16-05-2026, 06:10 PM
"The Kayfabe"- ProWrestling as a Metaphor for Role Play
by Doc (Oct 11, 2016)
This chapter deals with the use of KayFabe, and refers to the world of Pro-Wrestling as perhaps the Biggest RP Fed in existence. Keeping Kayfabe is important for successful role-playing, and only slightly less important than the non-KayFabe discussion which HAS to exist between the players which the audience doesn't necessarily see. Scripting the RP is key to its success. Refusal or reluctant to communicate behind the scenes about a RP can lead to horrible outcomes and accidents, which does far more than just ruins the RP for all those involved. Conversely, keeping the KayFabe and treating the RP as a scripted event rather than what is known as a "shoot" ensures that players play their role for the enjoyment of the audience and a successful RP for themselves.
First: What is the Kayfabe? (Be advised, this is the jargonny part of the chapter. I have bolded all jargon)
Kayfabe was born in the old Carnival circuit. It is "carnie" speak for "Fake" They would say something was Kayfabe when they wanted to say something was fake. Games at carnivals did not exist to hand out prizes- they existed to make money for the promoters. Similarly, as carnivals hosted spectacles of pugilism and then wrestling, Kayfabe developed to ensure that promoters made money off the bout (or the matchup between two or more fighters). At first all fights were non-scripted, honest fights, the way that professional boxing is today. But promoters could occasionally lose a fortune on a tie or a non-spectacle. When their job was to ensure a spectacle, and if one didn't happen, fans would demand their money back. If there was no way for promoters to limit this sort of risk, there was no way to make promotion into a profitable business.
To limit risk and ensure profitablility, promoters soon learned how to script matches. As boxing, and then wrestling became more widespread, certain promoters built territories, or areas where they monopolized the rankings of local fighters which were protected, usually from another territory's challengers. Within those territories, the promoters would build a championship and then schedule bouts as challenges for the championship. Others would come and challenge the "Champion" and in Kayfabe bouts, the Champion was scripted to win. But occasionally some "shoot" challenger, or a challenger who didn't keep Kayfabe and actually attempted to genuinely win, would get into a match with the Champion. If the Promoter was arguing that his champ was unbeatable, imagine the amount of money he would lose if that Champion was beaten by a shooter, which the promoter did not control, and who did not keep the Kayfabe! And so, promoters more or less began building institutions to prevent shoot wrestlers from ever getting close to the Champion. This involved building a whole "stable" of wrestlers, all of whom agreed to keep Kayfabe in return for a cut of the action, win or lose. The promoter got paid, the "talent" got paid, and the audience always got a good show.
As territories and stables became more defined and solidified, and professional wrestling became a business in and of itself, the Kayfabe evolved. Now it wasn't just strong men fighting one another for the edification of a carnival crowd; the business became about attracting customers to "shows", which featured a "card" of "low carders" who opened the show, "mid card" talent and "Main Event" talent. The most hyped bouts were reserved for the Main Event- this is the paying customers, known as "marks" came to see.
As people began to come and see the same wrestlers perform, "rivalries", or long-standing Kayfabe disputes, began forming. The rivalries were the engine of the Kayfabe Show. The rivalry would usually play out over a longish period of time: The goal was for the promoters, now called the "bookers" to move certain crowd favorites toward the Championship. Some rivalries happened between MidCarders- they were not always for a championship. But the wrestler's fame was determined by the "pop" (positive crowd reaction) or "heat" (negative crowd reaction) he (or she) got- the more people who came and cheered for or booed a particular wrestler or their gimmick, the more of a "draw" that wrestler was, the more he made for the promotion. Success breeds success, and eventually, that wrestler would be given a shot at the championship, which would often mean a lot of money for the promotion and more "work" for the wrestler.
