Memories of E-Feds

[cobystag]

E-feds will hold a special place in my heart as through them I got talking to my now fiancee. I really don't know where I got the time to do all that writing back in the day, it feels like now I get home from work and crash in front of the TV and talk to my fiancee on the laptop. But back then I somehow found the time to also write 2/3 long roleplays where I somehow had to come up with original ideas week in and week out for pretty much the same wrestlers over and over.

 

I remember my earliest days of roleplaying in comprehensive where I was introduced by some friends to the world of e-feds. I used to take time during design and technology on the computer and my RP's back then consisted of a lot of WWE pictures and in-ring or backstage promo's all the time. One moment that sticks with me was me writing out one of my own characters and getting caught by my teacher.... Who suggested a fire extinguisher to the face. I miss Mr ........... I can't even remember the names of my comprehensive teachers now

 

Last roleplayed two years ago. By then I'd become very pompous and up my own arse with undefeated streaks until the feds closed. I'd like to say I'd reached a fantastic standard of writing at that time and all my roleplays were fantastic written piece of works.... But after re-reading some after being inspired too after this topic, they're a lot more immature than what I remembered at the time.... I'd like to say I played my characters like that but I didn't

[DegenerateStar]

I used to be quite active when I was in my early teens because I enjoyed creative writing and didn't have any outlet for it. I did well as a performer (called Christian Montiero and before I knew of the similarly named Christie Monteiro from Tekken 4). I traveled between the numerous communities around for participants of eWrestling and, after performing well in a string of promotions, became something of a journeyman through entering interpromotional tournaments.

 

I also ran two promotions, one of which became moderately popular despite never actually opening. In fact, I ran "TKO Wrestling" through the eFed Wikia and there were numerous characters who'd put on their bio pages that they'd been in TKO Wrestling and defeated me.

 

I've gave up on it years ago, though I do drift from community to community on occasion.

 

Did anyone ever join any communities when they played?

[Richie Freebird]

Are there any going these days that don't take themselves too seirously, that you can dip in and out of without people crying?

[darkship]

I held a couple of titles in the e-fed on the Whacked Out Wrestling forum (a sort-of unofficial Wrestlecrap forum pre-Wrestlecrap forum). The gimmick was British Violence. It was as it sounds; the character (later tag team) carried a barbed-wire cricket bat.

 

Funny thing about the e-fed was that a lot of the posters' names were used for characters in the fed irrespective of whether they could be arsed with the e-fed or not, so the tag partner I was given was Moj (I think he'd long stopped posting himself on that forum by then. It was about 2002).

 

I made it to Transcontinental Title level which was about as far as you could realistically get; the main event scene was dominated by the bookers' characters, as if it was the AWA.

 

Incredibly, there was later a novel based on the e-fed, which is here (no, it isn't the novel linked in my sig). My character isn't in it :'(

[Adam South]

Saw this thread a few days ago and been dying to add to it. I apologise a million times in advance for length of post, but I just couldn't resist... This WILL read like a Bret Hart autobiography of e-fedding, though!!!

 

I used to 'do' e-feds about ten or so years ago, right before I got involved with the FWA. Basically they fulfilled a desire to be involved on the creative side and in the 'booking' of wrestling that I'd never get in the real world. As a side note, I'd tried and failed to create my own more traditional wrestling roleplaying game (think Blood Bowl meets Dungeons and Dragons) but never got further than some rather nice looking profile sheets and a loose set of rules.

 

Personally I never went near any feds that used real life wrestlers, preferring to come up with my own and join like minded RPers. And god there was a list of characters...

 

Harry Tarr- The disgruntled, world weary veteran, loosely based in appearence on Arn Anderson, who also ran a wrestling school. My first actual character, I made an immediate impact with him by hooking up with the headlining heel group in my first fed (UWF I think it was called.). From there, I split from the group, formed my own faction with some other RPers, won the tag straps (never a singles belt) then kind of retired him. Oh yeah, his first angle when he debuted was him wanting to eliminate what he saw as 'silliness' in wrestling (Ironically streets apart from how I eventually ended up writing my characters' promos). Wonder if Edge ever saw any of my RPs at the time...

