Review: WWE Know Your Role!

published by Comic Images, 144 pages hardbound, £24.99 or thereabouts.

To be honest, this was a bit of a joke, some money burning a hole in my pocket at GenCon and a cheesy game to buy. But then I read it and it does not deserve the derision that a WWE roleplaying game usually attracts.

144 pages isn't a lot for £24.99 but it's well put together and well presented, full colour throughout. I'm not convinced that the binding will be up to serious use though, my copy is just starting to fail a couple of months after I bought it.

First things first, it's a D20 game in terms of the basics, weight classes from Light Cruiserweight to Ultra Heavyweight take the places of races and the classes are 5 types of wrestler and a manager class. The Wrestler classes are split into Power, Aerial, Rough, Technical and Savvy, each associated with a different attribute.

So we've got a game of hand to hand combat, using Dungeon and Dragon rules, what's to stop the game being hit, miss, miss, hit? That's where the cunning action count system comes into play. In the book there's around 100 different manoeuvres (also split into different classes) and an easy system for designing new moves. Manoeuvres are rated on difficulty from +6 for a simple pin attempt on a prone target to -3 for something like a Tornado Slam. Each wrestler announces a manoeuvre and rolls a d20, plus attack bonus, plus the rating of the move. Then the highest score is the move that takes effect in that round, the losing player's move fails.

I've done some practice bouts with this system and it really adds to the atmosphere of the game. Players don't tend to try for finishing moves immediately, because it's difficult to pin an opponent, it's best to stun them first, or to build up Heat from successful moves to cash them in for a special move.

That's the heart of the system and it swiftly becomes more complex, rules for distracting a referee (which could be run by another player) before doing an illegal move, the classic pick up a chair move and the getting another character to run in to help out. Rules for promos, vignettes, interviews and even getting a movie role are included, adding to the game's long time success.

Campaign-wise, the game's divergence from basic D20 is most apparent. Each player is encouraged to create at least 5 or 6 characters to populate the roster and also the campaign does not need a GM, it can run easily without one, abiding by a group consensus to resolve any rules conflict.

So I like the game, but I'm just not sure who will play it. Older roleplayers will tend to scoff at anything so childish as the WWE and younger roleplayers may be intimided by the complexity of the system, which could have been better presented. Still for those players, like me, that embrace their inner geek, the game might fit the bill.

* lost points for occassionally contradictory rules and for the book being less than well-bound

Overall 8/10