I received a really interesting (and nice) email asking about running WWWRPG as a larp.
Past my standard joke (“well, then you’re just actually wrestling”), it’s something worth thinking about, especially for wrestling matches!
My first thought is to minimize resolution and lean heavily on the elements that already resemble structured freeform larp, like the heel/face dynamic and Creative booking all results. That’s 90% of the game right there.
When players want to either prevail over a foe (win a promo battle, swerve the booking in a match, etc), what if there’s a small hand of cards everyone starts with. Everyone still has stats, too. Stats correspond to suits, and you add your stat to the same-suited card, high card wins, something like that. So in play you play, play, play, compare two cards, Creative frames the fallout, play, play and so on.
I dunno. Larp isn’t my strong suit! How would you do it?
Lemme think on this.
Tagging Mark Diaz Truman, because we were discussing PbtA games and LARP versions at a con not too long ago…
Now that I have read this post I will never be able to see professional wrestling and not think of it as a very intense LARP session. Thank you?
Tagging Thomas B. . In his blog he wrote (in french) about Lord of the Rings, a french LARP with a strong wrestling theme (and real physical performances in it).
http://www.thomasbe.com/2014/12/26/5-gn-dans-5-pays-rtrospective-2014/
(Another french article about the same LARP http://www.electro-gn.com/8331-critique-de-gn-lords-of-the-ring).
.
So, initial thoughts with the understanding that I kind of make my home in American Freeform, which places a pretty clear bias on my ideas.
Firstly, it seems to me that the heart and soul of what you would want for this game is to play with the on-camera/off-camera dynamic and the blurred lines between kayfabe and reality. The first reference that comes to my mind is a game called The Upgrade, which is about a horrible reality show wherein the characters are couples placed in a situation where they consider trading partners, while the gamemasters are “Producers”. As I recall, the game has a set up with a “main stage”, an area for scenes that happen elsewhere, and a confessional area. This would map pretty well to the locations you would need for a WWW game (the ring, backstage area, promo area, and assorted special locations). Another game that touches on this a bit is Lizzie Stark’s In Residency, which has the advantage of tying locations to specific parts of play, though it might be too disconnected for your purposes.
The next thing to consider is combat. If we accept that to some degree the end of a match is fixed, with the possibility of someone playing hob with that result, then I think what you need is a mechanic for negotiation rather than fighting simulation. In this I would look at Kat Jones’ All Hail The Pirate Queen, which basically equips pirates with an offense and a defense. The first time you lose a combat you can make a deal to get out of being eliminated, and if you are eliminated you get to place a curse and are not ejected from the game. This second one feels very important to me for this game, as there is a real risk of watching things unfold with no agency in this game.
If the idea of negotiation as combat is to esoteric or unsatisfying for your audience, another option would be slow mo fighting that is dictated by the announcer, rather than the wrestler. Perhaps the characters have tools to affect this narration, but the idea here is to make it clear that the fight is the biggest illusion of all. A painful, dangerous illusion, but still.
One other aspect that I think is important is the characters. You could refer to characters by playbook names, much as J. Tuomas Harviainen refers to animals in The Tribunal. One option I have been considering though is the application of simple Playbooks as larp characters, largely because I enjoy letting players have a lot of say in who they portray. John Stavropoulos did something like this in his Monsterhearts adaptation, but I would aim for even less information so that the wrestlers stay in the broad strokes that make them work so well.
So… yeah.
Oh, two other combat sims I can think of- First is Sea Dracula, which resolves law room drama through dance off, and another game River Williamson just told me about wherein Werewolves fought through Voguing. Probably not ideal here, but the mechanic could probably be adapted into another media.
Get out the action figures!
Sagefighting. 🙂
so….locking people in actual Crakshooters would be….bad?
Lizzie tells me the Werewolf game might be “Dancing With the Clans (available in English on Alexandria.dk) valuable. It’s a classic werewolf larp except the clans battle for dominance of parts of the building, dance moves, and songs.”
Joe Zantek For whom? I always wear my wrist tape with a razor hidden in there in case I need to juice at a moment’s notice.
I’d act out the promos, interviews, tense in-ring moments, and then just go out-of-character to narrate the matches, honestly, with Creative grabbing calling for “backstage” time whenever they want to give feedback, input, booking results, and suggestions for future scenes.
But then you’re not even using the WWWRPG system!
So….wait…can I still lock Tim Rodriguez into figure fours, and sharpshooters?
I mean, I did before, so rules won’t stop me, but will it be frowned upon?
[in all seriousness, super interested in this.]
Steve Jakoubovitch: This larp had a lot of amazing things, from a 5-hour wrestling class to cool brainfuck on the Player vs. Character vs. Gimmick point of view, but I’m afraid some of its content is Not Safe For Discussing In English On The Internet, so I’ll pass 🙂