So... What do you hate about RPs set during High School?

[wonderandawe]

So...  The PC of my upcoming quest is going to be a high school student.  High School Role Plays seem to have a bad rep on this site.  I want to get your opinion on what pit falls High School RPs usually fall into.  


I'm hoping going to channel more Buffy the Bane Slayer than Dawnson's Creek.   I haven't been in high school in years, so I have some emotional distance from the time period.  I can write adult characters pretty well.   Romance, while available to the PC, isn't important to the plot.  Heck, the players can avoid any sort of romantic relationship during the game, if they choose.  I want to focus on her familial relationships instead.   


The PC will be average looking to highly attractive, depending on the social stats the players vote for.  She will excel in the niche the players choose for her, be it sports, academics, music, popularity.  She will be perceptive to the motives of the people around her (as a way to feed the players plot).  


So is there any red flags thus far?  Anything I should avoid?  

 

[Axel The Englishman]

They're. All. Fandoms. Usually.

 

[Count Gensokyo]

They're. All. Fandoms. Usually.

I've seen a good handful of originals too.

 

[wonderandawe]

They're. All. Fandoms. Usually.

My quest will be set in Werewolf the Apocalypse, which is an RPG setting.  A werewolf's first change happens in the mid to late teens, thus the high school time period.  

 

[Reid]

Well, I guess they have such a stigma because most roleplayers who have high school roleplays are preteens or those who are freshmen in highschool. I've seen some pretty bad ones, where characters are supposedly "normal" but someone ends up whipping out a katana at one point for some reason.

 

[Viper]

I personally love high school plots, I enjoy the confined settings and when supernatural elements are mixed into it. However I refuse to ever RP them nowadays mainly because even if the GM bothered to come up with a plot (which is rare), they tend to attract players that I don't really mesh well with.  Not only do the RPers tend to only post one liners which is hard for me as a detailed RPer to enjoy but they also like to make OP special snowflakes and then vanish two posts in.  This is of course a general statement, not every high school role player is like this but there are a lot. I have ran into this both in group RPs and 1x1s so at this point I have basically blacklisted the entire genre.  If I want to enjoy a school setting them I will just write my own story... it's the only way.


I recommend looking that the school section of this thread, Grey goes over this stuff fairly well 

 

[StoneWolf18]

I could rant on and on but the biggest thing is, classes are never attended and teachers apparently don't exist. If you make sure both of those happen, you're on the right track.

 

[Shireling]

How funny would a high school RP be where all the player characters are teachers instead of students? 

 

[StoneWolf18]

How funny would a high school RP be where all the player characters are teachers instead of students? 

I've done that before. I'd say it would've went better if it would've gotten more interest. 

 

[Shireling]

I've done that before. I'd say it would've went better if it would've gotten more interest. 

Huh. *places idea in a manilla envelope and files it*

 

[StoneWolf18]

Huh. *places idea in a manilla envelope and files it*

If you wanna know more about my little experiment, lemme know. 

 

[wonderandawe]

I could rant on and on but the biggest thing is, classes are never attended and teachers apparently don't exist. If you make sure both of those happen, you're on the right track.

They will be attending classes and have homework and group projects.  There will be teachers, parents, and other adults.  It's a small town full of people of all ages.

 

[wonderandawe]

I personally love high school plots, I enjoy the confined settings and when supernatural elements are mixed into it. However I refuse to ever RP them nowadays mainly because even if the GM bothered to come up with a plot (which is rare), they tend to attract players that I don't really mesh well with.  Not only do the RPers tend to only post one liners which is hard for me as a detailed RPer to enjoy but they also like to make OP special snowflakes and then vanish two posts in.  This is of course a general statement, not every high school role player is like this but there are a lot. I have ran into this both in group RPs and 1x1s so at this point I have basically blacklisted the entire genre.  If I want to enjoy a school setting them I will just write my own story... it's the only way.


I recommend looking that the school section of this thread, Grey goes over this stuff fairly well 

That post is great!  This bullet point describes the plot of my quest to a T:


"This is a story about growing up and everything that comes with it. All the angst and confusion, juggling the things you want or think you want with the things expected of you and having so little control over your time."

 

[JayTee]

Their sheer commonality and typically garbage-tier quality, has turned me off of 99% of high school RPs.


I'm not intrinsically opposed to them, but I need to be impressed before I'm willing to pay attention to one.

 

[Windsock]

They're shit because they're all just copies of each other and high-school is just boring as fuck.

 

[JayTee]

Copies of each other? Sure. Boring as fuck? eh, not really. There's a lot of raw potential there, and the problem is that it rarely gets channeled in the right direction, if at all.


Honestly if I see some thought put in to one with an interesting premise, I'd give it a shot.

 

[welian]

The PC will be average looking to highly attractive, depending on the social stats the players vote for.  She will excel in the niche the players choose for her, be it sports, academics, music, popularity.  She will be perceptive to the motives of the people around her (as a way to feed the players plot).  

