Scratching My 7-Year Itch

[smathis]

Hi:
I'm smathis. That means something to some of you and nothing to a whole lot of you.

But I'm preparing my first ever total fed reboot. Here's what I've learned along the way (7+ years of playing LOW at this time). And how that's informing my newest fed coming to a forum near you.

[smathis]

Opening the Box

When I first started playing LOW, I had no idea what I was doing. Back in the early, early 80s, I had a wrestling game I'd created that was very simplistic and I played it all the time. Mainly this was because it was so fast to play. I could do a 10-Match card in about 15 minutes.

And when I booked back then, I just threw guys at each other. I kept a Win-Loss record in a notebook with a journal of wrestling matches and, boom, it took care of itself. It was fun.

When I picked up LOW, I tried to recreate that. But I found the matches were longer, significantly so. And I didn't know a whole lot about many of the wrestlers.

And thus began my very long education…

[smathis]

Tapping Out on Bootlegs and Storylines

After a while, I found myself understanding more about the wrestlers in LOW and wanting to put them into similar historical situations. Like having Strangler Lewis be a championship contender. Or reliving the famous feuds of yesteryear.

Only I had a couple of problems.

First, I was using bootlegs. Like a whole lot of them. And a significant number of them just weren't good. So I had weird situations where a bootleg was owning everyone in sight. And I learned I needed to be able to discern good bootlegs from bad ones. And that knowledge led me to create my own bootlegs. Good ones, I think.

Second, the dice weren't cooperating. So I would build to a storyline and the dice wouldn't follow through. It became painful. So much so that I was getting frustrated with the game. I wanted Snuka to feud with Lewis. Or Brody to give the Million Dollar Man a bloody, bloody feud. But when the dice just wouldn't pony up… well, it made me feel like setting up storylines was a complete waste of time.

Which I found was only partially true.

[smathis]

The Long Way Around

At this time, I began an epic quest to do two things.

First, I wanted to make LOW play like greased lightning. I've already taken a couple of stabs at it. But it's a slow process of refinement to make sure nothing gets lost. It's like making your first bootleg, only there's no cards or guidelines to go by. You're making it up as you go along and figuring out what works and what doesn't. That's where I am with that.

I can do a 6 match wrestling card in 20-30 minutes with no loss in fun or gameplay. Considering previously a single match could easily take that long, I'd say I'm close. Really close.

Second, I went on a quest to figure out the "perfect" non-storyline booking formula. This took a long while but I did, in time, nail it. And it works. It generates match, after match, almost like a computer program. It promotes parity. It makes LOW a sport like MMA or Tennis.

But you know what I found? I missed the storylines. Or rather. I missed being able to cash in on the storylines generated by LOW.

As with any sport, for every Packers-Eagles or Patriots-Jets game, there's twice as many Bills-Bengals or Cardinals-Redskins games. But when a feud has some heat, you want to do something with it. Not wanting to sound all ADD about it. But if the goal is playing LOW consistently then you don't want to defer the fun. You need the fun right damn now. Because you may lose interest later. Or the dice will cool on the feud and it will just sputter out.

So I came to trust that the dice (with a little help) will keep the fun coming. And while I think that a purely sport-based LOW certainly has its place, it's not 100% what I want.

More on that later.

[smathis]

Full Circle

And here I am, not too much farther away from where I started. But better informed. I'll share some of those insights. I hope you find them helpful and informative. And maybe there's something in here that will keep those dice rolling for you.

[smathis]

Parity Over Push

Parity is something that's missing in today's real-life wrestling. It's one of those things that gives the sport a feeling that "Any Given Sunday" one team can beat another. But today's wrestling -- and those informed by it -- too often abandon Parity for ideas like pushing a wrestler to the moon.

When you "push" a wrestler, you throw him out there and have him squash a bunch of people to build up some momentum. Think Goldberg. Or Sheamus. Or any big-man's inaugural run in the WWE over the last decade.

In LOW, a "push" is accomplished in much the same way it is in the WWE. You put the "monster" up against guys he couldn't possibly lose against. Like King Kong Bundy against George South or Johnny Rodz.

The problem with a push in LOW is that the pay-off isn't guaranteed. It's not that much different in real wrestling, IMO.

If you take a card, like I did with Strangler Lewis, and push him hard to a title shot, the card or the dice may not deliver for that big title match -- like when Jimmy Snuka squashed Lewis in my fed. Repeatedly.

