The World Wide Wrestling RPG
Welcome to World Wide Wrestling: Second Edition! This award-winning game of professional wrestling action enables you to create your own professional wrestling franchise through play, showcasing satisfying and surprising storylines. It’s about feuds, championships, betrayal, and righteous victory. It’s about the clash of good and evil on the grandest stage. It’s about whether you’ve got what it takes. And, in the end, it’s about what the audience thinks of your efforts.
Buy Now
Reprint Coming Soon. Check out this Kickstarter campaign to preorder a copy. You may also still find copies in stock with these retailers.
Community Copies: Free digital bundle community copies of WWW2E are now available to anyone who finds the list price a barrier.
Other Outlets
EU Residents: Unfortunately I cannot sell directly to you at this time. Please use one of the outlets below.
Retail stores
IPR also distributes World Wide Wrestling worldwide to retail stores. Click here to see if your FLGS is a partner. Interested in carrying World Wide Wrestling? Click here for retailer info.
Translations
World Wide Wrestling: Second Edition has a German translation thanks to System Matters. Available in print and PDF.
Tale of the Tape
World Wide Wrestling: Second Edition is a 260-page color softcover book, 6.625” x 10.25” (graphic novel size). It collects and revises all of the material published for the original World Wide Wrestling and its supplements. All print orders include the Digital Bundle.
The Digital Bundle includes the 260-page screen-ready PDF, epub version, plaintext version for low vision accessibility, and printable and form-fillable Gimmick and reference sheets (including print-and-play Move cards).
The World Wide Wrestling Move Deck is a 52-card deck of standard poker-sized playing cards containing the Basic, In-Ring, Role and Specialist Moves for easy reference and handling during play.
Free PDF Downloads
For the Second Edition (last update: 2025)
Form-Fillable Sheets (last update: 2025)
For the First Edition
Miscellaneous
Promotions
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Promotions ⋆
Five Rings Wrestling Alliance
STRENGTH THROUGH SPORT. Professional wrestling is about storytelling, pageantry and iconic characters, of course; but it is also about watching incredible athletes perform unbelievable feats before your very eyes. Five Rings Wrestling Alliance is a promotion that focuses on athletes of all stripes, bringing them into one ring, and seeing who can translate their skills from the field, gym or track into Championship gold.
Five Rings Wrestling Alliance is a supplement for World Wide Wrestling, and requires the core rules to play.
Buy Now
Print + Digital Bundle: Print purchases include the Digital Bundle. This is delivered manually to the email address you provide at checkout, and may take up to 48 hours.
Other Outlets
EU Residents: Unfortunately I cannot sell directly to you at this time. Please use one of the outlets below.
This expanded Promotion for World Wide Wrestling adds a new +Sport stat for athletes entering the squared circle from other sports, 9 Athletic Backgrounds to add another dimension to your athletic Wrestlers, 13 new characters to fill out the FRWA roster, and context for running a single Episode or a full Season to see who’s the best.
Free Downloads
Promotions
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Promotions ⋆
Warlock Pro Wrestling
Demons. Spirits. Outsiders. The mortal world is cradled by worlds without, and the inhabitants of those worlds seek a way inside. They are drawn to ritual; to pageantry; to the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. To those who know the secrets, the Squared Circle becomes the Circle of Summoning.
Warlock Pro Wrestling is a supplement for World Wide Wrestling, and requires the core rules to play.
Buy Now
Print + Digital Bundle: Print purchases include the Digital Bundle. This is delivered manually to the email address you provide at checkout, and may take up to 48 hours.
Other Outlets
EU Residents: Unfortunately I cannot sell directly to you at this time. Please use one of the outlets below.
Enter the Squared Summoning Circle in Warlock Pro Wrestling! This expanded Promotion for World Wide Wrestling adds new rules, 6 occult entities, 11 new characters across 4 factional Mysteries, and context for running a single Episode or a full Season within an occult world where the wrestling, sometimes, is real.
