Squared Circle
Showdown
An All Star Wrestlers Investigate Game
Body Slams. Clue Drops. Masks Off.
All Star Wrestlers Investigate is a tabletop RPG where players take on the roles of over-the-top professional wrestlers — the heroes, heels, and oddballs of the 80s and 90s — who investigate supernatural mysteries at carnivals, fairgrounds, and small-town arenas. Think Hulk Hogan meets Scooby-Doo. Every ghost has a guy in a suit behind it. Every unmasking ends with someone saying they would've gotten away with it too.
The Setup
Your crew of wrestlers rolls into town for a charity match. Something spooky is going on. The carnival owner is desperate. You split up to look for clues, chase suspects through tent corridors, and eventually build a trap using folding chairs and your own signature moves.
The System
ASWI runs on a custom 2d10 system built around seven wrestling-themed stats called Currents. Roll 2d10, add your relevant Current modifier, beat the target number. Land doubles and something special happens — a comeback, a momentum shift, a moment the whole table will remember.
The Work Pool
Your Work Pool is your resource engine — the energy you spend to pull off signature moves, interference, and spectacular spots. Manage it wisely. Run dry and you're just another guy taking bumps.
Squared Circle Showdown
Can't make it to a full campaign? Squared Circle Showdown is the standalone competitive board and card game built on the same 2d10 engine. Two players. One ring. Thirty minutes. From your kitchen table to the main event.
The Currents
Every wrestler is built around seven wrestling-themed attributes. Your Gimmick determines which two are Primary — the ones you roll with advantage and spend less Work Pool to activate.
The Gimmicks
Your Gimmick is your character class. It defines your wrestling persona, your best stats, your signature abilities, and how you age out of the sport — gracefully or otherwise.
Hits hard, takes harder. His No-Sell ability lets him shake off damage that would flatten anyone else. When it's time to hang up the boots, he doesn't leave — he becomes the Manager who everyone is quietly afraid of.
The smartest wrestler in any room. Chains submissions together, controls pace, makes his opponent look foolish. The kind of wrestler who's never actually hurt — just always in control.
Death-Defying Spots can change a match in an instant. The body doesn't hold up forever, but the legend does. Built around Speed and Luck — because the only way to attempt a 450 Splash is to be fast and a little reckless.
Where the Strongman is a force of nature, the Brawler is a bar fight with a championship belt. Weapons, chaos, blood and thunder. Resistant to things that would hospitalize normal people.
Makes everyone around them better. Hot Tags, Double Team Maneuvers, cutting the ring. The Gimmick for players who want to be the glue that holds everything together.
Never takes a bump if they can help it. Slips foreign objects to clients, calls strategy from ringside, and once per major match can attempt the Ultimate Screwjob — a move so villainous it creates storylines that run for months.
The voice that makes every entrance feel like history. Once in a career they can deliver a Legendary Introduction that grants a wrestler buffs for the entire match and permanently increases both their Pops.
The most misunderstood Gimmick — and the one with the highest Work Pool. Once every ten matches, when the moment is exactly right: the Surprise Victory. A shocking upset that nobody sees coming and everyone remembers forever.
The Doubles Rule
Roll double 7s. The card returns to your hand. You recover 1 Work Pool. The crowd — and the table — erupts.
When you roll matching dice on any 2d10 check — attack, defence, a Work Pool activation — something beyond the result itself happens. A card returns to your hand. Work Pool recovers. An already-successful action gains an additional effect. A failed action still produces something useful.
Doubles don't happen every roll. They happen often enough that building toward them is a legitimate strategy — and rare enough that when they land, the moment belongs to the table.
The Seven-Beat Mystery
Every ASWI session follows the classic seven-beat format — sixty years of Saturday morning cartoon DNA distilled into a tabletop structure. Every supernatural threat has a mundane explanation. Always.
The Setup
Wrestlers arrive for a charity match. Everything seems perfectly normal — suspiciously normal.
The Hook
A spooky supernatural event occurs. The carnival owner, frantic and desperate, begs the only people around who can help.
Investigation
Split up to search for clues. Classic corridor chases ensue. Suspects are identified. Red herrings abound.
Confrontation
A wrestling match against the monster and their henchmen. The ring is the great equaliser.
The Trap
An elaborate scheme combining wrestling moves with carnival equipment. Timing, teamwork, and spectacle required.
Unmasking
"Old Man Jenkins! The Dunking Booth Operator!" The monster is revealed — always someone with a motive.
Confession
"And I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling wrestlers!"
Classic Carnie Villains
Every ASWI mystery follows the golden rule: it was never actually supernatural. Behind every monster is a disgruntled employee with a grudge and access to carnival equipment.
Tournament Ready
Squared Circle Showdown is built for organised play from day one. Two players. One ring. Thirty minutes. Deck construction rules, Swiss and bracket formats, and the full WrestleCon Grand Prix format — complete with entrance music, ring announcers, and championship belts — are all included.
Deck Construction
Build a 25-card Talent deck within a 60-point budget. Primary Talents cost less but define your Gimmick's style. Secondary Talents add flexibility. Universal Talents round out any strategy.
Match Format
Each match plays in 30–45 minutes. Manage your Work Pool, read your opponent's Gimmick, and build toward your win condition — pinfall, submission, or Work Pool depletion.
Swiss & Brackets
Full Swiss round rules, single elimination brackets, and prize structures supported. Judge guides and bracket management tools included for running events of any size.
The WrestleCon Grand Prix
The full production guide for running a WrestleCon-style event — entrance music, ring announcers, championship belts, kayfabe names. From your kitchen table to the main event.
Who Is This For?
Wrestling Fans
Who've always wanted a game that gets the drama of pro wrestling — the kayfabe, the gimmicks, the storytelling.
Board Game Players
Looking for something with genuine depth and personality. Deck building that rewards knowing your Gimmick inside out.
TTRPG Groups
Who want shorter, punchier sessions with a clear structure and a built-in satisfying ending — the unmasking.
Anyone
Who has ever watched a Scooby-Doo unmasking and thought: this would be better with a Gorilla Press.