Steve Jakoubovitch – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

Hey!

For those of you who speak french: I wrote a review of Night Witches in the last issue of the french e-zine Le Maraudeur.

I guess most of you will have to believe me on this: I said mostly good things about the game.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2SEgqtDi04RX1huSm4zbVNSTVU/view

Tomorrow I’m supposed to MC my first WWWRPG game at a French conv’ (in Lyon).

My mind is on fire but, unfortunately, my throath is also on fire and I lost my voice since yesterday.

I hope I’ll find a way to get rid of one of my Injury checks before the big game. I’m not sure that the Creative is supposed to whisper during a WWWRPG session (didn’t see that in the Agenda).

I played my first game of Night Witches with three friends of mine wednesday.

I was the MC during the whole evening. We only had time for one session and I used the one-shot material from the handouts.

The One-shot material allowed us to experience most of the game system, which was great. But it was also a bit difficult to emotionaly involved the players during the NPC deaths (“Oh no, another aviatress who was nameless two minutes ago died…”) .

I was a bit afraid by the behavior of one a my player during the character creation. He obviously didn’t want to create a character who was too vulnerable, his pilot was the Section Leader but she was dangerously addicted to danger, always choosing the most difficult missions to get her shot of adrenalin.

She was also very cold, sleeping with another pilot she had no tenderness for and having no concern for the feelings of her teammates.

I was wrong: her character, Yekaterina, created a lot of interesting moments. She was a bit of a stereotype but it made her the main antagonist of the group. Everyone was afraid to fly with her and the other PC tried to outrank her and become the Section Leader.

Just before the last mission, another pilot managed to become the squad leader but Yekaterina disobeyed one of her order and it led to the death of another aviatress.

I was a bit surprised by the violence of the mecanics. The 7-9 results of the Night Moves generaly force the players to choose two consequences which is a lot (there is also a snowballing effect, some consequences trigger one or two other Moves which will also have consequences).

I guess it is expected that the players will have to spend a lot of time earning points for the Mission Pool.

What surprised me the most was to discover how effective it is to “bring [the characters] gender into it”. I didn’t have to force it* but the repeted remarks about their gender, the men always trying to “put them in their place” and the latent sexism were violent enough. It brought a lot of tension into the game.

Oh and for those who play the game in another langage than english…it’s difficult.

I didn’t take the time to translate the numerous playset and it was a mistake (especially because one of my players wasn’t bale to read them).

*We were three men and a women. During the debriefing my two male players were all “come on, the level of sexism was a bit too high” and my female player was all “nope! it wasn’t”.

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?