Professional wrestling is the fastest growing sports entertainment in the world. It has the attention of millions of people. What is it that makes pro wrestling that attractive?
Matt Gwinn of Errant Knight Games has created
Kayfabe, a very special roleplaying game indeed.
The author calls Kayfabe "the inside wrestling game". Which is entirely true. Compared to wrestling games like the official WWF game or others, Kayfabe offer simple yet effective rules for all those activities that make wrestling really interesting: the activities behind closed doors. Matchmaking. Booking. Influence and animosities. Planning great shows.
This is also the main difference between Kayfabe and all the other face-to-face pro-wrestling roleplaying games: You don't simulate a match, you roll dice to see how good and credible the wrestlers' actions look. No way does this mean that Kayfabe lacks the suspension of a "real" fighting game. On the contrary, the rules offer easy mechanics to put interesting twists into the game: a wrestler can "shoot", ie., he tries to really hurt his "opponent". You all have seen wrestling matches that evoked this undescribable feeling that, suddenly, the action in the ring had turned real...
The rules also cover injuries. An everyday, off-the-shelf single match is nothing in terms of risking injuries to a wrestler's health compared with a tables, ladder and chairs match, for instance.
But this is only one facet of the game. And, in fact, it's the second half. The first half of a Kayfabe session is the booking session. One player is called the Booker, comparable to the GM. The other players have a variety of self-created wrestlers. Then, each player writes down what goals his wrestlers have for the great big pay-per-view at the end of the series (eight sessions). For instance, a player wants to have his heavyweight wrestler to be the hardcore match champion of the league. Thereafter, the players give their notes to the booker. He decides what suggestions will actually accepted and used in the future.
Then, he makes the matches, including promos, interviews and skits. Then, the players have the first opportunity to roleplay: Does their wrestler accept the matches? Some wrestlers won't "lose" versus (in their eyes) inferior opponents. Some wrestlers prefer certain types of matches and revolt when they have to wrestle in others. This is the time of negotiation between the wrestlers and the booker. And this is where the attribute "Clout" comes into play.
Like all attributes (Wrestling=how credible the wrestler's techniques are, Work Rate=how well he works with his opponents and how well he reacts to the audience, Mic Work=how well the wrestler can speak, give interviews, etc., Clout=how great the influence behind the scenes is), Clout tests roll a number of six-sided dice. The more 6's show up, the better is the result. If wrestler A wants this, and wrestler B wants something else to happen during the match, make a Clout test. The wrestler with the higher number of 6's gets his way.
In Kayfabe, a wrestler has Heat. This is how well the crowd reacts to him. The higher the Heat, the more the audience loves (if hes a face)/despises (if he's a heel) him. During a match, wrestlers can try to enhance the match heat, make the crowd "go whoooo!". The greater the overall heat of all matches, the more fans will watch next time.
After the show, you can, if you like, use the rules for advancing your promotion (buying better equipment, negotiate new contracts, etc.). And again, like all everything in Kayfabe, the rules are easy, effective and elegant, and they further storytelling more than anything else.
I remember the days when we used to play the official WWF roleplaying game. It was a drag. Numbers, charts, lots of dice rolls. Somewhen along the way, we began changing the rules and writing more story-oriented ones (like the "push" rule that enabled us to change the course of matches to make sure that the pushed wrestler won). Some months later, we had rules that emphasized storytelling and more or less disregarded rolls that didn't "feel right". But still, the rules were many, and sometimes we spent more time explaining or bending them than actually playing our roles. And we didn't have anything that broght the kayfabe into the game - no clout, no negotiations, no behind-the-scenes at all. Eventually, our campaign (which had lasted for four years) came to a grinding halt.
Now, about 7 years later, Kayfabe has lit my spark again. The rules are easy and intuitive, and the game flows smoothly. I have never played a face-to-face wrestling game that impressed me more than Kayfabe, and believe me, I have played lots of them. I hope to start our new league soon, it's called "Wrestle XPrezz" (similar to the British promotion), and it's more a Shoot-Wrestling league than a pure pro-wrestling one (because my players don't have too much knowledge about pro-wrestling; clothesline and backbreaker is about all they know *g*). This is another wonderful aspect of Kayfabe: It can be adjusted to about every style of play: Hardcore wrestling? No problem. Lucha Libre style? No problem. Japanese Shooto? No problem. It's all in the rules, and it's all easy.
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