This might be me doing the newb thing where I don’t understand a rule so I create a rule that’s actually more complicated, but I don’t know. Anyway, here’s the story:
Last week I played a first session episode with four players. All four of them were totally new to pro wrestling. I haven’t watched since the WWE Attitude Era, but I have a lot of friends “in the know” so I kinda-sorta know my stuff. However, I did not know my stuff well enough to shephard four newbies through a quality sports entertainment event. We had a lot of fun, but there was some awkward moments.
To address those moments, next session I’d like to make stronger use of NPWs to help give a sense of what a wrestling promotion is like. That means more matches with NPWs, and storylines involving the NPWs. But since NPWs aren’t rolling dice, I feel like the matches might be a little one-sided or boring. So I thought of this custom move to help matches with NPWs be a little more dynamic:
Taking a Bump
When your opponent hits you with a move and you want to sell the hell out of it, roll +Real.
-On a hit, it’s a sick bump and the crowd pops. Choose +1 Heat with your opponent, or gain +1 Momentum and take control of the match.
-On a partial, you sell the move but it ain’t highlight material. Choose: +1 Momentum, or take control of the match.
My question is, would this move work in its purpose of creating more dynamic matches when players are facing off against NPW’s? Or do I just need some technical help in how to run good matches?
Also, if this move does seem cool, I’m thinking of a couple of extra custom moves that can play off of it, like a Jobber move that gives him +1 ongoing on this move, or a Veteran move that lets him use +Look instead of +Real.
What do ya’ll think?
I like it, though it gives folks with good real an advantage when an NPW is in control.
I found myself framing NPWs in control as narrating a sequence and then asking “Okay, how do you regain control?” I even had one player who was never in control of the match finally gain it and it was like “okay, you’re booked to win, make it look good!”
One of my players also suggested that a pinfall attempt is also a good point to reset control and pivot the match.
Thanks for the input. I did think of that, how it makes Real a valuable stat, but I had a simple way around that: allow this move to be used in multiplayer matches, too! It can be another option…instead of always using the Wrestling move, the person in control could instead opt for the person not in control to make the Bump move during a spot. What do you think of that?
Off the top of my head, I’d restrict this to only being able to do this move once per match, because otherwise it’ll get used over and over and get abused, making Real too powerful.
Isn’t that the case with any move though, Isaac Sher? A Power wrestler always wants to do Power moves, a Technical wrestler always wants to use Work? As Creative, spamming a move is pretty boring, and I’m typically going to side with the wrestler changing it up and trying to put on a show over the wrestler who’s playing it safe and trying to efficiently number-crunch.
Still, though, if I were afraid of such a possibility, maybe I’d throw a nice, crushing botch result into the mix, something like “On a botch, you get legit hurt. Mark an injury.” That might be scary enough to make a player think twice about spamming the Bump move.
Consider this: why wouldn’t you just use the Wrestling move?
Being in control of the narration and looking like you are winning are not the same thing. And since NPWs never roll, they always eventually turn the match back over to the player.
If your High Flyer is up against Monstro the Enormous, and you want to use the Wrestljng move to narrate selling the hell out of him tossing you around the ring like a rag doll, you can totally do that. (Or maybe you’re Working the Audience for sympathy after that devastating hit. Or using a Gimmick move like the Veteran’s Put Over or the Hardcore’s “That is Insane!”)
I’m certain there are other options, as my disclaimer at the beginning of this post points out. Those are actually pretty good suggestions, Jeff Johnston.
My only problem with this is that, again, it comes back to having to explain to the players something that, on the outside, looks counter-intuitive. “Okay, so Monstro is throwing me around…but I’M making the Wrestling move?” And then I have to explain why. I was thinking of the Bump move as a way to keep the game player-facing but also give the players a chance to make NPWs look as awesome as they do. Some might say that’s not a good idea, but, again, in a game of new players, they may need a good example of how to put over the other guy. That’s a hard pill to swallow when the NPW’s moves are inconsequential and all the player is doing, fundamentally, is waiting for control to come back to him or her.
I had this same feeling when running my first episode for my wrestling friends that weren’t gamers. For the first episode I let them beat each other up to learn the game. Episode 2, I have booked mostly player vs NPW matches. One thing I want to emphasize with these is that having narrative control does not necessarily need to be “offense”.
