I’m tempted to have a custom move to describe a troublesome/rowdy/distracted/disengaged crowd. (A “Philly Crowd” move? I’m from NJ; I get to make that joke.) This basically happened at our last Queen City Combat session: a demo match between two NPWs had a mediocre fashion, so we just had the crowd get caught up in chanting things that weren’t on our t-shirts.
But you know, this can easily just be handled by using and extended the existing Hard Moves and Principles that we have, and by embracing fictional positioning. So here’s a way to do that:
On a Botch, one possible Hard Move is that the crowd goes bad. Maybe they get smarked out into chanting internet references or they start chanting the name of a retired restler, or they just start yelling “BO-ORING” over and over again. The result: you just cannot Cut a Promo (“WHAT?!”) or Work The Audience (“WHAT?!”) because you literally cannot be heard above the crowd – until you do something about it.
What that “something” is up to you and what makes sense to the table. Maybe just a good successful move, or some legit shenanigans to shut down the crowd a bit, or maybe Creative will allow the Interrupt move to give you a chance to interrupt them – if you’ve got the Momentum to burn, you may have a chance to break through.
What about until you roll success on a +Real move? Speaking TO the audience vs to the “Audience”
Sounds good to me! There is a “lose -1 Audience” option on the hard move list to reflect the Audience turning on the character, but I can def see an intermediate stage where it’s more about them being disengaged and not actively booing them out of the building or whatever.
I think it depends, but that could be a neat (if brutal) restriction. Maybe a certain venue is really gritty that they want something Real that they can sink into – so you either do some +Real violence or Break Kayfabe to break through to them, or just work the match without the crowd, basically.
That’s what I was thinking. You’ve already lost the crowd by playing kayfabe, now you have to risk your heatlh or your career to get them back. I think the hard part with this is keeping with the principle of Making your Move, but not speaking it’s name.
Perhaps, alternatively, until you gain an audience.