Tag: Randall Taylor

I’m looking at possibly tweaking the game a bit for my own table, and was curious if anyone had tried anything similar, so figured I’d post here for feedback if anyone else had thought of anything similar and tried it.

First Change: As the Fed’s audience expands, the threshold for being “over” does so as well. Whenever the audience resets, an extra audience level is added to the cap. (IE, first reset pushes it to 5, second to 6, etc) This makes it a bit longer to earn advances just by capping out audience each show, and kind of helps represent the increasing demands of being in a larger promotion, in my opinion? The audience bonus for moves that use the audience modifier still caps at +4, the extra layers only affect what is required to be over, and earning an advance. This also resolves some issues with moves that let you add +1 to your audience reset, as well as making it longer to advance certain gimmicks.

Second Change: NPW Stats. I always wind up feeling incredibly, well, awkward, whenever a NPW is in the ring with a player, dictating the flow of the match verbally and eventually handing it off. I feel like the outcomes of the die rolls helps add to the fiction/drama, so I am highly debating giving NPW’s basic Look/Power/Real/Work stats and letting them use the basic moves, but not giving them full “Gimmick” treatment. Essentially, putting low card NPWs at 4 points, Midcard NPWs at 8 points, and Main Event Talent at 12 points. Then spend out over the 4 stats accordingly. This would leave low cards at -1 across the board, midcards at 0, and main eventers at +1, if you spent equally, which you obviously could choose not to. This does mean keeping track of extra data on the Creative side, so it might not be for everyone. I already also state certain NPWs have certain gimmicks anyway, so players have a baseline to use if they ever want to take over one.

Third Change: The use of +heat on the wrestling move. It’s sort of implied already, but I’m debating that using +heat requires the consent of both characters in the exchange. This can build on backstage friction/drama a bit, and limits the use of the +heat ability as it has the highest potential to roll well.

The reason for these changes are to basically help extend gameplay a bit. As is, it really felt like things were beginning to peak after 6 or so sessions, so after the first PPV, I felt like I hit a wall, so to speak, and wanted to think of some further ways to prolong the game into a more lengthy campaign, beyond using the Hunt Protocol Rule, which did help.

Wanted to ask a question regarding Audiences, Advances, and Mythic Moments, mainly regarding the audience cap and reset.

I’ve noticed several gimmicks include a move to increase base audience reset from 1 to 2, in the S2 Beta Playtest documents, plus Mythic Moments Break Kayfabe, Feat of Strength, and Cut a Promo include an option to increase your audience reset number.

What happens when this occurs and then a character later changes to a new gimmick that has a higher than normal audience reset?

I was under the impression when changing gimmicks you go to whatever the new audience reset is for the new gimmick, so does this mean the Indy Darling: 10 Year Vet/Luchador: El Hijo De moves do not carry over? They do specify it increases from 1 to 2. I judged that they couldn’t be taken by 2 starting audience gimmicks with the “Choose another gimmick move”, but the Mythic Moments is another wrench in the works. Potentially, all it takes is 2 good rolls from the Wasted, and they’re permanently at a 4 audience reset level.

The only 2 solutions I can think of for this is to either just flat restrict certain choices to certain gimmicks, or to put in a rule where the audience cap/over move increase at some point with promotion growth.

At the same time, maybe someone hitting perma 4 audience makes sense? I imagine it’s that Rock/Michaels/Austin level of popularity.

Was curious how others may be dealing with this.

I’m curious, is there a reason for the mandatory gimmick change at 3 advances? Does it cause issues to ignore that? Our game looks like we’re going for a longer run than probably intended, and I just noticed that rule while reviewing the gimmick sheets. Some players have stated a wish to stick with their gimmicks long term, and Im debating how “hard” that rule should be. Figured people with more experience/playtesting might have some insight Im missing.

Also of note, however, is that I’m running a slight tweak on how advances are gained. I decided to link advances to promotion growth, with each time the audience reset limit gets hit, calling it a “season”, for lack of a better term. Then, only allowing advances to be earned in one fashion “once per season”: IE: First time you hit 4 (or 0) audience, you get an advance, but if you cycle right back into it 2 episodes out, you don’t get the advance again unless the promotion has grown. Same rule applying to Title gain advances, feud completion advances. Then when the promotion “grows” everyone that participated gets an advance, but as the growth continues, I’ll likely extend the “growth” requirement by some secret modifier. I offered to make the growth requirement public knowledge, and my players actually wanted to keep it secret for surprise sake.

This basically will make advances more difficult to stack in early seasons, (IE, you need to pick a goal and aim for it) but lets me space them out later in the campaign. And just out of curiosity, we’re also using the “No flat bonus advances, you have to find a move from another gimmick” rule, I think in the playtest document it’s referred to as “The Hunt Protocol”.

Does this sound like I’m over complicating it? Has anyone tried anything similar?

(Also: Sorry if this is the wrong area for this. I figured it being a mechanics related question, this was the best fit.)