In the signature Summoning Circle Match, your wrestlers summon and bind occult Entities from outside to gain their power in the ring and behind the curtain. What price will you pay for power?
Free Downloads
About The Game
World Wide Wrestling: Second Edition is a game of narrative professional wrestling excitement, action and drama! No wrestling knowledge is necessary to play. All you need is a desire to play out big stories with bigger characters vying for success.
How It Works
Creative (the Game Master role) books the shows, introduces antagonists and comes up with basic storylines that they want to see play out. The other players take on pro wrestling archetypes, called Gimmicks, and play their wrestlers through feuds, partnerships and betrayals. Everyone at the table is competing for that "top spot," but they're also working together to entertain their viewing audience!
Creative books each Episode of play, deciding in advance who's on screen when, who's in what match and, most importantly, who's going to win. The players play out their wrestlers in pursuit of personal goals though these segments, always with agency to go off-script and swerve what Creative has in mind. Creative has to roll with the punches and make it look like that’s what they had in mind all along!
The Squared Circle
Wrestling matches are played out through a system of dramatic action. The fall of the dice and character abilities shape who has narrative control, guiding the competitors through back-and-forth narration building up to big moves and maneuvers that shape the story of the match. Plus, there’s always the possibility of a dramatic run-in or career-defining spot! Whether a quick squash or an epic full-roster Battle Royal, wrestling matches are exciting affairs that build character and drive ongoing storylines.
Moving Up the Card
World Wide Wrestling: Second Edition combines all of the material from the original World Wide Wrestling RPG and the International Incident supplement into one streamlined, updated game that supports both quickly getting to the action and long-term dynamic exploration of the promotion around the wrestlers.
If you enjoyed the first edition, this is an evolution of everything you're already familiar with. If you're new to the game, this edition focuses on onboarding new players and supporting the wrestling-curious to discover what makes professional wrestling such an enduring art form.
GAME FEATURES
World Wide Wrestling: Second Edition stuffs everything you need to explore the world of professional wrestling in one action-packed volume!
Supports in-ring action, backstage drama and the development of pro wrestling storylines that tie them together.
Rules that create classic pro wrestling storylines while also allowing you room to subvert and invent your own.
Provides all the tools for players unfamiliar with the genre to participate, while supporting fans in playing out their favorite wrestling tropes.
Episodic play that accommodates irregular attendance and fluctuating group sizes.
The rules contain:
15 archetypal Gimmicks representing a diverse roster of wrestling archetypes.
Support for in-ring storytelling, from Match Stipulations to visual play aids to focused deep dives into wrestling psychology and how to bring that into your games.
Living Promotions add the Promotion as a character in your game, growing and changing along with the wrestlers.
12 example Living Promotions, giving pick-up-play settings from the bar-room to the international jet-set, along with over 60 wrestlers and staff to use for your own games.
Going on the road, an optional ruleset for playing out scenes between arena shows to explore the people behind the masks.
2 brand new essays, along with 7 revised essays from game designers and wrestling aficionados about wrestling, roleplaying and how the two work together.
... and more!
The optional Move Deck is a 52-card deck to aid in quick reference for the most commonly-used rules. It includes:
2 sets of the 8 Basic Moves (like Cut a Promo and Break Kayfabe)
2 sets of the 8 In-Ring Moves (like Wrestling, Interrupt and Run-In) plus the iconic Announcer Move, Put Over
14 Double-sided Role Moves cards, so you can make your big Babyface or Heel turn with a dramatic card play. Includes basic Heel/Babyface, Técnico/Rudo and the three Advanced Roles of Icon, Legend and Celebrity.
1 set of the 5 Specialist Moves unlocked in a Living Promotion, like Gatekeeper and Giant.
World Wide Wrestling is Powered by the Apocalypse. It shared the Indie RPG Awards Indie Game of the Year 2015 award with Night Witches. It also won the Best Support 2015 award.
Community
Hailing From World Wide Wrestling
Have your own project inspired by or compatible with World Wide Wrestling? Hailing From World Wide Wrestling is how to license your work.
