Before we begin this behind the scenes look behind the 3rd year of the big bar brawl, let me just preface it by saying I will be using an interviewing format so I can remain focus. I will be answering hypothetical questions and, if you think I left a question out, just put it in the comments and I can respond to that. Here we go!
Q: First and foremost: What did you think of this year's fiters?
A: One thing about the Big Bar Brawl people tend to point out is how it draws in characters we've never seen before, but I kind of like that aspect. Even in a small town bar you will never meet everyone who goes there, or at least know them by name. I do enjoy having recognizable faces in the battle and prefer a higher established character to newly introduced character ratio, but I think it is more believable that a huge event would draw in people you don't necessarily know.
On a more specific level, I was pretty satisfied with this year's lineup. A lot more electricity and water present in the brawl itself than I would have liked, but that's more a fault of mine I believe. I was super happy to see Widow Maker back partly because I can't imagine a brawl without her. Even if she ends up driving around Manhattan during one, it still feels weird if she doesn't sign up. Only Rainbow Dash can match that perfect attendance record.
When I see entrants I tend to think of them more as potential than as the character themselves. When I saw Saxton I thought, "Oh, just a boring muscle man," but his over the top strength became one of the most enjoyable parts of the brawl for me to write, and custardkittensrock's art of him really made me love the character much more than I intended to. A lot of characters who just pop up for the brawl also take a bit of work off my back, since they are pretty blank slates and I can do whatever I like with them. But that's a mixed bag too, because the stakes are smaller amidst a bunch of strangers. Again, that's why I like the mix: A bunch of characters I can use however I like and a huge bunch of guys who they can act off of.
So far there has not been a character I absolutely did not want in the brawl actually IN the brawl. Even if you enter a Pet Rock I wouldn't object to it if it had potential. I liked Spider-Pig solely because he is such a joke, but too much of that may lead to a slow actionless event.
Overall, it would be hard to discuss an entire cast of forty characters without droning on, so if you want me to discuss and individual character, just ask me.
Q:What made you decide on the Bastardsaurus Rex as the mystery fiter?
A: I don't quite remember when I decided on it, but with the forum switch I figured this would be the most timely time to include a Zoofighter. I think the idea floated around my head even back on the old forum, but I don't think I would've done it in the end if we weren't right on the heels of leaving the original ZF forums.
The specific Zoofighter was much harder to decide on then the inclusion of one though. I toyed with popular ones (popular as in Gooper Blooper talks about them a lot) but pulling from something too recent might overshadow our other competitors. A champion might be too much, because killing Croctopus is not something that could be taken lightly. Instead, I chose to dig far back, and 1 and 2 were my main choices. Problem with Zoofights one is how primal most Zoofighters were. Gibbons with club arms do not a good mystery fiter make.
When I decided we'd give ZF2 some of the love it deserves despite falling apart (like Fite Yer' Mates 2, amiright?) it came down to who it would be from the bunch. I wanted to give someone the chance to shine they never got, and the old pic Gooper Blooper drew of Grapplesaurus as reference for my own art as well as the ease of bringing a devil dinosaur back for a brawl made B-Rex the prime pick.
B-Rex also offered quite a bit: Hellish power, fire, two heads, grappling arms. This dinosaur would not be just brutish strength. Initially, B-Rex almost had wings or jetpacks added to its design so it wasn't trapped on the ground, but this was before the walkways and gravity boosters were dreamed up and I decided an almost pure callback design was in order. I only added the collars because of my respect for the old rules, but as you could see I quickly had those collars broken. They were going to play a bigger role at first: Widow Maker almost used the shock collars to her advantage to pretty much fry B-Rex without it being able to strike back, but it seemed out of character, so I went with the two ZF veterans fiting like they should.
Q:What made you choose the arena this year?
A: I think it started with me watching Space Jam on TV one day and realizing Swackhammer was a bit of a missed opportunity. The Monstars all got their time to shine, but Swackhammer could have contributed in some way. I enjoyed his different design than the hulking brutes of the Monstars, so my mind began to spin an excuse to get him in.
