Author: Nathan Paoletta

Injury

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to handle injury in the game. Right now it’s a purely narrative condition, and kind of left up to Creative to deal with.

I don’t want to have hit points or harm or anything, but since the outcomes of many moves include getting injured or inflicting injury, I thinking of ways to make that have more teeth.

One thought is having injury work kind of like Advances, in that when you get injured you pick off a list (like “can’t work a match for an Episode” or “Creative books to protect you at all costs until you heal” or “You push through the injury when you shouldn’t, next time you get injured pick from the advanced list), then when you’ve picked three you have to pick a more serious thing (like: “you’re sidelined, play a new character until the moment is right to come back” or “pick a match you’re booked in in the next two Episodes of play, this will be your last one”).

I’d love some thoughts or other ideas (including “not worth putting in, leave it narrative”).

Fun game with a higher proportion of non-wrestling nerds than usual!

Originally shared by Nathan Paoletta

Last Night, on World Wide Wrestling

coming to you LIVE from MADISON, WI

(World Wide Wrestling is my pro wrestling RPG of narrative action. It’s currently in public beta, you can check out the current playtest materials at http://ndpdesign.com/playtest, and support the game at http://www.patreon.com/ndpaoletta)

We assembled a roster of 7 braves souls for an action-packed Episode of play at Forge Midwest. Our wrestlers:

Larry Lade played Hyperion, the Monster

Clyde Rhoer played Chuckles, the Hardcore (a very unhappy clown from New Jersey)

Lance Martin played El Matador, the High Flyer

Willow Palecek played Grrlzilla, the Ant-Hero

Kelley Vanda played Bisha, the Wasted (an opium addict)

Tim Koppang played Adonis, the Golden Boy (so, basically himself with more baby oil)

Kelsey! – played Killer Tiller, the Technician

Bisha, Adonis and Killer Tiller were babyfaces, and the other four were heels.

The Heat questions set up some initial feuds and relationships really naturally (Adonis and Hyperion hated each other, Chuckles thought Bisha was a curse for the fed, Adonis and Killer Tiller had debuted together but broke up when Adonis got the push, El Matador had taken Killer Tiller under his wing to teach him the ropes, etc.

First match of the night was the re-united tag team of Adonis and Killer Tiller vs. El Matador and Grrlzilla. Adonis cut a promo about how “as long as he wasn’t held back” they would be victorious, and then we went to the ring, where Grrlzilla and El Matador actually cut promos on each other! The match was tension filled with lots of back-and-forth (as we introduced the mechanics and explored the characters options in play), and Clyde did a great job as the announcer on the outside. Finally, Killer Tiller and Grrlzilla ended up in the ring together, and Killer Tiller hit his finisher (which I can’t remember the name of right now, it was good!) to get the win!

I scrapped the second match on the card due to time constraints, and we went straight to the MAIN EVENT OF THE EVENING: A Regal Wrangle for the Young Tiger International Championship Cup.

Grrlzilla grabbed the mic and cut a promo beforehand, saying that she was only defeated because her opponents “ganged up on her” and that she would win once nobody could escape her destructive rage! Her roll entitled her to add a stip to the match, so she added the RAGE CAGE.

This turned the match into a “Regal Wrangle Rage Cage” Match, which I decided meant that the cage went out the barrier, leaving the floor around the ring clear, but meaning that eliminated competitors became lumberjacks for the remainder of the match!

Our Regal Wrangle went crazy, as it tends to do. Some highlights:

– Chuckles taking the opportunity to take out Adonis with a chair on the outside, breaking Kayfabe to make a point about what’s REAL in wrestling

– Hyperion being the first entrant and lasting through almost the ENTIRE match until the end

– Bisha coming in strong, taking a dropkick from Grrlzilla and countering it into an Airplane Swing in the biggest spot of the night!

– El Matador hitting a moonsault from the top rope to the OUTSIDE of the ring

– The final three were Hyperion, Killer Tiller and Grrlzilla. Grrlzilla starting ripping apart the ring and using the ringpost (with ropes attached) as a weapon! Her and Killer Tiller worked together to take the big man down, and then it was just the two of them. Thats when the ref called for the end of the match, and Grrlzilla took Killer Tiller out with the ringpost, willing the Young Tiger International Cup!

—

This was a solid game. We had a low density of wrestling knowledge (me, Clyde and Lance each were fans of different eras of wrestling, and everyone else was passingly familiar-to-not at all). Also, Killer Tiller’s player had only played one RPG before. Thankfully, everyone did a good job of both supporting each other and stopping me to ask questions and clarify jargon as we played, and as far as I could tell everyone enjoyed the game.

Gregor Hutton ‘s wrestling move illustrations were particularly useful in helping us describe the action, and serving as a nice “I do THAT” resource. Really, really pulled the game together!

