WWE: Know Your Role

Reviewed by Misterrrrrr Case! (*tap* *tap* *tap*) Case!

Pro wrestling RPGs are, generally, a niche of a niche market. Not all wrestling fans are role-players, and not all role-players are wrestling fans. Furthermore, when mak-ing a wrestling RPG, the designer has to decide whether the game will be kayfabed (por-tray wrestling as not being pre-determined) or to break kayfabe, and present wrestling as it really is, pre-determined though still fun to watch and participate in, at least in game. Finally, wrestling RPGs tend to be more dependant on a license than other RPGs, at least for marketing purchase, for the purposes of hooking new players to the RPG.

Comic Images RPG, “WWE: Know Your Role” (WE: KYR, or just KYR, for short), falls into the kayfabed category. The game depicts wrestling as being kayfabed, and does a very, very, good job of it.

Like some of the OGL games that have come out recently, like Mutants and Mas-terminds 2nd Edition and Spycraft 2.0, Tony Lee and Cynthia Celeste Miller did an excel-lent job of tweaking and twisting the d20 system to fit the needs of their game. For start-ers, with KYR, there isn’t any one dump stat. Every stat relates to a different maneuver type modifier, one maneuver type for every attribute, and one class for almost every ma-neuver type.

The six classes in the game are (with a brief description):

1. Aerial: High-flyers like Rey Mysterio Jr., Eddie Guerrero and Paul London. This class’ stat is Dexterity.
2. Rough: Tough brawlers like Mick Foley, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Tommy Dreamer. This class’ stat is Constitution
3. Power: Big men like The Big Show, Kane and Triple H. This class’s stat is Strength.
4. Savvy: Liars, cheaters, and dirty players like Ric Flair, Eddie Guerrero (again), and Triple H. This class’ stat is Charisma
5. Technical: Mat technicians and men of a thousand holds like Ric Flair (again), Kurt Angle, and Bret “The Hitman” Hart. This class’ stat is Intelligence
6. Manager: Ringside strategists, mouthpieces and coaches like “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and Bill Alfonso. This class is the only one with multiple primary stats – Charisma and Wisdom (for their skills and their only maneuver proficiency they start out with).

Classes have various special abilities that are used by spending Heat, which is earned by dealing damage in combat (one heat for every 10 points of damage dealt), and from promos or certain feats. Heat can be used, in addition to activating class abilities, for using finishers, and for targeting multiple targets at once (among other things). Also, it is extremely painless to cross-class, and it’s encouraged. Most (though not quite all) of the write-ups of WWE Superstars in the back of the book are dual-classed.

Maneuvers come in 6 types:

1. Aerial Maneuvers: Quick moves that call for fast footwork. Flying moves and some jumping moves tend to fall in here. Their attribute is Dexterity
2. Rough maneuvers: Brutal, nasty, vicious. Powerbombs, clotheslines, big boots, are good examples. This category’s attribute is Constitution.
3. Power maneuvers: Feats of brute strength. Piledrivers, gorilla press slams, and su-plexes fit in here. This category’s attribute is Strength.
4. Simple maneuvers: Your average slaps, punches, kicks, etc. Nothing special. This category’s attribute is Wisdom.
5. Savvy maneuvers: Playing head-games with your opponent. This category’s at-tribute is Charisma.
6. Technical maneuvers: Holds, locks and bridging suplexes. This category’s attrib-ute is Intelligence.

Many of the maneuvers in the game fall into multiple categories. A Flying clothesline is both a flying and a rough maneuver. Likewise, a Tornado DDT is both a flying and a technical maneuver.

The combat system is very straightforward. No initiative, no defense scores. The player just rolls one d20, adding the modifier for whatever maneuver type you’re using, subtracting any penalties for the maneuver. The resulting number is the action count. Then the player compares his action count with his target’s action count to determine if he hits or not. There is more to the game, naturally, than combat. Ultimately, it isn’t a Pro Wres-tling RPG unless someone cuts a promo, and the promo and vignette system is very well done. In short, a player or group of players perform his/their promo or vignette in charac-ter. After the promo is completed, those who aren’t participating grade those who are, and how highly they rate the promo or vignette determines what modifier they give to the related skill check. If the check is successful, then the character gets a bonus heat which is used as described as above. Damage is in two scores – Stun and Trauma. Stun basically covers the wearing-down that happens in the course of a mach. When trauma damage is dealt, then things get nasty – bones are broken, blood is shed, etc.

Here’s an example of how it works.
Oz is in a match with “Flyin’” Brian Pillman, and is on the losing end of the match. Oz’s manager, Merlin the Wizard, had a heat he earned from his promo he cut before the match. With the one heat he has, he can target two people at once, so he de-cides to distract the ref and Pillman, so Oz can do a cheap shot. He rolls his bluff check and succeeds. Now, Scott, Oz’s player, rolls for the cheap shot maneuver. Cheap Shot is in the books as both a rough maneuver and a savvy maneuver. Oz has a proficiency in Rough maneuvers, but not savvy ones, so Oz chooses to roll it as a Rough maneuver. Be-cause Pillman is distracted by Merlin, the action count Scott has to beat is low. Scott roles a twenty – an automatic hit. Now he has to roll again to determine if it’s a critical hit. If he rolls a miss, it’s still an automatic hit, if it’s a hit, automatically deals full dam-age, and if Kevin rolls another critical, it’s a Traumatic hit and deals damage directly to Pillman’s trauma score. Oz rolls a hit, so he deals max damage – 12, enough to get an-other heat. Kevin (Merlin’s Player) describes it as, “Merlin the Wizard raises his hands to his mouth and shouts ‘Hey, you!’ across the ring at the ref and Pillman, and both turn to look”.

Then Scott jumps in to describe Oz’s actions, “Quickly, Oz lands a low blow, knocking Pillman to the mat, doubled over.” Eventually, after several sessions, the time will come to determine who gets title shots. This is where the Contender Point system comes in. Contender points are awarded by winning, and by totaling the fatigue values for the characters involved in the match. This provides a quick and easy way to determine who will be up for what titles, as well as helping dissuade players for going for the quick victories in gimmick matches (keeping ladder matches and cage matches from being a race up the ladder/cage wall).

The art in the book is made up entirely of stills from WWE events. While some of them are spectacular (a notable one being the Undertaker in mid air, while nailing JBL with the Old School), others are iffy. A notable one is from a fight taking place on the walkway to the back, where the TitanTron is visible in the background, and, possibly be-cause of the flashbulb or the lighting, the image on the titan-tron is not visible. It’s a mi-nor issue, but it still catches my eye every single time I view that page. Also, every chap-ter is started with a quote from the commentary of either Jim Ross & Jerry “The King” Lawler, or Michael Cole & Tazz. They help set the mood a little more, but a few of the quotes are a little annoying (primarily quotes from Cole and Tazz, but that may just be because I don’t like Michael Cole – he annoys me).

Now, the game is not flawless. The copy I purchased had some serious binding problems. The stitching for the book’s binding was looks questionable, and several pages were attached together and had to be separated with scissors. Also, those same pages were cut larger than the actual cover of the book and had to be trimmed with scissors as well. But, compared with the quality of the game, these flaws were very easy to look past.

All in all:
Style: 3/5. It’s a good game, the layout is easy to follow but is nothing, but a few binding, photography, and quote issues, added together, knock this down a few spots.
Substance: 4/5. The rules are easy to follow. There are some rules questions that had to be cleared up on the official list, but otherwise the game is really easy to run, and is one of the best OGL games on the market.
Overall: 4/5.

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