How would you run professional wrestling in HERO?

[Sam On Maui]

So, the players are in the squared circle, locking in, and trying to put on a hell of a show for a small time promotion. They need to make everything look good, sell each hit, make every slam believable, yet be able to walk out of the venue in one piece at the end of the night.

 

How would you run this without making it into a morass of skill checks?

 

When I first thought of it, it went down the line of STR check, acting check and crowd reaction, etc., then trying to figure out how much a move actually hurt versus "man that looked brutal!", with failures resulting in actual damage or worse. But the more I thought about it, I began to wonder, "is there a better way?" Something more streamlined, to the point, but without getting too bogged down in actual simulation?

 

Thoughts, anyone?

[Durzan Malakim]

I would first suggest deciding whether you want to run this as a combat or not. If yes, then I suggest you consider the audience an opponent who can only be targeted by presence attacks. To win, you have to both defeat your wrestling opponent and also impress the audience by doing the most total presence "damage" during the bout. I would penalize the presence attack of anyone trying to defeat an opponent with obvious powers or non-grapple-based-martial-arts because, "that's just not wrassling!"  Although nothing says the heroes have to play heroes while they're in the ring. There's a long tradition of professional wrestling villains who don't play by the rules. You may also consider adding a presence bonus whenever the characters ham up their performance and make appropriate monologues. Perhaps even give them free recoveries every time they meet some presence damage threshold like every 50 points to represent feeding off the crowd. This should quickly encourage players to maximize their presence attack each phase.

 

If you don't want to run this as a combat you could just make opposed PRE attacks with bonuses for having appropriate skills, maneuvers, and powers.

[massey]

Acting, Acrobatics, Breakfall, Teamwork

 

Those would be the base skills that would probably be used. Then I'd just let the players come up with their own explanation of what they're doing.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'd probably run it just like a superhero game with goofy martial arts.

[Nolgroth]

For fast play, I'd just use Acting with any of the other skills that Massey listed giving a +1 bonus each. For mic skill, just plain Oratory.

[mrinku]

The main decision you'll want (since this is a game) is "how fake?". If your ground rules are that what you see in Pro Wrestling is all real, then I'd use normal combat rules, tuned to avoid actual BODY damage (high PD should do it) and to allow rapid recovery. As others have said, PRE attacks can form the basis of points scored, but I'd also throw in damage inflicted (not suffered) towards that.

[Sam On Maui]

The main decision you'll want (since this is a game) is "how fake?". If your ground rules are that what you see in Pro Wrestling is all real, then I'd use normal combat rules, tuned to avoid actual BODY damage (high PD should do it) and to allow rapid recovery. As others have said, PRE attacks can form the basis of points scored, but I'd also throw in damage inflicted (not suffered) towards that.

Its "real enough," meaning that everyone except the newest/youngest of fans knows its theater where the actors do their own stunts, are there for the show, etc., but the players/wrestlers themselves? Yeah, its "fake" but it still puts you through the wringer. As Diamond Dallas Page puts it, "you can't fake gravity." So trying to balance putting on an exciting show versus "I actually need to live through this" would be part of it.

[Brian Stanfield]

Is there anything in the Lucha Libre book/pdf in the store?

[Sam On Maui]

Is there anything in the Lucha Libre book/pdf in the store?

I'll have to look. IIRC, Lucha Libre was going a different route, like the old movies and such, and the assumption was "this stuff is real!"

[IndianaJoe3]

How much time do you want to spend running this? If it's just a bit of fluff, have one player make an Acting roll, with the others assisting with complementary rolls.

[Sam On Maui]

How much time do you want to spend running this? If it's just a bit of fluff, have one player make an Acting roll, with the others assisting with complementary rolls.

Not really fluff. It'd be the basis of the game.

[IndianaJoe3]

Not really fluff. It'd be the basis of the game.

 

OK. You probably want to take a look at Lucha Libre Hero. It has a ton of material on using the standard combat rules as wrestling.

[mrinku]

Its "real enough," meaning that everyone except the newest/youngest of fans knows its theater where the actors do their own stunts, are there for the show, etc., but the players/wrestlers themselves? Yeah, its "fake" but it still puts you through the wringer. As Diamond Dallas Page puts it, "you can't fake gravity." So trying to balance putting on an exciting show versus "I actually need to live through this" would be part of it.

 

Oh, don't get me wrong. I realise it's a proper athletic entertainment and was in no way belittling it. Not my thing, but I get it.

 

What I meant was "is it just like the real world?" or "are all of the showmanship elements actually real in this setting?". It's the difference between sports Karate and an over-the-top Hong Kong Martial Arts film with fantasy elements. But you've answered that

 

Even so, most of the moves are grabs, holds and throws, which you can game out straight without damaging each other much. Pulling Your Punch is a maneuver to consider, as is Rolling With The Punch. As in real Pro Wrestling, both sides using that sort of thing should avoid major carnage, but if either wrestler flubs it, someone may get hurt. Breakfall is clearly a mandatory skill.

