Running a game about student PCs as a way to teach GURPS

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Refplace

The High School genre is popular in Animae and could be a nice supplement or perhaps Locations items.

I rather like Silver Spoon, which is a manga (and I think an anime) about an agricultural high school where one of the students is a fish out of water from the big city.

[The Colonel]

How about a game set in a castle, where the players get the roles of squires and similar sprogs?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Part of me is tempted to go for a more "Dungeon Fantasy" setting with separate training systems for different "character classes", though that would require working out what is holding the party together if not all being students at the same institution. Maybe a shared extracurricular activity? Or maybe they are specifically training together to be part of an elite scouting unit for the royal army? I dunno, I feel like if I go this route I'd need to workshop it a bit more.

It was an idea for a video game rather than a campaign, but I have considered a setting where an "Adventurer Academy" featured. In that - and what you can do - there were quite a few shared classes where characters from different "character classes" would meet and interact. In addition to mundane topics (history, geography, mathematics, reading/writing, etc... all of which are of use to adventurers), most introductory courses would be of use to all adventurers. Monster Studies / Demonology gives you info on what you'll be facing, Magic Theory gives non-mages a good groundwork in what mages - both allies and enemies - are capable of, Combatives is useful for everyone (even the most dedicated mages will eventually find themselves in a situation where they need to whack something with their staff/wand, at least if they opt to take up adventuring), Traps can save your life if you're separated from your dedicated trap-finder/disarmer (or if said individual is incapacitated), Survival means everyone can pull their weight when it comes to setting up and breaking down camp, etc. Even with more advanced classes, training with others from outside of that class can be useful - perhaps Combatives 301 frequently meets up with Magic Theory 301 to help teach the mages how to deal with skilled fighters, and the fighters how to deal with mages. This gives ample opportunity for the PC's to meet and interact.

As for the party staying together, well, it's traditional for adventurers to form an adventuring party. The academy of my setting would have encouraged this - essentially, the playable characters became friends during the classes they shared, then opted to become a "training party." You could certainly do something similar here. The party may form by choice, as in my example, or it may be something determined by a test, chance, the higher-ups of the academy. For example, the school from the first few seasons of RWBY put all the characters through a test - get launched into a random location in a large forest, then find your way to the goal and pick up an artifact, IIRC, fighting monsters along the way - and which artifact the characters picked up determined which team they ended up assigned to.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

One thing I'm unsure about is handling differences in social class between students.

My adventuring academy technically disregarded any social differences between students - indeed, students were encouraged to not inform others of their own backgrounds - but inevitably you ended up with the students figuring out roughly (or exactly - "Oh, there's a dhampir here who happens to match the description of the vampire queen's daughter; I wonder who she could possibly be?") what their relative social ranks were, often with the higher-ranked students subtly lording it over the lower-ranked ones, while the lower-ranked ones attempted to ingratiate themselves to their social betters, in hopes of better positioning post-graduation. There were also things that only those of higher social class could legally acquire and/or use - although simply being an adventurer eliminates a lot of those barriers (even if swords are typically restricted to being used by nobility, it's likely low-born adventurers would be allowed to carry one). In GURPS terms, Status was probably downgraded to something roughly akin to Courtesy Status [1]/level, unless the character specifically opted to try to make use of it, at which point it would probably be worth somewhere around [3]/level (not as much as full-fat Status, because fellow students were not required to acknowledge your Status, and in fact specifically trying to make use of it risked getting into trouble).

In terms of differences in background skills - like Streetwise vs Savoir-Faire, as you mentioned - those can still be useful for interacting with other students, or even with the professors/trainers, particularly if the latter are retired adventurers (or active ones who are taking a break) from all walks of life. There can also be practical exams and exercises where the characters go out and do some adventuring while under observation (that was actually meant to be what was happening for a lot of the gameplay sections of the "Adventurer Academy" story arc), in which case you can get use out of those background skills in interactions with those residing wherever serves as "town" for the exercise.

[whswhs]

One fringe benefit of the student PCs framework in Worminghall is that it solves the classic problem of juvenile/YA fiction: How do you get the kids away from their parents or guardians/locum tenentes so that they can have adventures? Worminghall is full of boys sent away at 14 to attend classes, living in rented rooms or buying/leasing houses (if rich), with teachers around but without close adult supervision most of the time. My player characters got into occasional street brawls, explored a cave formerly inhabited by a dragon, met a lady of the Fair Folk, were tracked by brigands during trips home, and so on.

[Michael Thayne]

Regarding a group of students being a mix of classes such that some have to work, some don't—less sleep is 2 points/level, with each level giving you an extra 7 hours/week to study. Given that, it would probably be fair to say a 5-point Patron can be used to represent a sponsor who pays part of your living expenses/tuition, such that the amount you need to work is reduced by 15-20 hours per week. A 10-point Patron might be good for a 35 hour reduction. Though it raises the question "reduction from what baseline?"—Worminghall mentions most people work 10 hours per day, six days a week, but it also mentions "frequent religious holidays", which maybe means the most people aren't actually averaging 60 hours/week even if they work that much some weeks? Also I think there's some uncertainty about how much medieval folks actually worked, since it's not like they were clocking in and out of the factory.