First off, this is a competitive wrestling-focused writing game.
Yes, exactly.
With it being competitive, you kinda need to do something directly focused on your opponent.
If you are in an embroiled rivalry, I will definitely give you that point. Otherwise...
Frankly, if all you can do in this game is respond to people-- and in that I mean the hypothetical 'you', not Kevin specific-- if all you can do is reactionary shit on the tails of what I feed you, then I really do not give a single fuck about working with you one way or another.
Similarly, I don't tend to go to efeds that have guys posting five promos every match, because that's no longer so much a contest of who's the better storyteller as it is who has the most free time and who can rephrase the exact same shit they already said the most. I mostly go to efeds based on how many interesting characters and writers there are, both so I have something to say about them and so I have people to co-write with because that's fun. Saying things about my opponents is part of the deal for me, sure, but this tone of YOU HAVE TO DO THIS AND THIS AND THIS TO BE AN EFED CHARACTER is a bunch of shit, frankly.
I'm a firm believer in the on-camera, off-camera idea. The fact that Kliff kept bringing up stuff from Omar's past that I was doing in flashback bugged the hell out of me, because that was supposed to just be a fun part for people to read and see why Omar is the way he is. I go out of my way to give a good, substantial promo section for my opponents to directly talk about. It's not like I don't make sure my opponents have direct claims to debunk, threats to blow off or talk about, and things like that. And if you DO want to talk about stuff like that, then have your character have gone to a Baltimore newspaper and looked through old newspaper articles until they found stuff on Mr. and Mrs. Wise being gunned down in a drive-by. Stuff like that can come off really cool, and give a person WAY more things to talk about then just saying "I psychically watched your flashback, ha ha you were a crying little kid".
Character development is not a reality show. Some people actually have reality show gimmicks running, and that's cool, but it should not be assumed. If you can't write on your opponent without resorting to that kind of cheap underhanded bullshit, then you are a reactionary writer and I think I'm clear on how I look at that.
As I touched on a moment ago, this is supposed to be us simulating professional wrestling. Pro wrestlers cut promoes. Sorry guys, but ignoring promoes entirely makes your character feel much more like the imaginary character they are, rather than your attempt at writing someone who would fit in alongside Jimmy Jacobs and Colt Cabana.
Yes and no.
Ignoring altogether what your job is and what others are saying will make you seem unreal, but that's not the same thing as not constantly going on-camera about it.
Doing nothing but existing on-camera makes you feel a lot more artificial to me.
I find this whole tactic of "if you don't write on-camera promos you aren't in this for the wrestling, you don't love wrestling" pretty hilarious. Actually, I'm way behind on WWE
RAW and mostly caught up on
NXT because
NXT is in its majority WRESTLING and
RAW is in its majority A THREE-HOUR DORITOS COMMERCIAL.
I agree that there are loads of ways to do it, I've done the YouTube thing and will probably do it again, and I just had the thought that it'd also be pretty cool to see guys doing more morning shows and radio shows and doing the weather and stuff like they do IRL wrestling too. Only the characters that make sense to do it, though. I used to love the hell out of me some RVD and Sabu back in ECW. I sure didn't love Sabu less because it would be ludicrous for him to do a radio show.
Which gets me to the part of this thread that's annoying me the most-- the idea that all characters should do the same thing.
Chris Jericho put it really well in his "A Lion's Tale"...
Uh. If Chris Jericho can find a way...
GAHAHAHAHAHA.
HAHAHAH.
HAHA.
Chris Jericho might've said it in that book, but Mick Foley outlined it first, and as some of you have noted-- is a way better example of it.
I fucking love Chris Jericho, but if you think he universally puts over everybody, you have
seriously not paid attention to what he does and/or haven't watched back very far.
Please, do tell me where Chris Jericho put over the WCW Cruiserweights when he had the belt. Tell me how his rivalry with Stephanie was focused on putting over his rivals. Tell me how anything in the Jeritroll gimmick was designed to get anybody over.
Please tell me how THIS was ever meant to put over Dean Malenko:
Also,
please keep in mind that you're comparing guys who are working with predetermined results with us, who are actually having a contest. It's a different game to put over somebody now when you know you'll get yours in later, or put a guy over because you were specifically brought in to do so and that's why you're here.
One of the matches on my list of favorites in WWE was The Undertaker vs. Jeff Hardy, ladder match for the strap. That match was golden because Undertaker
didn't take him seriously until after the match, and even though he lost, he proved something to the older guy. It was Actual Underdog, not this shit Cena does, and in the end who won wasn't even the important part.
I don't encourage fedders to take the Undertaker Route much because even IRL, it's a very small margin of guys who can pull that off and succeed. IRL you do it and fail, you wind up Tensai or Brodus Clay. In efedding, when you're not one of those who can, then the first three losses in a row pretty much kills your gimmick.
BUT... that doesn't mean nobody should ever try.
Now... I usually do the ol' Mick Foley routine with promos. Just because. I dunno. Because I like to plan contingencies because you never know when you'll lose, maybe. Yet while I say I do the ol' Mick Foley thing-- I will talk you up, but that doesn't mean I'll talk you up on whatever you're trying to sell. If your character's "a vampire", I really don't care what "real wrestling" would do to handle it-- you're probably getting pigeonholed as a dangerous mental patient from me because I have no interest in writing vampires into my character's 'verse, and I think you're gonna look stupid the first time your supernaturally-endowed character who should have the universal advantage gets beat up. If you are trying to write an intellectual gimmick and it comes out as intelligent as a sack o' potatoes, it's the equivalent of whiffing a punch-- I'm not going to let you make me look dumb too just to sell thin air. I'll probably laugh at your stupidity and then point out that dumb people win matches all the time, so who knows. (If you write an angle and don't research it and-- oh let's just say-- impale yourself on a fence while "training" and heal freakishly quick, prepared to get called a liar in-character for your nonsensical crap and that's it.)
But to say it's the only way and the only formula, lulzno. Which Kevin admitted it wasn't the only way, but the tone from this thread and the things said to two people now really give the impression that this place thinks that. That anybody had seen Jackson around and expected him to come in here and
put over a guy like that, makes it feel like people were just scrambling for as many new faces in this fed as they could fit, which... is not impressive at all.
And P.S.? I know it's real trendy right now to love the bad guys (which is why it's so trendy to BE a bad guy right now), and some of the best heels wind up love-to-hate as well, but if you are giving out demerits because a heel made you feel something bad...
Really. Seriously. Come on.