E-fedding philosophies

[Nikki Micheals]

I'm just wondering what kind of thought process do you guys have when writing promo's, stories, angles or matches. And I also wanted to give some insight into how I make decisions when it comes to my votes and even recommendations for match endings....

To me effort with angles and alignments play a huge part. A heel should often cheat to win over the face and if you are a face your promo should reflect that (see Gina for example, Pedro has a character and lives it in promos), To me having a great story that is engaging and grows your character is equally important as writing a great promo that is in character for the personality you've chosen. And while winner will always be chosen based upon the votes of all of our staff the ending of the match will be used to advance storylines and reflect how close a match was.

I'm just wondering how you guys feel about this and also the views expressed are my own, the others always have their own views on rps and results

[Teh_Javen]

Its so very rare these days to find someone willing to be an actual heel. Everybody just wants to be that cool guy that all the IWC guys love. They're fine enough playing an asshole, but they wanna write theirself getting cheered. On the flipside, its harder these days to find folks who can truly take someone playing a heel role. It seems as if everyone automatically thinks everything said to them in meant OOC. So I really dig Ana an Alex actually being heels.

I'm not a fan of the direction e-fedding has gone where you're pretty much required to do extra stuff "developing" your character to win matches. When I was RP'n on MSN it seemed your character was built in how they did stuff, how they reacted to things that happened to/with them on the shows. If ya wanted to do an RP fully detailing your character's traumatic backstory(cause every single one seems to have that), then it was fine an dandy. But it was an extra RP ya did that wasn't competitive. Winning matches with ya RPs was more about match relevance instead of determining just when in the character's history they reached puberty or whatever. Lol.

So for me I always prefer it to be based on match relevance. But I'm not the boss so I just try an play as best I can to what I think I need to do to win. Lol

[Gina, THE WINNAH!]

I am the exact opposite of you, Javen. For me, the fun of efedding lies in exploring who these people are/were in their lives outside of wrestling. Not a big fan of the 'tragic backstory' either (how is that STILL a requirement in 2016?!?!) but I love exploring what my boys and girls do in their daily lives. Plus, six years into doing this, I still can't cut a promo worth a damn, so I use CD as leverage more often than not. But mostly, I do it because that's what's truly fun for me.

Funny how efedders can be so different, isn't it?

[Samantha Tolson]

I came up old-school, and when I say old-school, I mean PBEM (Play By E-Mail). That was all trash talk, or promo/shoot as you kids like to call it now. I've seen the absolute hey-day of e-fedding come and go, and I believe we're in a bit of a renaissance period for the game. The whole CD thing started out as a way to put some background to a character, to kind of flesh out the overall story, and somehow, someway, has become a necessary ingredient for winning in some places.

Mind you, I can cut a promo like it's nobody's business, especially if I have something to work with, but to this day I still struggle to come up with CD things from time to time, so my CD work isn't probably where it somewhat needs to be in the current age. Given my druthers, I'll shoot all day long and twice on Sunday with anyone, because it's what I came up in the game doing. The shift away from strictly promo work to the hybrid promo-CD style feds threw me for a loop and nearly killed my love of the game. But, as with all things in life, I've learned to adapt and change, and when I can come up with something, I can do CD fairly well.

My personal gripe comes in when you compare our game to real wrestling. Before the proliferation of social media, did many of us really ever get a glimpse at what wrestlers did in their private lives? Not usually, if at all. So that's where I struggle a lot, is that kind-of crossover that's all happened in large part due to social media.

[Gina, THE WINNAH!]

I'm the exact opposite. I know what a promo SHOULD look like (generic insult, generic threat, kill dog, beat up sister, ha ha I'm awesome you're a jobber, wrap) but somehow I can never transpose that to the page. I always become absorbed with my people's character quirks as promo-ers/talkers, and 1000 words later or whatever no dogs have been threatened yet. So I'm not ashamed to say CD is my main weapon as an efedder, and I use it extensively.

[Samantha Tolson]

Apr 19, 2016 9:08:23 GMT Gina, THE WINNAH! said:

I know what a promo SHOULD look like (generic insult, generic threat, kill dog, beat up sister, ha ha I'm awesome you're a jobber, wrap) but somehow I can never transpose that to the page. I always become absorbed with my people's character quirks as promo-ers/talkers, and 1000 words later or whatever no dogs have been threatened yet.

That's the thing.  I've never had either of the two main characters I've run kill a dog or beat up a sister.  The trick to promo work, honestly, is to read, read, read constantly.  Like if Sam is facing Gina, for example, I'm gonna go back through things you've said before and see if there's some meat on the bones, and go from there.  Ana and Sam had two really good back-and-forth matches in LAW a little while back, and no one was threatened, other than each other.

Admittedly, it's a skill that not everyone has in the tool belt.  Me, I kinda come by it naturally.  I played two years of college football and I was like Enzo Amore with a facemask on.  Also, when I was a catcher during my baseball career, I'd smack-talk the hell outta opposing batters, sometimes to the point where the umpire had to tell me to tone it down.  So that much I've been able to do from the outset of life, really.  *evil grin*

[Gina, THE WINNAH!]

At least you know kind of what I mean. Out of all the characters in this game, the one I CAN'T do for shit is the 'RAARGH ME KILL, ME BREAK BONE!' Brock Lesnar type. And guess which one continues to be the most successful in the year of our Lord 2016?

Ah well, at least we've come leaps and bounds from the days when a whole division of drones was created just so my girl wouldn't face the men, because 'women's wrestling was garbage.'

[Teh_Javen]

When I first started out, it was in a fed where we lived out the characters that appeared on shows. And it was originally the same in the fed I spent most of my time in since 03. Then another guy came in and was brought into management and eventually went to his fed. Well this guy introduced me to the way I really like to do things. RPs for matches were promos portraying a character. However when we did NC(Non-competitive) or the CD as its called now, we were RP'n our characters outside of the business. That's why my main guys CM and Javen actually have real names and fleshed out lives outside of wrestling.

I've only really come away from Aimoo(where all us MSN folks went) in the last year. So I'm still new to this CD stuff the way it seems to be required to be in feds. Portraying your guy away from the business seems to not be cool for judging unless you're living the gimmick. So its still new to me and I greatly detest its being (seemingly)required.

[Gina, THE WINNAH!]

The thing about it is that it shouldn't be a gimmick. Gina at home chilling is the same Gina you see on screen doing a promo, just dialled down. But she doesn't put on a 'character' so much as amp up who she is. That is the current trend in fedding, and one I like.

[The B.R.A.T.]

I think it's fine both ways. You don't have to be the same in and out of the ring. As long as the outside of the ring persona acknowledges he wrestles I'm fine with it.

The whole outside of the ring story was something I didn't deal with early on, and then I took a break. When I came back it was the standard. It's something I've seen since returning in 2007.

I feel there is no wrong or right way to do this game. The key is to find somewhere that allows you to write the way you want. Different people have different ways of judging. There is no uniform standard.

I usually write very mundane average life stuff that has gotten me some success but never to a top level. It was just what I was comfortable with.

Landon is my break from that. There is no rules for him. No real established history to follow.

Whatever make it fun. That's my goal now. It used to be winning.

[Teh_Javen]

Yeah it is basically to the point where ya find close enough to what you enjoy. So far I'm finding here in VWS to be about as close to what I enjoy as I'm going to without doing my own fed. Lol. Having fun with Javen here and that's always a good thing.