A Look Back

The very first time I combined the weird world of wrestling with the arcane, geeky world of
RPG was back in 2007.
We were playing Mutants & Masterminds, an Open Game License (OGL) game about Super
Heroes and I wanted to spice things up by making the player characters “wrestle” in a show, as
in inside a ring in front of an audience. So I came up with a system similar to the HYPE Factor
you will see in this game and played the game normally.
What happened was pure magic.
Suddenly every movement mattered. Each move could change the momentum of the match.
Winning or Losing wasn’t the ultimate goal, but putting the most memorable match for that
audience, making the players care about the characters in the match.
In practice, the system was a “tug of war” on top of your traditional RPG but re-contextualized
in a way where stories were being told in the actual fights in an organic manner and they fed
themselves to even more stories.
The players wanted to wrestle for belts! They wanted to rematch those who bested them,
wanted to continue further their characters careers.
Yet I stopped right there.

I was about to enter college and I wanted a new beginning I guess. But years later, I had the
drive and the desire to try to design a tabletop game. I loved the “Super Hero” genre in the
tabletop world, with ICONS and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying being my favorite tabletop games
at the time. But I did not want to just create yet another super hero rpg. I wanted a twist,
something unique. And after meditating for a bit, I decided I wanted to combine “Sports” with
“Super Powers”. And I could not get out of mind the idea of “super martial artists”, in
particular, “Super Wrestlers” – Because wrestling has “faces” (the good guys) and “Heels” (the
bad guys). Turning this into a “super hero like” rpg could work!

So I took the crude Mutants & Masterminds hack I’ve done back in ‘07 and tried to make it an
OGL game of it’s own.
With a focus in audience interactions as well a structural play, the idea is to be appealing to
both the rpg crowd as well hardcore wrestling fans. The weird space setting came from a PC
Engine game I used to play as a kid – “Monster Pro Wrestling”. In short, while this game is
trying to please these two huge groups of people, it’s still a personal piece. I tried to craft an
interesting universe where players can make it their own by giving them tools to create their
own wrestling titles, feuds and leagues. This game is the combination of my passion between
wrestling and tabletop RPGs, and is created in a way to allow others to shape it to the format
of their own passions as well.

We are like brothers and sisters in the white mat jungle that lies between the ropes. Let us
slam together! - Arthur De Martino, the Wasp Eye Lad
What is a Role Playing Game?
It’s “Pretend” except with rules, mechanics , and made to be played in an orderly fashion.
This is done to enhance the “pretend game”, to make the experience quantifiable as well more
unique.
With more specific rules you can create more specific and shared experiences. You solve
disputes, you create meta plots between every mechanic, and thanks to dice (in particular,
specialty dice you can get on your local Hobby store or even online) these mechanics come to
life and are fully realized like they are part of a tabletop game.
A Role Playing Game is the ultimate Let’s Pretend game.
The most usual way of playing it involves one player as the narrator (Called in this book
“Intergalactic Booker”) who set up scenes and obstacles and the other players around the
gaming table playing as “Playable Characters” who react and build upon the scenes and
situations conjured up by the narrator. Usually there is one Narrator and 2-3 Playing
Characters (Or PCs, for short)
In this book, you will find rules that will shape your game to be an Intergalactic Wrestling
game, as well ways to customize the experience to the liking of your playing group.

Wrestling and RPGs

Believe it or not, Wrestling and RPGs are not that rare of a pair.
While it is true that tabletop gaming and wrestling aren’t the most common combination, and
while video games is where Wrestling found a gaming foothold, there are other Wrestling
RPGs in the market.
Intergalactic Lucha Libre League tries to be different by embracing a crazy, sci fi setting and
removing the complexity associated with simulating a wrestling match, while double down on
what make a wrestling match unique and interesting.
And by that we mean a focus on three elements: The Audience, Continuity and Style of
fighting.
The Audience is the core of the game, it’s where your character evolves, helps him win
matches, helps him turn the momentum against his foes and it’s the point of the game.
Mastering how to control the Audience is mastering ILLL.
Continuity is in the heart of wrestling, it is in part what makes it so interesting to watch as a
long time fan. By “continuity” we mean the fact that wrestlers evolve, grown, adapt to injury,
and so on and so forth. The system you are about to read has all that covered, in fact the way
experience, levels and Championship works all work together to reflect in mechanics all the
sweet, blood and tears the wrestlers leave in their career.
Style of Fighting is something many other games strive for as their main attraction. We provide
a colorful approach that allows your characters to properly represent the spirit of a particular
wrestling style instead of doing a full blown simulation. That is because we have a bigger
emphasis in Audience management, so the combat needs to be simple.
All these elements come together as you read on.

