# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 3e/3.5e/d20 >  Sports in fantasy?

## SangoProduction

Well. Day 2 of my purgatory starts close enough to now. And I have no where near enough to do... at least that I care to do, or is time-applicable.
So, I ran across "fantasy football." Which, strangely enough, has a striking lack of elves and orcs, let alone vampires.

*Fair warning:* I am very sick and tired. This is pure off-the-cuff rambling. Certainly didn't go in the direction I expected. I find it interesting.

But that got me thinking... What do sports and similar such bouts of 'friendly' physical competition look like in a fantasy world?
Let's start off with that first one: American Football. Lots of physical contact. Indeed, its rate of physical injuries rival actual fighting sports like Boxing, if memory serves. So, the first impulse is that one would add a bunch more leagues, but I'm actually thinking that might not necessarily need to be the case, due to each race having distinct advantages (or at least inclinations which, when pushed to their physical maximum, result in statistically significant advantages) that might result in slightly different takes in their approach to a game.

Although it doesn't actually work that way in the D&D ruleset, because strength is both attack and damage for melee attacks, so whatever advantage an elf may have in twirling about is equally matched by a half-orc's ability to just bash the elf's face in. And everyone has the same speed, unless they are magically enhan-... Ok, that creates a whole 'nother layer of complexity. 

Would magic buffing in these sports be treated like juicing is in real sports? Except it's a lot easier to notice and dispel. Unless the magic used was a magic effect that created a nonmagic result. (Except that it will somehow make more sense than magically summoning "nonmagical" fire that deals more damage than mundane fire - seriously who even thought of the orb spells?) Sort of like how "doping," and hyperbaric chambers, aren't drugs, and so don't come up on drug tests. And that's before even getting into actual extraplanar performance enhancers. The list of things to test for would be absolutely bloody insane. 
At which point, you probably either give up, or you create a league where you are specifically encouraged to take the enhancements. and simply leave it to the honor system for the other leagues (or perhaps handle it with some devil contract binding or... something).

Well, that was quite the tangent. But yeah, the D&D system doesn't really fit the concept of an asymmetrically balanced video game. Instead, for the given role, you're either better or worse (or equivalent) at it than the opponent... so perhaps tying ourselves to D&D isn't the best move when considering "fantasy football." But for now, let's do so.
Due to the notable and consistent (dis)advantages certain races have to playing the sport, they are either going to be pushed out entirely, or there's going to be a few leagues specializing in either the lesser performing races in general, or in the particular races. I mean, who doesn't want to see halfling basketball? They have bonus to thrown weapons!
What happens when a halfling gets a druid to kill and reincarnate him until he's a giant? So much for leagues, and that was a horrible idea. Let's not even continue this discussion.

... You know? There's a really easy way to negate all those racial bonuses... except the mental ones... oh boy, this isn't going to look good on twitter. lol. But, True Polymorph to a standard form or Mind Swap with a team of regulation-puppets. Works even for the LA+ races.
That's right: The way to play football is full dive VR. But unironically. And now it comes down to the skill, and time and dedication to the sport... although mental stats are not affected. Which means that, despite being exactly physically identical, in every regulation-applicable way... there are going to be noticeable racial differences at the very peak - which is what competition of the sort sifts through.
So, even if a group of Orcs really does love and devote their lives to the game... they simply are never going to be able to compete with the team of pit fiends, even with equivalent forms. At the very least, they won't beat a team of pit fiends of even remotely the same dedication to the game as them.
Unless they try mental warfare- nope. Because if bad sportsmanship is tolerated on the professional level, then the races with penalties to wisdom and charisma are even more disadvantaged than before.

-

So ultimately?
Sports in fantasy will, in all likelihood, not adhere to our strange obsession with everyone somehow being equal, or even having an equal chance. You either have what it takes for the sport, or you don't. In the same way we don't have the real NBA for short folk. And the races will naturally separate out into their own preferred sports that they can actually compete in, even if they enjoy watching those that they can't compete in. Of course, like real sports, those in the top competition, the number of even qualifying applicants, is marginal relative to overall population. Truly, there is almost no minority smaller than the billionaire sports stars, other than "the individual"... but that is simultaneously equal to 1 and to everyone. So is it actually a smaller group?

