Last few sessions on World Wide Wrestling…
So, we had a session that was just me, Shari (Nikki), Tim (Gryla), Brendan (El Presidente) and Rebecca (Dark Twilight). Doc (The Prince) couldn’t make it, and Amelia (Sharknado) and James (Scorpio) are expected to be absent more likely than not.
Since we had a smaller group, one of the things that got brought up was having some behind the mask, off camera, scenes that involve the wrestler as person instead of persona. Tim was really excited about exploring this and felt the game needed more of it.
We had:
A scene where El Presidente’s doctor tells him he needs to retire, and stop wrestling.
A scene where Nikki is bandaging herself up after her injuries, and Dark Diva is totally nice and caring and supportive and then Draco gives her a bag full of Oxycotin.
A scene where Gryla meets with his little sister from Iceland, who wants him to come home. But since he won’t, she decides to join the show as Ice Princess.
The longest such scene was Bright Twilight clubbing with some of her fans and getting completely in over her head. I cobbled together basically an act under fire move for this situation, since there really wasn’t any mechanical support. A too-drunk wrestling fan noticed her and really wanted to fight her. On a 7-9 on her roll to deal with it I offered her the choice to kick his ass and throw him through a glass table, or have Johnny Saturn show up and intervene; she chose the intervention.
With Doc missing, we didn’t want to do the Deportation Match, so we had a couple of matches against NTC: El Presidente against mountain man Grizzly Bob, where Bob got wrapped up in a Mexican flag and then got the tar beat out of him.
Bright Twilight got “educated” by the Professor on his School of Hard Knocks segment, but she beat the Professor with his own Board of Education to turn the tables. (The Professor is totally Terry Crews in a tear away grey tweed suit, wearing spectacles and smoking a pipe as he enters the ring.)
Nikki had a match against Rock Lobster, she cut promo to add the stipulation that it was fought in two feet of warm “butter.” Nuff said.
Gryla got to joyously beat down Eric Thorrson.
A couple of opportunities were made for promos and vignettes. Twilight/Annabelle had a “locker room” scene where Annabelle said she had a lot of respect for Twilight, but wasn’t going to go easy on her.
I have in my notes that there was an Unholy Alliance vs. 3 Faces match. I don’t remember if that happened, or was swerved, or what.
(Also had on my notes that Nikki was going to get booked in a match against Twilight to strip her of #1 contender status, but that didn’t happen. Maybe Nikki botched her finisher in the 3v3 match, leading to an Unholy Alliance victory and Johnny Saturn having more faith in Bright Twilight? Geez, this was like a month ago.)
The championship match was Bright Twilight vs. Miami Annabelle. I had Annabelle booked to win, but told Rebecca it was her choice if she wanted to use her heel move. It’s the Freestyle Championship, so anything goes.
El Presidente was announcing in character, explaining how horrible both wrestlers were and that he would do it better. Eventually, he couldn’t take it any more! He needed to get down there and show them how it was done. El Presidente did a Run In against Bright Twilight (allowing her to win, but by DQ, letting Annabelle keep her belt, right?) But then, he activated his heel move, and picked up the Belt- citing an obscure league rule that in a freestyle match, any belt placed on the ground is in play. (I ruled he could totally steal the title, but I wasn’t giving him an advance for it.)
Okay, so last session. We still had the same four players as last time. I had decided that I was going to run the Prince as an NTC to let Brendan have his deportation match, since his storyline was completely wrapped up in it. (Which Doc was totally cool with.)
We open with Johnny Saturn in a helicopter by the US-Mexico border, where there is a ring being set up- half on the US side, half on the Mexico side. LIVE FROM THE US-MEXICO BORDER, IT’S WORLD WIDE WRESTLING!
We had a promo from El Presidente, then we had an announcement from Johnny Saturn that since El Presidente was freestyle champion, the deportation match would also be a freestyle championship match.
Nikki attended the Professor’s School of Hard Knocks, where he gave her a couple of hard lessons. But she used her magic Hat to make the Board of Education disappear.