I do like this as custom move and maybe with ‘when an NPW hits a move’, but as a basic move it seems like too much. The player already has the option to spend momentum to interrupt and take control.
Yeah, it’s a little counterintuitive, but I think it’s an important piece to understand.
Ideally they’re not saying “I use X move” anyway. It should be going more like this:
GM: Ok, El Monstro grabs ahold of you and starts throwing you around the ring, using every bit of strength in his seven-foot frame to bounce you off of ropes and the mat. He heaves you up over his head and takes you to the side of the ring, aiming for the announcer’s table. He looks up at you and mouths the question: “Ready?” What do you do? (Here he’s turning control back over to the player.)
Player: oh man, I hope they rigged that table right. I’m crashing through it and selling it hard, writhing on the ground in agony.
GM: OK, make the Wrestling move to see how well you sell it.
I think if you explain it like that, it’ll be pretty clear to people.
One thing to keep in mind…there is currently no way to use Real with the wrestling move, outside of hardcore stuff. So this could give wrestlers with a high Real rating a good option when they find themselves in a non-hardcore match.
Going back to the theory of things, I agree, Jeff Johnston, that maybe it’s not that hard to set up the current moves as “defensive” for the sake of selling a move rather than doing one. To me, though, it still seems like having a separate move for selling damage is slightly more straight-forward than using a move both offensively and defensively. I think I’d have to house rule, though, that you can only make one move per “spot,” so wrestlers aren’t constantly doing the Bump move after every hit!
Why should there be a way to use Real as a wrestling move? In Jeff Johnston ‘s example above, I would let the Player make a Hardcore/Violence move if they wanted to make it legit exceptionally dangerous. Mankind/Undertaker Hell in a Cell had two of these spots. One was a success, the other a botch.
Yeah, +Real is pretty explicitly the “Roll to do non-kayfabe stuff” stat. Look at the other moves that use it! It doesn’t really make sense to use it to take a fake hit.
As for issues using the same move “offensively and defensively”, again I think that’s actually an important thing that the system is trying to help you understand. WWW isn’t a combat system. You’re not fighting, at the system level it’s not about being offensive or defensive. You’re performing. All the results are about how well your performance goes. Once you make that jump it makes perfect sense.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the players wrestlers are the real stars of the show, right? You challenge them with NPWs, and establish them as obstacles to overcome, but in the end the player rolls because the outcome of the match hinges on how well they can work with the opponent.
In my play matches with NPWs tend to be quite short in terms of narration, btw. They’re more about progressing a storyline, so we’re usually more interested in the result that the process.
That said, the best way to find out if it helps is try it out! I would suggest using it as a modified Interrupt/Wrestling Move, so they spend one Momentum to make it happen.
I like this as a custom interrupt move. When you spend a momentum to interrupt instead of taking control you may instead roll +Real. The results you have are good.
Hope some of this is helpful, Ed Gibbs ! Just looking back over the thread and I can see how we’ve done some well-intentioned dogpiling. For the record, I think there’s nothing wrong with bulking up the NPW-player ringwork with a custom move if it makes play feel more fun, and if your group isn’t immersed in wrasslin’ it certainly is atypical of how most games work.
Thanks, Nathan Paoletta! In looking back at this thread I also realize I wasn’t sufficiently explaining what problem I’m trying to solve: that I was playing with players who not only are completely new to pro wrestling, but fairly new to roleplaying, in general, and I was looking for advice/ideas on how to help ease them into things. My own idea was to handhold them a bit through the use of NPW’s until they have a firm understanding of everything, then cut them loose to pursue storylines as they saw fit. To that end, I was thinking about a move that would work well with NPW’s that could break what I’m afraid would be a monotonous tempo, with players routinely facing NPW’s and essentially controlling the match alone while the NPW is basically in “bot mode.” In other words, I wanted a way to make NPW’s more vibrant without taking the spotlight off the players.
But I realize now that I’m kind of putting the cart before the horse here, and what I really need to do is get more time in with the game and the players, and most of this stuff will probably just fall into place on its own. But thank you (and everyone else) for the advice!
Another trick to avoid monotony (which is certainly a danger I feel keenly if I have more than 2 NPW matches in an Episode) may be to cast other players as the NPW ad hoc, so you get the benefits of other people’s input and it’s not just “you + player 1” then “you + player 2”.
But yeah, I think you got the right idea. I believe in you!