 

Harry got me noticed by other feds too. I was invited to join a kind of 'All Star' fed, featuring the 'best' RPers from various e-feds. Being a vain old cunt, I naturally jumped at the chance. However, I wanted to keep a certain sense of reality with my characters, and seeing as many of the shows from each fed conflicted with each other time wise (ie: Shows taking place on a Sunday evening), therefore making it physically impossible for the same wrestler to appear on both shows, I debuted a new character, Man Mountain McCray, otherwise known as Triple M. I envisaged him as somewhere between Vader and Bam Bam Bigelow, with the twist that he was Scottish. I believe his first match in this fed saw him win some title or other. Eventually though, I wanted him and Harry Tarr to tag, so I came up with an injury angle that wrote him out of this fed (and conveniently introduced my latest character...). As time went by, and I fancied turning my hand to a bit of comedy, I gave Triple M the old fat, lover boy gimmick. Soon got bored with that though and wrote another angle that saw him quit the fed out of sheer depression (long story that one). I think I intended to bring him back having lost a lot of weight, giving more credence to him being able to do moonsaults and what have you. Never happened though...

 

The stable that I put together involving Tarr and Triple M was known as 'The New Maulers'. Essentially just a Horsemen rip-off, they took their name from a group Tarr had been part of years ago called...erm... The Maulers. They actually also ripped off the APA, in that they offered their protection services for hire. Although they literally offered protection- rather than just interfere in matches, they'd be seen in the background of other wrestlers promos, stopping anyone from attacking them. I seem to recall one of the UWF show's commentators hired them once also...

 

While still RPing for Tarr and McCray I became addicted to e-feds and, having no life of any kind at this time, I signed up for as many feds as I could. Came up with a few corking characters that never really developed because the feds they were in folded pretty quickly (a common occurrence back then) and most feds had rules on how many characters you could RP, so there was no way I could integrate them in one fed. These included:

 

'The Professor' Beaker Bunsen- A technical wrestler, whose gimmick literally was that he was a scientist. He used to do all sorts of stupid stuff like pulling out a pair of glasses when he was on the receiving end of a beating and doing a 'you wouldn't hit a guy in glasses' schtick before hitting a low blow or some such and getting the win. He also used to do his promos in a Dean Douglas stylee in a lab with a whiteboard and come up with all sorts of equations about how he'd beat his opponents.

 

Matt Janus: Here was a novel one. (Fictional) Years before his e-fed debut he'd been involved in a car smash that gave him some sort of head trauma. This led to him having a split personality (Hence the name 'Janus'!)- one was a bland, generic babyface, the other was a rabid heel. Basically the intention was that you'd never know when he'd revert to either persona, though by and large the theory was that he'd get some sort of blood lust during a match, whether taking a beating or inflicting one, which would trigger his heel transformation (Ripping off the Hulk really). I don't think he ever got a match (literally the fed he signed up for never staged a show before it folded) and I'm kind of glad, because although I think the concept was sound I don't think I could have executed it that well really.

 

Rogue Winters: The 'Old Studmuffin' was my take on Hulk Hogan, mixed with a little bit of Jesse Ventura and/or The Rock and Val Venis(!). His promos (probably the most generic ones I wrote for any character) basically were him saying how good he was and talking up his exploits with the ladies. He was also the star of a hit US sitcom ('Guard My Body' I believe I called it!), thus the Hogan/Rock comparison. He won a fair few titles in a short time frame did Winters, and many of his promos were from the set where he filmed his show, because he couldn't make it onto the fed's shows. He also acquired a copycat fan, whose name was...

 

Turbo Jones: Jones was my cruiserweight, inspired by X Pac. At first he was developed as a stalkerish fan of Winters, even literally adapting his mannerisms and catchphrases to make himself a smaller version of Rogue. The initial set of RPs I did (not strictly promos as such, more like the backstage segments you'd see on Raw) saw Turbo trying to phone Winters and buddy up with him, though Rogue would usually try his best to ignore him or even hang up on him. Eventually the story would see them become a team, only for Turbo to eventually turn on Rogue once he realised how little Winters thought of him (one of those instances where the heel would have been in the right!). Either that or he saw himself as the bigger star in the team. Neither actually happened, because, wouldn't you know it, that fed folded...

