 12+ range can play into that momentum build even more.
Audience is too easy – Starting at 2 audience I felt like it would take a few games to reach the top. But it seemed like all of us hit +4 and it was a question of whomever went later would usually cinch the Over for the next game. This feels like it might need a bit of tweaking (maybe look at the status traits in Undying). Feels like you should reset to your starting audience after the show as a whole goes up. Walking into a match with less than 4 heat and working up your heat so you could get your audience was kind of cool.
Also folks after getting the +4 wanted to ride the fame/crowd/position for a moment, and usually would go talk to creative (I made an owner character named Lucy) to demand matches and try to make a case for themselves for next session.
Pins – Was surprised that there were no rules for tap out or forcing a tap-out. There are rules for going into resting holds (albeit no real mechanical effect or suggestion for exit) and pass-offs, but traditionally there are a few attempts at pins with folks bucking the hold. Just seemed interesting there were rules for other conditions, but not pins.
Questions:
+4 match or instance – If I get a +4 audience on a working the crowd, then my opponent does the same – is the ‘both keep +4’ rule in effect on a single roll (same time clause) or single match?
Avg Audience on Groups – If there are any multiple person/tag-team events their audience would immediately move the event to top billing. You should just take the top two in this instance so that single matches could still be the main even (see wrestlemania for example).
Awesome write-up!
Indeed!
A lot of your prep is basically how I do it, so your instincts+wrestling consultants did you well. This writeup is helping me put language to making that an instructional part of the text, so thanks for taking the time to put all of that into words.
A list of names, at least, and probably finishers is absolutely required for play. I need to put mine into a document as part of the packet, for just the reasons you call out.
A word on finishers – it’s been so obvious to me that “finisher” is an inclusive term for any kind of finishing move (to get a pin or as a submission hold) that I never thought there would be confusion as to “how do you do submissions” – they’re still just wrestling moves!
In terms of the math behind Momentum, that’s another goal of the next revision, tweaking the levels a bit. I agree with you that the probabilities are pretty “whoa, you succeed all the time” BUT across many, many instances of play at this point, people still blow rolls and NEED that 5 (or 8!) Momentum they’ve saved up, and it’s very satisfying.
I have some thoughts about Audience &tc that your notes are confirming. Really, most of your feedback is either confirming that certain areas do need the further work I had in mind, or pointing out “hey dingus don’t assume that people know this, put it in words”.
The only thing that I don’t get is your note about Stat linking (and this may be because we have different ways that we play AW?) – I’ve never thought of Stats as controlling scenes, and in this game in particular the Stat is a pure “you use this Stat to do this particular thing“. When you cut a Promo it is always about your Look. When you break Kayfabe, it is always about your Real. If it isn’t, than you’re not in a position to make the Move in the first place.
Does that make sense? Or is this something we should unpack further?
Cool re-feedback there nathan ^_^ Glad to hear you’re already on top of most of it.
I have two things to touch on in your response.
1. What does a high-Look character look like. What does he act like (aside from wicked promos)? What’s a good example of one? Particularly in the ring.
High Power means you’re huge, and you can lift people, and you like flexing muscles and showcasing how you can do things usually only reserved for special effects. So it was easy for me to pick a +Power book and work that into a concept and gimmick.
But I have a little less-firm grasp on how to +Real wrestle. Or if kick-flips and high-flying is +look (since it’s clearly part of a high-flyer gimmick) or +work (which seems to be the capability to pull off cool wrestling moves). Right?
Dunno if you have further unpacking on that.
As for our different ways of play and approach on stats – let me unpack stat linking and what I mean tiny bit.
In DnD Stats are competency columns. If you have a high strength-you will be strong. And actions (via skills and attacks) are grouped into competencies (ex: this is a dex save). You’ll note (this is important) that these are Nouns. And when you roll you’re testing (pass/fail). Missing, is a failure. Missing indicates that you haven’t held up your competency, and consequently don’t move forward (usually hold at status quo, possibly take harm in the case of saves).
