[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Okay, so there's Fight Club, which doesn't have any actual sort of ranking (you just always have to fight on your first night, yadda yadda), underground pit fighting, all that sort of thing.  Steve Perry came up with 'The Musashi Flex', a loosely-organized ongoing martial contest/tournament - highly illegal, due to corpses being created semi-regularly - in which your ranking determined which others you could or could not challenge (e.g. you weren't allowed to challenge anyone more than 10 or so rankings above or below your own).  Winning a fight gained you points, which moved you up through the ranks; losing a fight of course lost you points.

I'm not going to go into all the rules about the runners of the network, fair fights, etc. etc.  What I want some help on is how to determine, well, a) a character's starting ranking and b) suggestions for how to figure out how to decide the number of points exchanged for winning/losing.
 

[prismite]

For determining a character's starting rank, I assume you mean after their first fight, yes?

This is going to be an interesting challenge, as adepts, Bio's and Cybo's will likely have higher initial ratings than unmodified mundanes.

Maybe do something like categorizations? IE, you get X points for knocking the opponent out, Y points for submissions etc. Maybe even do the same for the time needed to win (5pts - 1pt per round for example.) You also need to decide if killing your opponent is good or bad, as both should modify your final score accordingly.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Not after their first fight - more akin to 'at character generation'.  I'm also considering 'enhanced' and 'unenhanced' categories - enhanced being essentially no-holds-barred, unenhanced being, well, unenhanced - though if an enhanced individual can 'turn off' their enhancements, they could theoretically fight in both categories.  Individuals decide at the time of meeting whether they're going to fight armed or unarmed; usually it's the challenged person's decision.

The style or speed of the win is immaterial; that you won (and/or survived) is what counts.  As well, a fight needs to be reported in order to count, though in the constant-wireless of 2076, that's almost easier done than said, what with VPNs.  (Finding an opponent you can challenge wouldn't be dificult either.)  The points you earn or lose would likely be a high percentage - up to double, perhaps? - of the difference between your ranks; this would provide for fairly swift movement through the ranks, until you reach 'your level'.

I would presume that the top individuals are going to have max or near-max Agility and skill, with specialties and martial arts included, but that puts the base dice pool at Agility 6 + Skill 11 + Specialty 2 = around 19 - yes/no?  Which puts a focussed starting character with Agility 6 + Skill 6 + Specialty 2 = 14 with a specialty.  (And they'd better have both armed and unarmed near each other, otherwise they're going to drop like a rock when they encounter a challenge that goes the other way.)

But where would you rank that 14 vs. 19?  Grant that sometimes the combat is going to depend entirely on tactical maneuvers and use of Edge, on a scale of 1 (starting out) and 100 (top 10 rankers), would you put them somewhere around ... 45??  Higher??  It is a lot of karma to earn to get that far up, buuuut ... you could jostle around for quite a while in the middle ranks before pushing higher as your skill grows.

I may just have to fiat it.  I don't know.

[Kincaid]

Part of me is tempted to just have your initial ranking based on the ability of your face/agent/hype man to sell you as a contender.  Look at a guy like Kimbo Slice.  He's a terrible fighter but came into the professional circuit with a ton of hype and people believing he could knock anyone out with a single punch because of social media.

Outside of that, I'd use Car Wars as the template.  For non-magic folks, divisions are based on the total amount of nuyen you've shoved into your body.  It creates incentive to actually be good (that is, spend karma) on fighting to strike a good balance between augmentation and skill.  Adepts could work as catch weight opponents.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Thing is, magic and augments balance out - roughly, at least, with the exclusion of weapon foci; the highest-rated 'Class A players' are likely to be combat adepts with weapon foci, though, and that's actually something that other players who do their homework would know about, and thus broker a challenge without the weapon foci.  (I might establish a 'no weapon foci' rule; anyone can get a quality weapon, but not everyone can use a high-powered focus.)  And the face/agent/hype man thing wouldn't work at all.  You join and you're at the bottom rung; the only way to gain rank is to fight other members of the organization.

Hmmm.  Perhaps more to the point, what would you consider the bottom rung, to be able to join at all??  Perhaps a base dice pool of 8 - 4 attribute, 4 skill??  This would be equivalent to a professional guard ...

