Match Mechanics
By far the most complex part of this quest
The Background
When you're in the ring, the person across the ring from you isn't your opponent. Your goal is not hurt them. Your goal is not to do anything as pedestrian as winning. If you wanted to do that, you'd have gone into boxing.
No, when you're in the ring your gal is to, together with your opponent, entertain the crowd. The two of you are there to put on a show and to make sure your audience gets their money's worth. It doesn't matter if you're wrestling in front of five people or fifty thousand- these people paid to see you put on a show and by god you're going to give it to them.
Together, you and all the other men and women in the ring will combine your skills and give the crowd the best show you possibly can. Succeed, and be the center of attention for a worshipful audience. Fail, and be prepared to dodge.
Pre-Match Info
When Tommy arrives to the arena for his show, he'll be given his pre-match information. This includes, but is not limited to, how long the match is supposed to go, who your opponent is, the finish, and any particular notes the booker wants you to hit. All of these things are important.
Length: The length of the match determines how many spots a match is made up of. See Spots, below.
Opponent: Your in-ring opponent, and your partner in the match coming up. It takes at least two wrestlers to put on a show after all. Tommy will receive a brief description of the opponent when it becomes time to plan his match, including what they think their greatest strengths and weaknesses are. Tommy can get more exact information by either scouting his opponent or having worked with them multiple times.
The Finish: How the booker wants the match to end. Usually this includes who is winning the match that night and how they're doing it, whether it be by cheating or by hitting a finishing move and getting the pin.
Other Notes: A match is usually more than an exchange of moves followed by a pinfall. If the show you're on is any good, and you have any goal other than to entertain the crowd, there is going to be a story to your match. The other notes talk about what kind of story it is. It could be the story of a babyface valiantly making a comeback against an overpowering foe, or of a hero beaten down and taking the easy way, or a couple having relationship problems, or a time-displaced pirate fascinated by modern technology; it all depends on the booker.
How're You Gonna Call It?
Once you have the pre-match info, Tommy'll go and meet up with his opponent, and sometimes a third party who's been assigned to help you put together the match. After some discussion, it will be time to actually plan the match out. There are three different ways to plot the match:
Script It: You and your opponent will sit down and plot the entire match out in excruciating detail, move for move. And then once you get into the ring, you will perform your script. The script give you confidence; it frees you up so that part of you doesn't always have to be thinking about what's coming next, and it gives you an addition dice bonus to all rolls in this match.
The other benefit of scripting is that you don't have to worry about missing any notes or leaving anything out. When you're in the heat of the moment you might not be able to work that story the booker wanted, and both you and your opponent will know exactly what to do. At least, until something goes wrong. If any roll is failed, you are now off script, and suffer a -1 dice penalty to all rolls instead of a bonus as you scramble to keep it together.
In gameplay, when you script a match, you will write a plan that covers every moment of the match.
Call It In The Ring: The exact opposite of scripting a match. You and your opponent will go out to the ring with nothing planned by who's winning, and you'll rely on your natural skills to put on a good show. Every single thing you do will be come up with on the fly, dictated by the way the crowd is feeling and what seems to be right thing at the time.
The drawback of that is that if you're calling a match in the ring, it's easy to forget some spots. You might have an idea and go for it, only to forget that you wanted to work in a certain move, or that the booker wanted you to lose a specific way.
Calling it in the ring frees you up to improvise and work the crowd. You gain a bonus dependant on the average psychology skill of all wrestlers involved in the match on all rolls, and that continues even if you fail any checks.
Psychology Bonuses:
Untrained: -4 dice
Horrendous: -3 dice
Disappointing: -2 Dice
Mediocre: 1 Dice
Average: 0 Dice
Impressive: +1 Dice
Elite: +2 Dice
Legendary: +3 Dice
Mythical: +4 Dice
In game play, when you call a match in the ring, it's represented by the QM (That's me!) planning the match behind the scenes. If anything goes awry, the players rolling in the rolz room will have a chance to dictate how Tommy is going to act next.
Plan Some Spots: The usual way a match is planned for, planning some spots involves scripting out a few ideas in advance and calling the rest in the ring. It's a healthy middle between scripting the entire match and calling it in the ring. It gives the flexibility of Calling it in the Ring (CiitR), but without the risk of missing any spots.
The downside is that there is no bonus for this method, as it lacks the complete spontaneity of CiitR and the security of scripting the match.
In game play, when you choose to Plan Some Spots, you will plot out those spots in a plan, including when you'd like them to happen in a match. Those will be rolled by the DM. Everything else will be determined by the QM, as per Call it In the Ring.
The Crowd
You have your match planned out. You know how you're going to call it. Everything is well within your skills. What could possibly go wrong?
The crowd. The crowd can go wrong. Your entire goal is to entertain the crowd. They're both your best friend, your worst enemy, and your biggest opponent.
