FORUM HOME > TNM > Discussion
How do you run your circuit?

ZedjaPosted on 08/01/05 at 08:30:15

I was wondering how people ran their circuits? Do you book the winner or do you let the program pick it?

If it's the latter, what do you do when your favourite wrestlers lose?

I do the latter myself and I try to follow my personal rankings, as to who fights whom. I mean if you lost in the first round of a tournament you can't very well challenge the champ for the title on the next card. If they have a history (with match interference) it might be a non-title match though.
91Posted on 08/01/05 at 18:06:14

Entirely booked. I like to be in control.
ZedjaPosted on 08/01/05 at 18:11:57

You book everything? Can you explain what you find fun with it?

I mean if you know what's going to happen, can you be surprised?
Shaun SindelmanPosted on 08/01/05 at 18:23:49

I usually run unbooked and just develop storylines from there. If i need a match to go a certain way to advance a story, then i'll book that but 9 out of 10 i can progress regardless of the decision of an unbooked match.
americamamushiPosted on 08/01/05 at 19:06:00

Depends.  When I really put everything into a circuit I book and write.  If I'm just sort of doing it I tend to do unbooked and just fill in the blanks.
Snabbit888Posted on 08/01/05 at 19:37:59

On 08/01/05 at 18:11:57, Zedja wrote:You book everything? Can you explain what you find fun with it?

I mean if you know what's going to happen, can you be surprised?
What's fun with it is that you get to see what you can do creatively.  It's nice to put a match together, pick who wins, and then have it be *****.  Plus, I can't speak for 91, but when you post your circuits, I'd much rather see what people thought of what my creative mind came up with as opposed to what kind of explanation I could find for my World champion jobbing to Barry Horowitz in 20 seconds.  Plus it tests you to see if you can work around injuries, people quitting, etc.

When I run unbooked, I get too frustrated for it to last long.  My titles seem to change hands every defense, and that bugs me. :)
91Posted on 08/01/05 at 21:01:55

On 08/01/05 at 18:11:57, Zedja wrote:You book everything? Can you explain what you find fun with it?

I mean if you know what's going to happen, can you be surprised?
Yeah, pretty much as Snabby said, I use TNM as more of a creative forum than a game. I will take the challenge of dealing with injuries and the like, but the results can be incredibly irritating when left unbooked - the other thread on this forum relating to certain wrestlers being unbeatable is a good example of this.

I've had the same problems as mentioned with La Parka, as well as having to deal with around sixty successful title defenses for a near invincible Dusty Rhodes (who has the ability to hit his finisher at any time - usually in the first minute of the match), but rarely more than a couple for anyone else, especially guys like Chris Benoit. Diamond Dallas Page is downright useless in TNM despite being a three time world champion.

But enough venting aside because I love TNM. But yeah, I enjoy coming up with unique characters for wrestlers without having them utterly buried by a series of unfavourable results, nor do I want somebody bog standard like, I dunno, Ronnie Garvin suddenly winning the world title out of nowhere and having to main event my biggest show of the year.

Oh wait...
ZedjaPosted on 08/01/05 at 21:30:28

Thanks for explaining. It's nice to see it from the other side. I'm more like the unbooked kind of guy and then I write from the results of my matches. Now I do pick who fights who (unless it's a tournament) so in a way I can influence the winner.

But I like to write from the hip so to speak and see how creative I can be with what I get.

Another thing I do is the fact I restart every match that is below 5 minutes, unless I do a "Beat the time" match-up. I just got sick of the matches that finish in 9-10 seconds..

Now, since I choose who fights who, I can be creative about WHY, but the results are still unbooked.

As for Dustin Rhodes... I have yet to see him actually WIN a match :)
Critic of the DawnPosted on 08/01/05 at 21:41:23

I tend to leave my circuits about 80-90% unbooked because I enjoy being surprised. To keep important matches from sucking, however, I tend to book how long they will last. So Title Matches generally won't be one minute and ten seconds long, for example. On occasion I'll book the result outright - for example, when somebody is leaving the promotion I'll often book them to drop the title.