[Kincaid]

Thing is, magic and augments balance out - roughly, at least, with the exclusion of weapon foci; the highest-rated 'Class A players' are likely to be combat adepts with weapon foci, though, and that's actually something that other players who do their homework would know about, and thus broker a challenge without the weapon foci.  (I might establish a 'no weapon foci' rule; anyone can get a quality weapon, but not everyone can use a high-powered focus.)  And the face/agent/hype man thing wouldn't work at all.  You join and you're at the bottom rung; the only way to gain rank is to fight other members of the organization.

Hmmm.  Perhaps more to the point, what would you consider the bottom rung, to be able to join at all??  Perhaps a base dice pool of 8 - 4 attribute, 4 skill??  This would be equivalent to a professional guard ...

At a bare minimum, yeah.  Joining an upper-echelon fighting circuit (if you aren't going the Slice/Lesnar route) means you've paid your dues on the local circuit and have most likely posted trideo of your fights on the Matrix.  If it were my illegal fighting operation, I'd have "seasons."  I'd bring in a set number of newbies all at the same time and basically have them fight only other newbies (round-robin, Swiss) to establish some sort of pecking order.

[Sendaz]

You could go with a basic grade system for moving up through the ranks.

Fresh Meat starts off at Rank 10, or you may want to start at Rank 25 as you prefer.  The ranks run from 1 - 100.

Edit: Forgot some conditions
WINNING
If the Winner was Higher rank than the Loser: No change in Rank.  You can not beat up kids for their lunch money and claim the title of Master. 

If the Winner and Loser were evenly ranked: Winner gains 1 Rank

If Winner was lower ranked than Loser: Increases your rank by half the difference between you rounding down, minimum rank adjustment of 1. 

LOSING
If Loser was higher ranked than Winner: Loser drop in rank by half the difference rounding up, because losing sucks, minimum rank adjustment of 1.

If Loser and Winner are evenly ranked:  Loser drops 1 Rank

If Loser was lower ranked than Winner: No change in rank. You tried but were out of your league. 

-----------------------------------------

If you have a rule about no more than 10 ranks difference between contestants the max you can move in any one fight is 5, so you have quite a few fights to work your way up.

So two new guys meet in the ring with a starting rank of 10.

A wins and gets bumped to 11.
B loses and drops to 9.

A&B have a rematch later that week and B wins.

A drops to 10 (losing half the difference rounding up which is still a 1 ) and B goes up to 10 (half the difference rounding down for 1), next week will see who comes out on top.

B feeling a need to test himself challenges C who is ranked 15 and wins.

B goes up from 10 to 12 (half the difference of 5, rounding down) while C drops from 15 down to 12 (half the difference rounding UP).

But what if B had really been feeling their oats so instead of going after C they had gone up to the local boss D who is rank 19 and, against the odds laid out by the bookie, wins.

B goes up from 10 to 14 (half of 9, rounding down) while D drops from 19 to 14 ( half of 9 rounding up). Way to go champ.

---------------------------------------
This allows for advancement while also slowing down flukes from catapulting someone to too high a spot just for being lucky once in a fight.
Plus you don't have to come up with tons of tables and calculations to figure out what a players 'rank' is based on their augmentations/stats/skills.
Advancement is based on wins or losses and the differences between differently skilled/augmented characters will sort itself out over time.


I would suggest adding a rule that Rank 90+ can only challenge 1 rank higher so no skipping in the home stretch.
This draws out the suspense of making it to the top as these will probably be the most spectacular fights.

In the absence of a middling rank one can challenge the next step up as if they were the missing rank.

So for example say you are the only rank 98 (so you don't have another 98 to fight and get bumped to 99, slapping around the 97's won't help) and for some reason there is no rank 99 available to fight (dead, missing, etc..) then the 98 could challenge the 100 as if he were the missing 99 and if he wins would take the 100 spot while the former 100 drops to 99. If he loses, he remains at 98.

