LEAK! A HILL I'll DIE ON: Incorporate Pro-Wrestling into your TTRPGS

What's up, zoomers. I'm leaking the start of a series where I'll be exploring a hill I intend to die on: pro wrestling being a great thing to pull from for your ttrpgs. This is messy. This is out of order. As is my life right now. I'm figuring things out and I am annoyed with myself for not posting. So, come hell or high water, I'm leaking this. If this was a song, the producers haven't added in the drums yet. Mustard has yet to sign his approval to be on the beat. Metro trusts everyone and has no need to threaten anyone via Future. This is a prequel leak. A 'preak'.

What makes it a leak and not just a normal post? The bit, obviously. Go with the bit, be fun. It's a leak.

I'm going to be writing 3 articles or so explaining what, how, and why pro wrestling has something to offer your games. I'm right on this - I'll enjoy showing you how. For now though, let's pretend I'm a popstar and I want to promote my new super secret album... and I "accidentally" ;) post a voice note to my story instead of emailing it to my producer.

WHOOPS! OH NO, my fan accounts are gonna drum up so much engagement with my socials that my ad revenue is gonna go higher and now poppa (me) is gonna be the talk of the town (a niche corner of the internet) for at least the next week (probably 6 hours).

Here is the the voice note that I "accidentally" posted on social media.

Engage with it.

XOXO WOSSIP WIRL

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newsong_hopenoonelistenstoityet;).zip:

Danny and I are currently running a 4-session limited series set in a professional wrestling/magical prizefighting promotion. It's been a lot of fun - this is my first time running a multi-session 5e series - and the setting is a wonderful mix of so many tropes and cues that hitting story beats is honestly easy. Considering how well this series is going, I wanted to make a list of why more games, even if they're not in a pro wrestling setting, should look to it as a reservoir of tropes, arcs, character development, and story ideas for any campaign involving gladiatorial or fighting competitions.

Why #1: It'll be easier and better than you think, even if you don't know anything about it.

• How:

  • Pro-wrestling is incredibly well documented and home to an incredibly diverse amount of stories and stories about the value of friendship, family, the pursuit of greatness, and human greed.

  • Pro-wrestling has so many tropes and storytelling devices embedded into popular culture already, and it applies so many well known story tropes so transparently.

  • Spend some time with your favorite search engine looking up wrestling stables (try The Shield, Evolution, or Bullet Club, just to get started) and just set up the party to fill the roles of whichever stable you pick. At base, you need a mouthy charismatic guy, and a big enforcer to keep them safe, and a single goal to unite them.
    

Why #2: If your party ever encounters a fighting ring, or some kind of tournament, they will fall into doing the pro-wrestling tropes and beats themselves. Heighten their fantasy and immersion by having championship belts as prizes.

• How:

  • There are already RAW magical belts in 5e. While they generally impact strength, it's easy to adapt them to whatever class your pcs want by having them impact other stats.

  • Championship belts are an iconic prize across the competitive world. You're not playing in a world that's entirely grim, dark, and depressing where nobody can have or do anything cool, right? Incorporating championship belts add an ostentatious and camp element to your world that is not just for your players. A belt implies so many things about a world, and it makes it feel bigger than just the pcs.

  • Mechanically, you can usually benefit from them no matter what other magical items you have equipped. You can have 2 other items if you need to attune, and it doesn't influence what weapons you can wield in a negative way. It can also influence stats not related to combat - there are so many possibilities!

  • They just look sooooooooooo cool.

  • If it looks cool, your party will like it.
    

Why #3: Characters like The Rock, Sting, and Ric Flair are a few examples of incredible characters that could so easily be antagonists, npcs, or pcs in your world...

• How:

  • The promos of wrestlers, especially bad guys (called heels) are perfect inspiration for your bad guy's monologues. With your bbegs, you're selling the pcs on the stakes of their conflict, promos are professional monologues given by a wide range of characters to sell you on stakes. There's hundreds upon hundreds to choose from. Just look up:"SOMEONE'S promos" and watch your normal evil doer become a magnificent bast*rd.

  • Everyone in ttrpgs has a character, but a gimmick makes a character memorable. A gimmick is something that is overplayed for dramatic effect and guarantees a spin of originality to every interaction you let the gimmick flag fly.

  • The role-playing of dnd is much more akin to pro-wrestling than it is acting in movies or tv. The improvisational nature of good interactions in pro wrestling is something dms and players alike would do well studying.
    

Why #4: Playing with different combat mechanics for melee characters like their ability to inflict conditions, targeted damage, and distance control makes melee combat more dynamic for non-casters.

• How:

  • In RAW sub classes like Battle Master allow melee characters to do more in effecting the space around them. I've played one, it's great to have some semblance of logic to how your character can impact the world around them in melee combat that often times can feel boring.

  • Even flexible dms who will play with you in terms of what your melee character is allowed to do may get tired or confused having to keep what your character is doing straight if there is not some easy to understand mechanic you agree on. Adding in some homebrew wrestling or grappling rules that really incentivize melee characters to grab hold of someone can totally change combat.

  • Add in submissions as a combination of charges like a smite on a grapple attempt to break the hands of fingers of casters. Your melee characters will love that. Plus, easy in game mechanic change for the now maimed casters, any spell with somatic components is now cast as disadvantage or with a lower DC.
    

Why #5: It's fun to be a muscle mommy. Your players that like playing big imposing characters would probably love to have more of the world be about who can be the biggest muscle mommy. Wrestling is an art form about finding out who can be the biggest muscle mommy. Need I say more?

• How:

  • Implement my ideas and get one of your pcs a championship of a local fighting ring so they can get a cool item, some gold, some fame, and a good way to consistently get into fun trouble traveling to different places on your map. It's always nice to give your pcs another legitimate feeling reason to follow your story beats, defending a title or collecting belts is a great reason to go somewhere for the quad gods of your party.

  • Checkout other games that incorporate pro wrestling into ttrpgs like this one: https://ndpdesign.com/wwwrpg/ (not sponsored but a fan... FEEL FREE TO SPONSOR US, NATHAN!) and actual plays on YouTube (ALSO, A GOOD SPONSOR IDEA!) that have wrestler or prizefighter characters.
    

Secret reason #6: It's the best medium to draw from for exploring how to get a party to form and then compete with each other, which will eventually result in PVP for all the gold. If your players have spent time being around each other, they're gonna want to eventually beat the hell out of their friends for the stupidity they've had to witness. Let them, but in a cool way to end an arc or a campaign ;)

Make your friends fight if they wanna, they'll enjoy it.