The reason I do this the way I do is because, as I said, I enjoy being surprised. To me, running cards unbooked combines the best qualities of creative writing and watching wrestling. You don't know how things are going to turn out, but once they do you have the challenge of explaining why they happened the way they did, what the wrestlers feel about the whole thing, etc. Doing it in this style also allows me to more easily present my circuits as an actual sport rather than sports entertainment. Not all storylines will end in the optimal way (although enough tend to that it is entertaining), and not everything is logically booked like you'd see in WWE. I also enjoy it because it avoids a lot of the fixed heirarchy with a half dozen people at the top who will pretty much always win over people further down the card without interference.

Many booked circuits tend to turn out looking similar - the best of them (Snabbit's and 91's) are exceptions to that rule, but you tend to see the same top guys in most booked circuits: Raven, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Tazz, Shane Douglas and the like. With unbooked circuits, things are again more fluid, because if somebody just won 20 matches in a row, he WILL pretty much be a main eventer. In a booked circuit that CAN happen, but it frequently doesn't because there isn't room in the top tier.

Unpredictability makes things more fun for me. And fun makes circuits last longer. Thus I run unbooked.

EDIT:  And yes, Dusty Rhodes by default is a beast.  He's totally broken unless you change him around a bit.  I set his finisher as the Bionic Elbow, and trigger it with a series of jabs.  His Elbowsmash which used to trigger his finisher every 30 seconds is now also named the Bionic Elbow and has been made his finisher-like move.  This allows Dusty to fire off a ton of Bionic Elbows in a match, but generally keeps the match going for a lot longer.

Eric "Critic of the Dawn"
ZedjaPosted on 08/01/05 at 21:59:46

Ooops, I need to learn how to read... Dusty not Dustin..
AzraelPosted on 08/01/05 at 22:35:52

I usually don't book the first few cards and then take things from there in a booked fashion, unless I have plans for specific people (read: Kurt Angle in GWA).

I find it usually makes things a little more spread out if people you don't really intend to do well force you to start using them in a higher capacity, though quick finishes are always a pain.
Snabbit888Posted on 08/02/05 at 05:57:49

I do occasionally let things happen unbooked too, but it depends on the circumstances.  I very rarely when scheduling a card book from there.  I get my results the way I want when I run the matches.  I do this because it allows me some flexibility.  For example, perhaps the wrestler I didn't want to win ends up winning after a cool spot.  I may go with it and use it to trigger a feud or a storyline.  Justin Credible still has a job in GCW because of a match with Paul London.  I know have an angle planned for Credible for the next 6 months of GCW time.

So I am open to letting TNM make some choices for me when I'm torn or sometimes, what TNM does is simply better than I had written and I'll take it.  I used to run circuits exclusively unbooked for a long time, but too many short matches and wrestlers that should be doing good doing horribly got me frustrated.  If I could ever come up with a concept to make it more of a sport I would, but I've never come up with something solid enough that I like.

That, and I just prefer to read booked circuits.  I like to see what someone does rather than what someone does based on what they're given.  There are some that do unbooked exceptionally well, i.e. Critic.
JoeDesertratPosted on 09/25/05 at 05:28:40

I have never booked a match except in a test circuit.
I like to see where the wrestlers take things themselves and be surprised or not at the results although I admit I have to sweat out angles being ruined on occasion. I kind of feel at this point that it would be "unfair" to wrestlers to book them as losers in a match. Plus sometimes a huge upset can be exciting as it shakes things up.
I do keep spreadsheets for each circuit I run with my own rating system. I do make an Open Office presentation (similar to power point) for each card which gives me a creative outlet for the game.
I expect that as more wrestlers reach my mandatory retirement level (50 wins or 30 losses) the number of wrestlers I created will eventually surpass "real" wrestlers which I suppose is another creative outlet.
I suspect booking every match for an entire circuit would be way more work than I could do for a game. I only manage about two cards a month as it is.
triad4evrPosted on 09/25/05 at 22:17:18

