MatchMatch (aka Match Squared, M2, MM)

Part I: Character Creation

I.1 Attributes:

A wrestler has the following attributes:

• Stamina: Resistance to damage and to losing a match. Stamina has a maximum of 15. A Stamina of less than 5 is probably a poor idea since it will make it much easier to pin a wrestler.
• The Styles: each of the following represents how strong a slot is at a particular style of wrestling. There is no maximum value for a style.
  • Technical
  • Power
  • Martial Arts-- primarily striking type attacks
  • Brawling -- hitting with things and running people into things
  • High-Flying
  • Weight -- Not only weight but how to use it.
  • Cheating
  • Teamwork
  Having a score of at least one in every style is a good idea, since styles with a score of 0 may effect your chance of being pinned. A score of 5 or so is pretty good. Anything above 7 is exceptional.

• The Defenses: there is a defense which corresponds to each style. For simplicity's sake the are simply names after the style, with "defense added". Eg. Power-Defense. There is no maximum for a defense.
  • Technical-Defense
  • Power-Defense
  • Martial Arts-Defense
  • Brawling-Defense
  • High-Flying-Defense
  • Weight-Defense
  • Cheating-Defense
  • Teamwork-Defense
  A defense score of more than two or three is probably a waste of points.

• High Spots: A wrestler may purchase High Spots. Each High Spot purchased may be used once per match. A High Spot is used as a specific type of round strategy and may represent a favorite move of a wrestler, or a flurry, or a Hulk-Up and so on.

A new wrestler has 42 points to spend on his initial attributes. Each point of Stamina or a Style costs 1, each point of Defense costs 2. Each High Spot costs 3

Weight Classes: A wrestler with a Weight of 1-3 is loosely classed as a Light-Heavyweight, 4-7 is Heavyweight, and 8+ is a Superheavyweight. The only reason for weight classes is to give players some idea as to their foe's weight score, since it directly provides a pin bonus. As compensation for always suffering such a penalty, many feds provide a ligh-heavyweight belt.

I.2 Teams

Each team is built just like a single wrestler with one exception: the value for each attribute must be no higher than the highest value of the various member's attributes, nor can it be lower than the lowest. In other words all of a team's values must be somewhere in the range of the member's values -- a team made up of men who have no technical skill doesn't suddenly become expert in mat-wrestling!

The one exception to this is TeamWork (or any related TeamWork like custom attribute). The combined TeamWork attribute must be the lowest of the individual TeamWork attributes. (In effect this means that one-off tag teams will rarely have TeamWork, but tag teams that have values for TeamWork will be at a disadvantage if they split out to wrestle singles.)

Note also that a team may always use the scores of any one of it's individual members as its own scores (well, actually this only holds true if Teamwork is 0, but it's good to keep in mind when throwing together one-off or short term tag teams.)

I.3 Sample Characters

	Friendly Sam
	Stamina:10
	Technical:5	Power:1		Martial Arts:5	Brawling:1
	Weight:1	High Flying:4	Cheating:1	TeamWork:1
	Style Defenses:
	Technical:0	Power:0		Martial Arts:0	Brawling:0
	Weight:0	High Flying:0	Cheating:2(4)	TeamWork:0
	High Spot: 3 (costs 9)

	Brother Bob
	Stamina:10
	Technical:3	Power:3		Martial Arts:1	Brawling:7
	Weight:5	High Flying:1	Cheating:6	TeamWork:0
	Style Defenses:
	Technical:1(2)	Power:0		Martial Arts:1(2)
	Brawling:0	Weight:0	High Flying:1(2)
	Cheating:0	TeamWork:0

Sample Tag Team:

if Brother Bob and Friendly Sam tag-teamed (not likely), they would need generate a set of scores for the team. They have several options.

