Ok, hey guys, Here’s a play report of what happened today in a game.
So, it was a 3 group session, one jobber, a hardcore and a clown.
The jobber and clown developed serious heat from questions due to the jobber and the clown being in a tag team before, as well as having been left behind by the clown, and other things (so the jobber had +4 heat with the clown from the getgo), and the hardcore “refused to work with the jobber”.
So since it was a 3 man game and it was new to the others, I put the jobber in a match against Edgy Adam Extreem (the edgy emo hardcore wrestler with a penchant for selfharm). Since jobber’s can win versus NPW’s I booked him to win.
The Jobber tries to cut some promos fails all of them and bumbles his way into the ring (in this incarnation the jobber was just a really clumsy wrestler).
Edgy Adam Extreem shouts “LETS GET EXTREEM” and begins to self-harm in the ring. the audience is bloodhungry(kayfabe blood). they love it, but he’s bleeding all over the ring. they’re slipping and sliding and then the clown does a work the audience. the sounds of an ambulance play as the clown comes out dressed as a Doctor Clown, and pulls back the jobber, and begins administering “treatment” on Adam. and leaves. Jobber subsequently wins in a pool of blood.
Backstage Adam has a talk with GM Din Viesel, and is subsequently fired(kayfabe) for his ridiculous gimmick and bloodlust.
Next match up is another PC vs NPW, with Hardcore versus XTREEEM MUCHACHO, a metalhead highflyer with a penchant for dangerous antics. The match begins fairly standard. Hardcore makes it a hardcore match and brings in his AXE. muchacho gets two splashes off on hardcore, and then a runin occurs, the jobber runs in, Salmon in hand and cracks Muchacho over the back of the head with it, and then waddles off. No DQ, no no contest.. Muchacho gets another spot off on hardcore and then celebrates by picking up the salmon and waving it around while on the top rope.
Hardcore picks up axes and comes from behind with the intention to cut the salmon in half. Succeeds, and the salmon, guts and all get thrown all over those in the front row. Meanwhile as a sideshow, Clown is now dressed as a Fishmonger, with a bucket of Tadpoles which he throws over the audience. The crowds is loving it.
Hardcore legit breaks Muchacho’s kneecap and subsequently spins him into the turnbuckle and out of the ring. win by KO.
The crowd loved the hardcore legit injuring Muchacho (the crowd were dicks who wanted to see him get injured)
Din Viesel talks to Hardcore and tells him that he’s on a slippery slope (real), but luckily the crowd loves him. Hardcore’s gonna pay for Muchacho’s hospital bills.
Back in the locker room, Hardcore gets jumped by Hooded Justice, the resident batman of the Crosslantic Wrestling Federation. and gets panned out. Hardcore tells Din Viesel and Din Viesel says he’s gonna make settle this in the ring. by teaming up against Clown and Hardcore (the former tag team before Clown made it big and left ). Clown cuts a promo and demands a stipulation: you don’t win by pinfall but by placing your salmon in the tank above the ring , through slam dunk). The salmons for this match are plasticky foamy salmon shaped baseball bats.
And also it’s a fatal 4 way and because of the hardcore inclusions it’s a hardcore match.
So they fight each other with their fish bats, the jobber rolls terribly and hooded justice betrays hardcore, and jobber betrays clown, while also trying to work together.
The jobber being the clumsy guy he is put the ladder on top of a precarious table and falls and gets a concussion ( I do a sort of turn based response reply control system, and make him roll + REAL to recover) he fails multiple times but makes his way back to the ring.
The clown, attempts to call his posse of clowns to give him a pie to hit Justice with and also to distract the referee and built a pyramid of clowns that he can climb up. Hardcore whacks the keystone clown of the pyramid and they all fall apart and then scatter as the referee shoos them out.
Various things happen, I let them spent momentum to go up stairs quicker as I do control in a different way, and essentially jobber and clown are booked to win. Justice is at the top of the ladder ready to leap, salmon in hand (imagine the sequence in Space Jam with the stretchy hand), and he’s in midair, about to slam it down when OUT OF NOWHERE a pie hits him in the face and sends him off course and plummetting to the ground.
In the audience we see Edgy Adam Extreem, fired, but disguised as a member of the Clown Posse looking to mess up and learn from the clown to change his gimmick. The clown whips out a miniature fishing rod, and attaches the fish to it and then nails the slam dunk becoming the first winner of the Fatal 4-Way Salmon in The Pond Match ever.
It was brilliant. I think the Jobber’s dedication to RP’ing was infact the best part of it.
SOME NOTES: In my previous session of this, I’ve determined that a narrative control system where botches cause control to be changed, allows for very specific narration of moves to suit the stat as opposed to the situation. So I instead opt for a Request Response style approach, so whoever’s in control instigates an action and the other will let me know his response to it. does he take the hit or try to counter, and then depending on how they counter I’d tell them to roll or whatnot. I’ve felt that control can lead to players with a more winning mentality over a company/cooperative mentality hogging all the control, and more passive players just let it happen and get bored. As well as this, the announcer role is a tricky one as – to me- trying to elaborate on another person’s character isn’t very fair on them. And that’s the same reason I find issue with the control system. People only control their character, but has actions upon/against others. Especially with nervous players and the announcer thing I find that what happens is when someone’s describing what they do a nervous announcer will hesitate to interject.
Anyways, lemme know what you think XD
This seems rife with incident!
what do you mean by incident?
I like the “you have to pay for his medical bills” thing, that’s great.
If your control system is working for you guys, great! I generally assume/rely on the more vocal players to reach out and help less assertive people during the game but that may be because I model and socially enforce that behavior. But yeah, as long as it’s working and everyone feels like they have a chance to participate and there’s opportunities to interrupt and take control when they really want it, that’s all good.
Yeah, the medical bills thing was my attempt at trying to get across the cause and effect of actions in someways. (like the guy who cut the fish in half wanted to cut his arm off with the axe, and I had to persuade him that he WOULD be fired)…. especially in first episode, I now know that cause and effect on actions needs to be established inworld and not just OoC. like if you’re being a greedy controller, the audience will shout: “THIS IS AWFUL”, and creative will be forced to book you in low heat matches.
The control issue will only happen when players have a WINNING mentality and an active approach over a roleplaying mentality and active approach. so they’re less inclined to hand off control and more inclined to do what they can. ie a clown rolling all look moves and a monster rolling all power so they rarely lose, and even if someone can interrupt they interrupt right back and keep gaining momentum… it’s a tricky one…. so in this case as I don’t want to see one player basically munchkin his way to a title shot(by cutting a promo, making creative book you in a match, and then cutting another promo to add the stipulation of title shot, and then just power destroying the champ, and overriding the booking with heel move.)
Another thought: very few people I find wanna be the good guy. because that heel move is just too tempting. a spend momentum and roll + real to ATTEMPT to make might be what I’d do.
Basically, I’m trying to protect players from other players with different motivations.
Nathan Paoletta Can you say more about modeling and encouraging that behavior? I understand where David Ryan is coming from. At my table there seems to be a switch flip when a match starts. It goes from back and forth to I MUST WIN!
What I would say is, from a person more into things like D&D or other, with let’s say a combat focus, it becomes more to win, but those in it for the RP’ing of WRESTLING (not necessarily rp’ing, but as in in touch with wrestling and wanting to RP how wrestling would do it), as opposed to RP’ing a wrestler (with base wants to win), leads to different mindsets.