From the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin… WORLD WIDE WRESTLING!
Last night we sat down to playtest Nathan Paoletta’s WWW. It was me and five players: Shari, Tim, Doc, Brendan, and Rebecca.
Doc was probably the most familiar with wrestling, and he brought a lot of enthusiasm and knowledge to the game. Tim, Shari, and Brendan had some basic familiarity. I have pretty much the bare minimum cultural awareness. Rebecca was pretty much lost, and also had never played an AW game before.
I explained the basics, then we picked characters.
Shari played Nick the Stick, the Golden Boy, with charming good looks and a baseball theme.
(She floated the idea of playing the Ring Babe, but I’m not sure if she was joking or not. I’ll have to ask her if she was serious. Maybe the Manager fills that role, or maybe that will be a custom gimmick that she and I write…)
Tim played Gryla, the Monster, a 7’6” tower of meat from Iceland who carries his trademark boulder into the ring.
Rebecca, a woman after my own heart, played Bright Twilight the Anti-Hero, with a purple mohawk and a neon outfit. Her schtick is that she’s small, but nimble and skilled, and one of the few women wrestlers to be able to compete with the guys.
Brendan played El Presidente, the Veteran, our only heel. El Presidente has been heeling it up for decades, acting as a stand-in for Castro.
Doc played The Prince (of Mexico), the High-Flyer, and natural kayfabe rival to El Presidente.
Pretty much everyone wished there were some sample lists, for real names, wrestler names, and looks.
Some notes on Starting Moves:
Nick took +1 work, I am the Future, Always Learning, and for his advance took +1 Work.
Gryla took +1 work, Not of this World (Lucky Boulder), and for his advance took +1 Real. Tim had trouble coming up with a unique stipulation since there’s only one example, and I think pretty much took the hardcore one by default. I’m going to work with him to see if we can make up a custom one.
Bright Twilight took +1 Work, Anything You Need to Do to Win, and Twitch the Curtain.
El Presidente took +1 Power and Put Over, and for his advance took +1 Real
The Prince took +1 Work, Respected and Human Highlight Reel, and for his advance took Put Over from the Veteran playbook.
Our starting heat had us a little confused- I didn’t realize that the Monster and Veteran both start everyone at 1 heat instead of 0.
As it happened, almost everyone had a question that nobody else was willing to answer, so I stepped up and created a NTC to fill that void.
Nick the Stick has been taken under the wing of the Prince- they’re now frequent Tag Team partners. El Presidente is jealous of Nick the Stick’s rapid rise. The Stick originally debuted with Rock Lobster, a guy in a padded lobster suit.
Gryla was rescued from his underground prison by The Prince in one of his international journeys. Bright Twilight made him look weak when she debuted. The Stick is willing to stand up to Gryla in the ring.
Bright Twilight had to kick the shit out of El Presidente before anyone would take her seriously as a wrestler. She has a reluctant alliance with Gryla- their tag team theme is ‘big and little.’ Nobody wanted to be seen as a slave to management, so I created the Dark Diva.
El Presidente had to step over Johnny Saturn, 80s and 90s wrestler turned current owner of WWW, to get where he is today. The Prince is his protege. He feels that Nick the Stick is undercutting him.
The Prince feels that Nick the Stick always has his back. El Presidente mentored him when he first started. NTC Kombat King is ripping off his style.
Our first match of the night was a tag team Gryla and Bright Twilight vs. The Dark Diva and NTC Draco. The Faces were booked to win. We started with Twilight thrown into the ring by Gryla (a nice idea on Rebecca’s part) vs. the Dark Diva. I wanted to start by giving Rebecca some spotlight, but I think she felt put on the spot. She fumbled a bit, but found the wrestling chart handy- “okay, I want to put her in a figure four.”
As creative, I felt like I didn’t want to call the match until everyone had a chance to fight. Rebecca kept on retaining control, and didn’t want to tag out. Eventually I said something OOC, and Gryla got a chance to fight.
Shari was the Announcer, and we used the suggested Announcer revision, where she can upgrade one roll and then hand the mic off. She added a lot of fun color to the game, and upgraded one of Rebeccas rolls. Over the session we had some confusion over what moves the announcer should and should not be able to upgrade- can they upgrade the Golden Boy’s Always Learning, for example?
As creative, this fight really felt like it dragged. I’ll talk more about that later.
Interviewers stuck mics in Twilight and Grylas faces afterwards, offering them Promo opportunities, but neither of them really took the bait. Twilight said she was going to go get dinner.
Next up we had a tagteam match of Nick the Stick and the Prince vs. El Presidente and Kombat King. I think Tim started with the mic here, and he was much less passionate about being the announcer than Shari. When it got handed off to Rebecca, I think she had some fun, but trouble with it.
