Good point. My privileged middle-class background is showing. I cannot imagine *not* having gone to college...

College/university is also a much different time in most people's lives.  Most people finish growing up during that time period, but they're already well on the way to being the people they are going to be.  High school is earlier in the process and more radical shifts are likely to happen.

Also, high school is enforced in the US and college is not.  Thus, you end up with a much wider variety of backgrounds and motivations in high school.

So true, I was in a behavior class.... go figure. the kid that gets bullied gets the behavior class while the bullies are not even punished... I was in their with some odd people lol.

Beyond the point.
Ok, so considering a few things said, I bet the people with better experiences are far more likely to join a school rp.

In reply to Merevel (msg # 17):

Almost all of that is true except the last thing. People with negative experiences are more likely to join due to a social desire to experience it without it being negative.

I don't know. If I were to play in a school RP, I'd play a rebel with lots of personal problems...

I'd probably play a commissar in training...


Oh wait we're not talking about WH40k? eh, i've had pretty negative experience with middle school, and am still in highschool, so i don't need more.

That sounds ****ing awesome. Although a high school parody of that would be even better (if not a terrible heresy). Imagine how much fun it would be to play through the Breakfast Club 40k? Or to worry about making the Blood Bowl team and asking out the head Sororita cheerleader to the prom. I had the most ridiculous, inexpressible images flash through my mind when I read your post (both normal and wacky).

But yeah. I think the frequency is nostalgia and commonality. Media portrays high school are this totally awesome time if you are a pre-adolescent ("I can't wait until I'm old enough to feel ways about stuff."), but also paints a great image of nostalgia for us middle to old farts. While I didn't have a totally horrid experience in high school, it's not something that I remember with the fondest memories. Sure, I met some great friends and did some cool things, but it was my 20's that were my formative years. It was university were I had some of my greatest struggles and hardest victories, and when I really came to understand myself and know what it meant to learn. But as others have noted, not everyone has attended college or university, with many gamers still being too young to be in college or university. High school is universally relatable, even for those who might be too young to be there and even for those who would rather forget it.

Hm. Here's a question: would we really be comfortable playing with people who are too young to be in high school? For me, it'd be weird...

It honestly depends on the game and type of game. Stereotypical Pokemon game. Ok, why not? I would still prefer late teen or even better older though.

Highschool games always seem a bit frivolous to me. I know there are kids out there at highschool who have really seerious issues going on, but I think one of the things people like in those games is being able to make A Big Deal about who they go to the dance with and whether they have a boyfriend/girlfriend and such.

Actually being on the receiving end of a valentines prank is horrible. But on tv or in a game it can be funny to go through.


I think there's also a measure of personal fantasy: wanting to correct the things which were bad for you in highschool. Hence the myriad of MarySue lookalikes who are either nice, compassionate In kids or the astonshingly beautiful/ugly duckling Out kids who end up with the Heartthrob. Not that they are all MarySues, but a game can get boring if everyone is misunderstood with a heart of gold.


But yes: urban fantasy or superheros work neatly in a highschool setting which forces all the players together on the same set. Why not discover your special powers and what they mean to you at the same time as trying to figure out who you are and what your place in the world is? Apart for the collapse of your sanity I mean. And the largely futile and eternal nature of such questions.

Also cheerleaders.

Yeah, it's this thing, I believe. Nostalgia for the time when your biggest problem was getting a date and passing a test. Life was... simpler back then...



So... you think that the people who were awful snobs in high school want to correct this? I'd more inclined to think that awful kids from high school grew up to be equally awful adults :)



Isn't it a bit... problematic, though? I mean, we're adult people. To play in a high school game to pick up teen cheerleaders - is that entirely appropriate?

I admit that's the reason I don't join high school games. I'm not sure it's okay for us to RP romantic / sexual relationships between teens...

Some of them. Mainly I think some of the people who were witness to or victims of the snobs want to 'do it right'. A kind of 'if I had been X I wouldn't have been that way'.

I've been in some games that were based in high school. For instance certain games are designed that can run that way from a BUffy game to a Smallville one. That being said romance is one thing you can explore. Sex...sorry that's a fade to black moment as covered in the Adult Policy section. No one under 18 can be in these types of scenes. Usually the games I would join though that are focused around high school this isn't the issue anyway as it's just to tell a story. Whether it be a hero coming of age or the thrill of surviving high school all over again. :)

I understand fade to black, but even with this... I don't know. If you write about romancing a highschool cheerleader, you kind of imagine yourself being attracted to her. And highschool cheerleaders are 17 tops, so.... is imagining attraction to them really okay?

16 is legal where I live, and that is insanely creepy to me. I would feel like a pedo looking at an 18 year old. So I stay clear of those. When I found out the legal age of consent was lowered, I started telling everyone the USA is a nation of necropheliacs and pedophiles...
This message was last edited by the user at 21:25, Tue 22 July 2014.

