Hi everyone!
I’ve been trying to explain the whole notion of PBTA to a friend of mine and he finally said I guess I’ll just have to play a game to understand. Rather than put him into a game with a setting he’s not hot on, I figured I’d play to his love of wrestling and hit him with WWW. There’s only two problems: I’m terrified to run a game, and I have no working knowledge of wrestling or how to start telling a story about it.
Does anyone know a good primer on wrestling, what the word kayfabe means, or advice for a first timer?
Watch some wrestling on YouTube. Ham it up.
NXT is pretty good, lasts an hour, has fun and memorable characters, and tells a decent story. See if you can’t find an episode or two to get the feel.
Sign up to wwe network for the free month and watch a selection of wrestling from different eras and see which gives the style of game you would most like to represent: 70’s, 80’s, attitude era, wcw vs WWF, pg modern era etc, ecw hardcore. High flyers, strong giants, technical wrestlers, brawlers, hardcore violence, realistic or over the top characters, Mexican lucha etc. Indi, territory’s or global brand companies. Each choice will give you a different product to represent in your game. Hope that helps 🙂 oh and in very simple terms kayfabe is where in the past wrestlers had to play their characters at all time to convince the audience its all true and real. Internet has largely changed if not killed this for most fans. 🙂
Kayfabe is the pretend reality of the characters and their relationships on the show.
When a wrestler decides to really injure another wrestler on purpose, when a wrestler suddenly drops their fake accent and mean attitude in order to shout out their buddy because we’re in their hometown, or when a wrestler is caught up in the moment and gives a tearful hug to their bitter rival at the conclusion of their championship-changing match, that’s breaking kayfabe.
It may also be worth mentioning that the WWWRPG book itself has some great essays and other introductory materials about professional wrestling. As a bonus, a lot of it is geared toward how to use it in the game!
Big thanks guys! I think I’ve got a bit more confidence about this.
After looking some stuff up and mentioning my lack of knowledge of wrestling to my friend (I have a history of jumping without looking) he also mentioned NXT as the thing to watch for modern wrestling (so thanks for that suggestion Caitlynn Belle!) I’m going to watch some of that, and then lean on what the book has in it to get me the rest of the way!
Kayfabe is old carnival slang for “fake” or “be fake”. It refers to the illusion of wonder they sell while they themselves know how entirely fixed, rigged, crooked, etc everything they do is. It’s essentially a dramatic version of the 4th wall.
Don’t be afraid to ask your friend to help you out during play, too. You can play a perfectly rad game with everyone colluding about the results of the matches and working together to decide on what things like stipulations should look like. You could even frame his character as being one of the head bookers backstage or something like that, if that helps smooth everything out.
Thanks Nathan Paoletta. To be honest I consider myself a pretty creative person and a good improvisor, but I always put such massive expectations on myself that GMing a game has managed to become something of a social phobia for me.
With that in mind your advice is super welcome and very helpful. I always forget that everyone is there to have a good time and sometimes that might mean doing some lifting while the GM works something out.
I can do this!