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Face vs. Heel
Topic Started: Mar 13 2013, 08:20 PM (64 Views)
Elizabeth Terry

I noticed most efedders chose to play a heel rather than a face. I don't know why the heel/face ratio is always like 90/10 in feds. Personally I have only played 2 heels out of my 7 or 8 people and didn't like it much. Playing faces just feels much better to me. All of my primary people are different types of face characters.

But I want to know why others chose heel right from the start without a second thought.

<3 Much love.
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TownesBentley
Administrator
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Well back when I used to RP :D, I myself found it much easier to be a Heel. It's easier to get people to hate you then for people to love you. It's easier to talk shit about someone then to tell someone how great of a person you are. It was just a lot easier for me to be a heel. I'm sure many of the people feel the same.
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AbelTyler
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Midcard
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Well to me its harder to maintain a Face character rather than a Heel. its easy to talk shit about someone and diss them. But its kind of hard to do that if you are a Face. Well its not really, but you just have to watch what you say and do. its a lot easier for people to write like they just dont care, than to have to actually pay attention to what their character does. Thats why people mostly pick heels.

Of course thats in my opinion lol :P
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Devi
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The Zombie Princess ...rawr.
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I like to keep a mixture between the two. Being a heel all the time kinda gets old, but so does being a face. The thing I enjoy about being a face though is that it offers up a challenge unique to writing. It's no question that the efed world is full of heels that can barrage you with insult and diss after diss, but as a face you have to enunciate your character differently. Things like, old habits that most certainly die hard, character flaws, an inner battle with morality, etc...etc..

I'm not saying that heels don't have to attribute the same circumstances, but it's a lot easier to turn the other cheek and fall into the 'cookie cutter' category as a bad guy.
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Lance Stevens
Jobber
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I think people just have a set definition in there mind of what a "heel" and "face" are, so they choose their character to be a heel. As they find it easier to talk shit and trash their opponent, rather than coming off as a wrestler with good sportsmanship in winning and losses...

When actually I think the difference between the two can be up for debate. Personally most of my characters have always been "heels" when I signed up...But over time I got alot of comments where they could be viewed as faces...Kind of pulling off the Stone Cold/Rock mold of it....

It is possible to be a complete ass and cocky, but yet be a fan fav obviously...As long as you do it the right way and there are alot of ways to do it..My most successful character, I have him set up as the ultimate bad ass, cocky as hell, and all that, but I also pair him with a funny manager, more for comedy relief...And when you read the promos, the two work mold together nicely, where it reads with alot of entertainment and like he could be a fan fav...(Sorry not trying to inflate my own ego or anything :) )

Anyway I think alot of people could actually be face, and are actually faces, when you stop to think about it...Hopefully some people here are able to find that level to balance us out a bit...
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Mike Harrison
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Blame Harrison... He's a bastard!
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From what I've seen a lot of e-feds do tend to have a heavy heel presence, but I think that the decision comes from what they might prefer to see/write. From my own personal stand point I have always found it easier to write as a heel, than a face because you have no limits as a heel, but as a face you have certain things you can and can't say and do. So to an extent that plays a part in how people want to write, because some still believe that a face needs to be pure, and maintaining that over a long period of time without becoming repetitious is more difficult than being a bad guy because you can always invent new ways to be hated.

I don't think it is strange to see a heavy bias. When you watch wrestling these days you tend not to see very many pure faces, and those that you do, tend to be people like Evan Borne, Yoshi Tatsu, or Kofi Kingston. These guys tend to be mid card wrestlers, and get over with the fans by their actions in the ring. One might even argue that they are novelty acts, and very few people that sign up to e-feds want to be a novelty act or mid card. And perhaps they view playing a pure face as something that will ultimately restrict their ability to move up the roster - now that might not be true, but it does seem to be a general perception.

A lot of faces I see these days range from John Cena/Sting (i.e. willing to get their hands dirty for the right reason, but generally play fair) to CM Punk/Triple H (i.e. arrogant, egotistical, and willing to do whatever it takes). What I see is that they are replicating what the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, Shawn Michaels and co made popular - the anti-hero. Basically this allows you to do almost everything that a heel does as long as it is done for the 'right' reasons, or at least, to take on a bad guy (eg. Triple H/Lesnar). I have seen this style of face grow significantly through my time in e-feds, and I think that is partially down to how the current and recent eras of wrestling work.

Ultimately, I don't mind if there is a bias in a fed towards heels, or a bias towards faces, because at least people are choosing what they want to be. The issue I have is with tweeners because they are neither one or the other, and I have yet to see a tweener be successfully portrayed as purely 'neutral'. That said, my personal preference is to play as a face because I like being a 'good guy' because many of my favourite wrestlers growing up were big fan favourites (eg. The Rock, Sting, Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mick Foley etc).
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Alexia Brandt
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Lower Midcard
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I think the face/heel disparity has definitely started to shrink in recent years, I remember back in 2004 you couldn't find a Face to save your life, it was Tweeners or Heels from wall to wall and usually people would switch from show to show depending on their opponent (and usually it was switching so they could trash talk harder).

I still think faces suffer from this a bit, but I blame that more on the modern product writing Faces as someone you cheer for because, as opposed to their actions.

As for tweeners, I generally despise them. Jim Cornette (I think) said in an interview once that if you'rea tweener, you're not doing your job right, and I agree. The "Shades of Grey" concept is fine if you're a company like ROH or NJPW that emphasizes in-ring competition as opposed to characters, but generally SoG just blurs the lines and leaves fans confused.

This probably comes off as a bit schizophrenic seeing as how I'm playing a tweener, but I came to the decision based on the fact that I write Alexia as a modern babyface. She has a code, she stands up for what she believes in and doesn't back down. However, she's performing in front of an audience of drunk college students, and her message is going to piss off a LOT of fratboys for whome "Typical Feminist" is a completely accurate meme.
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