Thus, the minor detail of Swackhammer seeking monetary compensation was born, and we went off to Moron Mountain for this year's brawl. It also freed up JRM so he could enter. JRM and Yahoo Bot were entered because of a perceived lack of potential characters, but the lotto saw that we got quite a lot more than I had expected. Anyway, I got Swackhammer in and he was always destined to get involved, it was only the inclusion of Forscythe and the Mystery Fiter getting high enough standing to justify delaying the reveal that gave me the idea for his inclusion. I don't want zombies every year, but it just keeps being so dosh garn convenient.
The walkways weren't even intended to enter until brawl signups were getting close to being opened up. I googled Moron Mountain to get some reference pics so I knew what it was like, and one picture:
gave me all the inspiration I needed to include walkways. Adding the walkways alone opened up huge potential. Not many people had long range weaponry this year and the slender walkways would be underutilized realistically, but they opened up a huge door to a lot of the arena abuse that ended up happening. Flooding would have been too catastrophic if the guys who literally couldn't survive it didn't have an area to escape too.
Speaking of flooding, it really was the big event of the match. It gave puny people like Carla the ability to be a powerhouse and crippled the stronger guys who were hard to take down otherwise. The brawl would have been drastically different if the water couldn't be brought in, and thanks to WALL!!'s "do what you want" weapon I was able to get the water flowing in.
English needs more synonyms for water by the way.
Q:What made you decide to introduce non-fiter characters like the Aboleth or Arthur Bishopfish?
A: Another huge reason the water was introduced was to bring in the non-fiters. Mac Tonight had to show up because he is BBB's de facto mascot, so the Pentajulum opened that portal up literally. It also allowed me to bring in the Aboleth, who if you want to thank someone for its inclusion you should thank Cornwind Evil. He reintroduced me to Spoony's series on RP shenanigans and in one video Spoony talks about how going near water is a death sentence because of how many beasts are in bestiaries for water and how DMs are itching to use them.
When he mentioned DMs build entire campaigns around Aboleths, I was intrigued. I did some research and found it to be an interesting monster, but as I spun the idea around in my head for an RP plot involving it, it just wasn't turning up with anything good. People would not be keen on the idea of having their guys mind-controlled or losing the ability to breathe air, so without it the Aboleth was just a three-eyed ball of tentacles.
But in a Brawl, I control all. The Aboleth was pushed in with the idea of draining Atlantis, and I can't recall which one proceeded the other, although my interest in the Aboleth was probably first. It had a lot of potential, but I dialed it back because of its non-user entered nature. It just keep Royal Guard around longer and crippled some of the heaviest hitters of the brawl. Hale seemed almost too indestructible and I figured a believable death would take more than simple damage or the go-to disintegration method. Gamera, on the other hand, was a bit of me playing with an old mistake of mind. Gamera fought WALL!! in some water and I made the mistake of thinking he couldn't breathe underwater. Well, I got corrected and fixed that fite, but in what might be called irony I turned it over onto Gamera where instead of drowning he could only breathe water.
Plus, the space cool seemed like a rad idea and the counter opposite of the core kills. The hole to the core was setting up the deaths of the two most indestructible guys: weakening Hale and setting up the fall of Aevar, but I felt Deadhead needed a strong death too so he got to be the one to open the hole. Those spooky undead guys always need to be murdered 1000% unless you want them coming back in a sequel.
Bishopfish, on the other hand, was a more tame inspiration. I just remembered the bishopfish from myth and thought it would be cool to rope one in some time during RP, and the idea of a delayed Mystery Fiter reveal allowed me to bring one in just to allow the B-Rex to stay hidden longer. his resurgence as a Demon was another idea where I intended to do more but dialed it back to keep focus on the entrants rather than my silly walk-ons.
Q:What role did the pre-fite show play this year?
A: After the first year, pre-fite shows became a bit harder. The first one we had established guys mostly, but they were still pretty blank besides a few character traits. The past two years its been about setting up rivalries, alliances, obtained knowledge, or throwing a user off. I threw out quite a few hints for the mystery fiter this year as well, more than I am usually comfortable with, but no one seemed to get it prematurely so I guess it paid off more to let on more.