And even if the dice do cooperate, the cards may not play well together at that point in time. Making a match that's uninspiring, boring and discouraging.

This is why Parity, IMO, is a much better strategy in LOW. And real wrestling too, IMO.

The classic example is setting up a situation where A is your champion and B and C are two contenders. A beats C. Then B beats A, in some way without losing the title. Then C beats B.

Now there's a situation where A, B or C could conceivably win at any given moment -- or at least claim they could. That's Parity. And that's what modern wrestling lacks.

But how do we achieve this in LOW? The dice already fail to cooperate in even the most straightforward of situations.

Well, it's not about forcing the situation really. It's about recognizing when it's there and taking advantage of that. And putting cards in situations where Parity can be a natural result.

For example, in my last fed, I had World Champ Adrian Street in a tag elimination match with Eddie Gilbert as his partner against the #1 contender Nigel McGuinness and S.D. Jones. This was done deliberately. Jones stood no chance, really. Putting Nigel as the underdog. And, in the end, Nigel almost beat the champ and Street had to rely on Gilbert to win the day.

I was bringing the fed to a close at the time. But there's a chance of Parity there I could've cashed in on. Gilbert had pinned McGuinness, the #1 Contender. McGuinness almost pinned the champ. I'd have McGuinness get his title shot. And, no matter what, Gilbert has a solid claim against either Street or McGuinness because of that tag elimination match. None of this was planned. But that match could lead to long-term competition between those three wrestlers. And maybe even a good feud along the way.

So taking advantage of Parity in LOW is more about recognizing Parity for what it is. And using that for booking awesomeness.

One of the strategies I've used to bring Parity into my feds is to put the champ in matches where he can be pinned but not lose his title. A tag-elimination match is perfect for this. As is a Battle Royal where the title is not on the line. Or an exhibition match where a competitor has to last X minutes in the ring with the champ.

All of these are great ways to bring a guy in and make him look like a contender early on. And when he does, you establish Parity by bringing the #1 Contender back into the fray.

It's also good to note that Parity doesn't have to pay off NOW. It can pay off later. That's okay. Just don't let it sit on the sideline for too long. And always keep an eye out for when you can bring it back to the forefront in a big way.

For instance, what if Nigel had beaten Adrian Street for the title? Well, wouldn't Eddie Gilbert feel he deserves a title shot? He beat the new champ fair-and-square, didn't he? And how would the emerging #1 Contender feel about Gilbert leapfrogging him?

These sorts of situations book themselves. And that's why they're the bread-and-butter of my LOW feds.

[smathis]

Zen Booking
Stop worrying. The dice are your friend.

This is hard. And, IMO, it's one of the things that makes LOW so hard to book.

It's akin to that bogeyman of real-wrestling booking -- locker room politics. In real wrestling, there are all these outside factors that drive who wins what or who doesn't want to job to whom. Geez, what a headache!

In LOW, these are your dice.

Some good advice I heard on these very forums is to try to keep "storylines" in one of three states. Always have one starting, one continuing and one coming to an end.

This isn't always possible in LOW.

But I found, much like with Parity, keeping an eye on establishing this situation is key. A feud may end unexpectedly. Or it may just never develop. Or an undercard feud may spontaneously combust.

Just trust the dice will take you where you're going to go. If you're alert, you'll find all sorts of Easter Eggs as the cards play out. You might have a period where the champ isn't in a headlining feud. So put him in situations like a tag-elimination match or a Battle Royal where those can develop.

Don't be afraid to capitalize on a screwy finish. Did a manager interfere? Did one wrestler dominate a match only to lose as his opponent came off the ropes and rolled him up? Was it a fast count? Were tights being pulled? A significant number of LOW matches can be "continued" into a feud, without a roll on the Feud Table. You just have to be looking for them.

If you don't have that Starting-Continuing-Ending trifecta happening, then look for ways to fill those voids. The dice will give them to you. But it's not always going to be straightforward.

And don't back yourself into a corner. I've found it's best to stick with the triumvirate. If you've got 8-feuds burning white-hot, well, that's a lot to keep up with and, IME, that comedown is going to be a drag. Focus on the feuds you want to see.

Let the dice be your guide.

[smathis]

History Repeats Itself
I really wanted that Strangler Lewis/Jimmy Snuka feud to ignite. I really wanted Frank Gotch to have that feud with Harley Race and Nick Bockwinkel.

