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

[wonderandawe]

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

I wouldn't write about actual classes.  More like character interaction in classes.  And lunch time.  Lots of shenanigan planning at lunch time.  Even got a picnic table outside under a large live oak.


Oh I got plans.  I got a basic plot and ideas for dances and football games and parties and the like.  

 

[Shelter]

Well, I think the most successful ones are the ones that use schools as a setting and not the main plot. I mean, no one likes school so why rp about one. For example, "Dice: the game that changes everything" takes place at a school but the main point is the dice. Many school mangas from romance to shonen have schools as settings but the focus on the drama and fights. That's why, and I'm not trying to sound condescending, I can tell a RP is going to fail when the only thing I see is just conversation.


I bet this is being thrown around a lot but Grey pretty much sums up everything I said and more.

 

[The Gunrunner]

Because role play tends to be about pretending to be someone you're not in situations you haven't experienced. I don't get why high-schoolers want to pretend to be in high-school.

 

[Lappi]

I've already had 4 years of that bullshit.... I don't want to RP it.

 

[wonderandawe]

I've already had 4 years of that bullshit.... I don't want to RP it.

Perfectly understandable.  After six years of Catholic School, public high school was a cakewalk for me.  Also, it's been years since I've been in high school, so I have a little emotional distance from it.  

 

[Grey]

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.  

You'll be fine. That's infinitely more thought and narrative momentum than the ones people complain about get. Most of the RPs people complain about are about highschool, or more accurately about being an anime demigod ninja vampire at a magic highschool and the awkward, poorly written romances that follow. I prefer Forsaken, myself, but I'll probably stick my head in on this quest if it goes ahead.

 

[Lappi]

Perfectly understandable.  After six years of Catholic School, public high school was a cakewalk for me.  Also, it's been years since I've been in high school, so I have a little emotional distance from it.  

Ew Catholic school XD I had that for a few years... Probs why I'm athiest. Anyways I graduated highschool a long time ago but I still hate it.

 

[wonderandawe]

Ew Catholic school XD I had that for a few years... Probs why I'm athiest. Anyways I graduated highschool a long time ago but I still hate it.

I'm agnostic myself.  I took that whole "God is a mystery" a lot further than the priests would like.  

 

[wonderandawe]

You'll be fine. That's infinitely more thought and narrative momentum than the ones people complain about get. Most of the RPs people complain about are about highschool, or more accurately about being an anime demigod ninja vampire at a magic highschool and the awkward, poorly written romances that follow. I prefer Forsaken, myself, but I'll probably stick my head in on this quest if it goes ahead.

I probably need to stop fretting about the whole thing.  I decided to put my quest here, since the Werewolf forums I use on the other board I RP on aren't too active.   Then I read that High School RPs are Anathema here.  I was like "What the heck did I get myself into."  

 

[Grey]

I probably need to stop fretting about the whole thing.  I decided to put my quest here, since the Werewolf forums I use on the other board I RP on aren't too active.   Then I read that High School RPs are Anathema here.  I was like "What the heck did I get myself into."  

Do just relax, honestly. For one thing, your quest is set in an high school but isn't entirely about high school, like I said. Secondly, it's a quest, so you can't have a knot of players make angsty hacker wizard demons who them mope awkwardly into a romance because, well, there aren't any other characters to interact with and it's what we came here for- OH LOOK, all momentum has faded and the scene has ground to a halt with character scattered across a square mile having little to do with each other.


I rant at length about using the school as a framing device in that post Shelter linked, but honestly I've been getting the sense you already know any advice I could give.

 

[wonderandawe]

I rant at length about using the school as a framing device in that post Shelter linked, but honestly I've been getting the sense you already know any advice I could give.

I'm beginning to believe the issue is more "inexperienced RPers" rather than "High School RPs are all crap". 


Which this thread helped me realize.  Thanks for the help everyone.  

 

[Grey]

I'm beginning to believe the issue is more "inexperienced RPers" rather than "High School RPs are all crap". 


Which this thread helped me realize.  Thanks for the help everyone.  

Pretty much. Really I should have just said so.

 

[welian]

Rae and I are QUEEEEENS of high school settings. Just post on my page if you see me online and have a question.

 

[JKai]

For me you put it in your title. When I was in high school, I hated it. I don't want to revisit that again let alone add some kind of supernatural element to the setting where no one attends classes.

 

[wonderandawe]

In case anyone cares, I started my high school quest. Not that we've gotten to the actual school part yet. Trying to set up family relationships first.

