How do I make a good battle-school-harem setting?
Unless everyone's OK with one person being Bland YamaguchI and everyone else being Girl A-Z, I don't think that's a good genre to bring to a tabletop RPG.
I am thinking to instead tone down the "harem" aspect in favor of (possible, but not necessary) romance.
You need whatever your special ability that results in wacky battle school antics is to be clearly defined, and yet broad enough to allow for a variety of characters. Personally I'd recommend using a Supers system, be that Champions, Mutants and Masterminds, GURPS Supers, Wild Talents, or whatever.
>>47741849
>one person being Bland YamaguchI
No no, Bland Yamaguchi should be like Master in Maid, or Senpai in Tactical Waifu. He's an NPC who the PCs all vie for the affections of.
>world has been dramatically changed by [thing]
>as a consequence, young and talented users of [thing] are sent to special highschools to learn how to master their powers
>when they graduate, they look forward to a bright future as the leaders of tomorrow
>except it's hopelessly elitist, and there's only room for a handful to make it
>the school loves and officially endorses competition, so it's therefore legal for the students to engage in [thing] battles to move up the rankings
>>47741886
>He's an NPC who the PCs all vie for the affections of.
I wouldn't play it. Just saying;
You should rather just make it a battle-school setting, let the players decide if their girls fall for someone or not. Don't force stuff upon them.
Also
>harem
>good
Pick one... seriously, I never found a good one.
>>47742016
OP specified harem, anon. I'm just providing advice that's actually relevant to his request, where you're going into a thread asking how to make good cheeseburgers, and saying "Cheeseburgers are stupid, you should make hot dogs instead."
>>47741985
Points of importance
>marginalize old people, make them irrelevant or evil
>the most important people in the world should be young adults or sexy and middle aged
>make everyone a special snowflake except Bland-kun and Childhood Friend-chan
>for the PCs normal people might as well not exist
>there are schools in other countries but the only time you'll see them is when a transfer student arrives
>make the rest of the world noticeably different in some way, with architecture and technology way in advance of the time period, which doesn't fucking matter
>seriously, it doesn't, you can set it in a sci-fi near future or the middle ages or some Edwardian prep-school and all that changes are the aesthetics
>have a tenuous world peace kept by supers so there's a threat of violence but no actual immediate danger
Are your players gratuitous weebs/perverts who are okay with the idea?
If so, awesome, go right ahead. I've done similar things before, and it works great.
>>47741792
>>47741886
>>47741849
>>47742016
This. I'd only play this game if I was forced to in real life. This is litterally MAID except that in maid theres no pretense that you are a worthless bag of meat that belongs to someone who owns you, in a harem anime I'd have to pretend I liked it.
>>47742077
So would that make Battle School Harem basically Japan's YA trend, while the US has Dystopian Rebellion and Supernatural Romance?
>>47742129
Yeah, that's pretty much the purpose of every work of fiction with a young protagonist and superpowers.
Japan has a lot of it, but so does everywhere. It's basically just Percy Jackson but with more t&a.
>>47742104
>in maid theres no pretense that you are a worthless bag of meat that belongs to someone who owns you
You are playing a very different version of MAID than the rest of us.
>>47741792
Set it up like MAID, so that all the players are girls trying to impress Senpai. Maybe make Senpai some mysterious and rare Buff class that can boost their powers, rather than just being an awesome fighter in his own right. Then add some more outside forces so the PCs are both competing and cooperating. Fights should be loose and fast. You don't want two players to get in an honor duel that lasts all session.
>>47742334
>girls trying to impress Senpai
Now there's no point in the 2/3 tsundere characters these things have
>>47742364
Well, I guess less 'impress' and more 'get access to his magical buffing powers'
Make them powered by emotions or something so Senpai has to at least like then to use them, and so then they'll have to impress him while they insist that they're not doing it because they like him or anything.
>>47741985
>>47742077
I could totally see this as a setup for Doublecross, only the added twist is that the school encourage all these school activities, the student dating shenanigans and the rivalry-causing battles so they maintain some form of emotional bond with each others as to properly keep their Impulse in check and avoid being consumed by the virus.
>>47742334
I once ran an impromptu session of MAID to kill time, where all characters were high school students trying to get their senpai to notice them.
The thing is that senpai is inexplicably the president of the student council and also half the clubs in the school, and therefore chances to meet him in person are almost zero.
So, to get senpai to notice them, they had to perform deeds of note, to develop their reputations (read:favor) among the student body, until the talk and rumors about them managed to trickle back to senpai on his secluded throne on high.
>>47742578
>senpai is inexplicably the president of the student council and also half the clubs in the school
So he's Medaka with a cock?
>>47741792
There's literally an anime like this.
Ikki Tousen.
But I need to ask: Why would you want to run or play a game like this?
>>47742603
Basically.
>>47742628
>There's literally an anime like this.
