Workers

Biographies
A worker's biography can be set via the editor to either be static or organic. A static biography never changes; this is useful if you have written a custom piece of text. Organic biographies get updated as the game progresses to reflect the worker's current situation and accomplishments.

Please note that using organic biographies will increase the loading times for the game, especially if they are widely used in a busy game world.

NB: Organic biographies automatically update the worker's contract-specific biographies with the same information too.

Worker Skills
An explanation of this very important topic is found on the Worker Skill Values section.

Age
A worker's age is used throughout the game, affecting everything from their ability to learn new skills to when they retire. 5 is the minimum age for a worker, although it is recommended you don't have workers younger than 16 (or better, 18) in the game world as otherwise they'll have far too long in the 'skill learning' phase. There are generally five key ages - maturity, decline, relevancy, retirement, and death. These are calculated pre-game, based on the worker's settings and their hidden destiny value, although they can be altered in-game (for example, a worker may retire later than they're meant to if they end up being very successful and having a lucrative contract).

The first four of the key ages can be preset via the editor if needed.

Maturity
Maturity is the age at which the worker physically matures; prior to this, his physical abilities improve ata much faster rate than normal and he learns much quicker than usual.

Decline
Decline is the age at which the worker starts to physically decline; after this point he will find his physical abilities and skills starting to erode.

Relevancy
Relevancy is the age at which the worker finds himself too old to be really relevant; after this, many of his entertainment skills will start to decline as he is out of touch and too old to be seen as cool.

Retirement
Finally, Retirement is the baseline age at which the worker will consider retiring from active competition (it has no effect on non-wrestlers).

Set To Debut
A worker's debut year is when they entered the wrestling world (which is not necessarily when they first appeared on a show). A worker must be at least 5 years old at the time of their debut, although it is highly recommended that you do not have someone debut before the age of 16 (or better still, 18) as otherwise they will be learning skills far longer than expected and this may unbalance the game.

Regeneration
When workers retire or die they can regenerate if they have been set to have this option enabled. This means that their basic details - such as size, nationality, and picture - are used to create a brand new worker who will debut around one year later. This is a good way to keep the game world populated over time. If turned on, you also have the option of regenerating without a picture or as a legacy; this means that their name gets passed on to a successor, albeit with a number (or added afterwards, which is useful for masked characters in particular.

A worker will only regenerate once per game, so a worker who has retired will not then regenerate a second time upon death.

Outside Relationships
Via the editor, a worker can be set to be in a relationship with a person who is not represented in the database; the worker will not be eligible to create new romantic relationships during gameplay while the relationship remains in place. If the person they are in a relationship with is in the database it should be set to No and an appropriate record created in the Worker Relationships section of the editor.

Race / Nationality
A worker's race is used mostly for cosmetic reasons such as finding an appropriate picture for them, it has little other impact on the game.

A worker's nationality is used in some of the Al's hiring code when deciding if a worker is considered foreign; for this reason, if a worker has a legal nationality that is different from expected it is recommended that you give them the nationality that better suits them so that they do not get classed in this way (for example, if they are clearly very much an American but were born on an army base somewhere else, American would be the better choice as nationality).

Worker Bases
A worker is always based in a specific region during gameplay. This affects which companies he is available for and his travel costs. Workers can and will move around during the course of a game, either of their own accord or because a user talked them into moving.

A worker can be preset to either be based in a game area or a specific region. If a game area is selected, the worker will be assigned to a region when the game begins; the region will be picked mostly at random, but can be influenced by his current employment status (i.e. if he works for only one small company he will likely be based there).

Worker Sizes
A worker's size takes into consideration height, weight, and body shape. It is used throughout the game for things like deciding skill caps, which titles they are eligible for, hiring, etc. Sizes can change naturally over time or because the user talked to the worker and asked them to change.

The following are rough guidelines to what the sizes represent.