The rivalries were themselves scripted, or "worked", and to some degree, the outcome of the macro-rivalry was decided by the pop or heat that the winner had received. Individual match outcomes were decided by the booker, long before the talent stepped inside the ring, with the goal of working a card which attracted a crowd. If a crowd thought a particular performer should have won, and instead, that guy lost, it would create an audience full of marks for next week's show, to see if he got revenge. When a booking wanted to move a contender into line for a title shot, it was called a "push." Usually the only wrestlers who got pushes were the big money draws.
Pro-wrestling really became about show business and personalities in the TV era. "Babyfaces" and "Heels" had been around since the early Kayfabe days, but they took on new importance as pro-wrestling moved to TV. A Babyface, or "face" wrestler is a fan favorite, the one marks root for to win, while a "heel" is the one that marks love to hate, they are the bad guys in wrestling. There is also a type of wrestler, called the "Tweener" who can easily go between face and heel, depending on the rivalry: this fellow is a particularly valuable commodity, because he can deftly and more importantly switch between heel and face. They were often fan favorites despite their being cast in a Heel role. The Tweeners are some of the most loved and remembered wrestlers of all of History. They are the Kevin Nash's, the Jake Roberts', the Stone Cold Steve Austin's, the Triple H's, the Shawn Michaels', and the Macho Man's of the Industry.
Rounding out the roles is the perpetual loser, the "jobber", or the one who works because it is a job. The Jobber is perhaps one of the most important types of pro-wrestlers- they are the ones who make the mid-carders and the Main Eventers look good by "Putting them over", or by giving the big names someone to beat up on and/or win against. These types of human punching bags help fill out a card in a promotion when there are not enough active rivalries that week. One of the most well known "jobbers" is a man by the name Steve "The Brooklyn Brawler" Lombardi. These guys are famous in their own right, because they know how to put a bigger name over- that is the purpose of the existence of the jobber, and without the jobber, the bigger draws don't generate enough pop or heat to justify any sort of push. They even have an updated name now: they are known as "enhancement talent". All roles described above are absolutely necessary for the success of the whole promotion, and there is no shame in being a jobber- they work everytime someone needs to be put over and are loved and respected by the bigger draws.
As these sorts of personalities were booked in various wrestling promotions, and later mega-promotions like the WWF and the WCW, story lines known as "Angles" began to develop. Angles often revolved around a "gimmick" or some sort of thing the wrestler was known for: The Iron Sheik, for example, was known for his pro-Iranian political positions, while Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake's gimmick was cutting the hair of the vanquished.
Nearly every wrestler has a gimmick, some of them are rather outlandish, but often this gimmick would play into the "angle", which was the storyline that developed behind the rivalry. Wrestlers would alter or drop their gimmick all together if it wasn't getting any support from the audience (pop for the faces, heat for the heels): A good example of a gimmick failing to get pop is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, whose debut gimmick was as some sort of Pacific Islander known as "Rocky Maivia" which was based on names of his father and Grandfather (It was widely known that Johnson was, non-Kayfabe, from the third generation in a pro wrestling family.) The heat the face Rocky Miavia earned, complete with a widespread chant "Rocky Sucks", led to a heel turn, where Rocky Miavia changed his gimmick to heel "The Rock." By the time The Rock did a face turn and became the "People's Champion" complete with gimmicks concerning whatever the Rock was "cooking" and the employment of "The People's Elbow", the Pacific Islander gimmick in his rear view mirror.