But Lewis was strangely outmatched by Snuka. He seemingly had no answer for that high-powered, high-flying offense. And Gotch? He was sputtering at the gates against the likes of the Sandman, while Don Muraco leapfrogged into the championship fray.

Then I tried something a little different. I put Gotch up against Hackenschmidt. And you know what? It worked really, really, really well. And steamrolled into Gotch having a bigger role in the fed as the leader of his own heel stable.

Some guys' cards play better against some other guys' cards. It's hard to see that at first. You'll find some guys fit in against most anybody. Like Bockwinkel or the Sheik or even Dennis Condrey -- for me.

But at other times, you'll have a match between, say, Sabu and George Hackenschmidt and you'll see one of the greatest wrestlers of all time have a completely incongruent match with a B-list guy from the modern era.

It's really hard to figure out how a card is going to play in LOW before you play it. A lot of that is because of the dice. Some of it is situational. I once pushed Gotch as this babyface scientific wrestler. But when he got in the ring he played like a heel -- punching people, throwing them out of the ring, using sadistic holds on them. I had to drop him because he was being such a jerk.

So, IMO, it makes sense to play a guy to their era. Put Lewis up against Gotch. Put Snuka up against the Iron Sheik. At least until you get a handle on them and how they'll play in LOW. Otherwise, you risk having the dice and the contrast between the styles of the era color the perception of the card.

I also think it's best to have a clear understanding of the card in its quasi-historical context. Otherwise I think one risks reaching false conclusions about the card being portrayed -- like thinking Killer Kowalski was a face and Jimmy Snuka was a heel because that's how the LOW cards play against each other in the Starter Set.

[smathis]

Win-Loss is a Win
One of the things my homebrew '80s wrasslin' fed featured that my LOW fed lacked was Win-Loss results. I kept struggling with whether I wanted them or wanted to keep track of them in LOW. I was really on the fence about it. But now I'm squarely on the side of wanting them. Why? Because keeping track of Win-Loss records adds spice to the drama of matches. How do I know that Snuka has won his last 14 matches in a row if I don't keep his records?

In my defense, there was no Google Docs when I kicked off my fed 7+ years ago. And I didn't have a handle on the bookkeeping or how I wanted to keep it. So the tools at my disposal are significantly more advanced at this point in time.

For your fed, keep the stats you want to keep. But I think tracking Win-Loss records for singles and tag-teams is a benefit in the long term. It allows you to see how wrestlers perform in your fed and it allows you to inject drama into a matchup. Want to legitimize an otherwise weak champion? That's easy to do if you know who's got the most wins of all time.

For my next fed, I'm going to keep track of Wins and Losses (not ties), some sort of winning percentage (easy to do on a spreadsheet) and then whatever streak the wrestler is currently on.

And for tag-teams, I'm just going to be loosey-goosey about it. I don't plan to keep track of trios or any sort of specialty arrangements -- like those one-off tag-eliminations I mentioned before.

[smathis]

Up-Arrow, Down-Arrow: The Lazy Man's Guide to Stroke

The term "stroke" applies to how much "heat" or "pop" a wrestler is getting from the crowd. Which translates to how many tickets that wrestler might sell or how much of a "push" the booker will consider giving the wrestler.

Stroke is not Win-Loss, IMO. And I don't think it's "push" either. A push can give a wrestler stroke. And stroke can earn a wrestler a push. But they're two separate things from my vantage point.

I mean, history has shown you can push some wrestlers to the moon (El Gigante) but they could still not get any stroke out of it.

And that's a lot the same in LOW. And for that reason, I like to think of "stroke" as a separate category.

In my new fed, I'm planning on keeping track of the quality of a wrestler's last three performances. It will be a simple Up-Arrow, Down-Arrow rating and it will allow me to monitor which cards are doing well at the moment and which aren't -- irrespective of whether they're winning or losing matches. I won't be keeping long term stats on stroke -- though I may wish I did eventually.

Some cards perform well even when losing. It was heartbreaking to sideline Arik Cannon & Amish Roadkill because they weren't getting the wins. Their matches were phenomenal. And if I had some way of measuring that, I could've put them forward for some sort of Parity setup with the tag champions.

This up-arrow, down-arrow thing is an easy way to keep track of who the dice like at the moment and find ways to get those cards on your table. I've had stretches where Snuka or Ray Stevens were unbeatable. And then stretches where they couldn't buy a match with the Million Dollar Man's money.

Win-Loss won't tell you that. But "stroke" will.