In World games the stats are adjectives. Someone who’s Hard might not be strong. They might just have great hand-to-eye. They might just be grim, and efficient, and have no remorse. Or they might actually be strong. What having a high Hot tells you is that you’re going to spotlight in Hot scenes. Keep in mind that many things in *W encourage you to roll things you’re bad at.
For example: Folks can highlight low stats (XP incentive). Being in a Hot scene will trigger a move regardless of whether you engaged your Diplomacy skill by stating a Diplomacy objective or no. Failing can affect plot and things not-in-scene and isn’t just a description of personal failure – so you don’t have to be incompetent to botch a roll. Even dying can be averted by taking a disfigurment (-1 perm) so there’s less fear of punishment on failure. This pushes you to not just focus on your good stats, because this will make moves snowball and plot move forward.
It’s not ‘failure’ in the strict sense of the world, it’s a change in fictional positioning (which I’ll touch on below).
So although we use the word ‘stat’ for both of them, these (meaning *W stats) are adjectives, and they seem to serve a slightly different purpose because they aren’t quite building a single column. You are copying the second set (by making things like Work and Look flexible in some moves) but what I (as a player/Creative) need to know is how to incorporate a stat into my character, how to telegraph what I’m good at, and play it up a bit.
Clearly Look cuts badass promos, but what does Look do during a match? How can I work that in?
Which leads me to point #2.
I’m a little concerned to hear you say:
BUT across many, many instances of play at this point, people still blow rolls and NEED that 5 (or 8!) Momentum they’ve saved up, and it’s very satisfying.
That NEED seems very off to me – and yes, indicates a gap in culture of play between our groups to some extent. A 6- isn’t usually a massive failure so much as it’s a fictional shift. Definitely a ‘roh roh’ fictional shift but not a ‘my incompetence has led to us failing, and now all is bad, and nothing will ever be right again’ per se.
So maybe you need to look at what 6- means if you need to get out of it every time.
If you 6- and you injure your partner, maybe they need your help to pull off moves. Maybe you need to feed them extra momentum, and take a few more risks onto yourself (maybe rolling some worse stats and having to burn extra momentum on your own to help them). Maybe it means an NTC trying to push their career and runs in causing troubles and going off-script. Maybe you finish your match just fine, but creative decides to push a Golden Boy over you. Maybe you’re scripted to win, but you 6- and the crowd turns on you. Do you stick to the Creative story, or do you go with the crowd?
These are all fine possibilities that don’t create a ‘failure’ per se, or a terminal state. Rolling a 6- creates fun obstacles, and new objectives in the story for the players to overcome (in or out of kayfabe). So the idea that it needs to be cancelled out of is a bit alien to me.
Again, you have a specific vision that you’re tinkering with. AW is all about the hard choices, and heavy risk every time you pick up the dice. But this isn’t really AW anymore. You’ve really created more control and flow, and it changes how many of the pieces work. It’s no longer about snowballing so much as shifting from person-to-person and encouraging a different bridge of collaboration. I bring up what I’m saying less to say “this is wrong, and you’re doing it wrong” so much as to say:
If your Hard Moves are so scary that you want your players to keep succeeding and never hit one – you may want to re-evaluate what they mean, and how they come into game.
Or maybe this is your sweet spot, and that’s part of what you want to say. In which case I (as a long time *W fan) should probably get that fro the Creative section a bit more – is all.
Also – I pointed out to my players that this makes for great Superhero Comic material.
The good guys have a Real scene by talking at base. Then a villain attacks. They come up. They fight. Sometimes it looks like the heroes are winning. Sometimes it looks like the villain is turning it around! They shift back and forth momentum, till they look at the writer/editor of the comic to ask who wins this time.
Usually the heroes, but sometimes the villain when setting up a longer story arc.
Superhero comics and pro wrestling have a LOT in common.