Loyalty
If a worker has loyalty to a company (not to be confused with having a Loyalty relationship with the owner or booker) then they will not accept contract offers that would cause them to leave the company that they are loyal to, they are far more likely to be hired and far less likely to get fired by the company (when Al controlled), and they will never choose to move on from an ongoing deal. Loyalty can either be Normal or True Born depending on the settings of the company they are loyal to. The difference is that True Born is designed to simulate the Japanese system whereby young workers who came through the system have intense loyalty to their employer. Mechanically, it does everything that regular loyalty does but, as it's more public, the worker can gain popularity more quickly in that company because the fans are more invested.

Loyalty can be preset via the editor. During gameplay, loyalty is created when a company uses its 'first refusal' to sign a graduate from one of its training facilities.

Loyalty can be lost when the company closes or if the worker is released (other types of departure, such as contract expiry, do not affect it) and also in situations where a worker is particularly unhappy. Later in their career, a worker may choose to abandon their loyalty in order to seek out new challenges (although this is rare).

Freelance
If a worker is set to be freelance then that means they will incorporate the Japanese freelance mentality into their career decisions. This means they will never sign deals that would tie them to a company for a significantly long period of time, they will be more open to working with companies who would normally be too small for them, and they will try to work for a large variety of companies where possible.

Note that this is specifically designed to follow the Japanese model, it is not meant to be used for workers outside that area.

Worker Roles
Each worker has eight potential roles they can fill, ranging from Wrestler to Road Agent. This tells the game what positions on a roster they can fill. These can change over the course of a game. There are two sets of these: a worker's main roles (the 'master list') and a set for every contract that he or she has. A worker can only fill a specific role in a company if their 'master list' says that they can, but a worker does not have to play all the 'master list' roles in each company.

The difference between Wrestler and Occasional Wrestler is that the latter is for part-time or soon-to-retire wrestlers and so the Al knows that they should not be used quite as often. On-Screen Personality is for anyone who does not fulfil a specific other role; this can be used for backstage interviews, authority figures, etc.

Worker Default Settings
Visible in the editor, a worker's default settings include move set, gimmicks, mask, and hair. The move set and gimmick settings are used when a worker signs a new contract and allow the Al to know what basic information to give.

The mask setting tells the game how respected the worker's default mask is. This comes into play if they are working in a company and using their default (i.e. not company-specific) mask as it is used to decide whether the worker will be willing to lose their mask and how much it will cost.

A worker's hair setting is used entirely for road agent notes when the user wants the worker to shave their head. It should be set to None if they don't have enough hair to shave. This setting can change during the course of the game as male workers naturally go bald.

Active Areas
A worker's active areas inform the game what companies are allowed to approach the worker. Larger companies can get around these blocks, but it stops lower level workers from ending up working abroad in an unrealistic manner. A worker's active areas can change over the course of a game, and will automatically update if they work in new areas. It is recommended that database makers don't make everybody active in every area; the more workers active in each area, the longer the load times will be due to the amount of processing each company will need to do when hiring.

Languages
A worker's languages are used for two things. The first is for when they talk in angles to decide whether they are understood. A worker will be penalised if a language barrier exists between them and the audience. The second is to calculate whether a worker will feel isolated backstage due to nobody else speaking the same language.

Workers will learn new languages during the course of the game. This will happen if they're sharing a locker room with people who speak other languages and want to fit in better.

Skill Caps
Every worker has an invisible cap for each of his skills that tells the game how good they can possibly get. These are set at the start of the game (or when the worker is generated) and cannot be affected by the player. These simulate the worker's natural limits. These caps are considered 'soft'. This means that a worker's skill level can temporarily go past them, however, they will always eventually degrade back until they reach the cap. This effect can be used by the player as a clue to spot when a worker has reached their limit and isn't going to improve any further.

Once a worker becomes old enough to start declining, the various caps will start to slowly reduce over time until reaching a minimum level (the minimum that each skill can fall to varies from worker to worker as it is based entirely on their Destiny value). As these caps reduce, the worker's skills will naturally start to follow suit over time because the maximum level they can be at is getting less and less with age.

