Anime Ordinary High School Students

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Ninja'd. Though it could even be treated as Rapier Wit (Mêlée, Reach C-1 -25%)

Except that my understanding is that it is never used in battle, or similar. Probably best to treat it as a Shtick.

[robkelk]

(the "Shojo Mallet")

Originally Posted by ravenfish

Except that my understanding is that it is never used in battle, or similar. Probably best to treat it as a Shtick.

It's sometimes used to prevent a battle, though, by clobbering a letch before he manages to "glomp" (hug closely, with hands in inappropriate places) the girl with the mallet.

Oh, and "Shojo Mallet" is a misnomer. While most of them are wielded by girls, one male character is known to use the Mallet as well: Ataru Moroboshi, The Most Lecherous Male In The Universe (yes, they checked), the lead male in Urusei Yatsura. So, yes, a male character can take this Shtick/Perk/whatever...

[cptbutton]

Relevant possible Skills:

Note: combat skills are all Art or Sport versions.
† - requires specialization

Acrobatics
Acting
Area Knowledge†
Artist†
Astronomy/TL8
Bicycling
Biology/TL8†
Bow
Boxing
Brawling
Breath Control
Carousing
Chemistry/TL8
Climbing
Combat Art or Sport
Computer Hacking/TL8
Computer Operation/TL8
Computer Programming/TL8
Cooking
Current Affairs/TL8†
Dancing
Electronics Operation/TL8†
Electronics Repair/TL8†
Fast-Talk
First Aid/TL8
Fishing
Games†
Gardening
Geology/TL8†
Hiking
History†
Hobby Skill
Housekeeping
Intimidation
Judo
Jumping
Karate
Knot-Tying
Lifting
Literature
Machinist/TL8
Mathematics/TL8†
Mechanic/TL8†
Meditation
Musical Instrument†
Performance
Photography/TL8
Physics/TL8
Public Speaking
Running
Savoir-Faire†
Scrounging
Sewing/TL8
Sex Appeal
Singing
Smuggling
Sports
Staff
Streetwise
Swimming
Two-Handed Sword (kendo)
Typing
Urban Survival
Wrestling
Writing

[David Johnston2]

[QUOTE=cptbutton]

Template for Ordinary High School Students (Japan) Net cost [4]

This is nominally at the end of the first year of high school (10th grade in the US), 15 years old, so there are no Attribute modifiers.

ST 10 [0]
DX 10 [0]
IQ 10 [0]
HT 10 [0]

Advantages:
[-30] Patron: Parents, level 1, 15-

Parents who are patrons in any meaningful sense are less common than you might think in this genre. More often than not, they are too mundane, too silly, too unobservant, too absent, or too dead, to help superpowered children in any way apart from proving free room and board and school fees.

[0] Language Japanese, Native

Broken English on the other hand is standard for an Anime teenager. It's in the curriculum.

[cptbutton]

Gold & Appel Inc:

Why isn't this just a special effect on Easy To Read [-10]?

Good point.


ravenfish:

If this refers to the ability to pull a mallet from thin air, but only for dramatic purposes, shouldn't it be a perk rather than a quirk?

Yes, that what is meant, and you're right.


Molokh:
Rapier Wit - Thanks, I'll look at it.


robkelk:
[2] Language: English, Broken - 2 points, so that is both spoken and written, right? With the extra point in one or the other, depending?


Ally Group (classmates or clubmates) [10]
(21-50 interchangeable NPCs, less than 25% of point total, fairly often 9-)

I'm assuming truly ordinary students are about 10 points, the PCs are above average, of course.

Hold on, I need to look up point cost recursion...

Answering myself: Not an issue, GURPS Update says NPCs can't have Allies.

I put a lot of skills on the list on the assumption that they could be learned in a school club.


David Johnston2:
True about parents, but I'll leave that to the players to sell down if they wish.

Hmmm... How to model interfering parents who keep questioning you about being out all night and coming home with burned clothing, etc? Some variation of Enemy?

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by robkelk

By the time Japanese students get to first-year high school, they've picked up enough English that "[2] Language: English, Broken" should also be on the template.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha........aaaahhhh, my job would have been SOOO much easier if this was true.

