Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 10-01-2017, 01:25 AM   #1
tshiggins
 
tshiggins's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
Default Hilariously awful campaign idea!

So, we played the latest session of Facets, last night, and a friend Rebecca made during her summer as a dancer with the drum & bugle corps decided to try out the game.

Elisa is a 20-year-old extroverted college student who twirls heavy rifles like a boss, in the d&b corps. She and Rebecca were seat-partners on the bus as they traveled from competition to competition, across the United States.

So, Elisa wanted to try out the RPG scene and we gave her Jimmy Ehrland to play, as he's the designated PC for guest players. Elisa liked the game so much that, by the end, she had come up with her own campaign idea, which Rebecca found delightful.

I would never set this up, but it was so funny I had to share it.

Campaign Idea: B***h Girls

The players take the roles of girls who attend a typical large suburban high school, as they compete ruthlessly for cute boyfriends (or girlfriends) and navigate the hazards of cliques and weekend parties as they fight and scratch for social prominence.

Example villains:
-Betty, who shows up at parties dressed in exactly the same outfit as a PC girl who is already there.
-Sally, who goes completely berserk if ever she sees her man talking to a PC girl.
-The girl who always goes after boys who are already with a PC girl.

Rules to include special attack techiques for tearing out earrings, or snatching out handfuls of a hair weave (with a special crit fail result that means the attacker's bracelet gets tangled in her own weave and she accidentally rips out a part of it, instead...).

The advantage Rapier Wit is highly recommended, of course, and Bill Stoddard's Social Engineering rules play a key role in nearly every aspect of the campaign. In addition to the weekend parties, scenarios take place in the school hallway, school cafeteria, and the all-important shopping mall.

I'd say Elisa's got a pretty good idea of what table-top RPGs are all about. :)
__________________
--
MXLP:9 [JD=1, DK=1, DM-M=1, M(FAW)=1, SS=2, Nym=1 (nose coffee), sj=1 (nose cocoa), Maz=1]
"Some days, I just don't know what to think." -Daryl Dixon.

Last edited by tshiggins; 10-01-2017 at 01:32 AM.
tshiggins is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 02:34 AM   #2
Ottriman
 
Join Date: Apr 2015
Default Re: Hilariously awful campaign idea!

That does sound funny, would hair pulling be a Brawling or Wrestling maneuver? :p

In any case combat might need a rework in general to allow someone to be defeated without being knocked out or killed, given the tone of this idea.
Ottriman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 02:57 AM   #3
mr beer
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Default Re: Hilariously awful campaign idea!

Depends what you are going for but catfights could end up with accidental mild nudity, and the social fall out might go either way. Generally, some kind of mechanic for social effects rather than hospitalisation might be better for combat.
mr beer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 07:04 AM   #4
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Hilariously awful campaign idea!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ottriman View Post
would hair pulling be a Brawling or Wrestling maneuver?
Depends on whether or not your GM is using the expanded rules in Technical Catfighting.
Anaraxes is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 08:13 AM   #5
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Hilariously awful campaign idea!

I've run a session of Helllcats and Hockeysticks, which is very much like that, only set in the UK at a boarding school. It was hilarious and the players loved it (I just asked C and she confirmed that she had a blast). If the players didn't want to do St. Trinian's it could probably be adapted to a US day school without that much trouble.
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 11:37 AM   #6
smurf
Banned
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Bristol
Default Re: Hilariously awful campaign idea!

Quote:
Originally Posted by tshiggins View Post
So, we played the latest session of Facets, last night, and a friend Rebecca made during her summer as a dancer with the drum & bugle corps decided to try out the game.

Elisa is a 20-year-old extroverted college student who twirls heavy rifles like a boss, in the d&b corps. She and Rebecca were seat-partners on the bus as they traveled from competition to competition, across the United States.

So, Elisa wanted to try out the RPG scene and we gave her Jimmy Ehrland to play, as he's the designated PC for guest players. Elisa liked the game so much that, by the end, she had come up with her own campaign idea, which Rebecca found delightful.

I would never set this up, but it was so funny I had to share it.

Campaign Idea: B***h Girls

The players take the roles of girls who attend a typical large suburban high school, as they compete ruthlessly for cute boyfriends (or girlfriends) and navigate the hazards of cliques and weekend parties as they fight and scratch for social prominence.

Example villains:
-Betty, who shows up at parties dressed in exactly the same outfit as a PC girl who is already there.
-Sally, who goes completely berserk if ever she sees her man talking to a PC girl.
-The girl who always goes after boys who are already with a PC girl.

Rules to include special attack techiques for tearing out earrings, or snatching out handfuls of a hair weave (with a special crit fail result that means the attacker's bracelet gets tangled in her own weave and she accidentally rips out a part of it, instead...).

The advantage Rapier Wit is highly recommended, of course, and Bill Stoddard's Social Engineering rules play a key role in nearly every aspect of the campaign. In addition to the weekend parties, scenarios take place in the school hallway, school cafeteria, and the all-important shopping mall.

I'd say Elisa's got a pretty good idea of what table-top RPGs are all about. :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
I've run a session of Helllcats and Hockeysticks, which is very much like that, only set in the UK at a boarding school. It was hilarious and the players loved it (I just asked C and she confirmed that she had a blast). If the players didn't want to do St. Trinian's it could probably be adapted to a US day school without that much trouble.
Sounds really good and great fun.

From a local wargaming club we had a wargame based on 'A very English Civil War' which was based in the 1930s. One of the types of units was a hand to hand squad that were modelled as young women with hockey sticks from Badger's finishing school for Young Ladies. The school often were in the fore front of campaigns for the Battle of Badger's Drift, Defence of Lower Badger, the Badger Inn Redoubt - essentially everything got called Badger because a player questioned the use of the name.

There's a lot of source material for school based games.
smurf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 11:59 AM   #7
Bicorn
 
Bicorn's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Default Re: Hilariously awful campaign idea!

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
I've run a session of Helllcats and Hockeysticks, which is very much like that, only set in the UK at a boarding school.
There's also the old Alma Mater RPG, which is somewhat similar but more gritty/nasty and without supernatural elements.
Bicorn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 12:26 PM   #8
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Hilariously awful campaign idea!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bicorn View Post
There's also the old Alma Mater RPG, which is somewhat similar but more gritty/nasty and without supernatural elements.
It isn't as if you had to use the supernatural bits in H&H. I completely ignored them when I ran it.
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 12:50 PM   #9
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Hilariously awful campaign idea!

Quote:
Originally Posted by smurf View Post
There's a lot of source material for school based games.
Our own Phil Masters wrote one.
johndallman is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 10:19 PM   #10
khorboth
 
khorboth's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Denver, CO
Default Re: Hilariously awful campaign idea!

There's a fair bit of interest in my group in a Jane Austin based campaign. There are a few holdouts, but at some point, the game is likely to happen...
khorboth is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:48 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.