• They could simply use Brother Bob's scores.
• They could use Friendly Sam's scores, with one exception. Sam has a Teamwork of 1, but Bob has a Teamwork of 0. When building teams, the Team must have a teamwork no higher than the lowest teamwork score of the members. So in this case, the team would have to have a Teamwork of 0. The team would then have one point to spend elsewhere, on Weight for instance.
• They could build a set of new scores that cost 42 points, and which had values which were anywhere between Bob's and Sam's scores. For instance: Sam has a Stamina of 10, Bob has a Stamina of 10. The team must have a Stamina of 10. Sam has a Technical Score of 5, Bob has a Technical Score of 3. The team could have a technical score of 3,4 or 5. Note that High Spots are exempt from this rule -- a Tag Team can have more High Spots than it's members or fewer than either of its members. A sample team is below -- this is not the only team that could be made from Bob and Sam, but it is a legal one:

Attribute	Sam's Score	Bob's Score	Team Score
Stamina		10		10		10 (must be 10)
Styles
  Technical	5		3		3  (could be 3,4 or 5)
  Power		1		3		1  (could be 1,2 or 3)
  Martial Arts	5		1		1  (could be 1-5)	
  Brawling	1		7		3  (could be 1-7)
  Weight	1		5		5  (could be 1-5)
  High-Flying	4		1		2  (could be 1-4)
  Cheating	1		6		4  (could be 1-6)
  TeamWork	1		0		0  (must be 0)
Defenses:
  Technical	0		1		1  (could be 1 or 0)
  Power		0		0		0  (must be 0)
  Martial Arts	0		1		1  (could be 1 or 0)
  Brawling	0		0		0  (must be 0)
  Weight	0		0		0  (must be 0)
  High-Flying	0		1		1  (could be 1 or 0)
  Cheating	2		0		2  (could be 0,1 or 2)
  TeamWork	0		0		0  (must be 0)
High Spots	3		0		1  (could be any score)

Part II: Push Levels

All of the wrestlers at a given push level are considered to be on a more or less equal footing. So Level I wrestlers are JTTS or newbies , Level II wrestlers are step up from that, Level III are midcarders and so on. It is suggested that 4 or 5 Push Levels is about right.

Rankings wrestlers into Push Levels is very much a matter of taste, and fedheads will certainly develop their own methods. The following is a method I have used with some success.

Rankings within a Push Level

Within a given Push Level, wrestlers have between 0 and 2 points. These points have no effect on the game, but instead control changes in Push Levels. If you drop below 0 points, instead you drop a level and are in the next lower level with a number of points equal to 2 minus the leftover amount you had to lose. EG. If you were at Level 3, with 0.3 points, and lost .5 points, then you would become Level 2 with 1.8 points. The process is reversed when moving up Push Levels.

Going up in push levels

If you defeat someone at a higher push level, you immediately rise a push level. If you defeat someone at your own push level you gain a push point. If you defeat someone at one level lower you gain 1/2 a point, 2 levels lower is 1/3 point and so on. Good flashes or interviews may also grant push points. When you have two push points you rise a level.

Dropping push levels

If you lose a match to someone of lower rank you automatically drop a push level. If you lose a match to someone of higher rank you lose push points equal to the amount they gain. If you lose to someone of equal rank you lose a full push point. If your push points go negative, you drop a push level and your push points are reset.

III.1 Selection of styles list

Each side in a match (usually only two, but may be more for triangle matches and so on), selects two ATTACK styles (+) and one style to DEFEND (-). The two "+" styles must be different, although they can be the same as the "-" style The Teamwork style can not be "+" style.

A grid will also be generated for each match that looks something like this:

	First name chooses A-C, Second name chooses 1-3
        Brother Bob vs. Friendly Sam
                A       B       C
        1       Po      Te      HF
        2       We      MA      Po
        3       Br      Ch      MA

The intersection of the chosen letter and number is a style that will be added to the "+" styles chosen by each side.

This means that any given match will have 5 "+" styles, 2 from each side and one from the grid.