Before every show, the crowd is assigned a certain number of successes needed per star (referred from here on out as a Star Factor). The Star Factor will determine how a match is scored (see Scoring the Match, below)
Skills and Dice
10PG uses a success based system. To determine if Tommy succeeds at any given moment, he must roll a d10 (sometimes more). Whether he passes or fails depends entirely on his skill level. The following is a list of the levels of skill, what the XP bar is in order to attain it, how many dice tommy gets to roll, and what number counts as a success.
Untrained/0/1 Dice, 10 Succeeds
Horrendous/1/1 Dice, 9-10 Succeeds
Disappointing/50/1 Dice, 8-10 Succeeds
Mediocre/100/2 Dice, 8-10 Succeeds
Average/250/2 Dice, 7-10 Succeeds
Impressive/500/3 Dice, 7-10 Succeeds
Elite/1500/3 Dice, 6-10 Succeeds
Legendary/2500/4 Dice, 6-10 Succeeds
Mythical/5000/5 Dice, 6-10 Succeeds
If Tommy rolls a natural 10, he may count that as a success and also roll that dice again. Please note that any passes, failures, or natural ones on this bonus dice still count as normal.
Tommy's skill rolls are also affected by his traits. Minor traits provide +/- 1 Dice, Major traits provide +/- 2 Dice, Core traits provide +/- 3 Dice.
Spots
If a match is a song, spots are the notes. A spot is any one moment in the match, and can be any single thing. Whether it be a scintillating aerial move, a series of mat based maneuvers, a pose off, or simply standing and staring at your opponent, these are all things a match is made of. When you're scripting a match, you make a number of spots equal to the number of minutes in a match.
To plan a spot, describe what you're going to do, and choose the skill you're using. A top rope move would require an Aerial skill, while taking your opponent's offense would be Selling, for example. Then, during the match, when it's time for a spot, a skill check is rolled for that skill, while your opponent rolls the relevant skill for his own check. If you were dealing offense, he would roll his selling for example.
If you roll a success, then congratulations! You've succeeded at that spot and can add a success to the match's total at the end. If you fail, don't worry- the spot's still pulled off, it just doesn't look very good. But if you roll a natural one, it's time to worry. You've botched the spot! Subtract one success from your total, and if the circumstances call for it, it might be time to roll a safety check to see if you're going to be hurt.
Scoring the Match
At the end of the match, tally up the number of successes you and your opponents have scored during this match and divide it by the crowd's Star Factor. Your result will determine how the match was received:
A Negative Number: ...how? You've not only failed, you've failed hard. If you and your opponent can still walk, it's unlikely you'll ever work in this town again.
0: You've had a shitty match. A dud in every sense of the word. Slink to the back in shame and hope someone else screws up more than you.
1: You've had a barely tolerable match. The crowd will only remember it because of how mediocre it is.
2: The crowd remembers liking it, but doesn't remember anything about it.
3: The crowd likes the match! It was damn good!
4: The crowd loves this match! On most cards, it'll be the match of the night!
5: The crowd can barely speak from how much they loved this match! And when they do, it sounds like this: OhmygodwhatishappeningIcan'tevenbestthingallmylife
Injuries
If you botch a physical spot by rolling a natural one, you will immediately have to pass a safety check. Whoever is delivering the move must pass the check.
If the Safety check fails, the person taking the move must immediately pass a toughness check. If you pass, everything's fine. No one is seriously hurt. If you fail, then the person taking the move is hurt, and will receive an injury depending on the type of both and the level you fail at.
NOTE: The person giving and taking the move is the same when it comes to Aerial moves, though the opponent may choose to roll safety to attempt to catch them.
Alignment
Whether you're a face, a heel, or something in between, your alignment is vitally important to you in a match. It lets the crowd know who to cheer and who to boo, and helps tell the story of the match. Before a match, roll a skill check with your chosen alignment. Pass and everything goes well. Fail, and the crowd doesn't see you in your chosen roll. They either want to cheer the villain, hate the hero, or just don't want to see you. Treat every skill roll as if you were one level weaker than you actually are.
A crowd can be won over during the match. If at any time you roll multiple successes for anything, the crowd is too caught up in how cool your move was to notice alignment any more. They'll go along with your match.
Signature Moves and Finishers
It's a proven fact that fans like moves they've seen before and react larger to them. Signature Moves are the ultimate embodiment of that. If one is successfully pulled off during a match, it's results (both successes and failures) count double. Finishers are the same, only they count triple.
But before a signature or a finisher can be used, it must be established. To establish a signature move is simple: you just have to use the same move in most of your matches. A finisher is harder, but goes along the same principle- only you have to use it to finish a match.
Once a move is suitably established (up to GM's discretion), the restrictions are relaxed. Finishers will remain established for a long time, and signatures will no longer have to be used every match.
Note: It might be tempting to over rely on signature moves, build up a stable of them, and just use them every match to the exclusion of everything else. That might work for a match or two, but the crowds will swiftly catch on and quickly get bored. If a player uses signature spots for more than half of their match, then next match, the crowd's Star Factor will double from it's usual level.