It's pretty generous, but it is a game and broken is pretty weak...but man, I had kids who couldn't do basic greetings after three years of doing them day-in, day-out. They just don't learn to produce, they learn to memorize for tests and then those vocab and that grammar is not repeated in the books again. The can read better than they can speak, because Japanese education stressed reading and writing. Some cram schools specifically advertise that they teach reading and writing for passing tests, and won't actually teach conversational English at all. You don't need to speak for your High School or College entrance exams. So Broken written, for sure, Accented for the advanced students. Spoken....eeeeeeehhhhh....not so often.

Originally Posted by robkelk

More importantly, the Japanese focus on the group over the individual should have produced a low-point-cost Ally Group (classmates or clubmates) for almost anyone in high school. Sometimes it doesn't, so this is again an optional trait, but it's a culturally-important one.

Only the loners really don't have a group. Even if they don't have a school club activity (as you mentioned), they tend to have a group. The kids I knew who weren't in Track and Field/Badminton/Kendo/Judo/Table Tennis/whatever all had some outside activity. Video games, the kids who went to juku (cram school) with them, their band, whatever. They identify in groups, and groups are self-led, not run by adults. They manage their own practices, they establish a pecking order (basically, age-based)...it's pretty fascinating stuff.

Japanese High Schools are also not run like US schools in that they aren't local. You apply to high schools and take tests to get in, with the more respected and higher level schools being harder to get in to. So you'll probably go to school from age 5 to age 14-15 with your friends, and then you'll go to a different high school than most of them. So ichinensei (first year students) have to create their own groups from scratch, they can't rely on the groups they formed over their earlier education.

Also, I'd say they don't have Dead Broke. They may have Struggling or Poor, but almost all students of any age get money from their parents, grandparents (who usually live with them), and relatives. A couple occasions (New Year's, birthdays, graduations or successful competitions) result in gifts of money. Plus many students commute to school a long distance - by train or bus - and thus will have enough money to spend on transport and food from the ubiquitous snack machines. They'll all have cell phones (keitai), and many if not most have some kind of game system - DS and PSP were popular. The question I'd ask was "Which do you have, DS or PSP?" not "Do you have a DS or PSP." They always seemed to have some money...I can't count the number of times kids bought me snacks because they wanted me to try them.
The one thing they don't have is a certain income...but they have lots of stuff, generally. Unless you plan to finagle this as "Dead Broke" but stuff is provided by their parents via Patron.

All this is based on my own experience - I never actually taught Senior High School, but I had high school-age friends and friends who taught High Schools. We compared notes often on what happens when they got out of my control and into theirs. I can provide more information, but if I have to get specific I'd need to take to PMs.

Hope that helps.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

robkelk:
[2] Language: English, Broken - 2 points, so that is both spoken and written, right? With the extra point in one or the other, depending?

That was my intent, yes.

But Peter's mentioned first-hand experience that some of the students don't even have spoken English at Broken, so we'd best make the spoken English another optional trait...

[thrash]

Originally Posted by robkelk

More importantly, the Japanese focus on the group over the individual should have produced a low-point-cost Ally Group (classmates or clubmates) for almost anyone in high school. Sometimes it doesn't, so this is again an optional trait, but it's a culturally-important one.

If you're going to go this route, it might be good to balance the advantage with a disadvantage like Chummy or a mild Intolerance (to anyone not in one's "in-group"): something to model the conformity this implies.

My impression is that the Japanese gregariousness (with a small "g") is a two-edged sword: good support from the in-group, also but real consequences for bucking the group consensus. This extends (in high school, as depicted in anime, at least) to choices about whom one dates or even whether one can start dating ahead of one's in-group.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

.

Hmmm... How to model interfering parents who keep questioning you about being out all night and coming home with burned clothing, etc? Some variation of Enemy?

Being treated like a kid is what you got the 5 points for. Well, that and the points for the Secret you are keeping? All the player characters do have a Secret right? Not having parents or someone in loco parentis to bug you in my version of this idea was the Perk "Emancipated Minor".

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Being treated like a kid is what you got the 5 points for. Well, that and the points for the Secret you are keeping? All the player characters do have a Secret right?

Agreed, except in an extraordinary case such as a parent who is both nosy and unavoidable (teaching at the PC's school, coaching their club, etc), who might be a high-frequency 1/4-value Watcher Enemy IMHO.