Gryla had a match against Miami Annabelle. While he was coming up to the ring, Bright Twilight covered his boulder in glitter paint. (Due to her injury, she can interfere in his matches. That’s all she wanted to do, mess with his boulder.) Gryla pinned her, and then picked up his boulder like he was going to smash her with it… then went to wipe it off on the mat.
Bright Twilight had a match where she got to beat up on the Rock Lobster, and practice different moves.
Then, the Deportation Match! The rules of the deportation match is that the loser must be thrown over the top rope of the Mexican side. On the American side of the ring, American wrestling rules were in play, but on the Mexican side, Mexican wrestling rules took precedence. (There were two refs, one in a Luchadore Mask so you knew he was Mexican.)
El Presidente started by using Don’t Disrespect Me, airing some of his legit grievances against the Prince. Then the got in the match and began wrestling.
Nikki the Tricky did a Run In against El Presidente! I ruled that it was effectively a no-DQ match, so it didn’t effect the outcome, but it was now instead a 2v1 tag match. I think this was a cool call on Shari’s part, because it added more player input to the key match of the evening. We decided most of the Run In 7-9 options didn’t make sense, so El Presidente started by beating her up, and then the two of them were in the ring. The Professor’s Board of Education feel out of her hat, and El Presidente used it against her.
Somewhere in there, Nikki knocked the Championship Belt off of El Presidente into Mexican Territory, and Bright Twilight did a run in of her own to steal the belt (I let her just spend momentum to trigger her heel move, just like I let Brendan do the previous session.)
The Prince got tagged in, and he and El Presidente fought some more… and El Presidente was given the OK to finish the match! (Brendan was legit surprised). El Presidente drew a knife… which he used to cut the ropes on the Mexican side and push the Prince out.
Johnny Saturn comes up and says that El Presidente has gone too far this time… and he’s coming out of retirement to teach him a lesson. If Johnny wins this match, El Presidente retires from wrestling for good. El Presidente says that if he wins, Johnny has to give him control of the company.
Johnny also wants to put an end to these Freestyle Title shenanigans, so he calls an Emergency Regal Wrangle Freestyle Championship Match (cue graphic). It includes all our PCs plus the 8 NTCs on the roster, for a full dozen.
The match starts with a women v. men alliance, led mostly by Nikki and Bright Twilight, but working with Dark Diva and Miami Annabelle to eliminate all the male wrestlers one by one. Rock Lobster gets used as a weapon, both by El Presidente and Gryla. Gryla’s boulder is loaded with a firecracker by Bright Twilight and blown up, knocking Thorrson out of the ring. El Presidente crouches into a boulder so Gryla can bash people with him, and then Gryla throws El Presidente out of the ring.
After a while, we’re down to only two competitors…. Bright Twilight and Miami Annabelle, our original Freestyle champion competitors (which I think was pretty much masterminded by Shari). They wrestle have a good back and forth… and Bright Twilight is cleared to win!
“But… Annabelle’s supposed to have the title.”
“Are you saying No to Johnny Saturn?”
“Er, no.” Twilight goes for the pin and earns her title! (At this point I let her gain the advance for getting a title legit.)
At the end of this match, everyone had 4 Audience. This by the way, were Bright Twilight’s first and second advances, since she had previously never hit 4 audience. Everytime she got to 3, someone else would be at 4 at the start of a session. She didn’t want to say anything, but I could tell that she was getting pretty frustrated.
Finally, we had the Retirement Match! This was a straight up Johnny Saturn vs. El Presidente match. Johnny used a bunch of his old classic moves (Saturn Kick for a Meteor Kick, etc.) at the end, Johhny Saturn got his victory against El Presidente (resolving the feud, and setting El Presidente up to transfer to a Manager, if Brendan plays again.)
Wow.
To expand on my comment – I feel like y’all have really built a cool wrestling universe, it sounds super fun. I would watch that show!
I’m holding strong to my “no off-camera Moves”, I think. I want that to be the (if you will) fruitful void of the game. I am going to have some advice about how to treat it, including a pointer to building custom Moves for it, for sure. I’m glad to hear you’re exploring it in your own way and it’s a productive part of the game!
Outstanding game play report!