The styles selected determine the general flow of the match. The basic idea is to select styles in which you are strong, or stronger than your opponent, and to "-" out a style which you think your opponent will select. You could also get clever and select a style that you are pretty good at, and the "-" it out yourself, since the "-" only affects your opponent. If you've got a style in which you are only a little worse than your opponent, they the penalty he takes if you "-" it out could turn the tide.

In other words, the two "+" styles and the grid selection, are the style that you would like the match to be dominated by -- probably styles in which you think you are better than your foe. The "-" style is the one style that you are being especially wary of; the style you are taking extra care to defend against. This means that the "-" style choice may be easy to make if you are facing an extremely one-dimensional wrestler. On the other hand, if his score in that style is high enough, and yours is extremely low, "-" it out may not help you!

The exact use of these styles is explained in Match Resolution.

SUMMARY: Each strategy must therefore have 2 "+" styles, a single "-" style and a letter or number.

III.2 Round actions

The match is resolved round by round, and for each round, a round action must be submitted.

A round action has three parts: type, target and explanation.

The first two parts of the action -- type and target -- have a direct effect on game mechanics, and explain the general goal for the round. For example, are you simply trying to defend yourself while your opponent tires himself out? Are you trying to reduce his ability to execute high-flying moves? And so on. Note, though, that since these parts have a direct effect on the match resolution they have a very specific format.

A round may be one of the following types:

• Normal - a typical round, neither risking too much nor hanging back too much.
• High Risk - a round in which something dangerous is attempted. This is a risking round, it can backfire.
• High Spot - a round where the wrestler cuts loose and executes either trademark moves, or flurries and combinations, or what have you. A round in which an extra effort is made. In each match, a wrestler may only strat one High Spot round for each High Spot he purchased.
• Defensive - a round where the wrestler trades offense for defense. He is less likely to do any damage, but also less likely to take damage.
• Illegal - note that the "Cheating" style represents the kind of "run of the mill" cheating that draws warnings and crowd heat but which isn't going to get a wrestler DQ'ed -- face rakes, eye gouges, low blows and so on. The Illegal action is the kind of egregious rules violation that may result in a DQ -- chair shots, blatant double-teaming or outside interference.
• Special - In each match, a wrestler may only strat a number of Special rounds equal to his Push Level. A special round is a round in which the wrestler makes an extra heroic effort. He might go for his finisher, or pull a small package out of nowhere. But these are by far the best kind of round to use. That's why you only get a few. Use them with care. Each special round, must be stratted as one of the following:
  • Finisher - a trademark move of some kind. It gives a bonus to both the attack and the pin roll.
  • Cripple - an attempt to injure the opponent rather than win the match.
  • High Impact - a move which is difficult to pull off, but which has extra effect if it does. It gives a bonus to damage and the pin roll, but gives a much smaller attack bonus than a finisher.
  • Vile Cheat - like a regular illegal move, only moreso. You can still get DQ'ed.
  • Submission - no attack bonus at all, but a good pin bonus.
  Remember, you may only strat a number of special rounds equal to your Push Level! If your PL is two, you could strat one High Impact and one Finisher, or two Finishers, and so on; you can not strat two Finishers and two High Impact, that would be four Specials.

A round must have as a target one of the styles or Stamina.

The third part of the round -- the explanation -- is the part where the player's creativity comes fully into play. In this part of the round action, the specific move or move combination that the wrestler is attempting is listed. This part of the round action is provided solely to help the fedhead with the match write-up. It has no effect on the actual play of the game; that is it has no effect on the match resolution die rolls.

The explanation should be at least a list of a few moves, and can be quite a bit more complicated. Some of my players in Delta Championship Wrestling have submitted several paragraphs, including suggested ringside commentary, as part of round explanation. Obviously the amount of explanation is a matter of taste -- some fedheads like a lot, some like a smaller amount.

Standard matches are 20 rounds, and a round action must be submitted for each round. At the end of these rules there are several sample strategies of different styles.

Part IV: Match Resolution