Warlock Pro Wrestling is an expanded Promotion for World Wide Wrestling where you summon and bind occult entities to gain their power. Now available in print and PDF.
New Year’s Fray is a standalone game of pro wrestling for the holidays! Hailing from World Wide Wrestling, the 2022 version is now available in print and PDF.
The Big Store is a game of cons, where you play con artists running a game on an unsuspecting mark. This game isn’t about wrestling, but does play with the different levels of having a character and playing for an appreciative audience.
Crakhouse Productions Instant Heat Cards - expand your Heat questions with this deck of cards inspired by real-world wrestling storylines! Compatible with World Wide Wrestling: Second Edition.
The Gift of Gab
Questions or ideas to share? The community forum at itch.io is where to go.
Reviews & Actual Play
In The Dirtsheets
Veritas Tabletop Review (7/2025, Second Edition) “This game is fun!… if you have a background familiarity with wrestling and you enjoy PbtA? This game is a true no-brainer to pick up and try for yourself. If you're missing one of those elements, I still think it is worth the money to try, but know that you might face some growing pains. If you're missing both, like me? I'm still having fun with the system, and I am still happily running "Season 1" of the campaign for the next few weeks and planning, players willing, to run many more months with a second season.”
Jacob Creswell at CBR (4/2022, Second Edition) “One of the smartest parts of the WWWRPG's design is how it handles player competition. While players are often fighting against each other in feuds, there's a level of cooperation that the heat system heavily encourages…storytelling in wrestling can take on many different forms, so [the game] gives players the tools to explore the style that they want, rather than limiting them.”
Rob Wieland at ENworld (5/2021, Second Edition) “My experience running World Wide Wrestling has been fantastic. I’ve turned RPG fans into wrestling fans and wrestling fans into RPG fans with this game. The new edition goes deeper into the experience but still remains accessible to anyone with an interest in running a pro wrestling game.”
Polygon (1/2018, First Edition) "By the end of the game’s opening hour, we had all the makings of a primetime soap opera, and enough bitter rivalries to last an entire campaign. At one point, my character, an aging 40-something veteran who wrestled under the name “The Director of IT,” had vanquished his arch rival, a twenty-something YouTube personality called DJ Bitcoin, with the help of a monstrous heel called The Heavy Fog. It was glorious, and made all the better by television-style commentary from the other characters at the table and a live audience holding up signs around the table. It was a magical night, and it reminded me once again that there is more to tabletop role-playing than Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder."
Shut Up and Sit Down (9/2016, First Edition) "What is perhaps World Wide Wrestling’s greatest triumph as a game is that not only does it resoundingly succeed in teaching you how to play, it puts you in a gentle, nurturing headlock that forces the appeal of wrestling deep into your eye sockets like a screwdriver during a hardcore match. And, you know what? I don’t think more than one person has to have read the book to play. That is not something I say a lot."
Geek & Sundry/Nerdist (8/2016, First Edition) "…the rulebook serves as an excellent guide to running a game in the pro wrestling genre. It explains terminology, discusses how the big time federations work, and even illustrates various moves so that the uninitiated can point to a move for their character to do in the ring. Fans that already know how the backstage machinery works will find thoughtful essays on wrestling and might even be surprised by the origin of a word or two."
GeekNative (2/2015, First Edition) "World Wide Wrestling should be an absolute no-brainer pickup for anyone into Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, or Monster of the Week...Absolutely NO knowledge of professional wrestling is necessary to pick up WWW and have a blast with it and your friends...you’ll be blown away by the excitement and fun this game can bring you. World Wide Wrestling is, quite possibly, the best game the Apocalypse has produced yet."
Critical Hits (9/2014, First Edition) "This game is packed so full of wrestleicious flavor that it’s ridiculous. Everybody always has something to do, and most of it even moves the story forward. The end goal is to collectively be really entertaining, and in my experience this is a winning formula for an extremely good night of gaming."