The Macho Man and the Hulkster give a master class in Kayfabe
There was an angle in the late 80s around the Macho Man Randy Savage's manager and "valet" (or the person who accompanied him out to the ring, in this case, the"Lovely" Miss Elizabeth, who had her own gimmick as being a glamorous, albeit somewhat helpless woman who accompanied Randy Savage.) Hulk Hogan, perhaps the biggest single draw of all time, with a well-established reputation as a "Face" Main Eventer, was tag team Partners with Randy Savage in a "stable" known as the "Mega Powers." Together they battled a super-stable known as "The Twin Towers" made of The Big Boss Man and the clearly white Akeem, "The African Dream". But because, according to the angle, where Hogan would step in an "protect" Elizabeth from being menaced by Akeem, Savage became incredibly jealous. Then Savage (kayfabe) accidentally knocked Elizabeth out during a match with the Twin Towers on Saturday Night's Main Event (the WWF Marquee event on NBC during prime time, which was a precursor to the branded shows of the 90s), and Hogan abandoned Savage to his fate in the ring. Later in the match, Savage refused to tag Hogan out and help him, instead turning his back on Hogan. The Stable was broken up, the angle had run its course, and Savage "swerved", or betrayed, Hogan as the beginning of Savage's own "Heel turn" where Savage went from being a face to a heel as part of an angle. To complete the "turn," Savage attacked Hogan backstage, and a new rivalry was born, one of the greatest rivalries in the history of the WWE.
I watched that storyline play out, and like most fans, I couldn't believe what I was seeing- I was shocked, and it left a mark on my memory as a kid watching the two greatest wrestlers have this fall out. It was only years later when I understood Kayfabe that I was able to appreciate just how well that whole thing was scripted. In reality, non-Kayfabe, Hogan and Savage were great friends, until three years later when Macho Man publicly blamed Hogan for non-Kayfabe ruining his RL marriage with Elizabeth. But at the time, I am sure they appreciated how the Bossman and Akeem (Later the One Man Gang) put them both over so Hogan and Savage could build their own rivalry angle.
Today, wrestling is all Kayfabe, and it is an open secret. The WWE apparently acknowledged the scripted nature of the business in early 1989, but fans were well aware of the Kayfabe long before that. "Dirt-sheets," or insider info, had regularly circulated around the fan community for years. But for the most part, the pros kept, and still keep Kayfabe. And bookers usually try to enforce Kayfabe- usually the promotion even employs certain wrestlers called "house shooters" who could enforce kayfabe by legitimately beating shooters in the ring. Promotions also still "blacklist", or deny work to shooters when wrestlers perform shoots that are not worked. After all, the business is built on the spectacle- The Kayfabe is absolutely essential to ensuring the greatest draws get the greatest heat. It is also necessary to translate "pop" into a "push." Faces and Heels square off, wrestlers do turns and swerves as part of angles, and it is all like a giant soap opera. And occasionally, wrestlers are even "screwed", or given an unfair result in the eyes of the fans. Occasionally, those screwjobs are "worked shoots": A wrestler violates the "worked" storyline and takes a title, usually with the blessing of the company, but certainly not with the acceptance, or sometimes even the knowledge of the loser. (See, for example, the Montreal Screwjob, one of the most famous screwjobs in WWE History.)
All these Kayfabe elements are always at play in pro-wrestling. And the best thing is, fans love it more now than ever before. Today pro-wrestling, or "sports entertainment" is one of the most popular spectator sports, and is a muti-billion dollar industry. And much of its fame came AFTER Kayfabe was broken.
"So what does Pro-wrestling have to do with RPing in Particracy?"
... you may ask yourself. Well, the answer is "Everything." Those who understand the basic elements of the Kayfabe, along with the different roles that goes along with it, and the theory behind it can work with other players to develop awesome storylines, RPs, and angles. Using the Kayfabe, it becomes clear that the focus of roleplaying is about "selling" to an audience of "marks" and generating "pop". In Particracy, we don't have "bookers", but this doesn't prevent us from "working a show." We can work our angles with fellow players, take on roles of faces, heels, tweeners and jobbers, as the "show" needs. We know that a win is scripted ahead of time, and a loss can be seen as "putting someone over." And we earn respect from the community, who are all the marks for our shows, which may help us make a push to take on big players.
A good example of a worked show in Particracy is the Particracy World War. This was a huge show, with several different theaters of action going on. And the entire event was scripted, as you can see here at the OOC Planning thread. My partner in the RP was the Indralan Player, the extremely gifted and experienced Liu Che/Zhuli. Zanz, a moderator at the time, was one of the major movers of this show, and did most of the administrative work, but all players worked out their angles and their bouts well ahead of time.