Also, there probably won't be global sports institutions. I mean, sports started off very much as not-an-institution. So why would there even be one to handle how you kick around the ball of tormented souls across the plains of asphodel?
Well, I mean... there are some very long-lived races who particularly like to create rules, and have others follow them.
But when problems arise, rules often change to address those problems. (Even for Evil races, those "problems" might be of different nature to what we might consider... but there can still be "problems.")
So, I think that when literal gods declare that they will join the league... there's probably going to be some rules around that going forward. And some groups will choose which rules they actually care to follow. Especially for "nonprofessional" games. 

So that's probably what I mean by there not being an institution. They will generally just be games, and probably not an actual career... which makes perhaps all too much sense given the context of this semi-coherent ramble.

Anything to add or comment on?

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## Particle_Man

You might want to pick up some pointers for your d20 vision from this fantasy footbowl (not d20) game called Blood Bowl.

https://www.bloodbowl.com/

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## Wildstag

As far as sports in the 3.5 sphere, Races of Stone originally envisioned Goliaths as "the big athlete" in the vein of Yao Ming, rather than the "giant-kin" WotC is now tacking on to the race (which honestly seems insulting given the anti-giant theming of the original form of the race).

To facilitate some of this "big athlete" mentality in gameplay, Races of Stone came packaged with Climbing Races, King of the Hill, Wrestling, Goat-Ball (elevated football I guess?), and a Drinking game involving story/joke-telling. For the fair-play Goliaths, all that matters is physical potential, magic would likely be seen as an interference. Ironically, their Powerful Build, which seems to have been created for Goliaths, gives them an incredible advantage in physical contests. Oops...

I figure in Thella-lu, there are actual team-organizations, or even tribal franchises, sponsoring teams of goat-ball. It could be a fun angle for the character race, if you wanted to go down that route.

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## Rynjin

> You might want to pick up some pointers for your d20 vision from this fantasy footbowl (not d20) game called Blood Bowl.
> 
> https://www.bloodbowl.com/


Everybody has a plan until the Skink sprints past their entire lineup without getting hit and then does a touchdown dance.

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## MaxiDuRaritry

Two fantasy sports I can think of are Blitzball, from FF10, and Supergiant Games's Pyre, both of which are kind of both terrible and terribly boring, but they still count.

[edit] What about the card games in FF8 and FF9? Or maybe Yu-Gi-Oh?

All of the martial arts tournaments in all the anime out there should work, as well. Dragon Ball, Yu Yu Hakusho, etc.

Also Pokemon, if you want dogfighting rings. Alina of the Arena works for that, as well.

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## aglondier

This is interesting. Sports are often a substitute for some form of battle or combat skill. Or started out as a combat skill and were watered down over time. Just look at the Olympic games, they were originally a substitute for war between nations, allowing them to show off their superiority without actual bloodshed. Archery, javelin, shotput, wrestling, races...the list goes on...

In a fantasy setting, I could easily imagine an Olympic games analogue being devised with events to play into the strengths of various races, without letting any one dominate. In the leadup to it, the nations would be scouring their populations for athletes to compete...and player characters would number amongst the most skilled...

With the inclusion of magic, and the ability to detect, it would take doping and drug (or buff) testing to new levels... "yes, we detected he was under the influence of a Hero's Feast"

On the other hand, purely magical events, and combined magical/physical events would be interesting as well...

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## Elkad

Dragon #65
Monsters of the Midway

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## spectralphoenix

A lot of it depends on how  advanced society is in your campaign world. In a more medieval setting, "commoner" sports would probably be some kind of early rugby-type game that is more large-scale street brawl than anything we would consider an organized sport. Rules would be limited to "don't kill or seriously maim anyone." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_football

Knightly sports would be demonstrations of martial prowess, and a rich and well-equipped knight would probably have a huge advantage. Which is okay with the lords holding the tourneys, as they are probably rich and well-equipped themselves, and want to encourage their vassals to equip themselves well. In some tournaments, the winner could receive the defeated knight's horse and armor, which might discourage a fighter from showing up in +5 heavy fortification full plate.