On the other hand, my personal therapist says being attracted even to 16 year olds isn't weird or unnatural. And heck, 16 is legal age back here, too.

Still, aren't most people in American highschools younger than that? If I understand correctly, American highschool starts at 14 and ends up at 17.

It'd be easier for me to swallow a highschool game set in my country - back here, highschool *starts* at 16.

if i remember right freshmen usually enter at 13 and seniors are either 17 or 18 depending on when their b-day is.

Modern psychology draws a distinction between pre-pubescent and pubescent attractions.  Attraction to someone prepubescent is a disorder.  Attraction to someone pubescent (usually 13-14 or older) is not.  Biologically, that is natural.  We have generally decided, for good reason, that emotional maturity lags behind physical maturity, so we establish an age of consent well above the onset of puberty.

One modern social problem is that the age of puberty is getting lower while mental maturity stays the same.  Thus, more kids are giving in to biology before mentally mature enough.

As for the general question... it's only creepy if you make it creepy.  A sweet, innocent high school romance isn't a problem.  If you're trying to go for some sleezy fantasy... yeah, that's a bit beyond me.

Very fair points swordchucks.

the beggining and ending of high school depends on the Area. For instance when I entered high school I was almost 14, when it ended I was 18. Some areas have different number of years for high school.

I still find it creepy for even a 22 year old to be dating a 17 year old... but that might just be my family... I know my little sisters boyfriend is not allowed near my brothers house because of it.

Really? Considering that many guys tend to date women a few years younger than them, then it's understandable for guys in early twenties to date women in late teens...

Age differences of a few years mean much less when you're older.  Even just a few years of difference when one of the couple is a teenager can be a big deal.  By the time you make it to your early 20s you've probably been to university, or at least had a serious job, and probably lived away from your parents/guardians.  Most people in their 20s are starting to think of themselves as adults in ways that most 17 year olds don't yet.  Besides, though obviously this isn't always the case, sometimes I think guys look for younger girls just so they feel like they have the upper hand in the relationship.  I've seen this enough times to be wary about any 20-something guy dating a teenage girl.

Back to the subject of school RPs, I like many others here, can see the appeal of a school RP 'with a twist,' but just regular, real life school RP doesn't appeal to me at all.  Of course for me, any 'slice of life' RP set in the modern day real world with no sci-fi/fantasy/speculative/whatever elements in it is just really boring.  I don't care to write about real life when I get to live it.  High school RPs are even less appealing because I can't take teenage drama seriously and I didn't even write characters that age when I was that age myself.

I prefer to RP adults in adult situations (though not necessarily heavily sexual situations) and I just feel stunted writing teens unless there's a specific reason for it that I find particularly engaging.  I've seen some high school RPs try to get around this by making the game adult, but then of course all characters have to be over 18 which in most cases would limit them all to being seniors or at least not first years (depending on where the RP is set) which kind of removes a lot of the point of making it a school RP in the first place, in my opinion.

And on the subject of RPing romantic relationships and what's creepy or not, I honestly think it has more to do with the players involved than the content.  It's about the intent behind it and whether the relationship is being RP'd for the sake of the story or to fulfill someone's creepy fetish.  I wouldn't want to RP with anyone who took RP romances too personally and felt like they themselves had to be attracted to my character.  I want their character to be attracted to mine.  Who my characters are attracted to have almost nothing to do with my own preferences.
This message was last edited by the user at 00:10, Wed 23 July 2014.

I though kid characters could be in adult games so long as they were not in the... adult... context?

Yeah, age differences do not bother me to much aside from HUGE games. Such as a 24 year old dating someone older then her father... creepy. I guess it's the whole idea of underage. Under 18 is creepy to me, because most relationships I witness at least imply sexual desire, rather then wanting a companion.

I find the whole high school thing quite odd. In Canada (at least where I live), high school is grades 10-12, so students are usually ages 15 through 17, with some turning 18 around the middle or end of grade 12. That alone changes my perception of high school, since I understand high school in the US is a year or two longer. With a longer time frame, it covers almost the entirety of adolescence, meaning that these games aren't so much about high school as they are about being a teenager. Whereas in Canada, it's the short and tight three-year period where you start driving, sometimes start dating, start working, and get ready for university or career transition. From what I see in American media, Canadian high school isn't quite the same thing.

And yeah, I find the age thing creepy. Even if it's a 20 year old dating someone in high school. Even if the ages are close, I find it weird, because I see it as more of life stages that numbers.

In reply to Merevel (msg # 36):

They can be, but people rarely opt for that, and a lot of times GMs say that they don't want any characters under 18 in their games, whether to cover their apples with the adult policy so they don't have to moderate the younger characters separately or just because they don't want any younger characters in the game for whatever reason.

Fair enough, I prefer adult characters anyway, something about seeing kids get the apples knocked out of em just does not sit with me.

Strangely this does not bather me in anime or manga, no idea why.