Question:
I have the deck of villains on its way, but I’m kind of at a loss for actual high school based events…mainly as it’s been 34 years since I was in HS.
Are there any good high school supplements I can grab that I can adapt for Masks?
Question:
Question:
What type of content are you looking for?
Green Ronin put out Hero High last year; that might be a resource.
There’s also Bubblegumshoe, a teen detectives game, that a recent poster mentioned mining for material.
I ran an introductory session yesterday featuring a “Rook Academy” (sponsored by Rosa Rook, of course); I picture it as a sort of “Hogwart’s with ulterior motives”.
Honest advice, don’t focus on high school, unless you’ve got a Janus with school obligations or something. Masks is a teen drama superhero game, not just a teen drama game, and high school is a place where superhero stuff doesn’t happen very often.
I mean, if you’ve got a really good angle (villain attacks the school, adult hero team visits, turns out school is built on top of an alien crash site, whatever), then sure, spend a session or two there, but otherwise stick with stuff you’re not at a loss for. Young Justice never spent more than twenty seconds at a school, and it was still dramatic and awesome.
Ways you can use High School as a setting to complicate the heroes lives without spending too much time worrying about what HS is like today.
* homework – they have it, and if they’re out patrolling the streets kicking the butts of alien robot drones, they aren’t doing it. Or, if they are doing it, they’re not getting enough sleep. Or, they’re cheating to have something to turn in because they don’t see it as all that important in the grand scheme of things
* mandatory attendance – they’re supposed to be butts in chairs from around 8 am to 2 pm, which is inconvenient when villains don’t schedule their crimes for super-hero hours only
* detention – You know what’s worse than not being able to stop villains because they do their crimes during school hours? Being stuck after school for detention (because you didn’t do homework, missed school, or got in a fight) when villains get their crime on.
* science fair – it’s a place for brainy kids to show off, and a place for villains to shop for awesome new gadgets to steal, and nerds to kidnap and force into slavery making awesome new gadgets
* sports – So you wanted to seem normal and be popular and joined the lacrosse team? Well, now you have practices to go to and games to win, not just attend.
* dances – Besides Prom and Homecoming, there are plenty of excuses for the students to have a big dress-up dance event, and if TV has taught us anything, those are times when not only do personal relationships get tested, but also bad guys do their worst. Given that it was unbelievable that Caroline said yes to going to the dance with you, are you really going to ditch her to run across town and stop the nuclear power plant from exploding? Then again, are you really going to not stop the nuclear power plant from exploding and let the whole town, including Caroline, die? Either way she’s probably not going to go out with you again.
High school stuff is awesome. There is tons of social drama to be mined from Influence and Labels. Just did a Spring fling dance session this afternoon, with kids getting High in the library, and a custom move for a dance battle.
There’s dances, sporting events, after school clubs, study hall, bullying that the teachers never do anything about, class projects that need you to go to each others’ houses, kids throwing parties, tests and quizzes that need cheating to pass, first kisses, first cars, detention, field trips, field days, new kids, and tons more. It’s all infinitely gameable.
X-Men Evolution was a pitch perfect show for fusing superheroics with high school drama, check it out. The Ultimate Spider-Man comic was likewise perfect at smashing these two worlds together in horribly inconvenient ways for Peter and Miles.
The trick is you need to remember that these things matter to these kids. Make them matter. Frame social death with the severity it deserves, when you’re stuck in this place for years and losing friends means being alone, or being the butt of a joke will last forever. Breaking up means sitting next to your ex for at least a semester, standing up to the jock means passing by him every day at 8:24 when leaving your locker.
Reminding the teen heroes that they’re still teens is fantastic, and makes for wonderful gameplay.
You could also read a little of PS 238 ps238.nodwick.com – 12/07/2006
I had my team attend a kegger – and the drama that unfolded with established NPCs was great. The crush of the Protege character ended up dating his bully. The head cheerleader revealed she “like girls” and drunkenly kissed out Nova …. who went with it, to the shock of her science fair partner whose madly in love with her. The Outsider is using illusion skills to appear normal and is Ms. Perfect, but is smashed after one beer (alcohol is very OP for the species she found out). Our delinquent has all the jocks and stoners competing in nude pool-party games. And our Transformed is feeling normal for once and actually talking to a girl who may be a secret cape as well. A kegger/party is GREAT for roleplay situations. And, hell, maybe even have the house be the off-duty location of a villain?
How do those of you who are “High School heavy” create the cast of NPCs for this? Do you ask the players to name some kids they like, or what? Do Bubblegumshoe or Monsterhearts handle this aspect? I want to mix it up some, but if I am going to only spend SOME time in high school, I don’t want to detail 20 NPCs!
Monsterhearts has you detail a whole classroom of kids because that’s where the focus is. I don’t spend all my time in the classroom so I just ask for relevant kids as necessary: “Hey, Who’s Your best friend?” “Hey, who keeps hassling you?” “Hey, who is your study buddy?” “Hey, who are you trapped in this god awful project with?” “Who’s the teacher’s pet everyone haaaaaates?”
I just ask for them as I need them. And I reuse them outside of school, because why not? I need people in danger when a villain shows up, after all.
Thanks Alfred Rudzki. That was the approach I was gonna take. But I have like 0 experience with this so I wasn’t sure if there was some different method.
Let the characters create themselves. I made a HS NPC for each, then I let it evolve by asking, who are they talking to now? Whose at your table? Don’t forget, it’s not your job to completely make the world, let your PCs shape it and they’ll be more invested.