Rival Angels

A couple months ago I noticed an ad for The Squared Circle on the RA comic pages. Curious, I followed the link and spent a few more weeks talking myself into ordering the game in question. Last week it arrived, and when I mentioned it in page comments Albone and Brenda Rua mentioned some mild interest in hearing what it was like. So here is my (amateurish) review of this game now that I've thrashed on it a while:

“To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.”

Let me say this first – I am not a pro wrestling fan. Growing up in a very Mormon community in Idaho, I’ve never had the opportunity to be, and I’ve never quite had the desire. So what in the heck am I doing with a copy of The Squared Circle Wrestling RPG in the first place? Well, I like role-playing games, especially off-beat ones. I like martial arts, displays of skill and power, and over-the-top action movies. I like storytelling, especially when seasoned with action. (Don’t get me wrong, I also like Jane Austen films, but I’m grown-up enough to be contradictory) Many of these things can, I understand, be found in pro wrestling. I’m also fascinated by the duality of the on-stage/off-camera nature of the sport, and the hard work it takes for it to be not only fake, but faked well. This is physically dangerous stuff they’re doing, and I respect the risks they’re taking for people’s enjoyment. I respect Jackie Chan and his stunt team for the exact same reasons.

So what doesn’t thrill me about wrestling? Two things, really, the first is guys in tights. I’m not homophobic, but muscular dudes in skin-tight outfits just don’t appeal to me no matter how good they are at what they do. Muscular women in skin-tight outfits, well, that’s why I follow Rival Angels. The second thing is perhaps just my perception, and this is NOT a dig against anyone, but the overall redneck atmosphere that pro wrestling seems to have. I live in Idaho, and I get enough of that just by looking out the window, thanks.

What does this have to do with this game? Well, I’m just establishing that I’m not the person to ask about whether this game accurately reflects pro wrestling. What I CAN tell you, however, is what the game is like and what I think about it.

Structure

The Squared Circle is a labor of love put together and put forth by a wrestling fan, effectively self-published but still advertised and listed on Amazon. Reading through the book, I find myself recognizing that this was written by someone who loves wrestling and worked hard to present a functional game system and accurate descriptions of the 200+ moves listed in the book. (There are two expansion books out, but I don’t have either yet) The author HAS achieved these goals….but I find myself wishing he’d spent more time organizing it all. I’m a seasoned role-player, and after two days of playing out matches in what’s a fairly simple ruleset I find that I’m still finding rules I forgot because they were stuck in places I wasn’t regularly referencing. Information will be given in one place, and in another place entirely you’ll find the explanation of what that information is used for. There are a few places where consistency fails and things are listed in a different order in one place than they were in another. Nitpicky stuff to be sure, but it does detract from the feel of the game somewhat.

Characters

Creating a character in The Squared Circle is fairly easy. There are six stats, all of which are rolled randomly. Each stat gives a bonus to a particular aspect of your wrestler, whether it be expanding their move list (Intelligence), helping evade attacks (Agility), or buffing up one’s ability to take and give hits (Endurance). There are no useless stats in this game, and even which is the most useful one is debatable. After your stats are generated you choose one of five character classes – Brawler, All-Rounder, Technician, High Flyer, or Powerhouse. None of these classes force you to follow a particular path, but each gives you bonuses to related areas as you level up. Brawlers start tough and get tougher, Technicians learn a gazillion moves, and Powerhouses learn to do obscene amounts of damage.

After class you learn skills with a randomly-generated amount of points determined by your class. Each skill gives you a useful bonus, whether it’s in working angles, letting you kick out of a pin without rolling, squeezing extra money out of a contract, or bringing the crowd to their feet when you finally unleash that finisher. After skills you pick out a number of details like height, weight, home town, entrance theme, and then you get to the meat of the process, your move list. There are nine moves that every wrestler knows, but your class and your Intelligence bonus gives you the total of how many more you start with. As stated, there are more than two hundred to work with, and no restrictions on which ones you can learn. Stock up your arsenal with whatever you like.

