Hey!
I’m a RPG-enthusiast from France (sorry for my approximativ english) who recently read WWW-RPG. Wrestling is not that big a thing here and I had very little knowledge of it prior reading the book (let’s assume that everything I knew about wrestling I learnt in Roland Barthes’ essay!).
Nevertheless I really liked what I’ve read. Nathan writes that wrestling is “arguably […] one of America’s truly original art form” and the book does a tremendous work arguing that case. After reading it I probably know more about wrestling than 95% of my countrymen.
Of course the book also convince us of the potential of roleplaying about wrestling. It allows us to shift the perspective around fights. It’s not about making tactical choices and tring to be the winner: it’s all about the show. In WWW-RPG we play characters who themself play the role of a character. How cool is that? (Rethorical question: it’s super-cool and it’s one clever use of the Apocalypse System).
Despite my praises, the game left me with questions, most of them are about the Kayfabe. I love the idea of blurying the line separating what’s in and what’s out of it but, for someone with minimal knowledge of wrestling it’s sometime a bit too blur.
So here are my questions :
1) Who is the Creative ?
I obviously know who is it around my gaming table (when I’ll present the game to my players it’ll be me) but are there NWC counterparts of the Creative in the fiction?
For exemple when the Creative reveal the outcome of a fight what does happen? Does the referee anounce the result to the wrestlers?
And when the Creative introduce a rivalry between two PC what does really happen? A member of the promotion ask the PCs if it’s okay for them to become rivals? Can the players say no? Aren’t they supposed to create their own feuds?
2) Why do the Creative reveal the outcome of a fight at the end of it?
I get it that the results of the fights are decided in advance but isn’t it strange to anouce them to the wrestlers at the end of the fight? It seems to me that it makes it difficult for them to build narrative tension toward the fight.
Or does it mean than the characters have more knowledge of the booking decisions than the players?
3) What about the Move that can override Creative’s booking
Meal Ticket, Run-In, ENMASCARADO, the heel move…what does really happen with these moves?
Is it part of the act? Are all these moves are decided backstage (it’s just than the characters have more knowledge than the player)? Or does the wrestlers really goes against the booking decisions?
Basically these moves make difficult for me to understand what is supposed to be the balance in a game session between backstage conversations and on-stage scenes.
If the characters know more about the booking than the players doesn’t it make difficult to play backstage scenes without contradictions in the fiction?
4) Is the Manager a real manager?
It’s probably a very stupid question but…the Manager doesn’t really manage the career of the wrestlers? It’s just another role?
The Meal ticket is just supposed to be performed on-stage during a fight?
And why does the role have rules about Injury? I thought the manager was never on the ring? Is he supposed to use move like Run-In to help his/her protégés?
5) Last (and probably least) question: 8 PLAYERS?!???
The book mention the Dreamation 2014 “Extermination” and thanks its 8 players!
Isn’t it a lot of PC for a roleplaying game? What is your secret?
