So today I tried my hand at running a Royal Rumble using the Regal Wrangle rules and no one seemed to enjoy it. Thanks to some really good rolls by everyone to keep Momentum flowing (no one botched ever and there were very few rolls under 12), the match came to a stalemate as anytime someone would roll to eliminate someone else, they had the Momentum to spend to Interrupt and take control to gather more Momentum. We’re going for a shoot ending and I want to keep it that way for the suspense. I’m wondering, how does one deal with players that have enough Momentum to stay in the ring?
So today I tried my hand at running a Royal Rumble using the Regal Wrangle rules and no one seemed to enjoy it.
So today I tried my hand at running a Royal Rumble using the Regal Wrangle rules and no one seemed to enjoy it.
Keep rolling dice, work real stiff, introduce a momentum cap. But the biggest may be don’t go for a shoot ending.
Jeff Johnston’s Backstage Workship post just a little ways down the page details a method he used to address exactly this issue. It was implemented in an Elimination Chamber-style match, but was inspired by seeing exactly what you saw happen in a Royal Rumble-style match.
He explains it better than I can, but the basic idea is to establish thematic conditions that will cut each player off from spending momentum to avoid elimination when the match reaches a point where their elimination would be appropriate to the storyline. Like, to pull a real-world wrestling example off the top of my head, Kevin Owens became vulnerable to elimination in this year’s Rumble when Sami Zayn entered, because Zayn putting him out furthered their feud.
Scripting vulnerabilities like that would help structure your Rumble to ensure that it advances storylines, rather than just being a big brawl.
I want to keep it a shoot ending for the unpredictability, but it may be a lost cause. I’ll have to check out what Jeff does. Only ideas I had were to limit the Momentum used to deny getting eliminated by the character’s Audience.
That’s fair. Each character could have an off camera agenda for the match so that there are multiple ways “to win”. You could promise Monster Blane a title shot if he makes High Flyer Mariposa look good by letting her eliminate him. Whether and/or how Blane does that should be the venue for unpredictability, not whether Blane’s player is luckier with the dice than Mariposa’s character. The dice are rolled to enhance the story not determine the outcome; how something happens, not whether or not it happens.
I say this not to be harsh, but because I also come from a DnD background where the dice and decisions were very much about “winning”. It’s a bit of a paradigm shift.
One option could be to require them to spend all of their momentum.
I’ll have to try that next time. Sadly, it seems unanimous that no one wants to finish the rumble, so I’m just going to have to figure out the winner. Thanks everyone for the ideas.
I like it Joe Zantek
It came from a similar experience with 8 players doing the same
Great thread – sorry that the basic Move didn’t work for your group, Edward Ortiz . That happens sometimes! Hopefully you can salvage some of the storyline elements going forward.
I suspect that I’ve generally run it with folks who are ok “letting go” of their winning opportunity and not dragging it out to the last Momentum, but that’s a play group thing, not a mechanics thing. Joe Zantek’s version makes a lot of sense. Also, for the record, here’s a mechanic from the new Death Match stipulation that could be used:
– The first time you would be eliminated, spend 1 Momentum to avoid it. The next time you would be eliminated, it costs 2, and so on.
Adds a little book-keeping, but helps both drain large Momentum reserves and create a bit of the escalation/teasing of early elimination attempts that get more serious as the match goes on.
I like that actually. I think I dig it a bit more than my Audience limit idea.