Nick the Stick made an entrance, swinging his bat and blowing kisses to the ladies- I had him roll to Work the Audience. Then El Presidente and Kombat King made one hell of an entrance riding in El Presidente’s motorcycle, and driving around the ring a few times, and then El Presidente went for some Cheap Heat by condescendingly talking to the “little people” in the audience.
This match had some better back and forth, with the partners tagging out. Highlight was Nick the Stick being beaten with bats by El Presidente and Kombat King, the ref breaking it up, and then the two of them taking out the Prince for the win while the ref wasn’t looking.
After that, Nick the Stick gave an ultimatum to El Presidente “If you ever take my bat again, I’ll break you in half” (he thought about using his I am the Future move, but decided to Cut Promo instead.) Creative booked the two of them in a Bat Match. El Presidente had Nick’s old wodden baseball bat, and Nick had a shiny aluminum one. I had Nick the Stick booked to win, since he’s management’s favorite.
This match was probably the high point of the night for me- it had the most reversals, and came about through play.
Doc was the announcer for most of this match and was just great. One announcer would give great commentary, and then in another voice, he would say something like, “that’s right Bob, when you take a bat to the face, it hurts.”)
Nick started with control, but botched his Hardcore move, playing it way too safe and giving El Presidente control. El Presidente pressed his advantage, but stopped to admire the aluminum bat, turning his back to the Stick and dropping the trusty wooden bat just in his reach. He framed this as a Put Over move.
Nick got the bat and went in to take control of the match, doing a cute maneuver where he tapped El Presidente on the shoulder and then ‘hit’ him with the bat. This one, and most of the other bat-based moves were rolled with Looks. While El Presidente was down, he started throwing baseballs to the crowd, but botched the Work the Audience roll, and went down to zero audience! They weren’t buying it, they came to see wrestling!
The Presidente got Nick in another great hold, and then Creative called an audible- they were reversing the booking, and clearing El Presidente to go for the pin! El Presidente pinned Nick the Stick with a literal heel to the face- but as his finisher choice he had Nick the Stick gain the point of audience.
We had an off camera scene where Johnny Saturn chewed out Nick the Stick. It turns out that despite being a Kayfabe Face, he’s more of a legit heel.
Around this time, Shari decided to retcon Nick the Stick as Nicole the Stick, another female wrestler, since she was having some cognitive dissonance.
Last, we had the big event, a Last Man Standing event, featuring all the Talent and the Rock Lobster. Nikki the Stick started in the ring against Rock Lobster, and her luck turned around- she had a rapid string of 10+s, which she used to bounce Rock Lobster around the ring (good thing he has that padded suit!), and determine who was entering the ring next, building up her heat.
When Gryla entered the ring, he threw his Lucky Boulder at Nikki the Stick, and got a 7-9 on the hardcore move. Nikki was legit injured! She still managed to get a finishing opportunity and pin the Rock Lobster with Gryla’s boulder. Shari said she wasn’t actually strong enough to lift the boulder, so Rock Lobster actually had to lift it to pin himself, and didn’t sell it. (I think this was the result of Doc getting a 7-9 and opening up an opportunity for someone else to get a pin.) Nikki then also pinned the Prince.
By this point, the Ref had noticed that Nikki was legit injured, and got in the ring and made the X sign. Nikki wanted to lose to Bright Twilight, and I was going to give her a chance (though I wasn’t sure what to make her roll if she did)- but she said “No, I have to stand up for what I believe in, and that means leaving the ring.” She hadn’t even read the Face move, so I pointed her to that, and she spent her last momentum to get some Heat with Twilight.
It was now down to Gryla, El Presidente, and Bright Twilight. I gave Twilight control of the match. She went for a trip against Gryla, and got a 10+.
I told her- Gryla’s booked to win. Do you still want to go for the finisher and mess with the booking?
She said screw it, I Do Whatever It Takes to Win. She used 2 momentum and the Heel move to take out both Gryla AND El Preisdente in one tumble. (I ruled on the spot it was 1 momentum/opponent to take them out) Rebecca had some trouble figuring out a sufficiently underhanded tactic- I told her overriding my booking wasn’t underhanded enough, she had to describe her dirty fighting. She ended up deciding on doing a reversal on Gryla when he thought he was going in for his finisher on her.
During all of this, the Mic was just sitting there. I wanted to add additional announcer narration. Is it okay for me to do that? I know I can’t put people over, but I feel maybe the narration privilege should pass to Creative.
She rolled to Break Kayfabe, and botch. Johnny Saturn is going to be PISSED, but I haven’t decided yet what the exact fallout is going to be.
A question that came up is when exactly you get +1 Audience for facing a wrestler you have 4 heat with. I ruled it all happened simultaneously at the end of the match, and it was just 1, no matter how many wrestlers you had 4 heat with. But maybe it should have been immediately when you face off against them, and it can happen any number of times in a big match?
