World Wide Wrestling - Why no love for the valet

#1

I’ve been involved in a fare few games of World Wide Wrestling now, both as a player and as Creative and in all that time I’ve yet to see anybody take a Valet/manager as one of their advances.

While Valets/Managers are good narrative material, does the fact that you have to give up a potential stat increase/new move to get the Valet/Manager?

should They have a mechanical benefit to encourage players to take them?

One thing that stands out is the Foreigner heel starting move that gives a Manager/Valet with an additional benefit. Should this be the model of how to improve them? (Ie, make it a move people can purchase that gives a Valet/Manager + a mechanical effect)

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#2

They are great story-wise, but usually the other playbook moves feel more like something you can use, and by that first advance I think a lot of characters kind of have their own “voice” for the promos and bits, so maybe the manager feels like extra baggage at that point. I think adding a bit more mechanical heft to that option would definitely encourage its use.

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#3

In a recent World Wide Wrestling game we had a player play the foreigner, but their foreign land was “The Wealthy 1%”. His valet was his daughter, a truly talented classical violinist out of the ring, and an entitled daddy’s girl in the ring. In fiction she was mostly used as part of The Foreigner’s wrestling style, his intros, and a way to reinforce the gimmick.

At the end of my run, I had an extra advance and I wasn’t coming back for another session, but I took the Valet as a bull named Duke. Duke was part of an intro for my Texas cowboy wrestler that went terribly wrong. Had I stayed on I think Duke would have featured as part of promos or as a way for my wrestler to exit the ring in style.

I agree that at face value it seems like a bad choice. Everything else gives you some kind of mechanical advantage and the valet feels like a suboptimal advance. But in play it can really make a character sing. It’s a way of increasing your promotion’s roster and it gives you more to work with in fiction. Also, this wouldn’t work for Duke the Bull, but it allows you to set up your next wrestler when your current one advances a few more times and you pick a new wrestler.

I’d be interested to see what mechanics people might propose for valet/manager. I could see them adding additional options to certain moves like cut a promo or work the audience.

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#4

I did have fun with Princess :slight_smile: . It’s actually how we used her in the story that got me thinking about valets in general in the game.

I think we should look at how each of these adjucts are used in the setting to look at what moves would come with them.

Valets - face valets are there to help with entrances and to get the crowd on the side of the side of the face. i could see if linking a move linked to work the audience (i like the idea of the character having heat with their valet, allowing so something like allowing them to use +heat with the valet to roll work the audience once per session) alternatively, as they are normally present during their promos, you could give them a different option to choose when they get a hit/partial hit on their promo roll

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#5

Speaking only as someone that has run this game a lot, and played it a lot, the short answer is…

Yes. Players will often rather take a mechanical benefit than something that has no direct mechanical purpose. Then there are many players that don’t watch wrestling, and don’t know what valet’s/managers/enforcers are, so that’s even less of a reason to take them.

Adding mechanics to the advance, I don’t know how that would work, a bonus when you cut promos? That’s insufficient, just take +1 look, and you get the same bonus, plus can use look to wrestle.

More sources to use the heel move? Well, its not hard to use the heel move as is.

It being the only advancement option that doesn’t give you any mechanical bonus, and that it’s an NPW, could contribute to many ignoring it. But I don’t think there is and definitive reason for it.

Chances are, in the changes i plan on using, that option might get picked even less considering advancements might be even slower…or faster, it’s really up in the air.

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