number of wrestlers

[dazzlingkillmen]

whats the average number of wrestlers you keep in your fed at a time? i currently have too many, its hard to keep the storylines straight. so in general. how many cards do most of you use at a time in yr feds?

[Pariah]

Two individuals that would be great to answer this question are aceldamas and bookerbill... Superb storytelling with really tight booking styles... Give their respective feds a read of you have the chance... Well worth it!

[aceldamas]

I usually try to keep my roster between 20-30 guys, which includes tag teams.

I think you also need to keep in mind how many and how big of shows you are going to do during any given period. You need enough wrestlers so you can keep things fresh without constantly bringing in new guys.

As far as keeping story lines straight, my philosophy is that not every wrestler needs to be in one. Unlike some famous bookers (ahem...Vince Russo) I don't think every match on the card needs to have a story/feud attached to it. Develop a couple of programs you want to go with (or that the dice create) and play those out.

Keeping the roster and booking concise takes a little work but should keep you on track.

[TTX]

I go 40ish usually.

[bookerbill]

Great question dazzlingkillmen. This issue has been brought up many times on the board over the years.

I am coming up on one year for my current Maple Leaf Wrestling territory and I have strict cap of 30 male competitors including tag teams. I started the territory with about five traditional tag teams (or 10 competitors) which left 20 roster spots for singles. I also rotate through the various expansions sets when swapping out competitors.

I don’t know how tight my booking style is (thanks for the complement Pariah) but I find that 30 is a nice number to fill out a typical 8 match card.

I also add in some of the ladies into the mix but they are not considered part of the roster. Rather they are considered special attractions (think late 70’s early 80’s booking)

I generally don’t try and run too many storylines at one time but rather let the dice dictate where my federation is heading.

[Bazzy]

I have NO limits , some of my legends feds have crazy amount in them

[markyhitch]

I have something like 25 faces, 25 heels and 10 tagteams.

[Swarm]

When I play my fight cards I often feel strongly that 5-8 matches is the magic number. When I roll cards w 10 or more matches I tend to lose a little steam and feel like the card is dragging. Shorter cards always leave me wanting more and invigorated to book the next show on the spot. Longer cards leave me anxious to pack up and take a break. With that said it seems like a roster of 30-40 wrestlers gives me the right amount of ammo to consistently crank out fun shows without too many matches.

There are always 5-6 cards in every year who seem to get lost in the shuffle too I lose interest in when the Fed is too large. For example in 2135 I'm struggling to enjoy Sur, Ghena, FDF Tradition, Mean Streets and a few others. Looking forward to a tighter GWF roster after Sudden Death.

[Gunslinger]

6 matches per show is the sweet spot for me. I start losing interest around 8. More than 8 is the kiss of death.

30-ish is a good roster, although I usually do about 25 and use different undercard guys on every show. It's easy to get overwhelmed if you try to keep more than 30 guys in the mix. I tend to do loser leaves town matches to cycle guys in and out.

If you're running a tag division, I'd say you need at least six teams, two being main event level, but it's probably better to have 8-10 teams of varying skill levels.

[Cernunnos]

For CotG I typically run all of the guys for the given year. If there are "Too many guys" (a relative term to where the card seems really long), then I split them up for different shows be it same week or inter-week (sometimes I run one general card a week, and sometimes up to 3). If I split the guys onto different cards/shows per week, then I usually sort them by "A", "B", and "C" teams/players.

- The "A" and "B" team/players are usually on the flagship show and get the majority of the storylines.
- The "B" and "C" team/players usually tour, have few to no storylines, and do a majority of the house shows.

Usually I though, no matter how many are in a fed, I book ALL of the guys for PPV/supercards!

For any other fed I run, I typically just run with what I deem to be "Enough" and/or what makes sense for the fed. This can range from 30-50 guys, though they all don't necessarily wrestle each show, but again everyone gets a PPV/supercard spot.