I’m starting to learn that. Also seeing how sell/no-sell affects fiction, and passing narration back and forth is making my SwoM games rule ^_~
The way I’ve thought about “look” as opposed to “power” with my high power monster gimmick (which I think poses many of the same stat-choice issues as a high work high flyer or a high real hardcore) comes down to how I think of him pulling off the move. Is he pulling it off by relying on showmanship and theatricality or actual brute force? So for Mammoth I had a move where he would take a big hit but be unmoved. Was he “actually” taking that hit, or was it a product of his ability to sell the exchange of blows and make it look like he was an unfrozen tower of immovable caveman? Similarly with a high-flyer, if Die Fledermaus’ gimmick is ridiculous jumps and acrobatics, then I have to think is this flying kick from the top of the turnbuckle appealing to the crowd because of his ability to pull off a complicated move (+Work) or is it because he spread his wings and the audience knows that when DF gets to the top rope something awesome is going to happen (+Look.) If it’s more of how does a high look/low everything else character play in the ring, think of it as a guy who probably doesn’t try crazy stunts or brute force. He probably has a handful of moves he’s decent at, BUT when he pulls off those moves, they are recognizable to the audience and he’s great at selling them and getting the audience to strap on those disbelief suspenders.
Stras Acimovic I’ve been letting your comments here marinate a bit, and here’s where I’m at. This is helping me clarify my language a lot, so thanks again!
(Note – this is a big “here’s how THIS game works”, not about core AW, but I will say that in my play experiences, the consequences for blowing rolls have almost always been rooted in character failure (except maybe wierd rolls), just because it’s never not made sense for that to be how it works out.)
Anyway! So, in wrestling, there’s the idea of the botch, i.e. “he botched that spot” – a fuckup, the dude didn’t do it right (or the person supposed to receive it didn’t receive it right). This is pretty much what misses on rolls is in WWWRPG. It’s a straight up fuckup. Creative has the ability to continue pushing the storylines regardless of success and failure on the characters parts. There is no scarcity and (key) no fragility in WWW, unless you miss a roll. So, misses are rare but, when they happen, impactful. In actual wrestling, botches sometimes dont matter, and sometimes they end careers. In this game, the array of Hard Moves is meant to span that – sometimes, Creative just elides it with a “the audience isn’t into it, you get booked with a shitty opponent” and sometimes its “you get injured, you lose Audience, &tc)
And this is what I meant by the NEED above – some moments are naturally more important to you than others (like that title belt match!), and the consequences will naturally be more severe, and you could always roll snake eyes, so you hedge your bets by doing other awesome stuff all episode to build up that Momentum, and then when you do need to spend it it’s not only a reward for the character (I did it!) but on the player level, it’s a reward for correct & strategic play.
Which makes me think I should call misses “botches” to move that front and center.
I’m gonna do a breakdown of the stats in another post, and they definitely need some more explanation in da rulez for non-wrestling nerds.
I think you should definitely call them “botches” (I now know, but it might make things clearer for others ^_~). Also, you should probably add some way to telegraph the importance of a match (sometimes botches don’t matter, and sometimes they’re career ending – players should maybe have an idea of what they’re looking at).
This is super helpful to me! Keep in mind that while to me failures should hurt like the dickens, I’m coming at this from the ‘fail forward’ lens, so knowing this helps me re-frame it correctly.
(Aside from just soft/hard moves you might want to have in-Ring out-of-ring ideas too)
Thanks Nathan!
Did any of this discussion materially affect the game you ran at NerdPITT?
Nathan Paoletta what do you mean by ‘materially’ – as in did I bring additional materials to the table? Or as in ‘did this substantially change how you see and run things’?
Second one!
Nathan Paoletta So there were some light things I tweaked (I updated the Mic to use the new Mic rules for example – push people over to the next level, cap that to once a match).
But I made hard moves much harder. Definitely spot-botches, and creating risks and problems. It made the Mic holder definitely have a critical role (when folks were low on momentum, they would give them these giant puppy eyes).
Definitely had an easier time calling spots with their stats.
I also learned that having a Real character really makes the whole league more dynamic (although I have some new rules questions because of it). And I can see why you say that every gimmick should have at least one Real move.
Sounds great! And yah, gaining system mastery in this game revolves around discovering, and then using, the Real stuff. As you play more it becomes more central, for sure.
I’ve learned from this conversation that I should really specify how to use Creative moves in the text, and what they mean in fictional terms (BAD THINGS). Super valuable stuff.