Originally,the battle was supposed to be between Kalistan and Gaduridos, two regional midcarders, which was to be in support of the Main Event. But Gaduridos for whatever reason, was not able to make the show, and so, I proposed to Liu that we fight over Ananto- Kalistan's reason for being at war with Indrala was an old rivalry related to Vanuku and Indrala's support for Vanuku. Otherwise, Kalistan and Indrala had no real reason to be at war. So we could be part of the show, Kalistan took a "job" to battle the Selayan Main Eventer, Indrala while Indrala was on their way to go to a Main Event battle with the Main Eventer in the North, Trigunia. In this case, Kalistan played the role of jobber, not actually supposed to win, but to build pop for Indrala and the main event later in the Card.
I proposed a series of events which allowed me to use the Kalistani "gimmick" of highly trained irregular forces. Liu and I worked out these details in a way which would allow Kalistan to play Jobber, and Indrala then to have a clean exit when the lowcard bout was over. In this sense, our little war involved Ananto getting blown to bits, we (Kayfabe) lost our President and half occupied, but eventually my gimmick comes into play and we fight them back to a status quo ex ante. It built pop for Indrala to give them the "push" into the northern seas, and this was the main purpose of the battle in the first place (a worked Kayfabe attack on the Indralan Navy from Mikuni never materialized in the final show...) But meanwhile Kalistan got "work" and popped our irregulars, and I think it provided a nice early bout to get things started off.
And I want to say, I even think Liu "put me over" a little bit by allowing our war to end at a stalemate, rather than a crushing defeat for the jobber, as is usually the case. It was a real classy way to handle the bout, and I greatly appreciated it.
This episode, and all the episodes that were worked in that war, created a fantastic spectacle, which can be seen on the Particracy World War Thread. And since the show was so thoroughly worked, everyone negotiated their roles and knew how the episode was going to play out. And kinks we worked out on the show itself- we had no shoots, no accusations of "Godmodding" or abuse of the RP. We knew who the winners and the losers would be, and now, anyone who comes in can view the show itself by reading through the thread. The entire RP was, I think a great example of how a whole bunch of people can get together, work out a card, and then run a Kayfabe show. And as evidenced by the planning thread, occasionally the scripting was as involved as the actual RPs. But the RP thread was for the audience of Marks- a lot of times those marks were us, because we would watch other bouts which were going on as our own bout was playing out. But the amount of writing talent which went into that War thread is amazing and serves really as a great example of a worked show.
Conclusion- KEEP THE KAYFABE. We all know its scripted, but so what?
One final word on the Kayfabe, and I can't put too fine a point on this: It is to everyone's benefit to use and keep to the Kayfabe. Even if we all know it is all scripted, we are still writing for an audience full of people who want to read well written posts. Nobody puts that much time and effort into a worked show like the World War if they are doing it just for themselves. Keeping this Kayfabe arrangement is how we give back to our community. It is how we take part in the community. And the best RPers are the ones who have done all of this stuff without it having a name which was readily available. I don't know how familiar my RP partners are with pro-wrestling, but the best ones work angles all the time, and then run RPs.
But if we do take this Kayfabe to heart when we RP we can remember who we are doing this for. We are writing and RPing for the audience (but also then, for ourselves, because we are part of the audience, even for our own posts.) The Kayfabe allows us to keep order, and allows us to sanction shoots, which frequently get pointed out for violating the prohibition against Godmodding, and cause a whole mess which might involve moderator intervention and retcons (see, for instance, an episode involving a carrier between Kalistan, Hutori and Trigunia which spun out of control, and certainly was more a Shoot than anything worked.) Avoiding shoots is something that benefits us all, and so does keeping the Kayfabe around RP. And so this is something we should be willing to practice at, and become good at, and it is likely that we will have great RP bouts and shows for years to come.