 

But this wasn't the end for Turbo. No. Instead he wound up with Harry Tarr and Triple M in the UWF (The idea being that Jones and McCray were students trained by Harry at his school). By this point Harry had become just their manager (That's how I got around the maximum characters rule!), though eventually he'd be written out completely when his students turned on him. I think Jones and McCray also won the UWF tag titles, as McCray and Tarr had done before them. Not actually that much of an achievement really, even if it seems boastful, just that my real life love of tag matches saw me taking more of an interest in those 'belts' than many other RPers in the fed. I was also pretty good, so I don't think many people fancied RPing against me...

 

Still addicted, shock of shocks, I managed to find a fed that had legs and lasted more than a couple of weeks, although I can't remember the name of it for the life of me. I devised my last major character for this fed, 'The War Machine' Brad Velvet, who was basically a Benoit clone. Only with more personality (and less of a tendency to murder people). A supremely gifted technical wrestler, whose only desire was to be known as the greatest technical wrestler ever, such was his hatred of hardcore and gimmick led matches that he often refused to take part in such matches. Which caused problems when he inadvertently won that company's Hardcore title (Something I requested happen to further his gimmick), and actually reflected my real life disdain for all things Hardcore (barring porn, of course)...

 

So essentially, you have an uber straight laced character forced into comic situations. I don't think any character I created gave me more fun. Before his Hardcore title win he teamed with a guy called 'Sparkling' Alvin Martin in a tag team called 'The Role Models'. Basically we ripped off Kurt Angle- they were heels, hated by the fans, though they didn't actually realise it and thought the opposite was true. We'd do things like signing sessions where we'd want to preach good education, healthy eating, (You know, all those things that are good for you but actually make people want to hate you), and one person would turn up (still more people than Virgil got!). We also had our own version of the Lex Express, which, if memory serves, was actually a mobile library with the US Flag painted on it. Of course, inevitably we eventually turned face and the fun ended...

 

Last thing on Turbo, who eventually became a singles star after dumping Triple M. By the time of all this, I was actively writing whole matches and shows for the UWF (the original webmasters couldn't do it anymore, not that I lasted very long at this- time consuming was not the word. I also think I'd hooked up with the FWA in the real world and couldn't actually commit to something that took up so much time) and I committed the cardinal sin of so many bookers, both in the real world and e-fed world, and awarded myself a title. This was known and the FYA title (ripping off Tazz's FTW title, although this belt had been created before I even started e-fedding). That said, I was pretty giving in my time as an e-fedder, losing many matches and even titles voluntarily just to further angles, so this was hardly Triple H type selfishness. I also liked the gimmick of the FYA belt- the belt was defended in matches where the title holder decided the match stipulation. Basically, the ultimate champion's advantage.

 

For me, and given how Turbo's character was going, this was comedy gold waiting to happen. I had loads of stipulations in mind that would make Turbo seem like an utter shit- the first was an 'Afterburner' match, named after Turbo's finisher, where the only way to win was to perform said finisher on your opponent. Given that the Afterburner was a top rope, corkscrew moonsault leg drop, and Turbo's opponent in his first defence was a seven foot tall, 350 pound brawler, you can see where this would go. Except the way I wrote the match had the opponent come pretty close to hitting the move on Turbo on several occassions and Turbo only retaining via inteference from his opponent's then major nemesis.

 

So lots of ideas for matches, writing and booking shows. It had gotten as good as it could get. But, like I say, I just couldn't commit, because my real life wrestling obligations took priority. When they involved 500 mile round trips, writing press releases, magazine articles and such like, there was literally no time for me to do it. Given that the UWF was also a US based e-fed and the deadlines I had to get shows put together were based on their timezone (Literally in line with real life PPVs), it was an utter nightmare. Big regret though, cause I just left the place in limbo really.

 

When I had to leave the FWA due to work, I tried to get back into the UWF with a Japanese character called Kaneda Hanedan, who I saw as a Masa Chono type wrestler, unable to speak english, but given a mouthpiece in Harry Tarr. Except when he was written in matches they wrote him as more like the Barbarian, some sort of brutish monster heel. Got a bit cheesed off with this, and try as I might to adapt my promos to fit his new persona and my penchant for comedy (one saw Hanedan and virtually all my UWF characters in a van ripping off the A Team- Tarr as Hannibal, Jones as Murdoch, Velvet (who'd hopped fence to the UWF at some point also) as Face and Hanedan as BA, leading to Kaneda's only ever spoken english words- 'I pity the fool!' I also had Triple M, who seemed to enjoy dressing as a woman for some reason, appear as Triple A- Amy A Allen!!!) I couldn't be arsed with it anymore so just stopped doing it altogether.