Thanks everyone for the fun game! It was really valuable to run it for a less-wrestling-nerd audience, and I learned a lot about how to pace and phrase the explanation of the game and started thinking about to present the materials in a more accessible way as well.

http://ndpdesign.com/playtest

Originally shared by Nathan Paoletta

Last Night, on World Wide Wrestling

coming to you LIVE from Charlotte, NC

(WWWRPG is a pro wrestling game in public beta – http://www.ndpdesign.com/playtest to check it out)

A night of returns!

Eric Mersmann ‘s Mammoth Marco came back as Millionaire Marco, changing to the Veteran Gimmick upon “discovery of oil fields in his ancestral homelands of Dead Horse Alaska”. Always a company man at heart, Millionaire Marco signed a contract with general manager C. Colton Craig giving him part-ownership of WWW. 

After a squash match to get the crowd warmed up, Millionaire Marco went out to the ring to call out anyone from The Revolution (Keith Senkowski ‘s Anti-Hero’s stable) to show them who’s really in charge. The Revolution comes out, and CHL gets the nod to face Marco. Marco, still one of the largest men in WWW, tosses CHL around like a ragdoll before the rest of the Revolution gets involved…but then Perdition runs in to pull the pack off of Marco! 

Backstage, Roxy Rambo and Ron Edwards ‘s Bruto are watching on the monitor, and Roxy nudges him “hey…this is the hottest angle right now, we should get in there”. They run in as well, making it a four-on-four brawl, with the Revolution ceding the field.

This is Bruto’s first appearance in his new role as a Legend (this is an Advanced Role, Bruto has made such a name for himself that he’s transcended the Babyface/Heel divide). He steps out of the pack and triumphantly breaks an ax handle over his head to show that the HARDCORE is BACK, and the crowd pops!

Atlas the Geek (Dylan Clayton ‘s Wasted) decides to show up, and his valet Ava Dread tells him she’s gotten him booked with a new guy “from the indies” who she thinks will be a good match. I got to show off a new contestant, Sebastian Pale, a goldust-by-way-of-David Bowie wierdo with a butler (of course). Pale cuts a promo on Atlas about how “if the crowd wants to see freaks, they should be giving me their adulation.” Their match is dominated by Atlas and his new custom signature Move of using his bizarre joints to his advantage (including dislocating his own shoulder to get out of a submission), but with Pale’s Butler’s interference he gets the win with his finisher, Beyond the Pale.

We come back from commercial and Tina Tahini is in the ring in ring gear, calling out Keystone for locking her (along with the rest of Management) in and taking over the show. Backstage, it’s been made pretty clear that Craig isn’t happy with how she’s been doing her job, and this is a bit of a punitive match. Anyway, The Revolution comes back out, and Keystone cuts a promo on her then comes into the ring. They mess about for a minute until she hauls off and gives him a good slap (booked) and then another one (legit). That’s Bruto’s cue to come in and make the save, and it becomes a Keystone-Bruto match with the Revolution at ringside.

They go back and forth, working the crowd and showboating appropriately, until Keystone gets tipped out over the ropes. Tex Arkana gets up on the apron and starts shouting at the ref, distracting him and setting up Keystone to grab the broken ax handle and whack Bruto with it from behind! He gets a partial on his Break the Rules Move, and we narrate how the ref turns around and sees it, DQing Keystone and triggering ANOTHER pull-apart brawl around the ring.

Cut to the interior of Marco’s private office, where he’s watching the events on his personal monitor. Suddenly the lights dim, and we just hear Perditions voice “We…are the only one’s strong enough…to stop this chaos. We must take control.”

Roll credits!

—

It was a good session fictionally, but I think I didn’t handle the booking very well and it didn’t feel as solid, to me, as some of our other ones. Keith, Eric and Ron’s characters are so integrated at this point that I didn’t think to try and pull Dylan’s into it, and I should have – as it was, his bit was pretty much just me and him, and it felt lower energy than the rest. Overall I just wasn’t on my A game, sorry guys.

In retrospect I should have definitely booked Atlas with one of the PCs and introduced Pale somewhere else, maybe even as a run-in to that match.

Stuff to think about from Creative’s chair, as it were.

I’ll be taking WWWRPG to Forge Midwest this weekend. I’m planning to kinda see what people want to do so I’m not planning any new match stips or anything, but I would like to have another “LE” Gimmick on hand to potentially playtest. Right now I have The Giant (which is what you’d imagine). A couple ideas I want to do:

– The Athlete. References: Kurt Angle, Jack Swagger, Antonio Cesaro. The Moves center around impressing with athleticism, but I’m not sure what the second dimension should be. Probably +Real based.

– The Gatekeeper. References: “The Enforcer” Arn Anderson, Legacy-era Batista, maybe. The guy you have to get through to get to The Guy. Similar to the Manager, where you have a pre-defined relationship with someone (NPC or other player’s wrestler), and your Moves revolve around making other people look awesome. +Work based.