In The Ring
If you’d like to add your video or audio actual play, just get in touch with a link.
Shut Up & Sit Down Play... The World Wide Wrestling RPG! (A One-Hour Special)
Check out the BANDIT DAY BRAWL 2025 on Youtube - 16 V-Tubers, 6 hours, 1 Brawl
NatFun Podcast - 6 amateur wrestlers compete for the gold in this one-shot Episode from NatFun.
System Hoppers - System Hoppers plays a 5-part arc of World Wide Wrestling! Here’s the first episode (on Apple Podcasts).
Role to Cast LIVE - A full one-shot live episode introducing R2C Wrestling!
Plus One EXP: The Battle - Nathan runs a one-shot Episode featuring a new Promotion from the Second Edition, with a short interview/chat afterwards.
3W6 Plays World Wide Wrestling - This is a 10-session Let’s Play by the German podcast 3W6. It’s in German, but I also did an interview with them (in English) about the Second Edition.
World Cosplay Wrestling on Twitch - This traveling cosplay wrestling federation has been playing the game on their Twitch channel! Here’s an episode, and here’s a highlight package.
Gauntlet League Wrestling on Youtube (Playlist for the 8-Episode season + extras)
Six Feats Under Podcast plays World Wide Wrestling (including podchat about wrestling and RPGs!)
Die Party Friday Night Fights Twitch series, archived on Youtube!
Journeyman's Cup Exhibition Series
The "Journeyman's Cup Tournament" Actual Play Series, using the first edition of World Wide Wrestling. Originally broadcast as live Google-Hangouts-On-Air, each Episode is archived on Youtube at the links below.
The Fans
Jason Morningstar (Designer of Fiasco) "First of all, it is an excellent game...Literally everything you need is built into the game's mechanics. The process of making your wrestler builds in delicious rivalries and plot hooks, the individual moves are colorful and fun, and the actual wrestling events play out like a badass, character-driven minigame... as a player you have really interesting choices throughout. It is just a bathtub full of fun and I highly recommend it. I can't wait to play again next week!"
Jeff O: ”The group that I play Creative for in the [Stay-At-Home Wrestling League] range in experience and previous interest in wrestling and RPGs all over the board. We have first timers, DMs, hardcore wrestling fans, and people who’ve never watched a minute of wrestling. We’re located in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Los Angeles... After our second session we transitioned over to the 2e rules and I have to say they are an unbelievable improvement to a game I didn’t think even needed it. The system seems to just reward the right things and push players in the right direction to create the most dramatic, fun RPG sessions I’ve ever run."
Rob G: "I've been running games for 30+ years and this is one of the best examples of setting/subject matter gelling with the system... I was impressed by how effortlessly the system truly made it feel like you were playing a wrestling RPG -- not just using generic rules to simulate a wrestling experience. The care and attention you've put into not only the RPG aspects but the understanding of the nature of wrestling, the psychology of a match and the ins and outs of the personalities, the promotions, etc. were in-depth but still incredibly approachable and easy to understand. I've been a fan of wrestling since back in the 80's when the territory system still survived and this game is just a fantastic wedding of two things I love. The essays were inspired and genuinely well written and researched helping to flesh out the world of professional wrestling immensely for both the veteran fan and those newly introduced to the sport."
Aura B: "It speaks from a genuine love, a powerful relationship with the subject matter… It's a wrestling game made by a fan, for fans, designed to help you create a new mythology. And that doesn't mean you can't play if you haven't watched wrestling - the game is all too eager to get you excited about the idea, to lure you in. It doesn't mean either that you can't play if you're not into wrestling at all...But if you're even the slightest bit on board, you'll soon realize the game has a charm and a passion, and you can't help but be pulled in. You want to see why this matters."
Ben M: "I run 4 D&D groups a month as well as a Monsterhearts game, & WWW is by far the one that gets the most 'Love'. I'm not sure if it is the floating 'Creative' mechanic, the co-op/competitive story telling, or just the ease of the rule set you've refined, but it is truly wonderful."