by Doc (Oct 11, 2016)
This chapter deals with the use of KayFabe, and refers to the world of Pro-Wrestling as perhaps the Biggest RP Fed in existence. Keeping Kayfabe is important for successful role-playing, and only slightly less important than the non-KayFabe discussion which HAS to exist between the players which the audience doesn't necessarily see. Scripting the RP is key to its success. Refusal or reluctant to communicate behind the scenes about a RP can lead to horrible outcomes and accidents, which does far more than just ruins the RP for all those involved. Conversely, keeping the KayFabe and treating the RP as a scripted event rather than what is known as a "shoot" ensures that players play their role for the enjoyment of the audience and a successful RP for themselves.
First: What is the Kayfabe? (Be advised, this is the jargonny part of the chapter. I have bolded all jargon)
Kayfabe was born in the old Carnival circuit. It is "carnie" speak for "Fake" They would say something was Kayfabe when they wanted to say something was fake. Games at carnivals did not exist to hand out prizes- they existed to make money for the promoters. Similarly, as carnivals hosted spectacles of pugilism and then wrestling, Kayfabe developed to ensure that promoters made money off the bout (or the matchup between two or more fighters). At first all fights were non-scripted, honest fights, the way that professional boxing is today. But promoters could occasionally lose a fortune on a tie or a non-spectacle. When their job was to ensure a spectacle, and if one didn't happen, fans would demand their money back. If there was no way for promoters to limit this sort of risk, there was no way to make promotion into a profitable business.
To limit risk and ensure profitablility, promoters soon learned how to script matches. As boxing, and then wrestling became more widespread, certain promoters built territories, or areas where they monopolized the rankings of local fighters which were protected, usually from another territory's challengers. Within those territories, the promoters would build a championship and then schedule bouts as challenges for the championship. Others would come and challenge the "Champion" and in Kayfabe bouts, the Champion was scripted to win. But occasionally some "shoot" challenger, or a challenger who didn't keep Kayfabe and actually attempted to genuinely win, would get into a match with the Champion. If the Promoter was arguing that his champ was unbeatable, imagine the amount of money he would lose if that Champion was beaten by a shooter, which the promoter did not control, and who did not keep the Kayfabe! And so, promoters more or less began building institutions to prevent shoot wrestlers from ever getting close to the Champion. This involved building a whole "stable" of wrestlers, all of whom agreed to keep Kayfabe in return for a cut of the action, win or lose. The promoter got paid, the "talent" got paid, and the audience always got a good show.
As territories and stables became more defined and solidified, and professional wrestling became a business in and of itself, the Kayfabe evolved. Now it wasn't just strong men fighting one another for the edification of a carnival crowd; the business became about attracting customers to "shows", which featured a "card" of "low carders" who opened the show, "mid card" talent and "Main Event" talent. The most hyped bouts were reserved for the Main Event- this is the paying customers, known as "marks" came to see.
As people began to come and see the same wrestlers perform, "rivalries", or long-standing Kayfabe disputes, began forming. The rivalries were the engine of the Kayfabe Show. The rivalry would usually play out over a longish period of time: The goal was for the promoters, now called the "bookers" to move certain crowd favorites toward the Championship. Some rivalries happened between MidCarders- they were not always for a championship. But the wrestler's fame was determined by the "pop" (positive crowd reaction) or "heat" (negative crowd reaction) he (or she) got- the more people who came and cheered for or booed a particular wrestler or their gimmick, the more of a "draw" that wrestler was, the more he made for the promotion. Success breeds success, and eventually, that wrestler would be given a shot at the championship, which would often mean a lot of money for the promotion and more "work" for the wrestler.
The rivalries were themselves scripted, or "worked", and to some degree, the outcome of the macro-rivalry was decided by the pop or heat that the winner had received. Individual match outcomes were decided by the booker, long before the talent stepped inside the ring, with the goal of working a card which attracted a crowd. If a crowd thought a particular performer should have won, and instead, that guy lost, it would create an audience full of marks for next week's show, to see if he got revenge. When a booking wanted to move a contender into line for a title shot, it was called a "push." Usually the only wrestlers who got pushes were the big money draws.
