How to Roleplay HighSchool in a tabletop rpg

[Disliker of the mary sue]

A few ideas I had rolling around in my head involved school in someway, one of them being a sort of power ranger thing where a team of people try to balance school life and super hero life and an outright school for super heros. Of course my thoughts then come to how exactly am I going to involve the school part into the roleplay to begin with. My thought process being we're just going to skim over the school part unless plot things are happening so really it probably is going to be forgotten most of the time unless it directly brought up (Hell that seems to be how a lot of power ranger series handles school if they don't just deal with young adults who already passed high school)

So anyone ever dealt with a roleplay where a school was either the main or at least a major part of the setting? How exactly do you pull off school not just being a minor thing in the grand scheme of things? Honestly my only thought really is just have it be college where they usually don't give a **** if you attend as long as your passing test.

[Xenarthral]

Never had the opportunity/reason to actually play a game where it had to be
dealt with, but it's not as if there's no games* where school is the main or a
major part of the setting.

Off the top of my head:
Teenagers From Outer Space
Tokyo Brain Pop/Panty Explosion
Monsters And Other Childish Things
Monsterhearts
(Not counting the ones where a school setting is officially recognised/supported or even highly probable but not officially The Setting.)

Some, most or all plot things happen at school, other than that it is pretty much the same as if the characters were adults with a non-adventurous day job. Treat it the same way.

*or books, comics, movies, tv shows and so on.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Xenarthral

Teenagers From Outer Space

That can also work very well as Undergraduates from Outer Space, which also has a better acronym.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by johndallman

That can also work very well as Undergraduates from Outer Space, which also has a better acronym.

But then you're getting into GURPS IOU territory.

As for the original question: is it really that interesting to roleplay the attendance of classes? If it is, then just go with the flow. If it isn't, then follow the lead set by so many anime, gloss over the actual classes, and cut to the school's after-school supers club...

[The Colonel]

Whilst Joss Whedon may have many points against him, he did manage to produce a series which ran for three seasons (IIRC) in an American high school without too much dissonance ... mostly, as previous posters have noted, with the school as a backdrop and classes being what happened when nothing else was going on...

[whswhs]

Why, yes, I did that in my Worminghall campaign, just lately concluded, and based on the supplement of that title that came out a couple of years ago. It seemed to work pretty well. The students were "at the university" but in age they were early teens, about right for ninth grade.

It worked quite well, once we got past some initial interpersonal stress—between the players, not the characters; fortunately they went on to play well with others.

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Disliker of the mary sue

So anyone ever dealt with a roleplay where a school was either the main or at least a major part of the setting? How exactly do you pull off school not just being a minor thing in the grand scheme of things? Honestly my only thought really is just have it be college where they usually don't give a **** if you attend as long as your passing test.

My recommendation is to use the monthly study rolls mechanic from GURPS Social Engineering: Back to School. This treats school like a job, with the "pay" is hours gained toward learning new skills rather than in GURPS$. You don't spend a lot of play time on determining how much people learn, but you do have varying academic outcomes, influenced by character traits and situations, so the fact that you're a student stays in the foreground. And you could penalize rolls if the characters are spending a lot of time on "adventures" or are under stress.

[Anaraxes]

Such settings usually have some wainscotting -- that is, if it's a "normal" high school, then most people don't know that the PCs are monster hunters or mecha pilots or superspies. Most of the teaches and students are mundanes. In that case, you can still have plots set in the mundane world. But they usually reflect the plot of the main story in some way, either as a echo or a contrast. They also, of course, serve as simple plot complications, having to meet other commitments and maintain The Secret.

It's also possible for there not to be any mundanes, at least at the school, quite possibly training students for their careers as monster hunters or mecha pilots or superspies. That's where Hogwarts and superhero high school are found. You can still try to have classwork and "normal" relationships as obstacles, but the other teachers and students would normally be a lot more understanding that you missed their event because you had to go save the world.

So that's probably a decision to make early, as it will help focus the interplay you can expect between those two halves of the characters.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Such settings usually have some wainscotting -- that is, if it's a "normal" high school, then most people don't know that the PCs are monster hunters or mecha pilots or superspies. Most of the teaches and students are mundanes. In that case, you can still have plots set in the mundane world. But they usually reflect the plot of the main story in some way, either as a echo or a contrast. They also, of course, serve as simple plot complications, having to meet other commitments and maintain The Secret.

It's also possible for there not to be any mundanes, at least at the school, quite possibly training students for their careers as monster hunters or mecha pilots or superspies. That's where Hogwarts and superhero high school are found. You can still try to have classwork and "normal" relationships as obstacles, but the other teachers and students would normally be a lot more understanding that you missed their event because you had to go save the world.

Both of these are addressed in GURPS Social Engineering: Back to School, mainly in chapters 3 and 4.