(Case in point, my premier heel, The Black Siren. She loves all things DDT, despite the fact that I still don’t know what DDT stands for even though I now know what it does. Standing DDTs, running DDTs, flying DDTs, ringside DDTs, if there’s a way to bash your head into the mat she knows it.)

Match Point

Now that you have your wrestler, it’s time to send them out to play rough with the other kids! (Awww…) This is definitely getting into the “I don’t know if this is how wrestling works” territory, but this is how this game works – Initiative is everything, because only the wrestler who has initiative gets to act, and they will keep on acting until they botch a move, get evaded, get reversed, or do something that requires a new initiative roll. If you have the initiative, try to hang onto it. If you don’t have it, try to get it by evading or reversing your opponent. The longer you can hang onto it, the more actions you can pull off, the more you will rock the ring. Realistically speaking, though, initiative will change hands regularly.

What particularly impresses me is the way the author has simplified using a move on your opponent into as little fuss as needful. You pick a move, pay the Endurance Point cost to use it (more on endurance points later), then roll a die. Your roll is compared to the move’s failure chance, if you beat it then you’ve successfully performed the move and score the Heat value of the move (if not you look like a prat, lose a little Heat, and your opponent gains the initiative). THEN your opponent gets to decide if they want to try to evade it, which costs endurance points as well. If they don’t want to (either they want to save their strength or they think your roll is too high), they don’t have to, but if they go for it they roll their own die and try to beat your score. If you succeed, you do damage to them and move on to your next action. If they succeed, they avoid damage and gain the initiative.

Funny thing, though, the damage these moves do almost doesn’t matter. What’s really important here is Endurance Points, which are spent to act offensively or defensively. They go quickly, they can be recovered through certain actions, and if they run out you’re pretty much at your opponent’s mercy until you can get a chance to rest. If this happens, pray that they take their win and go home rather than spend all the rest of THEIR endurance points beating the crap out of you for the crowd’s amusement. I just finished a match where The Black Siren did just that to her opponent, slamming her with move after move to max out her Heat (crowd excitement) until she had just enough energy left to pin what was left of the poor girl.

The other point of it all, of course, is Heat. How much you rev up the crowd affects not only how beloved you are, but can help you level up faster and makes you valuable to the promotion. Play out your own angles, impress the boss, hire a valet or manager, negotiate a better contract, and even get your own merchandising deal, there are rules available for all of it!

Strappy Italian Boots

But that’s not all, sports fans! Recognizing that some people like to play the Vince McMahons of the world, The Squared Circle also includes rules for running promotions. Start in obscurity, scrape together the cash to buy a ring, a truck, and a sound system, pull together a few wrestlers, and set up a card of your very own! One suggested mode of play involves each player in a group run their own promotion, competing to see who can rise to the top of the heap, or you can just play by your lonesome if your friends all think you’re weird for playing a wrestling rpg. Ahem. My promotion, the Valhalla Wrestling Federation, just finished its second weekly show today. I played out all of the matches to make sure I understood the rules, but there are means of “quick-generating” matches to speed things up as well. The VWF is still operating in the red, but they’re starting to catch Minnesota’s attention. Why yes, I DO find this aspect of the game fascinating, thanks for noticing! All Hail Commissioner Gabrielle!

To Sum Up

Does this game accurately represent pro wrestling? I don’t know, but I suspect the answer is yes. Is it fun? Hell yes! Is it worth paying twenty bucks (or much less if you just buy the .pdf)? I’d say so. Does it come with Twinkies? No. But we can forgive that oversight.

Okay, I found and watched a WWE(?) match on Youtube last night, Rey Mysterio vs. Mordecai, and it was nowhere near as 'redneck' as I was expecting, so I take back all comments of that nature. I still like Rival Angels better, though, Rey has nothing on Madame Champion in the looks department.

Oh my! What a wonderful review, Mr. Ogre. I feel that I have a good sense of this. And it was a pleasure to read. Thank you very much for the thoughtfulness and effort. Please think about gracing us with more of your writing.

One thing, though. It is about as redneck as you expected. But we make the boys check in their gun racks before they park their jack'd trucks.