Order of operations matters, especially when people are at 3 and 4 audience.
Everyone seemed to have a really good time, and there were some really good high points. I felt like most of the wrestling was repetitive though, and that control of the match should shift more often. The few times I had control with an NTC, I felt like I played it pretty weak. (Draco is doing a surpise kick against you, what do you do?) Next time I’ll spell out the action, include a reversal, and give back control.
I have lots of great ideas for ongoing storylines and beefs, so I think the next session is going to be a lot stronger!
Doc had this to say:
“
Hey +Nathan Paoletta ! We played World Wide Wrestling tonight and I have some thoughts about things that I feel are missing or overlooked. Perhaps deliberately? I want to share my thoughts with you and I’m curious what your reaction/comments/thoughts are too.
I watched wrestling when I was very young and haven’t followed it since 1988 or 1989 probably, I don’t know if this has changed but back then there was an idea that certain moves were “illegal” and if a wrestler knocked their opponent out of the ring then anything was possible because the ref had no say on anything happening outside the ring. “Getting back into the ring” was definitely a thing if a wrestler got overwhelmed. Your game doesn’t seem to have this as an option, and I felt the Run-In move could probably be used “legally” if “getting knocked out of the ring” were a thing. From the wrestling I’ve watched as an adult, it seems like the stuff that was once only allowed outside of the ring happens with some degree of regularity inside of the ring. For example, hitting another guy with a chair only ever happened outside of the ring. Doing that in the ring was an immediate disqualification.
Basically, I remember the Ref having a lot more control over what went on in the ring, and distracting the Ref during a tag team, or having a distracted Ref when two wrestlers were “illegally” pounding on one guy was also definitely a thing.
The other thing I felt was missing was: backstage ambushes. This happened rarely when I was a kid, but I’ve seen enough of modern wrestling to know it happens more frequently now. Being able to ambush a promo seems like it should be a thing, especially if you have Heat+4 with somebody.
Resetting or lowering Heat seems a bit weird too, because I interacted with everybody during our first session, and I can’t see myself not interacting with somebody in future sessions. Perhaps Heat could lower when somebody turns, or if you have a Reconciliation Scene (instead of a Promo)?”
We’re next playing in 2 weeks. I’m wondering if the Origins tweaked playbooks are going to be available. Also injury guidelines, since the Golden Boy has that injury.
That was an awesome report!! It sounds like fun
Sounds rad. Love the Bat match!
To your basic questions:
– yes, if there’s nobody else available, Creative should totally take the Announcer mic (though they can’t put people over)
– the Announcer can put over any Move made in the ring (so, like for the I Am The Future Move – “OF COURSE he’s gonna keep his word, he’s the future of this company! He delivers on what he says!” or whatever is contextually appropriate)
– Audience: yes, at the end of the match (after the finish..finishes). And somehow this has never come up for me, but it should probably be you just gain +1 for however many opponents you have +4 with. And if two (or more) wrestlers would both (all) go to +4 at the end of the match, then they share the top spot until someone bumps them ALL out.
There is a structural problem with the game where the narration of the actual wrestling is entertaining in direct proportion to how much the players know about wrestling. There’s two ways I deal with this at my table:
– keep matches pretty short
– encourage the more-wrestling-knowledgeable players to add details or ask questions to “fill out” the narration of the less-wrestling-knowlegeable players (like, explaining what moves look like, asking specific leading questions like “do you whip him into the corner before the kick, or do you run and bounce off the ropes to build momentum?”)
Also, encouraging people to use their Gimmick Moves in matches tend to vary them up.
I dunno if there’s much more to do. The moves themselves used to be much more granular in terms of telling you what different kinds of wrestling moves did, but it was a lot of moving parts with a lot of cognitive overhead that all led to the same basic mechanical outputs, which is why the in-ring moves have been abstracted to where they are now.
Oh! There is one thing that I think gets skipped over, which is that a player can interrupt and take control of the match by making a Move. So if one player is just rolling hot and doesn’t feel like turning it over voluntarily, another can straight up say “I’m interrupting, I go to the top rope and launch a crossbody drop at you” and make the roll.
When you play NTCs, definitely highlight why they’re cool, narrate through the result of the move, and then turn it over with a question. So:
“the big monster Perdition looms over you and takes your body blows without giving an inch. He raises his arms to a cheer from the crowd, kicks you in the gut to bend you over, then grabs you in the start to his signature high-altitude spinebuster. He flips you up then slams your back into the mat to another cheer…do you reverse it into something from there, or take a minute to gather yourself while he mocks you?”
Hope some of that helps! Happy to talk about this more, but I got some breakfast to attend too…
Thanks again for playing!
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