Pro-wrestling really became about show business and personalities in the TV era. "Babyfaces" and "Heels" had been around since the early Kayfabe days, but they took on new importance as pro-wrestling moved to TV. A Babyface, or "face" wrestler is a fan favorite, the one marks root for to win, while a "heel" is the one that marks love to hate, they are the bad guys in wrestling. There is also a type of wrestler, called the "Tweener" who can easily go between face and heel, depending on the rivalry: this fellow is a particularly valuable commodity, because he can deftly and more importantly switch between heel and face. They were often fan favorites despite their being cast in a Heel role. The Tweeners are some of the most loved and remembered wrestlers of all of History. They are the Kevin Nash's, the Jake Roberts', the Stone Cold Steve Austin's, the Triple H's, the Shawn Michaels', and the Macho Man's of the Industry.
Rounding out the roles is the perpetual loser, the "jobber", or the one who works because it is a job. The Jobber is perhaps one of the most important types of pro-wrestlers- they are the ones who make the mid-carders and the Main Eventers look good by "Putting them over", or by giving the big names someone to beat up on and/or win against. These types of human punching bags help fill out a card in a promotion when there are not enough active rivalries that week. One of the most well known "jobbers" is a man by the name Steve "The Brooklyn Brawler" Lombardi. These guys are famous in their own right, because they know how to put a bigger name over- that is the purpose of the existence of the jobber, and without the jobber, the bigger draws don't generate enough pop or heat to justify any sort of push. They even have an updated name now: they are known as "enhancement talent". All roles described above are absolutely necessary for the success of the whole promotion, and there is no shame in being a jobber- they work everytime someone needs to be put over and are loved and respected by the bigger draws.
As these sorts of personalities were booked in various wrestling promotions, and later mega-promotions like the WWF and the WCW, story lines known as "Angles" began to develop. Angles often revolved around a "gimmick" or some sort of thing the wrestler was known for: The Iron Sheik, for example, was known for his pro-Iranian political positions, while Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake's gimmick was cutting the hair of the vanquished.
Nearly every wrestler has a gimmick, some of them are rather outlandish, but often this gimmick would play into the "angle", which was the storyline that developed behind the rivalry. Wrestlers would alter or drop their gimmick all together if it wasn't getting any support from the audience (pop for the faces, heat for the heels): A good example of a gimmick failing to get pop is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, whose debut gimmick was as some sort of Pacific Islander known as "Rocky Maivia" which was based on names of his father and Grandfather (It was widely known that Johnson was, non-Kayfabe, from the third generation in a pro wrestling family.) The heat the face Rocky Miavia earned, complete with a widespread chant "Rocky Sucks", led to a heel turn, where Rocky Miavia changed his gimmick to heel "The Rock." By the time The Rock did a face turn and became the "People's Champion" complete with gimmicks concerning whatever the Rock was "cooking" and the employment of "The People's Elbow", the Pacific Islander gimmick in his rear view mirror.
The Macho Man and the Hulkster give a master class in Kayfabe
There was an angle in the late 80s around the Macho Man Randy Savage's manager and "valet" (or the person who accompanied him out to the ring, in this case, the"Lovely" Miss Elizabeth, who had her own gimmick as being a glamorous, albeit somewhat helpless woman who accompanied Randy Savage.) Hulk Hogan, perhaps the biggest single draw of all time, with a well-established reputation as a "Face" Main Eventer, was tag team Partners with Randy Savage in a "stable" known as the "Mega Powers." Together they battled a super-stable known as "The Twin Towers" made of The Big Boss Man and the clearly white Akeem, "The African Dream". But because, according to the angle, where Hogan would step in an "protect" Elizabeth from being menaced by Akeem, Savage became incredibly jealous. Then Savage (kayfabe) accidentally knocked Elizabeth out during a match with the Twin Towers on Saturday Night's Main Event (the WWF Marquee event on NBC during prime time, which was a precursor to the branded shows of the 90s), and Hogan abandoned Savage to his fate in the ring. Later in the match, Savage refused to tag Hogan out and help him, instead turning his back on Hogan. The Stable was broken up, the angle had run its course, and Savage "swerved", or betrayed, Hogan as the beginning of Savage's own "Heel turn" where Savage went from being a face to a heel as part of an angle. To complete the "turn," Savage attacked Hogan backstage, and a new rivalry was born, one of the greatest rivalries in the history of the WWE.
