Challenges for Astrid (and a proposal)

[CaptainL]

Hello!

As you're all aware, we have a new Heavyweight Champion! I'm proud to have come this far if people think one of my characters is worthy of the belt, and I fully intend to do it justice. It means a lot to me, and I'm eager to persue the new story opportunities that come from helping to book the championship. To that aim, I would like to open the floor to those interested in challenging for the title so that we can get plans in motion.

However, it's also come to my attention that titles in LAW have a bit of a reputation for not changing hands all that often. I don't think this is the fault of anyone here, so much as it is the limitations of a play-by-post format where not everyone is going to be able to post at the same pace of an actual wrestling match, so by necessity a match takes much longer to complete. Many users, including myself, have taken to running multiple matches at once to help cut back on this. However, you can't really do that with a title match because it spoils the results - if the same wrestler is the champion in two matches at once, we already know they'll win at least one of them, and this takes out a bit of the suspense. But the tradeoff is leaving the same characters up on the front page for extended periods of time, which can potentially make things feel stagnant and takes away from the idea that any character could be the champion.

Well, I've come up with a way to potentially solve this. And after running it by Winner, I'm all set to put it into practice.

Basically, my idea is running title matches via PMs and posting them after they're done. This way, multiple matches could be run in parallel without giving away the results, allowing a champion to rack up the same amount of title defenses as a champion who did their matches one at a time, but also spent less time taking up a championship spot out-of-universe. Hopefully, if it works, it could prove a useful system to adopt by other users if they so chose.

I'm not saying this would be the only way to play out title matches, nor would I expect it to be the default way. But I thought I would outline it here and use Astrid's title run as a way to test how it works and if it'd be a viable option to make the title scene feel more alive.

To that end, if you want to take on Astrid, hit me up! And feel free to let me know what you think of the idea, too!

Please note: I already have plans worked out for how Astrid will lose the title and to who (that's a secret, of course!). I do, however, want her to get in a few successful defenses before then, so I welcome any takers.

[Lunaspark]

However, it's also come to my attention that titles in LAW have a bit of a reputation for not changing hands all that often.

What belts have this reputation?

Considering the site is only a few years old and most the belts haven't been active for most of that time, I don't really get how someone could have that opinion of them.

[CaptainL]

However, it's also come to my attention that titles in LAW have a bit of a reputation for not changing hands all that often.

What belts have this reputation?

Considering the site is only a few years old and most the belts haven't been active for most of that time, I don't really get how someone could have that opinion of them.

It's something I heard brought up on another server that I won't mention as I don't wish to stir up any drama; the idea here is to make LAW even better, not to point fingers at others. In addition, I've seen new users on our own Discord mention title reigns lasting a long time. I'm not saying any of that is a bad thing, I just bring this up as a potential way to address it.

[SuckerPunch]

After hearing this plan I'm considering the same thing! It sounds like a good idea! There are a lot of characters who are in the contenders list who would love to be a part of a title shot! However, the nature of only running one at a time to prevent spoilers and the slow progression of regular forum matches means most contenders will never see the light of day!

I really love this plan and I intend to get more info from Cap and run something similar! Please look forward to my proposal thread as well!

[winner3]

I very much appreciate you putting the idea out there, Captain. As far as addressing this post goes, I do think that conducting title matches via PM or Discord is a good way to compensate for when you feel that a title reign done one thread at a time with separate users will last longer than is healthy. I personally would love to take you up on this and give Astrid another defense when I find the time. And I do welcome others to chime in with ideas and feedback to keep a title reign going win a way that's beneficial to the champion, challengers, other characters and users, and ultimately beneficial to the forum as a whole. I'm always happy to hear positive feedback concerning titles and I am glad that several users have reported to me that they're enjoying them and that they're finding things with titles to be healthy and fun despite the challenges of managing irl length of title runs in play by post/forum rp. However, I don't want to dismiss the complaints about them that you've referred to above.

I'm happy to do what I can to help improve things around LAW and I appreciate you thinking of ways to do that, Cap. Before I engineer any solutions, I always try to get an accurate estimate on how much of a problem it is. As an admin trying to do all I can to listen to the user base and make things as fun, transparent, and accessible as possible, I care when I hear that folks feel title reigns last too long.

Has this complaint come from many users? Is this common among new user's specifically? Does it put people off? Is this a widespread opinion? Should I be making more of an effort to see to it that belts make rounds faster among users?

I ask myself questions like this because I do want everyone to be happy with LAW wherever possible. And I am constantly trying to think of fun ideas and tweaks to make the site more fun and more approachable for roleplayers. My perception prior was that outside of a small handful of people, folks were generally happy with the title scene. And that as long as we're not seeing the average title run last 1.5-2 years, we'd be fine. In my head, an average length of just under a year is a ideal (assuming that the champion is active, the belt is in demand, and challengers are getting a chance all throughout the champion's reign). But if that's not accurate, I implore people to speak up so that I can apply the right amount of focus to this and work on fixing it.

It warms my heart to see users like Captain and Sucker stepping up to set an example and address these things. And it makes my life easier as well. Thank you, guys. Really.