Ring Announcer

[Spoons]

Sorry if this has been said before, but I think Ring Announcer should be its own role. It's weird having Justin Roberts on the commentary table, or interviewing people. I think having "Ring Announcer" as a role makes sense. Matches could get a bonus (or penalty) from the ring announcer's performance if it's good (or bad) enough, and maybe they can be rated exclusively on Microphone skill, so a new skill wouldn't even have to be added! 

[Jaysin]

Love the idea. Gary Michael Capetta deserves representation!

[MisterSocko]

It's been suggested before and if memory serves, Word of God is that ring announcers don't need to be in the database as Workers, and are the kind of minutia that is simply simulated by your level of Production Values.

As Workers, rating them on Microphone skills wouldn't really make sense, because either you give them a terrible/mediocre rating and then they hurt every match, or you give them a high rating and then you'd be a fool not to "cheat" and have The Fink cut 20 minute promos on every single show.

Ultimately it's hard to define what makes a good or bad ring announcer but the fact is, ring announcers don't make or break a match, the difference they make, positive or negative, is not noticeable enough.

[Spoons]

5 hours ago, MisterSocko said:

It's been suggested before and if memory serves, Word of God is that ring announcers don't need to be in the database as Workers, and are the kind of minutia that is simply simulated by your level of Production Values.

As Workers, rating them on Microphone skills wouldn't really make sense, because either you give them a terrible/mediocre rating and then they hurt every match, or you give them a high rating and then you'd be a fool not to "cheat" and have The Fink cut 20 minute promos on every single show.

Ultimately it's hard to define what makes a good or bad ring announcer but the fact is, ring announcers don't make or break a match, the difference they make, positive or negative, is not noticeable enough.

I appreciate where you're coming from. I do think that balancing is an issue, but you could just have him do that anyway. 😛 We don't have to have them do anything, it's mostly for lore and realism purposes. And I don't really see what else they could be rated on.

[Self]

For small indy shows, I think ring announcers make a huge difference in the quality of the show. Maybe not the matches, but certainly the show as a whole. They welcome the crowd. They transition from match to match. They introduce raffles and plug tickets to the next event. They host. A good ring announcer is the most visible member of the roster at that level.

However, TEW is designed more around televised wrestling, where ring announcers become a small enough element to abstract out of the game. Which is fine. I do miss them when I'm running tiny promotions though, and doing angles for them gets fiddly. 

[MisterSocko]

4 hours ago, Self said:

For small indy shows, I think ring announcers make a huge difference in the quality of the show. Maybe not the matches, but certainly the show as a whole. They welcome the crowd. They transition from match to match. They introduce raffles and plug tickets to the next event. They host.

So... Live Event Experience in a company's Production Levels? Not trying to knock what those guys accomplish, but it seems like we're talking about a crew member who handles a whole bunch of duties, and happens to also do ring annoucing to save money. Not sure that Workers in TEW have a Skill that reflects that, but to my knowledge your Production Levels affect the quality of shows.

[Spoons]

Hmm... we could make it so that if you're a certain size or lower you need to assign a ring announcer, but as you get past a certain size it's optional? I'm mostly just thinking of a use for people like Justin Roberts, Lilian Garcia, Howard Finkel, etc. without just removing them from the game or having them do things that they never did IRL. It's mostly for the sake of realism, though I get that going too much into that would just make things tedious, so there needs to be a cutoff point. I think what we have now is fine, but it would be nice to be able to assign some people to be like, an unseen/minor part of every show so that they don't complain about being left off despite being an important part of running things. 

[Skummy]

On 4/13/2024 at 9:15 AM, Self said:

For small indy shows, I think ring announcers make a huge difference in the quality of the show. Maybe not the matches, but certainly the show as a whole. They welcome the crowd. They transition from match to match. They introduce raffles and plug tickets to the next event. They host. A good ring announcer is the most visible member of the roster at that level.

Yeah, this is the difference between a ring announcer in TV wrestling and a host or MC on smaller independent shows, which is a more expansive role and arguably easier to replicate in TEW - they are talent that, if you particularly wanted to, you could book in angles based on Microphone skills between matches. 

I don't think ring announcers will ever be added as a role, because they haven't been in any of the EW games so far. I wouldn't object to there being an additional slot on your announce team that's specifically for ring announcers/MCs, but I also think that them being included as part of Production or some other broad category is fine too.

I have seen and worked shows where a bad announcer definitely dragged the quality of the show down, but it's hard to say that they negatively impacted on individual matches, just on the quality of the show as a whole, so treating them as an aspect of your Production quality feels more appropriate. 

[ArcheoOutOfNowhere]

In theory, you could always have a middle ground: if you pick someone, you might get a bonus if they're good (Justin Roberts, Samantha Irvine, etc), a malus if they're particularly bad, and if you don't pick anyone then you have neither bonuses nor maluses. More or less like picking a figurehead, if you will.

However, yes, it's difficult to determine what they should be based on: Mic Skills doesn't really fit, because it is for how well they do promos, and things like Charisma or Acting would not fit much better. Maybe an attribute rather than a skill, like "Recognised Ring Announcer", that could be gained with experience, or something about a worker's voice ? Maybe a combination of skills, but with a much lower threshold to gain bonuses, since said bonus would be insignificant ?

[Spoons]

On 4/15/2024 at 8:08 AM, ArcheoOutOfNowhere said:

In theory, you could always have a middle ground: if you pick someone, you might get a bonus if they're good (Justin Roberts, Samantha Irvine, etc), a malus if they're particularly bad, and if you don't pick anyone then you have neither bonuses nor maluses. More or less like picking a figurehead, if you will.

However, yes, it's difficult to determine what they should be based on: Mic Skills doesn't really fit, because it is for how well they do promos, and things like Charisma or Acting would not fit much better. Maybe an attribute rather than a skill, like "Recognised Ring Announcer", that could be gained with experience, or something about a worker's voice ? Maybe a combination of skills, but with a much lower threshold to gain bonuses, since said bonus would be insignificant ?

It could be its own skill like Announcing or Colour. Or maybe, like you said, a combination of several, like maybe mic and announcing, but diminished since it's kind of both but also kind of neither of those? It's hard to say.

 

(Also apologies for my spelling of colour; I'm Canadian. xP)

[Jaysin]

In North East Ohio, we have a somewhat local legend ring announcer that adds so much spark to any show he's on. When he tried to retire, every promotion he worked for struggled to find a suitable replacement. 

Of all the talent roles in pro wrestling, it seems odd to me that ring announcers are ignored. I understand the production setting covering it, but at the same time, there have been some iconic ring announcers over the years. Other than Michael Buffer calling Bret Hart, Clark, it always felt like a huge deal when he was doing introductions for big matches. 

If a mod maker uses ring announcers, I give them the personality push and give them short angles before matches to reflect the role. Doesn't really fit, but it gets the job done for now.