If you want something more like modern sports leagues, I think the big question is one of money. If there are large numbers of professional athletes in the world, leagues that support them, high-level wizards and monsters that might be tempted to interfere, and so forth, there must be a lot of money at stake. In our world, the Super Bowl last year was watched by nearly 100 million US viewers who were all advertised to, and many had money to buy sports memorabilia, licensed video games, whatever. If a fantasy world doesn't have magic TV or at least magic radio, I think it would be hard to recreate something like that.

You could also have more betting focused sports, like boxing matches or horse racing. In the absence of a legal bureaucracy to regulate the games, there's probably a lot of match-fixing by the house, never mind the actual contestants. Similarly, something similar to catch wrestling could appear, where traveling carnivals put on (likely worked) shows and challenge the locals to step into the ring with the "champion."

Something like the roman gladiator matches or chariot races might be possible. In this case the games are funded by a wealthy sponsor looking to gain influence with the viewers. The Roman/Byzantine emperors would eventually take direct control of these games, since they were so volatile.  I think this was generally limited to cases where someone with the resources of an empire was focused on providing bread and circuses for a single city though.

Some sports competitions were tied into religion. I could see a fantasy church offering a divine boon to a champion, with the rules decided by the god. Cheating in these games would be a bad idea.

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## Telonius

Relevant comic. 

US football is actually a pretty good example of a game that requires very different skill sets from individual positions. Other sports have it too (big guys underneath the basket in basketball, defense vs offense in soccer/football, goalies in hockey etc). But imagine a Monk running back, or a Ranger Linebacker with favored enemy: Quarterback. Fighter linemen with Hold the Line. You could probably allow some spellcasting - with a specially-allowed list of spells. Gust of Wind to disrupt passes or field goals; Web; Plant Growth to create difficult terrain in a localized way.

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## aglondier

> Relevant comic. 
> 
> US football is actually a pretty good example of a game that requires very different skill sets from individual positions. Other sports have it too (big guys underneath the basket in basketball, defense vs offense in soccer/football, goalies in hockey etc). But imagine a Monk running back, or a Ranger Linebacker with favored enemy: Quarterback. Fighter linemen with Hold the Line. You could probably allow some spellcasting - with a specially-allowed list of spells. Gust of Wind to disrupt passes or field goals; Web; Plant Growth to create difficult terrain in a localized way.


This is very similar to the description of a pro football game in Piers Anthony's book "On A Pale Horse". The setting mixes magic into the modern world. The game included mention of legal and illegal spellcasting...

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## King of Nowhere

the modern concept of sport is very recent, roughly a century. modern sport leage and stuff started being born at the beginning of the 20th century. stuff like an international organization with anti-doping policy... that's really modern. and billion dollar prizes that would create an incentive to cheat, that's also something that started being an issue maybe 60 years ago. 
trying to apply all that modern thinking to sports is misplaced. 
fantasy worlds would surely have sports, because all human societies developed some kind of sport-like activity. probably as an outgrow of sparring as training for battles, because the skills relevant in sports are often the same. 
I don't want to think how it would interact with magic and optimization, but what I can say is that: do try to lose the cultural baggage that our contemporary western society has attached to the sport. insted of going out of their way to preserve some of the quirks that we care about, they may go in another direction entirely.

It would also depends greatly on the specific world. if humans have their land and elves have their land and halflings have their land, then you are as likely to see a halfling football team as a human one. halflings would play with halflings, and only very rarely the different races would interact. rarely enough that it would not matter.
if your world is more cosmopolitan, then you may have an halfling and a half orc showing up in the same team. and the halfling would have it rough, and halflings would be discouraged to play. 
if your world is cosmopolitan and highly populated, you may have a big city with different sports leagues for different races, just in the same way that we have split our sport between men and women.

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## Bohandas

Based on the _Harry Potter_ series, the most important aspects of a sport in a fantasy setting are as follows:

1.) An aggressively silly name

2.) One position that's more important than all the other positions combined so that we can focus on the protagonist

3.) Incorporation of a cliche magic item into gameplay

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## MaxiDuRaritry

> Based on the _Harry Potter_ series, the most important aspects of a sport in a fantasy setting are as follows:
> 
> 1.) An aggressively silly name
> 
> 2.) One position that's more important than all the other positions combined so that we can focus on the protagonist
> 
> 3.) Incorporation of a cliche magic item into gameplay


How about poker using the Deck of Many Things?

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