On Roleplaying a Roleplayer
Hi! This can be considered my first "post-scriptum" for the game I published (in prototype form) just at the beginning of the week: RPW, a Pro Wrestling tabletop role-playing simulation.
First: the issues.
I still have some grudges with the core system of the game! Trying to tie together a stat progression/regression mechanic with something that is not - personally - counterintuitive like a basic roll-under mechanic proved frustrating, since I don't want to include too many steps before rolling and the variety of moves is potentially infinite. Secondly, I have the feeling the expected rolls are a bit too hard across the board (like, 20-30% too hard), which will require some strategy in the steps to take when progressing a PG to mitigate, which in turn will require experience and play time from the players. \
I'm not inherently against a ttrpg that is on the more challenging side, but I want to make sure it's not just RNG frustration and that every choice impacts the gameplay positively. I want the players to have fun straight away but as it is, a bit of preparation might be expected or integrated as a component (dark matches?).
Lastly, I could have explained better why some mechanics such as the submission and finisher are valuable storytelling tools in actual pro wrestling, but I'd more than happy to include notes on this in the future version of the game.
Beside that, I wanted to put into words some considerations I had while developing a game where a player creates a character with a character.
This is probably the point that makes RPW, if anything, an interesting experiment. The concept of roleplaying doesn't get subverted but it's twisted on its head, in a way that is, by definition, counter-intuitive.
It's no longer play-pretend, it is a play-pretend-pretend.
And I don't know how it will come across. On one hand, I could have made the game just a wrestling game without the barrier that separates the performance (the keyfabe) from the reality of the business.
Just make it a fighting game, like the actual WWE did in the early 00s with the "WWE: Know Your Role" RPG (a game which provided a solid paragon in everything I wanted RPW to not be, but that also hinted me to push a bit harder into the power fantasy component of "pretending to be wrestlers" a lot of us fans delved into as kids - or adults) or "Wild World Wrestling" (which seems to be the direct evolution of the previous tie-in). I could have twisted it into a fantasy-pro-wrestling setting like the lovely miniseries "Do A Powerbomb!" from Image Comics. I wouldn't have liked that because what makes wrestling compelling to me is the element of being a show and being audience-driven. Of being fake.
Bottom line, I preferred to try to create something new and fail than to just make another action-ttrpg (and fail at that as well, since it is a much more wide genre where I feel like everything has been tried and perfected).
Interesting titbit. While exploring some early Italian RPGs I came across "Kata Kumbas" by Agostino Carrocci and Massimo Senzacqua, hailing all the way from 1984. It was an early, and by most accounts crude, low fantasy RPG, but the core concept played a bit differently than Their Majesty D&D. For once, here the players are the characters. The setting involves the players being transported from their 1984 Italian basements to the fantastical world in the game in their sleep, taking over the body of an adventurer and having to deal with their tribulations but still as themselves. In fact, Kata Kumbas did not describe itself as a "roleplaying" game, but as an "projection" game. Fancy.
And yeah, I guess players could have played as themselves in the body of someone else, but I still imaging that the roleplay would have involved them pretending to be someone while embodying their "vessel". And with that, in practice, we do not land too far from RPW. An accidental connection of which I feel somewhat proud of.
I still think that the idea of players falling into their sleep and taking the role of a character in their roleplaying quest is an idea that could go beyond the bodyswapping gags of the last few Jumanji movies, so don't be surprised if I end up paying homage to Kata Kumbas more heavily in some future project.
That's all for now, thanks for reading and take care. Ciao ciao!