I do a mostly-random results federation with original wrestlers (created for a dice-based RPG I wrote and then ported to TNM) with Strict Pushes enforced (which works really well because when you have wrestlers that have finite stats out of a maximum total, it's extremely easy just to take a wrestlers stat point total percentage of the maximum and make that his Push). I do have a bit of a hand in certain things, though. I will _always_ either Restart or Continue a match that ends in a count out or DQ in under five minutes. I just look at those results as cheesy. If I have a guy that announces he is leaving (I also hire and fire wrestlers with a liberal sprinkling of TNM Tweakcirc- I have to, I'm running a WWE style two-brand fed with like 100 guys) and, say, he's the title holder, there's always a few guys I can count on to get the title from him, or I will use the ~ key or the "Insert Champion" function to keep booking him until he _does_ lose. If somebody wins that wasn't supposed to (in my mind), I will do the "evil GM" thing and book some penance matches against monster opponents and storyline it that way. I just look at TNM's resolving of the matches as a way to challenge me a little as a writer. Sure, I have what some of these folks mentioned, titles that change hands too darn often, etc. but I can usually alleviate that by being sure to book the champions in matches against guys a lot weaker than them for the "regular" cards while building up storyline heat through interference or tag matches or whatever (ie. the champion and one of his buddies faces the top challenger and another guy in tag before they have a big singles match together). And I have plenty of good high-charisma or high-workrate midcarders to keep the matches interesting and the ratings good for "regular" cards. And I will also sometimes use outside interference to tip a match towards a desired outcome but, then, if it results in a DQ or something, I just storyline from there. I have had a lot of good storylines come out of undesired results. And, for my purposes, booking the outcome of each match takes to darn long! Anyway, my two cents.
Psymin1Posted on 09/26/05 at 06:37:31

(created for a dice-based RPG I wrote and then ported to TNM)
This sounds extremely interesting.  Maybe you could share with us the rules of Dice-based game.  I think it would make for a different, interesting new set of TNM rules.  But, if you don't want to, that's fine too.  I am just curious to see how you are running your fed with those rules.



~Psymin
LillaThrillaPosted on 10/03/05 at 04:44:33

I'm about 50-50.

If that match doesn't matter to anything in particular (i.e. "i need another match on this show; who can I throw together...") then its unbooked.  Most of my cruiserweight matches are unbooked too.

If I need something to happen in a match or for a particular person to win a match for storyline purposes, then I'll book that.

Also, while dark matches and house shows are usually unbooked, the big exception to that is if one of the guys is a jobber.
StoneC0ldPosted on 10/03/05 at 05:18:50

No matter what the circumstances are, if it's a dark match, if it's just a time-filler match, if it's a match booked solely to give the wrestlers some TV time; if I don't care what the result is going to be, I don't book the winner--I only book the time.

I do like to keep the total time for all the matches and other segments on the card limited to what would be normal for that particular show.  Like, for a Raw taping, I'd allot maybe 95 minutes for total on-air time (add the commercials and you get the full 2 hours).  So, all the matches and other segments for the show would need to roughly total 95 minutes.  (Interview segments I simply guess how long the interview would carry out....)

Anyway...  I'll leave the result unbooked if it's a dark match, or just a match where I simply don't care who wins (ie. if I'm just trying to start a feud, putting 2 guys together to see if they can support a feud, or my planned storyline doesn't require a specific person to win that match), otherwise I book the ending as needed to suit my storyline....

Not that I've gotten very far with my current attempt at a wrestling federation..... ;)  Too much higher-priority stuff on my plate.....  But, when I do get time to work on it, that's my strategy....
americamamushiPosted on 10/03/05 at 07:37:25

Higher priority than TNM?  Blasphemy! ;)
JeepGuyPosted on 01/30/08 at 23:33:18

I do both.

I book the matches that are part of the overall storyline while some of the matches don't matter as to who wins or how.

Even booking matches, there are surprises that go into writing cards up - ref bumps, mask spots and bleeding spots are some of the added extras to booked matches.
lazy duckPosted on 01/31/08 at 01:39:03

On 08/01/05 at 19:37:59, Snabbit888 wrote:

What's fun with it is that you get to see what you can do creatively. It's nice to put a match together, pick who wins, and then have it be *****. Plus, I can't speak for 91, but when you post your circuits, I'd much rather see what people thought of what my creative mind came up with as opposed to what kind of explanation I could find for my World champion jobbing to Barry Horowitz in 20 seconds. Plus it tests you to see if you can work around injuries, people quitting, etc.

When I run unbooked, I get too frustrated for it to last long. My titles seem to change hands every defense, and that bugs me. :)
That hasn't happened with me yet. I;m running a circuit off line that is unbooked and my World Champion has defended the title 12 times and has held the belt damn near a year. Yet my TV title which I defend every other show changes maybe once every 3 or 4 cars. the longest defence I had so far with the TV title is 6