New to the game and prepping my first session here (4 players + me, all RPG and wrestling fans). I have some questions, mostly regarding NPWs, which is something I can’t seem to wrap my head around.
1: If NPWs don’t make rolls, do they ever botch or are they “perfect” wrestlers? I know Creative ultimately has control but it seems weird to intentionally railroad your own plans.
2: How realistic is it to make up character sheets for each NPW and have them played (by a player who isn’t in the ring, much like the Announcer) as Talent (tracking stats, momentum, etc) for Talent vs. NPW matches? To me this seems like it would make the show feel more “alive” and allow NPWs to develop in terms of who the champ is, or who has heat with who, etc, which gives Talent more options for interaction with the larger world.
3: How does Heat work with NPWs if it’s not tracked? For example if a player is feuding with an NPW, are they at a disadvantage compared to PvP feuds that can hit the “+4 Heat with each other gains 1 Audience” mark at the end of a match?
So when I ran the game I added a couple moves to the NPWs in the vein of Dungeon World. Some high tier NPWs even had momentum they burned off in matches to do a couple things( attempt a injury, try to win the match, etc) because my players and myself were interested more in running the game closer to a Lucha Underground where the kayfabe wrestling world was the real one.
I think making up sheets for the NPWs and letting players not in a scene play them is a fantastic idea. I’d have to refer to the book to see if it says anything about tracking heat.
Cody FromSideThree Thanks! I’m not familiar with Dungeon World but if you could possibly share the NPW Moves you created I’d appreciate it…I’m always hesitant to create my own content in fear of breaking the game.
I guess what I don’t understand is why NPWs don’t make rolls in matches. Is it a streamlining thing, or is there some reason I haven’t clued in to because I’ve haven’t actually played the game yet?
Tracking NPW Heat seems like it’s borderline necessary, unless I exclusively run PvP feuds, which seems incredibly boring and repetitive to me.
NPWs not making rolls makes some sense because in pretty much all PbtA games NPCs don’t roll against players. You narrate your control portion of a match as the NPW and eventually hand it off to the player. The game isn’t as interested in NPW vs PW dynamic as it is in what the players vs players and players working with players do.
Have you run powered by the apocalypse games before? The NPWs exist for you to make good storyline challenges with. In other games that you might run, you have to roll to make to make NPCs do what you want them to do. In this game, you act according to what the players do and don’t do. If they brush people off, those interrupt them, in front of the camera or not. It’s useful to know if two NPW’s like or hate each other, but you don’t need a scale… Because what’s the difference between +2 and +3 heat mean for people who never have to roll?
I don’t know if I even have the paperwork I wrote the moves down on still… I know one of them was basically this-
“Suplex, Suplex, Suplex, Suplex: on a botch or when this npw gets sick of thier shit, he’ll burn a momentum to take control back and go about punishing the PWs.” I think I added something for rolling the Wrestling move to break out of it or spend a momentum to maybe.
We were playing super loose with the rules, finding our comfort zone. It was probably one of our favorite sessions.
Per your questions:
1) It depends on the wrestler. If you’re in the ring with the 20 year veteran, they don’t mess up. If you get put in there with the bosses daughter, she’s probably green as Kermit’s felt.
It’s not railroading because the players choices and rolls can set those plans wrong at any time. Look how many moves override creative’s booking!
2) See last post.
3).You don’t need to end a match with plus for heat on both sides, you need plus +4 heat with your opponent.
Reread the GM section in light of this. 🙂
Adam Goldberg You’re right, I was reading the post-match rewards section wrong re: my 3rd question. I thought both competitors needed the +4 Heat at the end of the match in order to gain the +1 Audience reward. Thanks for clarifying
Sounds like your 1 and 3 have been addressed, just a few words on 2. You wouldn’t be breaking the game or anything, but giving NPWs stats and such is more moving parts to keep track of – I definitely think the idea of giving them to non-involved players in a scene would be fun, though, if everyone is comfortable with that role-switching! As long as the primary characters are tracking their heat with the NPWs, the rules will work fine – but giving them Audience scores would make sense (and there’s a little bit about that in the book already, p 77), and there’s no downside to giving them Heat just as a metric to see who’s having the hottest feuds over time 🙂