Anon, there's literally an entire anime genre like this.
>>47742628
>Why would you want to run or play a game like this?
Because some people would enjoy it. What else do you need?
>>47742628
>But I need to ask: Why would you want to run or play a game like this?
I was in a game which accidentally became an harem comedy. Shit was HILARIOUS.
>>47742698
May as well link this series, since it was in the OP pic: The Asterisk War Sucks: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw6UBKuaMyFBDjAE414AeRrmncbD6Trvc
>>47742628
>this is one anime
Hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahaha
>>47742628
Because it might be fun? Why would you ask such a stupid question?
You don't
>>47741792
Like this
>>47741886
This reminds me that I've been wanting to do a yuri version of this for a while now.
>>47742996
Make senpai female.
Done.
Possibly allow players to be Tactical Husbandos as well as waifus if you want variety.
>>47742975
Chivalry of a Failed Knight is better at being literally the same story.
>>47743060
Not really an accomplishment when Asterisk War sucks every dick in a ten mile radius.
>>47742104
In Maid, you are the very opposite of worthless. You are the reason the place isn't in cinders/destroyed/zombied/pirated/space shipped on a daily basis, and explicitly are superhuman. (Easy 1-3 checks are considered normal for normal human capability. You are expected to do things like 7s as normal skill checks or something like that.)
>>47741886
Wait, so the rules say GM will tell players how many dice to roll, but then won't tell the GM how to decide the amount of dice to roll? Also, why players need to select a personality trope if it has no mechanical effect?
>>47743033
No no. Since the theme would be yuri, the TW's premise should not be used. A yuri version should be about getting your onee-sama notice you, or something like that.
>>47742143
Too bad people bitches and moans about it so much. I still remember the 8 part rant about how Asterik War sucked.
>>47743155
Anon, "senpai" is a gender neutral term. In the context of a high school setting it refers to students ahead of oneself.
>>47743155
Makes sense. Most of those schools are all female for a reason.
>>47743166
>Too bad people bitches and moans about it so much
It's justified, man. This drivel is unreadable.
>>47743166
When you consider that other series do tge exact same premise worlds better, yeah, Asterisk War sucks, and it being silly YA wish fulfilment doesn't excuse that suckiness because of aforementioned bettershows with the same concept.
>>47743184
The game refers to the sempai as "he."
>>47741792
Not make it like Asterisk Shit.
>>47742550
I miss double cross quest
>>47743723
there was a quest?
>>47744337
It died about a year ago. Good riddance, too. The novelty had worn off and the QM went full retard a few arcs in.
>>47743229
For one thing, gender neutral he is a thing.
For another, that's a matter of changing a single word on the doc.
Senpai is an actual Japanese term for one's seniors in a school or work environment.
And it is gender neutral.
You dipshit.
>>47741792
Scholomance (the original, not the WoW one)
>>47743091
>the reason
doesn't matter. You are subserviant to Master, as is the point of the game.
>>47746552
Lesbians are fucking cancerous though. ゆり も
>>47746722
Assuming for one second you were series (and I seriously hope you weren't) the genre is so bad lesbians are literally the only improvement it can ever see.
>>47741792
It really depends. Are the players going to be all guys, in which they're all protagonists, or are they going to be all girls?
If it's all girls, it seems like it'd be a waste if they were stuck with that single annoying guy as the love interest. You could play it more as these beautiful, powerful women just getting a chance to go wild, but it's probably going to be a fetish game by that point. As long as you don't try to recreate Freezing, you'll probably be all right. (Also, yuri is the most boring choice. It might be fun to play up the alpha bitch aspect of being a 10/10, though.)
It's actually more interesting if they're all guys, since that way there can be rivalries and so on. The thing is, unless you have a setting where they regularly fight monsters and so on, you might have trouble allowing the group to come together as a team. For instance, Rakudai is mostly about one-on-one combat, and brawls between multiple combatants happen only infrequently.
Unless you want to do something like Hundred, where there's occasional monster attacks, there may not be much for your players to do.
>>47747056
You may be onto something there.
>>47747056
> if they're all guy
That however goes against the very basics of a magical battle school setting. If it doesn't have a single bland male MC with haremettes throwing themselves at him for pretty much no reason, it loses much of its substance.
Not that the genre has much substance to start with.
>>47747245
Substance is an acceptable casualty if a massive improvement in quality is the reward.
Also, nobody said the bland MC had to be male.
You could have a lot of dudes throwing themselves at a female MC for pretty much no reason, or a lot of girls doing the same. Or both, even!
>>47747331
if quality was a concern you wouldn't be playing in a chinese school battle game
>>47747331
>You could have a lot of dudes throwing themselves at a female MC for pretty much no reason, or a lot of girls doing the same. Or both, even!
The more of a whorish orgy it becomes the further you go from the central premise and the more it gets derailed into relationship bullshit.