 

Good fun though, and believe it or not I credit e-feds with furthering my writing skills with the FWA, in that, when I wrote articles for the FWA it gave me the ability to think in more depth about the feuds they had and probably be more dynamic in how I wrote the articles. Time well spent then. Although given my involvement in coming up with angles and booking shows for e-feds, it has led to my belief that I could book any wrestling show better than anyone else ever.

 

Next month... How I once 'appeared' in the Extreme Warfare Revenge games (True story!!!)...

[Chris B]

I used to take part in one on a forum called 'The Oratory', which had the Oratory Wrestling Alliance. Some of the guys there have now been efedding their characters for years and years.

 

It was generally pretty well done, and I still dip in occasionally and read what they've been up to. My character was a cult-leader style psychopath known as Legion. Had a lot of fun with it, and we actually had people following the fed that weren't taking part in it - they were just caught up in the storylines.

 

The highlight of my time there was a feud with a veteran face, who had a backstory of recently having got married and had first child. My character ended up seducing the wife behind his back and the two of them set out to destroy his career. The feud went on for almost a year, and we threw in twists and turns, and half a dozen other feuds took place within it.

 

The funniest bit was, when Legion first stole the guy's wife, we wrote a segment where the crowd started chanting 'slut'. He makes out with her, before telling the crowd 'She's not a slut... she's MY slut.' The following week, the same line was used with Edge/Lita. We all agreed it was a coincidence, but had fun convincing ourselves that a WWE writer had stolen the line.

[Georgie Pin]

I gave it a go once though I can't remember the fed's name. I won a couple of titles because I was so great. Lol.

 

It was a character based on Foley crossed with John's Wayne in The Quiet Man - an ex-cop who was mega tough but with a bit of a secret past. Not very original to be honest but when I went back about a year after packing it in there was a character almost exactly the same. Wrestling bookers have no imagination!

[Maverick]

I efedded alot for a few years in the mid 2000's but my favourite memory is joining this fed that was full of up their own arse guys who took it way too seriously, so I injected abit of comedy by having my guy have a shoe that he talked too, kinda like Al Snow and head, they would go out on the town and the shoe would look for nice shoes also. Ended up forming the shoe world order, they were livid, but it was a right laugh.

[HarmonicGenerator]

I efedded alot for a few years in the mid 2000's but my favourite memory is joining this fed that was full of up their own arse guys who took it way too seriously, so I injected abit of comedy by having my guy have a shoe that he talked too, kinda like Al Snow and head, they would go out on the town and the shoe would look for nice shoes also. Ended up forming the shoe world order, they were livid, but it was a right laugh.

 

That's probably the sort of thing I'd do in that situation. In fact I used to do that with my friends, only with Dungeons & Dragons. They kicked me out of the group

[PowerButchi]

I efedded alot for a few years in the mid 2000's but my favourite memory is joining this fed that was full of up their own arse guys who took it way too seriously, so I injected abit of comedy by having my guy have a shoe that he talked too, kinda like Al Snow and head, they would go out on the town and the shoe would look for nice shoes also. Ended up forming the shoe world order, they were livid, but it was a right laugh.

 

That's the kind of e-fedding I liked instead of all these gayboys making their characters "dark". And writing sodding essays about their feelings and their pasts and stuff. Everything's got to be "dark" and moody. Well, dark is shit. Colourful and interesting and fun is good.

[xear]

Are there any going these days that don't take themselves too seirously, that you can dip in and out of without people crying?

 

People I talk to who are still in e-feds seem to enjoy the one/s they are currently in so I'd take that as a yes.

[neil is brill]

When I was about 17 or 18 I was once a member of an E-Fed called "Not So Real WWE". I was only in it for a couple of weeks, and my first ever post was "I'm Christian and I'm going to LIQUIFY anyone who gets in my way"... this post won me the European Championship, which I held for 2 months without ever doing another roleplay. I have no idea what happened after that.

[Sir Steve Redgrave]

I was a part of an e-fed back on the TWC Forums. My name was The Slick and my character was basically a wrestling version of The Coach's heel character. Pretty sure I managed to squeeze into an Elimination Chamber main event for the World Title on one of the pay-per-views. Apart from that, I have no other experiences in e-feds.