Unfortunately, with 40 guys some guys can only cameo and be red herrings. Wheeler's showing in the pre-fite show was just for show, but the same scene set up the national anthem book, Commanderson's teacher attitude, and the strangeness of Mr. Daniel and his acquired knowledge of the beast's he would control later. Some things are just goofy or for fun, like the invasion of the Society base (that set up Scorched Earth's heavy focus on tough guys until the little guys like Gunter and Bishopfish showed him they are too be feared) but overall I think you can usually glean the purpose behind a pre-fite show. Deadhead breaks the scanner because he's just SO evil. Grutz's greed is established, Aiden's murder of Clint is foreshadowed, Aevar challenges JRM instead of the nearby Forscythe due to the truce between them. Rereading them will probably allow you to glean their purpose now that you've seen the brawl.
Q:What did you leave out of the brawl you wish you could have included?
A: Mostly: a lot of pictures. We were tipping well beyond 100 pictures at some point. Some scrapped pictures included Ulrika flicking Tak-Sin away (deemed a bit too similar to Lucky flicking Gunter's eye), a picture of the walkway folks looking over the Gunter invasion (was meant to establish who was on the walkways, but drawing even six guys and a gunter filled arena seemed to time consuming), Carla punching Lucky's side and a follow up picture of her holding her hand in pain (my biggest regret on pictures I had to cut, just would have been a humorous one after the other thing to nail in how weak the punch was). Some images I wanted to look better, like I would have Ulrika in the Samus KO pic if she wasn't so complicated in design, and at that point we were close to the posting deadline anyway so we had to make due.
In non image news, Aevar was going to use his cone of chestfire more, but it fell by the wayside because of his more interesting powers. He almost used it to kill Utsuho, but I liked the idea of him crushing her arm a lot more.
I don't think there is a fiter I necessarily feel like I wanted in who I didn't get. I can only think of one year where I absolutely wanted someone and didn't get them, and that was year 2 with Zephyrus. I wanted him to brawl soooooo bad, but I had fun denying Oceanus punches in the face and I kinda got Zeph in this year with Ricard's illusion. Still, he hangs over my conscience as the only guy I feel I needed I never snagged. I've wanted people like Jonesy in of course, Stanley would have been interesting and I was hoping Saberwulf would return to arena (still have trouble just calling him David :I)
Q:How do you decide who kills who/Why did this guy do nothing big for so long?
A: Every year after I run the tractor, I get out a piece of paper and write everyone's names on it in a column. Then, I draw lines to indicate who KOs who. I usually try to make sure everyone gets to do something, and if someone ends up getting shafted I don't mind it being my guys (Yahoo Bot, Mac when he was Mystery Fiter, introduced walk-on characters). But I try to make sure everyone gets to show off, which sometimes leads to the unfortunate kill-a-guy-then-be-killed sequence. 18 characters in the first brawl made it a lot easier to balance things, 26 things got more hectic, but with 40 guys it was hard to logically justify everyone getting a murder in.Scorpion was unfortunate enough to not get a KO, and although I didn't realize I did it Hypotenuse got none either. Neither one I was picking on, it just turned out that way when all the lines were drawn.
With 40 guys, you also encounter the issue of having to account for all those people. That's why you may hear about a fite but not see much of it. Sure it was going on, but what was happening was not as important. Not every fite will be a swift start-to-KO match, so people will get locked down in stalemates until they are interrupted or something changes the playing field. This leads to an unfortunate "my guy's not around so he'll probably be placing high up!" mentality, which I try to quash when I can. Aevar's early kill on JRM was to keep Marduk on his toes and lock Aevar where we'd need him later. 17 and Clint worked to take down Permafrost long before either went down, and sometimes I just toss someone in to aide a bit to keep them in your mind.
Q:How much is preplanned?
A:Not a whole lot honestly. KOs, big events, those are the first things decided, but when it comes writing time is when I decide most of what happens. Grutz and the Custard Kittens weren't even planned to help take down Permafrost, but it was an idea I had so I ran with it. Leonardo de-arming Hypotenuse to the level he did, Cleft trapped beneath the rubble, what spider sausages actually DO all were things I pretty much came up with as I wrote. I make an outline and then I let myself run wild. To tell you everything I hadn't planned but included would be such a huge task it's best done on a case-by-case basis. I still have my sticky note program open with all the pre-writing notes open though, but even then some of those old notes changed so they don't even reflect the final product.
