I think my understanding of classroom drama was mostly just interacting with other people (monsters and humans) in a school setting, striving to keep secrets or to be "normal," trying to fit into cliques or trying to not fit into cliques, being concerned with appearance or grades or relationships....general highschool age drama. So much of highschool drama is tied up with the classroom since that is basically your world at that age. Twilight includes a good amount of classroom drama...who you're sitting next to in class or at lunch, skipping class, who you ask to Prom, etc. Is that at all like what you were thinking, Trevis?
The classroom, parties, the local hangouts, service jobs, possibly clubs or sports teams. All of those. But this game is definitely teenagers figuring themselves out. Whether so much of this will be actually in school? Parts of it for sure, but by no means all of it. The game is a monster drama that is heavily focused on romantic and sexual relationships, and the politics of inclusion and exclusion. The school provides us an opportunity to establish the social world that links everyone, but there will be outside concerns.
Buffy, though it was overtly about monster hunting a lot of the time, the characters struggled constantly with relationships and being special or different. I don't think the high school was critical as a focus except that it established the circle of people they knew and dealt with on a regular basis. But they did have a club hangout and had to deal with other teenagers and parents. Buffy was an inspiration though, this is definitely more focused on the social.
I haven't seen the show, but the books that true blood is based on use a small town as the social context. Of course vampires and werewolves come out into the open with humans in the books.
The high school setting plays one incredibly important role in MH to me. No matter how much you hate it, no matter how certain you are that you're going to get beat up tomorrow, no mater how much you want to avoid that guy that keeps hitting on you, no matter how certain you are that you're going to flunk that test because you were out last night partying or raising hell...
You have to go to class.... it's unavoidable and terrible and glorious... you must deal with these people and these situations. You can' control it.
As far as classroom drama, for instance if I play the Queen, she's all about dominating the school social scene, so there will of course be more classroom drama... boyfriends, girlfriends, cliques and parties.... stuff to deal with more ingrained with the school. That's what I mean by it anyway. Naturally a lot of shit will happen outside of class as well, but some skins in particular call for that kind of stuff and rely on it being important. If no other PC's give a crap who the most popular girl in school is, then being the Queen won't be very interesting.
Perhaps the character choices determine what's important. I hear one player who wants class stuff and one who doesn't... so there's a place for it but it shouldn't be the end all of the game... the real point is discovering yourself and dealing with inevitable change. But the backdrop can be at least in large part... the inevitability of school.
Ok, it sounds like we're in the same chapter if not the same page, I can't disagree with either point of view. But I think the Queen does rely on some investment in the social order of the school for its own sake... or some queens do, I realize there's a lot of ways to spin it.
So something like Bar Harbor, Me? Pop about 6000. On Mount Desert Island (edge of Acadia National Park) which is about an hour from Bangor, and on the edge of a forest that covers most of the island. Shares a high school with 4 other small towns
Or more like Newport, RI? Bigger city, (about 260000) still fishing industry/ tourism, not far from Providence.
I mean, we can of course have a fictional town. I'm just getting a sense of it.
Or possibly one of the towns on Cape Cod, making Boston the big nearby city.
I like a smaller town, everyone knows everyone's mom, gossip, judgmental neighbors, small town police, lots of wilderness. Sharing school with other towns sounds awesome actually.
For other PCs I would play, I'd lobby for the bigger town. But for my Hollow, I think the smaller town is pretty cool. Real town with map is also preferable for me.
Comments
Buffy, though it was overtly about monster hunting a lot of the time, the characters struggled constantly with relationships and being special or different. I don't think the high school was critical as a focus except that it established the circle of people they knew and dealt with on a regular basis. But they did have a club hangout and had to deal with other teenagers and parents. Buffy was an inspiration though, this is definitely more focused on the social.
I haven't seen the show, but the books that true blood is based on use a small town as the social context. Of course vampires and werewolves come out into the open with humans in the books.
You have to go to class.... it's unavoidable and terrible and glorious... you must deal with these people and these situations. You can' control it.
As far as classroom drama, for instance if I play the Queen, she's all about dominating the school social scene, so there will of course be more classroom drama... boyfriends, girlfriends, cliques and parties.... stuff to deal with more ingrained with the school. That's what I mean by it anyway. Naturally a lot of shit will happen outside of class as well, but some skins in particular call for that kind of stuff and rely on it being important. If no other PC's give a crap who the most popular girl in school is, then being the Queen won't be very interesting.
Perhaps the character choices determine what's important. I hear one player who wants class stuff and one who doesn't... so there's a place for it but it shouldn't be the end all of the game... the real point is discovering yourself and dealing with inevitable change. But the backdrop can be at least in large part... the inevitability of school.
See what I mean?
Have you decided on your playbook skin yet, Rich?
Ok, that's a lie. I am leaning towards Hollow, want to give it one more read.
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(my new sig)
It's a cupcake!
Okay so right now we are looking at
Kelsey as the Selkie,
Scott as the Fae,
Rich as the Hollow,
and a MIchael as the Mortal.
Everyone now has to title their posts with the character name in a square and curly bracket! Ha!
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What about MidWest? Maybe the Dakotas? or New England....ooooh. Massachusetts or Maine or something?
edited to add:
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Or more like Newport, RI? Bigger city, (about 260000) still fishing industry/ tourism, not far from Providence.
I mean, we can of course have a fictional town. I'm just getting a sense of it.
Or possibly one of the towns on Cape Cod, making Boston the big nearby city.
I like a real town so we have a map in common.