I'd suggest, if you're willing to take a comedy bend, allow the possibility of an ugly PC - and allow players to vote on her flaws as well.


As for high school settings in general, in my experience, they die pretty fast if they don't have an end goal or direction. So, make it very clear what the immediate goal is for the quest, otherwise it's just dicking around and that's boring.


Most importantly, ignore anyone who tells you high school settings are shit. Only listen to them if they say something like "I don't like them because X" or "I've had a bad experience when Y happened." Anyone who completely dismisses an entire genre without any sort of subjective nuance is not a person you want to take advice from.

 

[JayTee]

Yeah, Welian has the right of it. I probably came off as a little harsh in my views of school RPs, but it's mostly because the bulk of them on this site have little to no thought put in to them and are just there for the sake of being high school RPs.


I've seen your other quest, so I know you'll put some thought in to it. I'm definitely curious what you'll come up with.

 

[Terminus]

Let me preface this: I don't know what a high school RP looks like on this site. Other sites I've been on, though, a "high school RP" meant you'd get four to six attractive female characters talking to each other about their popularity while possibly ignoring the one other character in the thread, unless it was male, in which case they fought over who got to kiss him. Kind of like Mean Girls, just not funny.


Honestly? As long as your plot summary is more than "some people attend high school" (and I'm sure it is), you're probably fine.

 

[welian]

In @JayTee's defense.... It's really easy to put together a high school RP, which means there are a lot of them, and a high proportion of them will be full of RPers who might not have the most experience in putting together a cohesive campaign.

 

[wonderandawe]

Maybe a better description of my quest is a small town rpg with a teenage protagonist. 


I'm planning on starting my quest at the beginning of March. Need to finish my current quest and plan for the new one. I got alot of ideas. Just need to prune them down into a coherent setting. 

 

[JayTee]

If you need someone to bounce ideas off of, feel free to hit me up in a PM.

 

[AllHailDago]

I find these to be the common issues.


There are an overabundance of high school setting rps. Which frequently leads to either being overlooked, ignored, or the rp looking like just one more of the many pre existing rps. While there are many original ideas, there are thousands of seeming clones that drown out those great ideas.


The high school genre tends to be RIFE with one liners/mary sues/ generic plotlines. Most people playing in these settings are living a vicarious fantasy (though I suppose we all are) and things tend to get out of hand in the worst of ways.


Classes never tend to happen, teachers rarely ever appear, and a cohesive timeline is REALLY hard to get a handle on.


That said, when a unique and well managed one comes along they can be loads of fun. Even with generic storylines, it simply takes the right twist to make things fun.

 

[wonderandawe]

I'd suggest, if you're willing to take a comedy bend, allow the possibility of an ugly PC - and allow players to vote on her flaws as well.

Probably not going to do an Ugly PC, especially not with a comedic bent.  I was a skinny awkward kid growing up and was made fun of a lot for my looks.  So I am uncomfortable with "humorous" situations based on a character's looks.  I suppose I could turn it around... nah... maybe I'll deal with that social insecurity in my next writing project.  


I'll think about giving a choice of flaws.  I already have one flaw in mind - violent temper.  Not adorable anime violence, but "I put a boy in the hospital for spreading nasty rumors about me" violence.  


If you know anything about Werewolf the Apocalypse, this flaw is perfectly in line with the setting.  


I rather not have another slacker character.  My other quest character was a slacker, so I don't want to retread the same territory.  

 

[call me rae]

Well your talking about my bread in butter. I began with high school roleplays  and while i do them rarely now that's more because their shit hard to do with only two people and I don't do group roleplays anymore ,


Some tips from my more successful high school ventures ( the longest of which lasted at least four years in real life, i think almost that long in IC too but i'd have to find the old threads to double check )


- don't roleplay out classes. it is boring and makes the roleplay seem more like school than a fun escape from reality


- have a set idea for an over-arching plot. it doesn't have to be super detailed but have some idea of where you want the story to go


- pepper in events and ways for people to interact ( most successful examples will be detailed below separately )


- KEEP TIME MOVING FORWARD! have actual time pass in the IC. have seasons change, the school year come and go. 


- seriously do the thing above. even if that means your characters age out of the school setting it's much more interesting than faffing about school doing nothing forever.


Ways to Move the Plot Forward


- school events. 


- school dances


- festivals


- random shenanigans ( i had one rp where i all students banned together to steal the faculties alchol stash or stayed up on christmas eve to shoot santa out of the sky when he passed over head )


- if it's a power training type situation - make mini missions


lol woops forgot to put what I hate, well as a super fan of the style i don't have much and most of it is when people do the exact opposite of everything i listed.


 - so no thought put into the story


- allowing nonsense characters into unrealistic situations ( you are not gonna have a freaking twenty year old in senior high. not as a fucking student. no. )


- having time never progress. when the whole roleplay takes place in a single place with people just talking at each other it drives me up a wall.