I watched that storyline play out, and like most fans, I couldn't believe what I was seeing- I was shocked, and it left a mark on my memory as a kid watching the two greatest wrestlers have this fall out. It was only years later when I understood Kayfabe that I was able to appreciate just how well that whole thing was scripted. In reality, non-Kayfabe, Hogan and Savage were great friends, until three years later when Macho Man publicly blamed Hogan for non-Kayfabe ruining his RL marriage with Elizabeth. But at the time, I am sure they appreciated how the Bossman and Akeem (Later the One Man Gang) put them both over so Hogan and Savage could build their own rivalry angle.
Today, wrestling is all Kayfabe, and it is an open secret. The WWE apparently acknowledged the scripted nature of the business in early 1989, but fans were well aware of the Kayfabe long before that. "Dirt-sheets," or insider info, had regularly circulated around the fan community for years. But for the most part, the pros kept, and still keep Kayfabe. And bookers usually try to enforce Kayfabe- usually the promotion even employs certain wrestlers called "house shooters" who could enforce kayfabe by legitimately beating shooters in the ring. Promotions also still "blacklist", or deny work to shooters when wrestlers perform shoots that are not worked. After all, the business is built on the spectacle- The Kayfabe is absolutely essential to ensuring the greatest draws get the greatest heat. It is also necessary to translate "pop" into a "push." Faces and Heels square off, wrestlers do turns and swerves as part of angles, and it is all like a giant soap opera. And occasionally, wrestlers are even "screwed", or given an unfair result in the eyes of the fans. Occasionally, those screwjobs are "worked shoots": A wrestler violates the "worked" storyline and takes a title, usually with the blessing of the company, but certainly not with the acceptance, or sometimes even the knowledge of the loser. (See, for example, the Montreal Screwjob, one of the most famous screwjobs in WWE History.)
All these Kayfabe elements are always at play in pro-wrestling. And the best thing is, fans love it more now than ever before. Today pro-wrestling, or "sports entertainment" is one of the most popular spectator sports, and is a muti-billion dollar industry. And much of its fame came AFTER Kayfabe was broken.
"So what does Pro-wrestling have to do with RPing in Particracy?"
... you may ask yourself. Well, the answer is "Everything." Those who understand the basic elements of the Kayfabe, along with the different roles that goes along with it, and the theory behind it can work with other players to develop awesome storylines, RPs, and angles. Using the Kayfabe, it becomes clear that the focus of roleplaying is about "selling" to an audience of "marks" and generating "pop". In Particracy, we don't have "bookers", but this doesn't prevent us from "working a show." We can work our angles with fellow players, take on roles of faces, heels, tweeners and jobbers, as the "show" needs. We know that a win is scripted ahead of time, and a loss can be seen as "putting someone over." And we earn respect from the community, who are all the marks for our shows, which may help us make a push to take on big players.
A good example of a worked show in Particracy is the Particracy World War. This was a huge show, with several different theaters of action going on. And the entire event was scripted, as you can see here at the OOC Planning thread. My partner in the RP was the Indralan Player, the extremely gifted and experienced Liu Che/Zhuli. Zanz, a moderator at the time, was one of the major movers of this show, and did most of the administrative work, but all players worked out their angles and their bouts well ahead of time.
