VVV On: Quality Vs Quantity
May 8, 2020 21:07:53 GMT -5
Mongo the Destroyer, Dave D-Flipz, and 4 more like this
Post by mosler on May 8, 2020 21:07:53 GMT -5
Soon to be antiquated introduction:
As The Rumble comes to a close, it seems like some of you monsters could learn from this.
::ducks::
********
There are many types of federations - with outcomes based on simulators, dice, angles, or more often than not, who had the best promo. This can be contentious, as beyond grammatical errors, what makes for a quality promo will vary from reader to reader. One might prefer characterization, setting, concept, humour, interactions, focus on current opponent, broader angles interwoven or more often than not the ability to talk trash. As a federation develops its voice, the fedheads (organizer/judge)'s preferences should ideally become apparent, and be reflected in the types of players attracted to it. If you know its a comedy fed with a preference for fart jokes, the prop comics will go to a prop wrestling fed instead, where they will have better opportunities to tape objects together (at least this was the case when our hobby prospered, these days you would be hard pressed to find five prop comedy wrestling feds to ply your writing skills at).
The point is, with victory being very subjective - there used to be a lot of federations where sketchy promoters would just skim over the promos, and hand the win to the word count that intimidated them the most. In federations without promo limits, this also extends to which guy put out the most promos. Wrestler A and B both did such fantastic work, but B did write 5 to A's 4 - it was so close. ...Is it ever that close? Crudely scrawled epics making for world champions reinforced the idea of longer/more being better. This in turn has led to a lot of rambling, possibly undermining our hobby as creative writing below slam poetry.
::ducks::
These days, events will usually hand out word count maximums and promo limits. If you see a four promo cap in a title match, you'll probably want to write four promos, just to guarantee that the words used are at the forefront versus the amount of words used.
A note on length. If you write a five page roleplay, you are theoretically giving your opponent five pages of material to respond to. That's nice of you. At the same time, he might have had one page of material he was planning on, and your long opus can completely demoralize him. He had twenty minutes to write a promo, not two hours. Resigned to loss, he does a half ass version of the one pager instead of his best. OR he tries to rebut your points, but doesn't give any of them the thought they require. Congratulations you lucky dog, you won the match with SPAM, while taking it out of the judges hands!
Our hobby more than any other (unless Kids Say the Darnedest Things becomes an Olympic Sport) is more likely to see players with grade 6 reading levels mixing it up with university graduates.
Quantity becomes Quality, when you are viewing it as effort.
In less than a minute, I can write three sentences that will eviscerate a grade school student. If he spends a few weeks writing his life story in some novella length promo, even if my three sentences make it look like horse shit, where does the victory go? He's clearly trying so much harder, and presents so many ideas, that even if they are poorly written they might constitute the better argument. For the sake of encouraging the teen, or discouraging the lazy star, does the brat go over?
It's all subjective. At a certain point, all feds are dice based.
If you're trying to improve as a writer, try both. How long can you pontificated on one point without repeating yourself? And how much can you get across with the least amount of words?
That's for growing as a writer. If this only comes down to victory for you? I will say, from personal experiencing... the best way to guarantee a win is momentum. When its painful for everyone, including your opponent, to see you lose - you know you're doing something right. The best way to gain support is to actually have people enjoy your work. You have a better chance of them enjoying it if they actually read it. They are more likely to read it, if it is short. At which point, quality vs quantity is whatever you want to make of it.
~VVV~
As The Rumble comes to a close, it seems like some of you monsters could learn from this.
::ducks::
********
There are many types of federations - with outcomes based on simulators, dice, angles, or more often than not, who had the best promo. This can be contentious, as beyond grammatical errors, what makes for a quality promo will vary from reader to reader. One might prefer characterization, setting, concept, humour, interactions, focus on current opponent, broader angles interwoven or more often than not the ability to talk trash. As a federation develops its voice, the fedheads (organizer/judge)'s preferences should ideally become apparent, and be reflected in the types of players attracted to it. If you know its a comedy fed with a preference for fart jokes, the prop comics will go to a prop wrestling fed instead, where they will have better opportunities to tape objects together (at least this was the case when our hobby prospered, these days you would be hard pressed to find five prop comedy wrestling feds to ply your writing skills at).
The point is, with victory being very subjective - there used to be a lot of federations where sketchy promoters would just skim over the promos, and hand the win to the word count that intimidated them the most. In federations without promo limits, this also extends to which guy put out the most promos. Wrestler A and B both did such fantastic work, but B did write 5 to A's 4 - it was so close. ...Is it ever that close? Crudely scrawled epics making for world champions reinforced the idea of longer/more being better. This in turn has led to a lot of rambling, possibly undermining our hobby as creative writing below slam poetry.
::ducks::
These days, events will usually hand out word count maximums and promo limits. If you see a four promo cap in a title match, you'll probably want to write four promos, just to guarantee that the words used are at the forefront versus the amount of words used.
A note on length. If you write a five page roleplay, you are theoretically giving your opponent five pages of material to respond to. That's nice of you. At the same time, he might have had one page of material he was planning on, and your long opus can completely demoralize him. He had twenty minutes to write a promo, not two hours. Resigned to loss, he does a half ass version of the one pager instead of his best. OR he tries to rebut your points, but doesn't give any of them the thought they require. Congratulations you lucky dog, you won the match with SPAM, while taking it out of the judges hands!
Our hobby more than any other (unless Kids Say the Darnedest Things becomes an Olympic Sport) is more likely to see players with grade 6 reading levels mixing it up with university graduates.
Quantity becomes Quality, when you are viewing it as effort.
In less than a minute, I can write three sentences that will eviscerate a grade school student. If he spends a few weeks writing his life story in some novella length promo, even if my three sentences make it look like horse shit, where does the victory go? He's clearly trying so much harder, and presents so many ideas, that even if they are poorly written they might constitute the better argument. For the sake of encouraging the teen, or discouraging the lazy star, does the brat go over?
It's all subjective. At a certain point, all feds are dice based.
If you're trying to improve as a writer, try both. How long can you pontificated on one point without repeating yourself? And how much can you get across with the least amount of words?
That's for growing as a writer. If this only comes down to victory for you? I will say, from personal experiencing... the best way to guarantee a win is momentum. When its painful for everyone, including your opponent, to see you lose - you know you're doing something right. The best way to gain support is to actually have people enjoy your work. You have a better chance of them enjoying it if they actually read it. They are more likely to read it, if it is short. At which point, quality vs quantity is whatever you want to make of it.
~VVV~