Harem shit sort of works because every girl can have her story arc without the status quo shifting all over the fucking place and when you want it to, you can shift the pace of the story with a few cliche romantic developments or by bringing another villain in to fuck shit up.
>>47747367
This is already all about relationship bullshit. And no, there's no reason for female PCs to be interested in a bland MC. Each girl would want her own male harem.
>>47747523
Maybe bland MC has his charm points, or did something to win them over, like in real life.
Maybe they're not attention whoring sluts.
>>47742942
Beat me to it
>>47747612
>Maybe bland MC has his charm points
>Maybe they're not attention whoring sluts.
You seem to be expecting characters to be actual characters, with depth and stuff. You're in the wrong genre, m8.
>>47748164
Even that shitcunt in Nisekoi has his good points
>>47742129
Japan also has dystopian rebellions (sometimes against supernatural horrors) and supernatural romances too, though.
>>47747612
That's because the plot revolves solely around them. What would've happened if there was more than one guy in Infinite Stratos?
Also, keep your PCs in mind. If you were a super-hot college girl with magical powers, you would basically be Queen of the world. You would have so much sex, it wouldn't be funny.
>>47747612
I have waited my whole life to be an attention-whoring slut. YOU CAN'T TAKE THE SKIES FROM ME.
>>47749391
>What would've happened if there was more than one guy in Infinite Stratos?
Considering the genre, they would have been irrelevant, evil, completely repulsive, gay, or all of the aforementioned.
>>47741985
>world has been dramatically changed by DICK SUCKING
>as a consequence, young and talented users of DICK SUCKING are sent to special highschools to learn how to master their powers
>when they graduate, they look forward to a bright future as the leaders of tomorrow
>except it's hopelessly elitist, and there's only room for a handful to make it
>the school loves and officially endorses competition, so it's therefore legal for the students to engage in DICK SUCKING battles to move up the rankings
>>47749523
Yup. it's a harem plot alright. Only those don't have as much dick sucking.
>>47749439
It sounds like NTR would make for a sexy improvement.
>>47749620
I would love, love to be a cheating slut. No joke. Lot of room for delicious drama, especially if a girl goes bad.
>>47749439
I wouldn't mind evil and gay, finally meeting a man his equal in an age where males were losing the relevance except for the old rich men bankrolling this, he prefers Charlotte's alter ego.
>>47742016
>Pick one
Tenchi Muyo
>>47747245
>That however goes against the very basics of a magical battle school setting.
No it doesn't, that's one of the standard shounen settings.
Hero Academia, Black Clover, and Chrome Shelled Regios are examples.
>>47749772
Fat rich old bastards are the hottest type to fuck.
>>47749731
You sound like an awful person.
>>47747245
The trick is the MC needs to be bland so he can both be self insert and completely indecisive.
If you're running a game, people are allowed to challenge the status quo. Pair up players, give some NPCs, some are odd men out or have a stalker.
The problem with the Harem is the solution for a battle academy game: The harem can't go anywhere, the pen and paper can.
Go for the stories you can't get in a commercial show:
Lock down a couple and see if they sink or swim.
Have rivalries that actually matter, where the players can lose or win and actually get results out of it.
Kill off a major NPC since you don't need to worry about Merch
Bring in the generic evil-genius alternative tech, but make it both viable and competitive: Put pressure on the students to cheat, dope or upgrade.
Have completely normal school events that actually go off without a monster attack, enemy invasion or hot-blooded duel interrupting them.
Play with the stories you could never pitch.
>>47747056
>As long as you don't try to recreate Freezing, you'll probably be all right.
Freezing isn't THAT bad and actually has some relatively unique points when it comes to battle harem.
I know it's an unpopular opinion but I'm not afraid to say it.
>>47741792
>Actual somewhat serious game
Kung Fu Harry Potter. No MC or forced romance, just teenager with superpowers fucking around while the underfunded, understaffed administration desperately tries to keep the destruction to a minimum.
>Emulation of the Genre
Rigid Class system, like the childhood friend, the girl with big tits, etc. Character powers and personlities are already decided by the classes.
The bland main character is a DMPC that takes care of all important battles. The character who first meets them in the game wins. He also has absolutely zero personality, but the players can change that to fit their archetype.
The actual goal of the players is to get waifu points; that is to get the viewers of the show to fall in love with them and spend an unholy amount of money on merchandise. They do this by pandering to their archetype, excessive fanservice and making the MC into a character that makes a good match with their own chlichee.
Basicly, watch >>47742729 and the more the guy complains about something, the attention it gets in the game.
>>47741792
With a cookie cutter.
>>47741792
It's only a harem if there's one male PC, in which case it's incidental and just like my anime.
>>47742975
>>47742996
>tfw joining a harem battle game with male character everyone has to "compete" for the attention of and instead romantically pursuing the other female characters
>tfw successful