Worker Popularity
A worker has a popularity rating in each of the game world's regions. These will go up and down as the game progresses. This is effectively a measure of how many people in that region know the worker and would be interested in seeing them perform. In terms of how to set popularity, this should be done in relation to the various companies. For example, if a worker is meant to be a mega star for a specific company, generally the worker's popularity would be several points higher than the company's in each

region. This will therefore make them a big draw. Popularity 'spills over' naturally. Please see the Game World section of the handbook for a description of how this process works. Please note that when you're viewing the 'quick' version of a worker's popularity (i.e. in a roster screen or the main page of the worker's profile) you will only see popularity of 5 or above outside of your company's home region - this is for ease of use, as otherwise spillover means that almost every region would have to be displayed.

Popularity Caps
Every worker has eight popularity caps, one for each area of the game, which are invisible to the player. These are created at the start of the game, or when a worker is imported, and represent the highest popularity a worker can achieve in any region of that area. A worker's popularity can temporarily go past these caps but it will always eventually erode back down to the cap. The caps are created at random, although they are never lower than an absolute minimum of 65. The caps can reduce during gameplay if a young worker is particularly badly used or if an external event happens, but for the most part they do not change. They cannot be raised.

A worker always has a slightly higher cap in their home area (based on their nationality.) This does not preclude them from becoming a star in a foreign area, only that they always have the potential to be a bigger star at home than abroad. Players may notice when a worker has reached their cap because their popularity may stall or start to fade. However, players should be aware that this does not always indicate a popularity cap - for example, the stalling or fading may be due to age or because the company simply isn't big enough to raise the worker's popularity any further.

Attributes & Personalities
In TEW2020 a worker's personality is assigned via the attributes system. In the default data, I have assigned almost everyone a personality this way because it's a fictional universe and so I 'know' everyone's personality. However, please note that this is not a requirement - the game can function perfectly well with few (or no) personalities at all. Not having a personality assigned just means that the worker has a neutral type and so does not have any specific pros and cons.

For real world based databases it is likely better to limit the personalities to only those that are known rather than trying to give everyone, even obscure characters, a personality. This will save the creator time and will not negatively impact the game world in any way.

Morale
Each worker on your roster has a morale rating indicating how happy they currently are. Happy workers tend to perform better and get into less trouble. You are not realistically expected to keep everybody happy, just as in reality. Each event that affects a worker's morale can either be positive or negative and will be one of four levels (Irritated, Annoyed, Angry and Furious for negative; Pleased, Happy, Very Happy and Extremely Happy for positive). You can see the full list by clicking a worker's morale text in the roster screen. Over time it will get weaker, moving down the levels until eventually the event disappears entirely. The amount of time it lasts depends on the type of event and the initial severity.

A worker's overall morale is calculated by starting at zero (neutral) and adding points for every positive event and taking away points for every negative. The higher the level, the more points are involved (i.e. a Furious level event is much more harmful than an Annoyed event). If the final number is negative, the worker is unhappy, with the larger the negative number the greater the degree of unhappiness. If it is a positive number, he will be happy.

A positive event and negative event of the same level will cancel each other out exactly; for example, if a worker was Irritated about one thing and Pleased about another, he would be neutral overall as a result.

Incidents & Personalities
There are two types of backstage incident that can occur in the game, passive and active. Passive incidents are usually either positive or involve the 'wrestler's court' handling things internally and you cannot take direct action. Active incidents, however, will require you to choose an appropriate action ranging from the extreme (firings and suspension) to the mild (taking no action or giving a mild slap on the wrist).

The effect of your choice of action depends on many factors, including the severity of the issue compared to the severity of the discipline, the personalities of the workers involved, and their relationships with each other and the rest of the locker room. There is very rarely a 'perfect' answer, and the user is encouraged to make their decision by instinct and feel rather than trying to apply a scientific approach, just like in reality.

Your choice of action can have an impact on the morale, personality, and behaviour of the workers involved, and can also have knock-on effects on to the rest of the locker room. Primarily, however, the effect is on the worker being punished. They will usually get either a positive or negative reaction. The reactions are stored (behind the scenes, hidden) and, over time, will lead to both long-term effects (such as changes in personality) and short-term (such as being on their best behaviour for a while, during which time they won't get involved in other bad behaviour).

It should be noted that worker personalities are impacted by these choices on a global-level; this means that the way that other players (and the Al) react to incidents also affect how a worker develops.