Some things bends or twist when the art comes in too. The tablet and pre-writing have made it less likely to happen, but there are still adjustments or just dichotomies between the art and the writing. Yeah, I know Wheeler lost his glasses before he was boiled, and I know B-Rex's collar is missing in the Scorpion KO pic. Just like the plethora of typos, they are annoying but come with the territory of trying to make such a huge event happen. I'm cleaning up the typos in my spare time, but I don't think I'll tinker with the art unless something glaring shows up or if I think I can clean it up a bit.
Q: Who did you wish you could have voted for? Were there characters you wanted to do better?
A: I am a sucker for patriotic characters, so the moment Cleft did his ad I was sold on the guy. When he came up the winner I was left extremely happy but unable to tell anyone. He would have been my number one vote, and although I would have probably had a lot of fun writing any winner, Cleft winning was something new for me. I didn't single out ROB or Doomrider as my prediction to win the last two years, so seeing Cleft come up was quite ethereal.
As for who else I might have voted for, 17, Permafrost, the Custard Kittens, and WALL!! would have been my choices. I do enjoy the less "likely" winners of the brawls, and these guys captured my heart in one way or another. 17 is a cool crab dude, Permafrost is my old frozen mammoth I lost in a bet turned full fledged character, the Custard Kittens would have been poetic (as CKR said, "born in a brawl" and all), and WALL!! is just hilarious. If I could have actually voted it would have been a lot different I bet, but these are the guys I decided I might have voted for.
I would have liked to see Yahoo Bot win. I knew JRM was doomed, but I had hopes for Yahoo because of his fite record, but in the end he got last so he was demoted from an undefeated fiter to a spambot who really isn't interested in fiting, he was just really good when he was forced to fite before.
I also think it would have been cool for the Mystery Fiter to win, especially that it was a Zoofighter this year. I also think it might suck for the secret entrant to beat everyone else though, so I have mixed feelings on it. I would like to see Widow Maker win some day too, just because perfect attendance deserves reward. I can't say the same about Rainbow Dash, but mainly because she's tied to my sister and it definitely keeps her coming back. Plus, who doesn't love picking on their younger siblings? :P
Q:How about that workload?
A: Every year this proves to be an issue, but this year I never felt the deadline so hard. We had more time, but to end it on a day besides the 4th (although it was probably only the 4th still for me by the end of it) would be doing a disservice to Cleft. The uber-patriot just had to win on this day, so I pushed myself much harder than usual. That's why I couldn't screen for typos and some of my art wasn't up to my standards. I keep putting too much work on myself and only accept my sister's help when I bog myself down to the point of breaking. Next year I hope to be more calculated, and hopefully real life won't be as busy around this time.
More importantly, next year voting will be shorter and sign-ups will hopefully been done more quickly. I want people to have time to think, but I need time to work. Until we can find a proper balance it will just continue to be experimentation. 40 might be our plateau though, since pushing further might just be too ambitious. I wouldn't mind scratching 42 or 45, but to push up to something like 55 would be insane. Unless I got a lot more artists that is an impossibility.
Still, I only work so hard because I want people to enjoy it. I never put so much effort into projects for myself, because I quickly give up on them or find something else to do. There may be only 15 or so people who ever read it, but those people are all awesome enough that it is worth it to put on such a huge show.
Q:Plans for next year?
A: Not much yet. My brain is still cooling down from this one. My sisters are already talking about their entrants for next year, and I can say I have one planned myself, but things like the mystery fiter, the venue, and any other set ups are still far on the horizon and not something I will be thinking about for a while. Right now, we'll just go back to regular fites for a while to give me time to stabilize, and then I can drum up crazy brawl ideas again.
There are probably lots of stuff I addressed or maybe I repeated myself a bit, so please ask questions if you have them. I will try my best to answer them. I hope this behind the scenes look was interesting and informative, and until next year, this has been your fitemaster Jumpropeman, and thank you again for watching the Big Bar Brawl 3!