[cantrip]

I like the idea of enhanced/unenhanced divisions. Depending how many divisions you want, you could also have an adept division. At some rank, I'd suggest merging the divisions into one -- taking Sendaz's post, maybe at rank 50 all divisions become one. So you begin fighting cybered/magic individuals even though you were previously not enhanced. Though that would be a tough transition for someone that is not augumented at all - plus the experience you'd gain fighting different types of combatants as you move up in rank. They'd potentially always be the under-dog; which would make for good odds in placing bets!

Maybe instead of mixing divisions,  run a tournament once or twice a year that is an open division free for all?

If you want to expand on the fight club concept, you could have Magician Fight clubs - so full magicians and mystic adepts. And for the virtual crowd, VR fights in which contestants run black IC or run against black IC. Would be a way different rule-set, but could be interesting.

[RulezLawyerZ]

Why would a newbie start ranked at all? If you want to let a character start with some rank, make it a positive quality that they have to spend Karma on. Otherwise, they just have to start at the bottom and work their way up.

I think Sendaz has a good handle on the progression, though.

[Sendaz]

Mage Fight Club.  Just remember to have wards around the battleground itself so AoEs don't scatter/blast into the crowd. 
Think Ars Magica had a ritual both sides in a fight contributed to so it blocked either sides magic from exiting the designated area until one side or other  was defeated or rendered disabled (unconscious, dead, etc)


First rule of VR fight club- You do not post online about VR Fight Club 

Edit:
@RulezLawyerZ :  The Starting rank of 10  was suggested so you have a small amount of room to fall as well and fight losers from other starting matches without going into negatives.
You could start at 5 because if you are losing 5 fights in a row right at the beginning knocking you down to 0 then maybe this is not the place for you.

[Kincaid]

Is this meant to be a self-contained campaign that's pretty much all fight club, all the time, or is the fight club a dimension to a larger story?  From the marketing side of things, you need rankings your audience can understand.  Boxing has 17 weight limits and that's way too many.  If the fluff of the club isn't important, then no biggie.

[cantrip]

Mage Fight Club.  Just remember to have wards around the battleground itself so AoEs don't scatter/blast into the crowd. 

Good call! AoE could be banned except for certain fights. The Club's magicians could have bound spirits power the ward - not that the spirits would be happy about that. Could have Fab III sandwiched between clear layers of ballistic glass -- not realistic, but the mages would loooove it! Or have it take place in a cavern location below the club (so, cavern cave-match!), but then you'd have to stream the fight over AR, which is no fun. You want a rabid mob of spectators screaming for your blood, pain, death and dismemberment. 

I also like the ranking starting at 10, but if you wanted to start unranked -- you could have the Fight Organization have feeder clubs. So, fighters would have to be vetted by taking part in 'approved' fights before they make it into the beginning ranks of the main organization.

[Sendaz]

 You can bet Aztlan and such might hold special Magic Free fights in a Foveae (though they probably don't advertise that fact=rather just ensure everyone they are using 'proper precautions')  to ensure no magic/powers are being used and woe to the unsuspecting adept who slips in and tries to activate an ability. 

Makes good Trideo though what with the screaming and the bleeding.

[Namikaze]

I seem to remember something about Aztlan having lots of underground blood sport arenas.  Not sure of the specifics, but there was a martial art style dedicated to the use of cyber-implant weapons in these arenas.

[Sendaz]

Which puts a focussed starting character with Agility 6 + Skill 6 + Specialty 2 = 14 with a specialty.  (And they'd better have both armed and unarmed near each other, otherwise they're going to drop like a rock when they encounter a challenge that goes the other way.)

Don't forget Body and anything enhancing that.   

Dishing it out is all well and good, but a glass jaw won't last long here especially since I am assuming armor will be pretty much non-existant for the unarmed fights?
Armed combats might allow some armor bits though.

Edit: 

How often would a contestant be expected to fight? 

If they are meeting in certain places and given that they could well take a beating, unless you have magical healing between bouts there is a limit to how many back to back fights they are going to be able to do in an evening. Like in Fight Club since everyone was getting a chance to fight, each probably were only in 1 or 2 fights a night.

On the other end of the spectrum, if it is only 1 fight a week Like a Friday Night Main Event or more Highlanderish so that during the course of the ongoing campaign the warrior finds another challenger, the fighter is more likely to dump all his Edge in the one fight since he will have time to replenish.