Bonuses And Time Off
Workers can be given special one-off bonus payments or time off in order to improve their morale. This can be done via the rosterscreen by launching the worker editor (by clicking on their name or morale for example) and using the Give Bonuses Or Time Off button. It should be noted that you cannot cut short the time off once it has been granted. The effectiveness of a bonus depends on two factors, the amount and the worker's personality. With regards to the amount, this is considered in comparison to their current wages: the more the worker makes, the larger the bonus would need to be to raise their morale. The effectiveness of being given time off depends entirely on how long is being offered. When giving time off, it can either be paid or unpaid. Workers on written deals cannot be given unpaid time off. For paid time off, the worker gets paid even though he is not at shows (although he is not eligible for any bonuses that he would have received). Unpaid time off means they don't get paid at each show but will still get their downside agreement. Unpaid time off for workers who have low pay or low downside agreements will therefore harm their morale as they are missing out. Bonuses and time off cannot be given to the company's owner, the user's avatar, or workers who are sitting out their contracts. Child companies cannot give developmental workers bonuses (although the parent can). Time off can not be given to workers who are already absent.

Excursions
Excursions are a (typically Japanese) concept where a company sends a young worker to a foreign company to gain experience and seasoning out of the limelight. Unlike in previous games, in TEW2020 excursions must be proactively started by the company, not the worker.

When a worker is sent on excursion they are released (and must be paid off as normal if they would be owed money) from their current employer and join the roster of a foreign company, at which point their active areas and base location are temporarily altered for the duration of the excursion. They will return after an agreed upon amount of time, at which point they join the free agent pool. Although the worker is technically released, they will not get angry or take it as a negative event as they understand why it is happening.

To send a worker on excursion you must have an agreement in place with another company where they have agreed to accept excursionary workers. You start the excursion by going to your roster screen and using the Send Away button. The receiving company can release the worker before the contract expires, although this will negatively impact their relationship with the sender. As the worker is being released to go on excursion they cannot be forced to go, it is something they must explicitly agree to.

Young Lions
A young lion is defined as being any active wrestler who has less than 25 Experience and debuted into the game world less than three years ago. It means they are still considered to be learning their trade. A young lion beating a non-young lion in a company that has the young lion system turned on would upset the fans. In companies that don't run the young lion system, whether a worker is a young lion or not has no relevance at all.

Alter Egos
Alter Egos are alternate identities that have a chance of being applied when a worker joins a new company. Priority is always given to alter egos that are assigned to a specific company. If none are available, the next priority is to use one that is assigned to a specific game area. If there are still none available then the game will go through the 'no restrictions' list. (If 'All But' is selected in order to prevent an alter ego applying to a specific company, this will be counted as being as the same priority as

a 'no restrictions' alter ego.)

Each alter ego has a usage setting; this is how likely this alter ego is to be chosen. The usage percentage of all the possible choices are added together to create one big total, and that is used to select the final choice. Therefore, the percentage is not literal. For example, if you had two eligible alter egos at 1% each, they would really have a 50% chance of being chosen; each being half of the 20% total.

Legacies
If a worker has been set with a legacy then it means that they can potentially generate a successor to carry on their name. The legacy can then pass on to the successor's successor, and so on. This feature is very useful for having lucha masks be passed on. A legacy can only be passed on if the worker's Regeneration setting has been given as 'Yes As A Legacy', if a valid name is available at the time the successor is created, and if the worker is worthy enough. Once a year between the ages of 30 and 50 the worker will be checked; if they average at least 40 popularity in a single area and are currently an active wrestler then they are considered worthy. Each worker can only generate one successor in their career.

When giving a legacy name, it should not include any indicator as to the current generation - i.e. it would not be 'Red Tiger Jr' or 'Red Tiger Ill', it would simply be 'Red Tiger'. The generation identifier is added by the game by looking at the 'next number' field. If Blood Relative is set to Yes then each successor will be set as a blood relative of the person he or she follows, whereas if it's Doesn't Matter then it will be random whether the relationship is created or not. If Mask is set to Yes then this means that each

successor will debut with a mask.

Note that if more than one worker has been given the same name for their legacy, they are counted as all being linked - in effect they're all contributing to the same legacy.