Originally,the battle was supposed to be between Kalistan and Gaduridos, two regional midcarders, which was to be in support of the Main Event. But Gaduridos for whatever reason, was not able to make the show, and so, I proposed to Liu that we fight over Ananto- Kalistan's reason for being at war with Indrala was an old rivalry related to Vanuku and Indrala's support for Vanuku. Otherwise, Kalistan and Indrala had no real reason to be at war. So we could be part of the show, Kalistan took a "job" to battle the Selayan Main Eventer, Indrala while Indrala was on their way to go to a Main Event battle with the Main Eventer in the North, Trigunia. In this case, Kalistan played the role of jobber, not actually supposed to win, but to build pop for Indrala and the main event later in the Card.
I proposed a series of events which allowed me to use the Kalistani "gimmick" of highly trained irregular forces. Liu and I worked out these details in a way which would allow Kalistan to play Jobber, and Indrala then to have a clean exit when the lowcard bout was over. In this sense, our little war involved Ananto getting blown to bits, we (Kayfabe) lost our President and half occupied, but eventually my gimmick comes into play and we fight them back to a status quo ex ante. It built pop for Indrala to give them the "push" into the northern seas, and this was the main purpose of the battle in the first place (a worked Kayfabe attack on the Indralan Navy from Mikuni never materialized in the final show...) But meanwhile Kalistan got "work" and popped our irregulars, and I think it provided a nice early bout to get things started off.
And I want to say, I even think Liu "put me over" a little bit by allowing our war to end at a stalemate, rather than a crushing defeat for the jobber, as is usually the case. It was a real classy way to handle the bout, and I greatly appreciated it.
This episode, and all the episodes that were worked in that war, created a fantastic spectacle, which can be seen on the Particracy World War Thread. And since the show was so thoroughly worked, everyone negotiated their roles and knew how the episode was going to play out. And kinks we worked out on the show itself- we had no shoots, no accusations of "Godmodding" or abuse of the RP. We knew who the winners and the losers would be, and now, anyone who comes in can view the show itself by reading through the thread. The entire RP was, I think a great example of how a whole bunch of people can get together, work out a card, and then run a Kayfabe show. And as evidenced by the planning thread, occasionally the scripting was as involved as the actual RPs. But the RP thread was for the audience of Marks- a lot of times those marks were us, because we would watch other bouts which were going on as our own bout was playing out. But the amount of writing talent which went into that War thread is amazing and serves really as a great example of a worked show.
Conclusion- KEEP THE KAYFABE. We all know its scripted, but so what?
One final word on the Kayfabe, and I can't put too fine a point on this: It is to everyone's benefit to use and keep to the Kayfabe. Even if we all know it is all scripted, we are still writing for an audience full of people who want to read well written posts. Nobody puts that much time and effort into a worked show like the World War if they are doing it just for themselves. Keeping this Kayfabe arrangement is how we give back to our community. It is how we take part in the community. And the best RPers are the ones who have done all of this stuff without it having a name which was readily available. I don't know how familiar my RP partners are with pro-wrestling, but the best ones work angles all the time, and then run RPs.
But if we do take this Kayfabe to heart when we RP we can remember who we are doing this for. We are writing and RPing for the audience (but also then, for ourselves, because we are part of the audience, even for our own posts.) The Kayfabe allows us to keep order, and allows us to sanction shoots, which frequently get pointed out for violating the prohibition against Godmodding, and cause a whole mess which might involve moderator intervention and retcons (see, for instance, an episode involving a carrier between Kalistan, Hutori and Trigunia which spun out of control, and certainly was more a Shoot than anything worked.) Avoiding shoots is something that benefits us all, and so does keeping the Kayfabe around RP. And so this is something we should be willing to practice at, and become good at, and it is likely that we will have great RP bouts and shows for years to come.
Primary: Institutionalist Party of Kalistan (IPoK), 5146-
Inactive:
Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK), 2591-
Inactive:
Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK), 2591-