– The Innovator. References: Michael PS Hayes, Goldust, Tommy Dreamer (arguably). Someone who comes up with something genuinely fresh, new or innovative in the world of wrestling, or who has an angle that only they can pull off. Has a signature Move that you get to define in addition to their Finisher, and probably something about inciting jealousy backstage, but other than that I’m not sure where to go with it.

Help me prioritize! 

When you wrestle a bear roll +Real.

 On a 10+ holy shit, you wrestled a bear! Gain +1 Audience and choose two:

On a 7-9, you sure wrestled a bear. Choose one: you make it out of there intact; you make it out of there without anyone helping you; you make it out of there without letting everyone know how fucking terrified you are. 

On a miss, holy shit. You’re wrestling a bear.

I’d love to get outside playtest feedback on this game!

Is there anything in the game materials themselves that are presenting a barrier to play? Anything about explanation, presentation or the rules themselves that’s confusing or makes you feel like you won’t play it “right” (tho I’m a strong believer in “if you’re having fun, you’re playing it right”, especially for wrasslin’)?

Basically, I’m craving some validation that I’m not in some myopic game design bubble on this one!

Originally shared by Nathan Paoletta

Last Night On World Wide Wrestling

coming to you LIVE from Richmond, VA

bleearp THE REVOLUTION IS HERE

(sorry, not up to the big writeup right this sec, but bullet points!)

– Keith Senkowski ‘s Keystone locks management in an office, then legit breaks the key, giving him free reign over the show. None of the booking was set yet, nobody knows what’s going on!

– first match, Ron Edwards plays the Jobber Bill Blast (while Bruto is offscreen healing up). He gets rushed into a match with Jaxon the Saxon to set up a Revolution segment – before he can put over the Saxon, Tex Arkana (Eric Mersmann , taking on an NPC and making him the Technician) runs-in and beatsdown both guys, before revealing he’s now officially part of the Revolution. Keystone and CHL enter and Keystone puts Jaxon in the Brainwasher.

– backstage it’s chaos! Keystone scrambles to cover, and goes to Perdition to set up a 2-on-1 handicap with the Birds of Prey (Raptor & Buzzard). Perdition hasn’t even put his boots on yet, so Keystone has to keep the audience busy…

– Tex delivers a meandering promo to buy Keystone time, while Keystone thinks fast and pulls Bill Blast back out to beat on him and MAKE A POINT about WHO’S IN CHARGE TONITE. Bill takes some chair shots and blades, it gets uncomfortable but the audience is finally paying attention!

– The 2-on-1 match goes great! (Narrated, no PCs involved). Perdition hits both men with the Road to Perdition.

– Backstage, Bill tells the janitor that the lock on the office is broken, and he goes off to find a crowbar and let the management out.

– Keystone books El Tigre and local favorite Scour in a LADDER MATCH to keep the audience hyped.

– Backstage, Tina Tahini and C. Colton Craig have been released. She is spitting mad. Craig pulls Keystone aside and gives him the bottom line – “The rating had better be great for tonite or you are fired.”

– Final match, Keystone books himself and the Revolution (so now it’s a full faction, with CHL, Tex and Jaxon all having been brainwashed into it) against the only man who’s in his way, Perdition. Perdition clears the ring of the minions and has some brutal one-on-one with Keystone, and then all hell breaks loose after a succesfully pulled Low Blow, and the Revolution runs in to beatdown the “giant giant.” Keystone pulls back his men and they retreat once the big guy is down – but he does manage to get up and tear down the Revolution banner hanging over the ring, finalizing his face turn and setting up a feud going forward.

Good Episode! Kind of weird to get started, with the Revolution angle, and the guys had absolutely terrible dice for the first part, so there was a palpable “oh shit how are we going to pull this on off” tension.

Let’s Workshop a Move

I need a custom Move for Keith Senkowski ‘s takeover of our Wednesday Night Wars game. His wrestler is leading a revolution against the WWW management.

It’s a work, so we need some structure for it!

I’m thinking:

Note your Audience at the top of the Episode. When you rebel against authority or leverage your position as a malcontent, spend Momentum 1-for-1 to: book any match you want (including outcome); interfere in a match without making the Run-In Move; set up a segment of your choice; gain +1 Heat with the person you’re addressing; interrupt any segment and cut a promo (make the Cut a Promo Move separately). At the end of the Episode, if you haven’t gained Audience, you lose 1 Audience. 

Thoughts?

Our weekly game is hitting it’s first Gimmick transitions! Exciting!

This is the 7th session coming up, with the two characters changing playbooks (or whatever they’re doing, Ron Edwards is being coy about his plans) each having participated in all of them, IIRC. This is about what I had in mind – 5-6 sessions of play should be where games are either wrapping up, or moving on to the next phase of their wrestler’s development.

So that’s a nice piece of feedback about the long-term game!