Wrestling gets Actual Play the best

 It's easy comparing Professional Wrestling to Soap Operas for fair and obvious reasons. But I'm not here to talk melodrama, performance, or characterization with a title like that. I love it or I wouldn't have cried literal tears of joy over the results of Rhea Ripley vs. Iyo Sky last night.

 No. What Wrestlers and Creative across all leagues/continents understand better than your favourite TTRPG Actual Play, and almost certainly you too, is how to play the game.

Monday Night Rules As Written

 Where is every dispute inevitably settled? The Ring. The Squared Circle. Or, at least, in spirit. Even backstage events! Promos? Smack talk? The Pageantry? Intro Songs/Stings? Personas? Announcement commentary? Heelturns? Team-ups? It all comes from and in turn returns fuel to said fire.

 It is a world unto itself governed at the end of the day by the game's rules and the name of the game is Wrestling! The announcers know it, the stars know it, the camera ops know it, the promoters know it.. They all know it.
 Everyone, including you the audience, is playing along. Finding ways to loop it back in to those agreed upon rules, to believe in this other world and make ridiculous, over-the-top decisions you could not (or possibly would not) make in actuality. Ideally in accordance with everyone's desires and enjoyment.

 That's what Actual Plays so often don't get and are failing to do. This isn't a "system matters" argument either. It does but- Okay. Consider each RPG is establishing a reality who's "physics" are the provided rules. Whatever that may be is how that world works! And you gotta buy into it, even if it is ridiculously centered on cake-baking, much like our good ol' pal…

Kayfabe!! (Cake-fabe? Is that anything?)

 No shit it isn't real. Neither are your favourite books, movies, shows, radio dramas, or even memories entirely. But it's fun to pretend and get invested! It's a great time to game! Also the players are still real. You're still real. At least, ya know, close enough. Suspending disbelief is part of the fun no matter how odd it gets.

 Kayfabe isn't only for the theatrics. It's knowing you're playing the game and thinking about how to keep it coming back to that game. You put the structure upfront and use that chassis for driving forward. Do that with your games! Do that in your shows! I know it might sound mild given its namesake but hot take: Actually Play the game!!

 When you're getting together to play an RPG ask, at least by yourself but preferably with the group, "What is the reality this TTRPG governs?" and as you proceed constantly question, "How do we feed into that reality?" No that does not include rule zero, fuck off. Try it! PLEASE!

 And if you then wear flamboyant outfits, put on airs, and flex your wannabe Shakespearean skills amidst it? Go hog wild, I say.