A small, but significant change to the Run-In Move based on discussion here and reflection on some actual play:
Run-In: When you interrupt a match in-progress, roll +Heat with the character you’re coming after (establish Heat at +1 if necessary).
– On a 10+: you gain +1 Heat with each other and you pick one from the 7-9 list
– On a 7-9: gain 1 Momentum and your target picks one: they win the match by DQ; Creative books the two of you in a match later in this Episode; their opponent comes after you for interfering in the match.
So, more adaptable to different situations, doesn’t require as much explanation for non-wrestling folk, meaningfully differentiates between the 10+ and 7-9 result, and escalates the situation a little more sharply, I think.
I like this revision better. It seems to simplify things.
I actually have a question, though, about “Their opponent comes after you for interfering in the match.” I think that’s one of several places where a move lets you dictate another character’s actions. AW and Monsterhearts are the two other apocalypse engine games I’m used to, and both take pains to make sure a move never lets you dictate the actions of another PC, but only of NPCs. Is that not a concern in WWW?
Maybe turn it into an option with a carrot, then? “Their opponent can come after you. If they do, they gain 1 momentum” or something like that?
But yeah, it’s definitely cleaner and broader than the previous one.
I like that it is not an auto DQ anymore, because that never seemed quite right for the genre. Also, the multiple moves in 7-9 is great, though I agree forcing a move feels off. What if the opponent got some kind of bonus if they chose to go after the interloper? Like a +1 real or something so that the potential for injury was higher?
Forcing a move doesn’t really bother me in this game (and it’s not very frequent anyway). Wrestling is so strongly pattern-of-behavior based that “i interfere, other person comes after me” is kind of an expected package. And a lot of the time the subject of the “forced” move is a NPW, so then I have to have language about “if the other wrestler is a NPW do this, if they’re a player’s wrestler do this” and it gets even harder to parse in play.
To see carrot/stick structured stuff, look at the Injury rules, tho.
Also, there’s a second order effect – if you get “forced” but you don’t want to do that thing, you can Break Kayfabe to not do it.
I should call that out as a thing.