 

[marmar158]

When the same cycles of drama repeat themselves over and over again. This is typically caused by a lack of an overarching plot which is exacerbated by having a single scene. That is not to say, single settings invariably have this flaw, look at Hidamari Sketch and Ned's Declassified. It's just that much of the development is forced to happen from a character focus rather than an event focus in the more mundane settings, otherwise, it often gets boring fast.

The success of a highschool RP relies heavily on the depth of the characters participating, even more so than "normal" RPs that can at least mask poor character development with spectacle events, intricate overarching plots, and easily expandible lore.

 

[Bacon is fluffy]

I'll go out on a limb here and say that if you're rping the experience of a highschool kid trying to cope with something extraordinary, then it's fine. But you must abide by the limitations of highschool kids and not make them adults in a 16 year old body. The social dynamics should all impose a burden on the rper and there should be a point such as growing as an individual. I'll always cite Assassin classroom as an example of how to make a story about kids growing up and coping with problems beyond their scope. If the rp is just set in a highschool for the sake of being set in a highschool, then I'll just watch a slice of life anime then. Because it's boring to rp as a teenager just for the sake of rping as a teenager. The only way to redeem that ball of hormones is to put him or her in an extraordinary situation and growing from it by the end of the rp.

It doesn't have to be dealing with an invincible mutant octopus or be like highschool of the dead either. Waking up in a highschool after an earthquake or doing a gang related story would be fantastic.

 

[Umbrie]

High School Roleplays, much like Zombie Apocalypse Roleplays depend more on the characters being portrayed because it isn't like either can really pile on much Variety of events. and even in something like Fallout, your Vault Dweller will probably only escape their underground home at like the beginning as an introduction, leading to a high chance of unlikelyhood you would realistically enter another vault that you would be forced to escape.

in fact, high school was Boring for me. the exciting part of high school, was always what happened after classes ended, and even then, there was only so much a teenager could be trusted to do. and with my small figure, i couldn't even sneak into a PG13 movie without bringing a male classmate to pretend to be my big brother. i was the short girl in class, i literally sat on a copy of the yellow pages to see the blackboard. i mean, i didn't mind being the short girl who roleplayed with the boys. but sitting on a phone book isn't comfortable.

i creeped people out with my obsession over faeries of various sorts though. i actually don't mind doing highschool roleplays as a Self Avatar using a description or an animated or drawn picture. just please don't focus on the actual classes and try to ensure every event isn't centered directly around the school. high school students had personal lives as well. i was a geek and i studied martial arts as well.

 

[Susan Scuro]

I do not like rps set during High School because I hated High School and have no desire to relive it. That's just my two cents on that.

 

[Elephantom]

WHY I HATE HIGH-SCHOOL RPS

I hate high school RPs primarily because:

I, firstly, can't go all Snake Plissken on punks if I'm playing as a teenager who can't keep his raging boners in check, much less, handle heavy firepower.

Secondly, kids aren't matured enough to even try going all Snake Plissken on punks, keep their raging boners in check, and handle heavy firepower.

Thirdly, they were the most awkward moments of my life, because I couldn't go all Snake Plissken on punks, keep my raging boners in check, and handle heavy firepower.



Summary: Snake Plissken clearly wasn't a teenager.

 

[Lorsh]

the fact that they're RPs set in high schools

 

[Windsock]

Their simple existence is an affront to my sensibilities.

 

[MechaBeat]

Not every RP setting is perfect, everyone has their own opinions of course. Role-playing in a HS setting isn't something everyone enjoys, mainly because the majority of the population disapproved school, if I am correct. The only thing I dislike about HS RP is that if there is no Sci-fi mix in with the setting, it can be quite boring, but add a little power play, and I mean a "little" and you can turn up the entertainment quickly.

 

[Elephantom]

Not every RP setting is perfect, everyone has their own opinions of course. Role-playing in a HS setting isn't something everyone enjoys, mainly because the majority of the population disapproved school, if I am correct. The only thing I dislike about HS RP is that if there is no Sci-fi mix in with the setting, it can be quite boring, but add a little power play, and I mean a "little" and you can turn up the entertainment quickly.

Little? Teenagers will be teenagers all right. They'll never be cool.

 

[JokerValentine]

Here's the thing about high school that I personally feel the appeal is:

I would think that people who like the genre are in one or two main categories; they like it because they feel that their ideal high school is much different than what their current one is OR what theirs had been.

Personally, the whole experience of it doesn't appeal to me because, like a meme, it has become overuse. Are people still trying to make new memes out of dead things like Harambe, Trollface, etc? Definitely, but none of them are entertaining because it's been overused. It applies to the genre as well; sure, there could very well be "new stuff' going on, but it doesn't matter. The concept of these roleplays is outdated.