Every day a the same question is asked in chat. "How Can I Join a Fed?" I finally decided to write a guide to help rookies understand how the process works. I humbly suggest that it be added to the "Guides" section so helpers and the like can send the appropriate link to newbies in need of the information.
How to Join a Fed
A Brief Guide to Finding your Federation Home by Mean Machine
Joining a fed is one of the most important goals in the career of any TWG superstar. Feds mean paychecks and merchandise sales, and more importantly they offer the only real route to improve your all-important fan count.
Roster spots, especially in the better and more prestigious federations, are a precious commodity, and the competition for them is fierce. I’ve VGMed for and had hiring input in a couple of fairly major feds, so I thought I’d share a few observations in an effort to help would-be fed members avoid making the mistakes I’ve seen made over and over again. Following the advice in this guide won’t guarantee you a federation contract, but it will give you the best possible shot at one.
Before you even think of applying to join a fed, look at their section of the “Board” under the “Federation” tab. This is the place GMs can post information about their feds including any requirements for new recruits. PAY ATTENTION TO THIS INFORMATION. If a GM asks for applicants to supply certain information like fans or entrances and you don’t do so, you likely just blew your chance because you’ve just shown that you can’t or won’t follow simple instructions.
Also, look for any special requirements. Feds often require a minimum level and/or number of entrances to be considered for their roster. If you send in an application and you don’t meet the requirements, you have just wasted both your time and the GM’s. GMs are busy people and do not appreciate this, so don’t get on anybody’s blacklist just because you didn’t take two seconds to read their application guidelines.
It should go without saying that you should never ever PM a GM with anything along the lines of “I can haz contract?” or a bald-faced “Can I join your fed?” All GMs are constantly barraged with these kinds of messages from cretins and sending one will earn you a quick trip to the “ignore” file.
Most feds will want a sample RP included with your application. This means that they want to see your write a roleplay segment for your wrestler. Specifics vary from fed to fed, but this is almost always done in a format like a movie script. Watch a show or two from your target fed to get an idea of how they like to structure their RPs.
EXAMPLE:
Mikey Mikestand: Joe Awesome, you have a match coming up with Powerful Pete. Your thoughts?
Joe Awesome glares at the camera.
Joe Awesome: I tell you, Mikey, I can’t believe that a punk like that even rates a match with the Awesome One. Does he have any idea who I am and what I’ve done?
Mikey Mikestand: I think he probably does know who you are because you whacked him with a steel chair backstage last week.
Joe Awesome: Oh, that? That was nothing personal. He took the last jelly doughnut off the buffet table. When you pull stuff like that, there are consequences, baby!
This is a backstage interview about a fictitious upcoming opponent, of the sort that Mean Gene Okerlund did back in the old days and guys like Jeremy Borash do today. You could also do an in-ring promo direct to camera talking about how great your wrestler is, or an altercation in the parking lot, or anything else you can think of. Watch some RL wrestling shows to get ideas. Make sure your scene goes on long enough to show your writing ability, but don’t make it an epic. Fifteen or twenty lines is fine.
The most important thing to remember about your RP sample is that SPELLING AND GRAMMAR COUNT. I can’t emphasize that enough. This is a text-based game, and good writing is just about the only tool available to feds for storytelling. If you send a GM an RP full of misspellings, grammar mistakes, chatspeak and so forth you’re pretty much saying that you don’t really care about your work and you certainly aren’t serious about wanting to join his fed. Proofread, proofread, proofread!
Now that you’ve got your RP in shape, it’s time to take a look at what your wrestler has to offer your potential fed. This primarily takes the form of fans, entrances, and RP talent. Once you understand what GMs are looking for in a new recruit, you can build your character appropriately to maximize your chances.
The odds are if you’re reading this guide you don’t have much in the way of fans. Wrestlers with hundred s or thousands of fans to offer never lack for fed employment even if they never write an RP, because all those fans are a valuable asset to a federation.
Entrances are the lifeblood of any federation. When two wrestlers have a match on a fed show, that match is rated based on the stars it generates. Each entrance a wrestler owns adds half a star to all of his matches. For example if Powerful Pete has twenty entrances, each of his matches receive ten bonus stars. The ratings of all the matches on a fed show combine to determine how many tickets are sold (and thus how much money is available to pay the workers) and how much popularity the fed gains.
As you can see, this makes wrestlers who have invested heavily in entrances much more attractive to GMs than those who have few to none. If Powerful Pete and Joe Awesome are after the same roster slot and Pete has twenty entrances while Joe has forty, Joe is going to get that job every time unless Pete is a truly amazing role-player. Even then it depends what the fed is looking for at that particular moment.
Finally there is RP talent, the X factor that can get your foot in the door even when deficient in the other two areas. I can’t tell you how good or bad a writer you are, but I can tell you how to improve. Watch RL wrestling on TV to get a feel for how the shows work. Watch fed shows, especially the top level ones, and look at how they are written. Finally, just write some segments. Even if you don’t have a fed contract at the moment, writing practice will make you a better writer, and that will give you a real edge when you’re jockeying for that coveted contract.
Good luck, rookie. Now get out there and join a fed!
Mean Machine
People who writes RP's because they have to get paycheck or any other cause will show it in their RP quality