Kayfabe - lots of questions

[Matt Gwinn]

Hey Ron,

- the number of moves

You shouldn't have to keep track of the number of moves you do, if you are you're probably making more work for yourself than you need to.  When my group playtested it the end of the Move Set came pretty natural to us.  We would describe some moves and when we though "that sounds about right" we made our wrestling roll.  

- the wrestling score
- move modifiers (e.g. Signature moves, Finishers)

Ths should be no different than knowing what your Dex is in D&D or any other game, most players should know before they even start narrating how amny extra dice they'll get.  But I can see how this could get cumbersome if you have a lot of assets and are using trademark moves.  I will work on simplifying it a bit more.

- Heat wagering
- Shooting
- Stretching

All these things are simply options.  You go go through an entire match without using any of them depending on how simple you want things to run.

- Conditions (increases to Heat and Injury)

What are you refering to here exactly?

- Work rate modifications

Everything that modifies Work Rate should be noted on your character sheet.  Work Rate shouldn't change unless the Booker asigns a new Asset or Flaw, and he can't do that until the end of the session.

- and if I'm not mistaken (I might be) yet another form of injury (but maybe I just counted the Risking twice)

The only way you can increase Injury is by Risking Injury or Shooting.
There are two types of injury - Temporary and Serious.  Temporary Injury does becomes 1 point of serious after you get 10 points, but if you're taking more than 10 points of damage in a match you're playing pretty violent and rolling pretty bad.

I suggest scrubbing this stuff just a tad, not enough to remove all the neat stuff (fire cages! injury! working the crowd!) but to keep from shiftin' all over the rulebook to deal with tons of points of different sorts, for every step.

I'll see what I can do.

It seems to me that the real concerns are:
1) What bloody happens (this is the Work Rate thing mainly)

The way Work Rate works is that your wrestler basicly imposses his will upon his opponent.  It has to do with one wrestler's trust of another wrestler's skill and experience.  If you win a Work Rate roll it means your opponent entrusts you to do what's right for the match and surrended control to you.

When two wrestlers of unequal skill are in a match together.  The more experienced of the two usually dictates how the match will go.

2) Injury

Let me know if you still think this need to be worked on.

3) Heat

What were the Heat problems you had?

If all these different things could use the same basic units - say, eliminate the Injury rolls and have all Injury increases be by 2, no matter what - then running a match would just as much fun and a lot, lot easier.

What Injury rolls?  There are no rolls for injury that I recall.  If you are refering to Risking Injury, there are no additional rolls required.  Whether or not you get injured depends on the Wrestling roll you have to make anyway.

I am really getting worried that I didn't do a very good job explaining the rules.  I was afraid of this :-(

,Matt

[Ron Edwards]

Matt,

Most of what you just explained, I understand quite well. It's the existence of all these things, all at once, that gets annoying during play, and it's no good saying that some of them are optional. Options exist to be used, so they count.

I understand Work Rate perfectly; my comment had nothing to do with asking how it worked, but naming it as a consideration during play. Think of a "match." Potentially, how many different Things may be "checked" during the match, in order to play it? In Kayfabe, it's actually quite a lot, at least seven items once things get rolling.

When I was talking about conditions, I meant stuff like flame jets and cages and all that stuff - when that comes into it, both Heat and Injury get modified.

One tendency that game designers might want to avoid is to layer stuff on as they think of it - "Oh, yeah, pain resistance! I'll just insert that right here into combat, between shock value and the fainting roll" - rather than to look at the existing mechanics and alter them.

Now, granted, a lot of the detail in Kayfabe is pure wonderfulness, and I'd hate to lose any of the fun - what I'm after is some way to arrive at the fun without a whole long list of stuff to check off.

Best,
Ron

[Matt Gwinn]

Hey Ron,
Just a few things

have all Injury increases be by 2

In the early drafts of the game it was set up similar to this.  We ran into the problem of getting hit with a chair and falling off the top of a 20' steel cage causing the same amount of Injury.  It was completely unrealistic.

In regards to all the other stuff.  I don't want to go back and forth with you on this, but I don't think there is too much to keep track of during a match, at least it didn't seem so when we played.  I can see problems arising if you try to do too many things at once - Wagering Heat, Risking Injury and doing a false finish all at once for example.  

There are some things I may get rid of that will give you less to keep track of though.  At least these are the things I'm willing toi let go of.

- Rest Holds.  THey're kind of cumbersome and require unnessesary math.  If anything goes, they will be the first.  This would also require changes to the Blown Up flaw.

- Extra Dice for Trademarks & Finishers.  This would be one less thing you would have to add, but they should still have some kind of effect; after all a Stone Cold match just isn't any good without a Stunner or two.

-False Finishes and No Selling.  I wouldn't get rid of these all together, but I may eliminate the actual rules related to their use and simply make them descriptive option.  Perhaps No selling will simply give you a bad rep.

- Styles, Assets and Flaws that grant or take away dice when doing certain moves.  I think this might be the big one in regards to keeping track of stuff.  My only concern here is that it may detract from the individuali6ty of the different wrestlers.

Things like Risking Injury, Shooting and Wagering Heat will remain as is, as I've noticed that these are the actions used the most in a match.  I will also keep Crowd Heat and Match Heat from Stipulations as these only effect the match's starting hHeat and have no bearing during the actual match.

Do you think this would help or hinder things?

,Matt