New Material

[Matt Gwinn]

Well, I'm still hard at work trying to get the next run of Kayfabe ready for GENCON.  I managed to get ahold of some new art and have more coming along with a spanking new cover by Chris Martinez.

This is what I have finished or mostly finished:

Types of Promotions
The new edition discusses 3 different types of promotions:  backyard promotions, developmental promotions and wrestling schools.  Each promotion type has special advantages and disadvantages associated with them.

Assets & Flaws for Promotions
Covers over two dozen Assets and Flaws for promotions to add depth to your game including: equipment, financing, reputation, competition, drugs and more.

New Assets and Flaws for Characters
There are over two dozen new Assets and Flaws to help create a more diverse roster.  Examples include: Phantom Heat, Innovative, Fat Guy, Financially Secure, Uncompromising Belief System, and much more.

Competing Promotions
This section discuses different uses for competing promotions including rules for jumping ship, sharing wrestlers and using a regional format.

TV Deals & Ratings
This section goes into detail about what why you should want a TV deal, how to get one, and what it takes to keep it.  It also includes new rules for determining ratings for your shows.

Making Money
Making payroll, selling your wares, borrowing money and keeping your business afloat are all covered here.  Rules include info on when and how to get away with not paying your talent and other ways to save money.

Venues
This section covers different size venues, how to pick one and how to fill it.  It also covers details on what to do when you can't fill the seats.

Crowd Heat
I've included a more detailed description on how to determine Crowd Heat.

Feuds
New rules covering the different aspects and benifits of feuds are introduced.  The rules cover things like Feud Longevity, what to do when a feud is cut short and more.

Tag Teams & Stables
This section covers the different benifits of being part of a tag team or stable.  

Creating a promoter
This section gives details on how to create a promoter for your federation.  It includes a wide variety of personality traits and how they effect your promotion.

Dirty Tricks and Politics
New rules and notes to help you get/keep your wrestler on the top of the card.  Includes rules and suggestions for stealing Heat, holding people back, knowing when and why to throw a match or fake an injury, spreading rumors and the best times to make a Clout roll.

Here are some things I'm still throwing around
Advanced rules for Match Narration
Will cover additional rules for tag matches and matches with action taking place in multiple loactions.

Plot Twists
This section will include a wide variety of ideas for the Booker to throw at the players to keep them on their toes.

New Contract Rules
Now that I'm introducing more stuff concerning financing I think it's necessary to revamp the rules for contracts.

New Character Sheet

Examples of Play

And I'm sure I will come up with more stuff.

Is there anything you would like to see more of or something you think doesn't quite work well?  I'm always open to suggestions.

,Matt G.

[Mike Holmes]

Holy cats! What's that going to do, triple the size of the game? That's a lot of material. Cool.

Mike

[Matt Gwinn]

It actually doubles it to 64 pages.  It's not as much material as it sounds.  I'm not big on the fluff factor, so most of the material is straight and to the point.

,Matt

[Mike Holmes]

Hmmm. Are you going to move to Perfect Bound or something else for distribution? Sounds like its getting a bit too large for saddle stitched.

Mike

[Matt Gwinn]

I'm going 64 pages "because" I want to go saddle stitch.  It doesn't cost any extra.

,Matt G.

[Mike Holmes]

Cool. So the overall appearance of the book will be about the same? Same cover, etc? Or do you have something new?

Mike

[J. Backman]

Cool. So the overall appearance of the book will be about the same? Same cover, etc? Or do you have something new?

I managed to get ahold of some new art and have more coming along with a spanking new cover by Chris Martinez.

[Mike Holmes]

Thanks Mr. Backman. Cripes, I had to read the post through three times to realize that was in the second sentence. I had skipped right to the bullets each time. (That'll teach me not to skim). :-)

Coolness, Matt. This really sounds like a wholey revamped product. Can't wait to see a sample.

Making Money
Making payroll, selling your wares, borrowing money and keeping your business afloat are all covered here. Rules include info on when and how to get away with not paying your talent and other ways to save money.

This part is confusing. Who makes the decision not to pay the talent? Is this a Booker plot twist? Or something that the players do to each other? Or themselves?

Mike

[Matt Gwinn]

This part is confusing. Who makes the decision not to pay the talent?

Depends on the situation.  There may be no choice at all.  If the promotion doesn't have enough money, someone isn't getting paid.  There are now rules for increasing and decreasing your promotion's Resource Trait which the last addition lacked.

Is this a Booker plot twist?

It can be.  Depending on what kind of promoter you are using (there are now many options), the promoter may be a total prick and choose not to pay someone.

Or something that the players do to each other?

There are innumerable ways that players can screw with one another.  All it takes is a Clout roll at the right time to cause bad things to happen to someone.  And with the addition of Phantom Heat, a wrestler can convince the promoter that someone has less Heat than he actually has, which will effect his pay.

Or themselves?

I don't know why a player would want to screw himself, but it's definetly an option.  If a wrestler tells a promoter he'll work for free, I doubt the promoter will complain.

Maybe this will clear things up about the money part.  

I've added a few different rules for increasing your promotion's Resources trait.  This will allow characters to negotiate for more money or allow the promotion to hire additional wrestlers.  The side effect of this is that Resources can also go down if your shows don't do well.  This can leave the promotion with less money than it needs to pay everyone.

Does that help?

,Matt G.

[Mike Holmes]

Does that help?

Immensely. Of course it'll all only really be clear when I read a copy. Mostly this is just impatience on my part.

I'm really interested as I see this structuralism as a real step forward in this sort of design. Too often, IMO, games of this sort are left with just a "do what you want" sort of feel. This game allows for narrative creativity in the Ring, but then has all sorts of tactics and resource management when the bouts are done.

The more you add, the more the sound of it appeals to me.

As you're probably also aware, I'm interested in it for my own sinister reasons. I've always wanted to finish up my gladiators game, and I think that some of the rules you have may be some of the missing links I need to see it through to completion. So now you know my evil plot! >:-)

Mike

[Matt Gwinn]

So now you know my evil plot! >:-)

Damn you! Damn you Mike Holmes!  Trying to steal my opus!  Grrr!

Seriously though, let me know if you need any help.  I'd be happy to help.

Are you thinking Roman gladiators?  or generic fantasy gladiators?

,Matt G.

[Mike Holmes]

Are you thinking Roman gladiators?  or generic fantasy gladiators?

Well, to be specific TROS gladiators. You can find some of the preliminary work on it down in that forum. The combat system would, of course, be TROS, and deadly earnest (though we've considered some rules for jobbing, etc). The parts that I'm most interested in are exactly the stuff you mention above that got left out of the last edition.

So you can see why I'm excited.

If you look at that stuff, you can see that I've already lifted Heat wholesale. I just love the idea of Heat for a gladiator on circuit.

I'm not sure that I want to get back to it immediately, but I'll probably be thinking about it some soon...

Mike