 

The old 4e Ninja Hero could be of use for building custom maneuvers and also has a Pro Wrestling style. I assume its successor sourcebooks might have something similar.

 

Hmm... maybe do something like use the "original BODY rolled" as a rating for each move? Count it before the effects of Pulling a Punch or Rolling with it, and before defences are applied. You could also use that for breaking stunt chairs... the damage done will be limited by the chair's (weak) PD and BODY, but what matters is the force put into the strike. Probably count distance travelled from Knockback or Dive for Cover towards that total, too.

[Ninja-Bear]

I would run it as combat. Either use casual strength with maneuvers or I think the easiest is run it as real with the assumption that after the end of the match, all damage goes away.

[dsatow]

How about this, the players being wrestlers are actually training in the ring.  To prevent them from seriously hurting each other, they are pulling punches and taking the OCV penalties.  Since they are hamming it up for the audience, they need to be non-combat or half OCV/DCV.  This halving of OCV/DCV also prevents full damage but looks painful.  The participants must have acting and breakfall in order to do this.  Damage is then reduced to the number of Body done.  No body is taken by either side.  When either side is "KO'd" the other side wins the fight.

 

Outside the ring, the PCs fight real threats with their martial arts and special moves.

[DasBroot]

Gladiatorial exhibition matches are actually a thing in my superhero game.

 

I just handle everything with the Pull a Punch rule for the mechanics, and a co-operative Acting roll to sell to the crowd that you didn't use Pull a Punch.

 

"Oh my god! Oh my god! Captain Novastar just unleashed his full Novabeam on Captain Fistpunch! There's no way he's still alive!"

 

"Arrrrghhhhh!." goes Captain Fistpunch, really ignoring the half body vs his defenses.

 

And yes there's a jerk notorious for 'accidentally' forgetting to pull his punches. 

[Chris Goodwin]

Many years ago (in the group I've mentioned frequently lately) one of us made an offhand joking comment about WWF: the Roleplaying Game (note: WWF was what is now called WWE).  A week or two later one member of our group had written up about a dozen characters with about thirty or forty custom maneuvers.  We ran it as combat; I think most of them were in the 7-10 PD range, at which point a character with 20 STR and +4 DC will be hard pressed to do much BODY.  I think we played more than one session, maybe two or three fights per, but didn't treat it as a campaign or anything.  I'm pretty sure I have the character sheets; I'll try to find them and scan one to post. 

[Ninja-Bear]

Oh and a bonus for doing it the way I suggest is that you can use the impair/disable rule and use there mechanics. You get the benefit of knowing if when a wrestler should act really hurt and you get a feel for those rules if and when you want to play a game with them for real.

[Sam On Maui]

Oh and a bonus for doing it the way I suggest is that you can use the impair/disable rule and use there mechanics. You get the benefit of knowing if when a wrestler should act really hurt and you get a feel for those rules if and when you want to play a game with them for real.

I'll have to look those over, thank you!

[bigdamnhero]

As other have suggested, the 1st thing I'd would be to pick up Luha Libre Hero. While it's geared specifically towards Mexican wrestling with their masks and B-movies where they fight monsters & aliens, the wrestling bits would translate north of the border easily enough. There are rules for playing the crowd and so forth.

 

Plus it's just a REALLY fun book to read. And I'm not a wrestling fan at all.

 

I can't remember if this is in LLH or where I picked it up, but if you assume the wrestlers are actually trying NOT to seriously hurt one another, have them make a PS roll or something to "soak" the damage while still making it look convincing.

[bigdamnhero]

Many years ago (in the group I've mentioned frequently lately) one of us made an offhand joking comment about WWF: the Roleplaying Game

World Wildlife Fund: the RPG would be a VERY different game experience.

[DasBroot]

Many years ago (in the group I've mentioned frequently lately) one of us made an offhand joking comment about WWF: the Roleplaying Game (note: WWF was what is now called WWE).  

 

This actually existed, though:

 

http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=809

 

https://www.nobleknight.com/ProductDetail.asp_Q_ProductID_E_16428_A_InventoryID_E_0_A_ProductLineID_E_2137418007_A_ManufacturerID_E_160_A_CategoryID_E_12_A_GenreID_E_

[Chris Goodwin]

This actually existed, though:

 

http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=809

 

https://www.nobleknight.com/ProductDetail.asp_Q_ProductID_E_16428_A_InventoryID_E_0_A_ProductLineID_E_2137418007_A_ManufacturerID_E_160_A_CategoryID_E_12_A_GenreID_E_

 

...Not when we did ours, it didn't.  

[Sean Waters]

Anyone seen 'Glow'?  Because y'oughta.

 

[Mister E]

I can't remember if this is in LLH or where I picked it up, but if you assume the wrestlers are actually trying NOT to seriously hurt one another, have them make a PS roll or something to "soak" the damage while still making it look convincing.

PS:Pro