Showtime and Sports Adventure

Because we decided to set the game in a wild Sci Fi setting, we are providing two game modes
that can both feed into each other:
Showtime is a simulation of a wrestling show, complete with interview segments, feuds and
storylines.
And Sports Adventure uses all the rules presented in this book to create a traditional RPG
adventure with wrestling undertones. You can read about both modes in the “Running the
Game” chapter.

But what do you actually do in ILLL?

As a player, you create (or randomly generates) a space wrestler, then you get into game
sessions by your Intergalactic Booker that consists in pitting your character in wrestling shows
(or crazy, unexpected situations that can all be solved by body slamming it until it’s fixed) and
in between violent bouts of brutality your character will do interviews, interact with the fans
and even set up traps or argue with the in game booker to change his next match.
As the Intergalactic Booker, you are the narrator and the “rules referee”, you are responsible
for managing the NPCs and providing the Playing Characters challenges and situations they get
to body slam people.
While you may not be against them directly, your enemy wrestlers are to be problems that
need to be conquered as the Playing Characters career develops.

The Basic Mechanic

Roll a d20, then add all modifiers for the action and then compare with the Difficulty Class. If
it’s equal or higher, the action succeeds! If not, it fails.
Attacks, Actions that require rolls, Attribute tests and Skill tests in non-wrestling segments all
follow these rules. For more specific rules regarding all the mechanics mentioned above, just
check their respective entries on the index.

Checks
Attribute Check
Attribute Checks use the basic mechanic and add their respective attribute.

An attribute check tests a wrestler’s or enemy wrestler’s innate talent and training in an effort
to overcome a challenge. The Intergalactic Booker calls for an ability check when a character or
monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the
outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results. For every ability check, the Intergalactic
Booker decides which of the six attributes is relevant to the task at hand and the difficulty of
the task, represented by a Difficulty Class. The more difficult a task, the higher its DC. The
Typical Difficulty Classes table shows the most common DCs
Typical Difficulty
Classes Task Difficulty DC
Very easy 5
Easy 10
Medium 15
Hard 20
Very hard 25
Nearly impossible 30
To make an attribute check, roll a d20 and add the relevant attribute modifier. As with other
d20 rolls, apply bonuses and penalties, and compare the total to the DC. If the total equals or
exceeds the DC, the ability check is a success—the wrestler overcomes the challenge at hand.
Otherwise, it’s a failure, which means the character or monster makes no progress toward the
objective or makes progress combined with a setback determined by the Intergalactic Booker.

Skill Checks
A skill represents a specific aspect of an ability score, and an individual’s proficiency in a skill
demonstrates a focus on that aspect. (A wrestlers’s starting skill proficiencies are determined
at character creation through their class.) For example, a Quickness check might reflect a
wrestler’s attempt to pull off an acrobatic stunt, or to stay hidden. Each of these aspects of
Quickness has an associated skill: Acrobatics, and Hiding, respectively. So a wrestler who has
proficiency in the Hiding skill is particularly good at Quickness checks related to sneaking and
hiding. The skills related to each ability score are shown in the following list.
Athletics (Muscles)

Acrobatics (Quickness)

Hiding (Quickness)

Taunt (Presence or Wit)

Promo (Wit)

Intimidation (Presence)

Business Saviness (Smarts)

Management (Smarts)

First Aid (Smarts)

Sometimes, the Intergalactic Booker might ask for an Attribute check using a specific skill—for
example, “Make a Muscles (Athletics) check.” At other times, a player might ask the
Intergalactic Booker if proficiency in a particular skill applies to a check. In either case,
proficiency in a skill means an individual can add his or her proficiency bonus to ability checks
that involve that skill. Without proficiency in the skill, the individual makes a normal attribute
check. For example, if a character attempts to climb up the side of a building, the Intergalactic
Booker might ask for a Muscles (Athletics) check. If the character is proficient in Athletics, the
character’s proficiency bonus is added to the Muscles check. If the character lacks that
proficiency, it rolls a regular Muscles check.

Saving throw
A saving throw—also called a save—represents an attempt to resist a power, a moveset,, or a
similar threat. You don’t normally decide to make a saving throw; you are forced to make one
because your character is at risk of harm. To make a saving throw, roll a d20 and add the
appropriate attribute. For example, you use your Quickness modifier for a Quickness saving
throw. A saving throw can be modified by a situational bonus or penalty and can be affected by
advantage and disadvantage, as determined by the Intergalactic Booker. Each class gives
proficiency in at least two saving throws. The Super, for example, is proficient in Presence
saves. As with skill proficiencies, proficiency in a saving throw lets a wrestler add his or her
proficiency bonus to saving throws made using a particular attribute score. The Difficulty Class
for a saving throw is determined by the effect that causes it. For example, the DC for a saving
throw allowed by a Power is determined by the Super’s Power casting ability and proficiency
bonus. The result of a successful or failed saving throw is also detailed in the effect that allows
the save. Usually, a successful save means that a wrestler suffers no harm, or reduced harm,
from an effect