atypical campaigns for typical settings

[lachimba]

A typical setting with an atypical campaign for that setting.

First setting:

High School.

A lots already been done. Horror, Mystery etc so forgive me if a) someone has already done it or b) its not very good.


High School espionage.

Veronica Mars meets the Americans.

Premise: in the 1950s the USSR planted hundreds of sleeper agents into the USA. Most were never activated. Their children had children.

Now its the 1980s and a generation of children trained since birth to be spies are teenagers. They are at an elite school with the future leaders of America. The FBI has some how gotten enough information to suspect the school, but not enough to commit real resources. They have fast tracked some young recruits through training and planted some youngish looking 21 year olds along with older agents as parents and teachers.

Are notes being swapped in class dead letter drops, high school videos being saved for blackmail etc etc


I'd run it as a pretty hardcore espionage game only the protagonists or villains are 16 to 18 year olds.



High School DF

Dungeons and Dragons meets Degrassi

One day the PCs (a group of ordinary students a cool kid, jock, geek) had a dream they were high fantasy warriors delving and scoring loot. Then they woke up and the 'cash' loot they scored (mostly gold and gems) was still on them meaning they could afford what they wanted in the real world.

Now they spend more and more time in the dream world, and it intrudes into their real lives up until one of their avatars dies and their friend dies with it. Keep playing?

Id run it as DF, but the social skills are those of a high school student. Theres also the potential to run a more serious social enginnering session about the highschool setting every so often.

OR

Dungeon and Dragons meets Harry Potter

Its a high scool for DF delvers' children. Much more light hearted cartoon action hero style campaign for low powered delvers.

[The Colonel]

I have wondered from time to time about a high school campaign, set not in a wizarding school but in a regular school that happens to teach various magical subjects as well as mundane ones - either as part of the general curriculum (so that maths lessons might include mystical numerology or transdimensional geometry) or as subjects in their own right (rite?) (sorcery 101 and introduction to alchemy). Possibly with exchange students from faerie, homonculi running about the corridors and a golem as janitor...

[whswhs]

My idea along these lines was Mad Science High: A magnet or charter high school with a curriculum focused on teaching students to become functioning mad scientists, in a world where mad science has been working successfully at least since Newton's efforts in alchemy. I think I would want to have Weird Science as a cinematic skill, with Blessed or Intuition or something along those lines playing the role of TbaM.

Then of course there's Worminghall, which already has a published GURPS supplement and which was one of the campaigns I just ended. Its students were university students, but in 1300 AD university enrollment started at 14 usually. Worminghall's rules for how much you learn per term would be a good fit to pretty much any high school campaign.

Bill Stoddard

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by whswhs

My idea along these lines was Mad Science High: A magnet or charter high school with a curriculum focused on teaching students to become functioning mad scientists, in a world where mad science has been working successfully at least since Newton's efforts in alchemy. I think I would want to have Weird Science as a cinematic skill, with Blessed or Intuition or something along those lines playing the role of TbaM.

Seems at least partially related to IoU.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Seems at least partially related to IoU.

I couldn't say; I've never looked at IoU.

Bill Stoddard

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Seems at least partially related to IoU.

Vaguely... but also...

PS-238 - a super hero high school
Ninja High School - all kinds of wierdness

High School has lots of unusual bits...

In fact, when one hits Anime, one encounters LOADS of high school variations, including the alternate reality via dreams dungeon fantasy bit.

Classic Dungeon Fantasy -
- But the players are running a merchant enterprise catering to the delvers.

Firefly 'Verse -
- Players are a cult of Flat-Earthers on Shinon or some other core world, out to convince everyone that spaceflight is a lie.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

PS-238 - a super hero high school

PS 238 is an elementary school. I think it's pretty clear that none of the kids have hit puberty, and one of them looks to be a toddler biologically.

Bill Stoddard

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

Classic Dungeon Fantasy -
- But the players are running a merchant enterprise catering to the delvers.

Recettear! (Well, sort of.)

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

I have wondered from time to time about a high school campaign, set not in a wizarding school but in a regular school that happens to teach various magical subjects as well as mundane ones - either as part of the general curriculum (so that maths lessons might include mystical numerology or transdimensional geometry) or as subjects in their own right (rite?) (sorcery 101 and introduction to alchemy). Possibly with exchange students from faerie, homonculi running about the corridors and a golem as janitor...

GURPS Technomancer

You can dial it up or down based on if it is in a low to high mana area.

[MatthewVilter]

Originally Posted by lachimba

High School DF

<snip>

Reminds me of Persona 4 (in a good way).

I think the metaphysics of how the kids' personalities, skills, and relation-ships carry over to the dream world (and vice versa) would be pretty important.

Ultimately, I think, it is more or less obligatory for the dream world to start bleeding over into the real one...