Whats with all the "High school" Rps?! (Nerdrage Rant)

[Hipster]

okay I need to vent my nerdrage.

Seriously, 3 Quarters of all the Free-Rps are set in a school/orphanage/college/whatever. would it kill anyone to make a RP that doesn't take place in a highschool?!. it takes little to no skill to make a highschool rp. all you have to do is.

Get anything, ANYTHING. and make a small plot foretelling the backstory, and making the rp look like it'll be about something completely different.

and then shove in AND SO THE ACADEMY OF MAGES/CATGIRLS/DEMONS/LITERALLY ANYTHING WAS MADE! infact I could make one right now

In a land of myth. and a time of magic. in the great kingdom of Asguard the Warriors of Thor united to fight up against Loki, and stop his vicious cycle of death forever. setting up a task force dedicated to exactly this.

and then so the high school for wizards was created!.

god. and nothing good ever happens either, why would anyone want to RP in a school?. literally the only things that happen are

-That one snarky person acts like a asshole
-school work.

their's no storyline. just "Live life in a school!".



'Nuff said.

[Mixtape Ghost N]

Some people just like slice of life RPs. I'm totally fine with Highschool RPs and shit long as they have something that interests me.

[Leysos]

The type of people who enjoy HS roleplays aren't the type looking for a too horribly complex plotline. Most of them are fairly younger, too. Hating on them is like looking at a kid's keyboard and saying "This is stupid because it's not as in-depth as a full-on piano."

[Vilageidiotx]

It's an age thing. I don't think most people of high-school age are necessarily ready for the mental effort that comes with Rping in an unfamiliar setting. If all you have known is school, then school seems like a comfortable place to tell your stories.

[NuttsnBolts]

So here's an interesting concept... how many people on the forum are still at school, college or uni? I'm guessing most people.

There's also this situation. Everyone has been through school so creating a familiar atmosphere makes it easier to generate a world to rp in.

[nichinichisou]

If a high school rp is done right, I can see it having decent character development. Don't expect that in the Free section, though. Most of the people that enter those roleplays are still in high school. It's a familiar subject, why not do a roleplay based off of it

I still don't know who popularized the orphanage stuff. I'm thinking it's just the one that creates all of them.

[Unfortunately]

I dunno. Getting tired of those shit already.

But there's no other choice. It's either fandoms, or highschools. Anything else that aren't full are a big rarity.

[Vilageidiotx]

I dunno. Getting tired of those shit already.

But there's no other choice. It's either fandoms, or highschools. Anything else that aren't full are a big rarity.

@Unfortunately

There are other ones out there, you just have to look.

It's a quantity over quality thing too. Most of the highschool rp's are throwaways that get used up rather quickly, so it's not as surprising that there are a lot of them. You'll have to dig around for the legit shit.

[Dinh AaronMk]

If a high school rp is done right, I can see it having decent character development. Don't expect that in the Free section, though. Most of the people that enter those roleplays are still in high school. It's a familiar subject, why not do a roleplay based off of it

I still don't know who popularized the orphanage stuff. I'm thinking it's just the one that creates all of them.

@LowKey123

I want to say orphanages have a sort of mystical special-snowflake mystique to them, if possibly coerced out by characters in young-adult novels who are themselves orphans technically: Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket.

Orphanages also grant a free excuse to pull the, "My parents are dead" card so you never have to feel worried about that baggage and you're liberated from ever considering them. But there more-often than not often seems there's a penchant for teen-made OCs to be orphans for sympathy points or to have super-hero tier parents so they can get off on have special powers or physical attributes to fill in a Mary/Marty Sue daydream.

[ArenaSnow]

The opinions others have put in here seem to fit well with me. I assume it is younger generations as well.

Not my cup of tea, but heck, they don't bother me... I don't bother them :)

[Undine]

.

[Hipster]

@Undine woah their used to be more. anyways. I'm glad you managed to make a good School rp. infact it actually warms up my cold heart to know that a good school rp exists.

Its just I feel that most school rps are just thrown in because everyone ran out of ideas. like hollywood.

[Undine]

.

[Dinh AaronMk]

Highschool RPs have had some of the greatest moments I've ever read.

Like reading about topless Russian boys walking into restaurants, and not being aware everyone's looking at them funny because not only does he not have a shirt: but the kid's covered in burn scars. And then ordering a shit ton of meat and bacon-flavored Pepsi.

[Ellri]

If it helps the players of Free to learn to be creative to just add a single twist to a "default" setting, then think that is a good start. Everyone has to start somewhere. There's a known tendency for the mean age in the free section to be considerably lower than the mean age in Advanced. What might seem intricate to one who is still in childhood, oft-times is anything but intricate to someone who is an "adult".

When you get a lot of RPs in a single category in a section, you'll have potential GMs get inspired by them.

That ain't how I'd do it!

I'd do it like this:
....

Not really having browsed any of the IntCk sections recently, we can't say what type of RPs are most common where, but even if you go with a purely classic plot, there are a number to go with. For example, you can go with the basic "school RP" as described in this thread. You can go with the classic "band of heroes on a quest to vanquish evil", or a score of other classic plots.

For that matter, if you're wanting to just be a little creative, why not reverse it? Say, gather a band of heroes villains to vanquish good?

[Rilla]

You can literally replace high school, with any genre/type of RP and have the same argument.

Dudel, or Kestrel, one of the two answered on OldGuild the question 'Why do people do x type of RP?', or a question similar with, 'Because they like it.'

thats why there are so many high school-type RPs. people like them. hence why any RP exists. ever.

[AlteredTundra]

As noted in the posts above, High School Rps can be great if you make them so.

I'm running one myself(originally someone else's, but they handed it down to me), and it's going strong. It's a Demigod/demigoddess roleplay set in an academy for them. It has all the familiar elements of a High School/College school rp, but my twist is that there's a kidnapping plot.

My point for mentioning this is simply that, as it was already pointed out, if you can add a nice little twist in the school rp that you're doing, then you can make it so much fun for not only yourself, but for your players as well. Of course, if the Slice of Life scene isn't your cup of tea, then obviously you're going to have a problem with any school rp, regardless if it's high school, college, or Slice of Life in general.

[Gowi]

You know what grinds my gears? Classist generalizations that condescend and belittle. There are two completely asinine things said like fact in this thread:

1 - High School Role-plays take no talent or skill, nor do they have depth.
2 - Only youths and young adults do these role-plays.

It’s such arrogant crap that it makes me furious. Slice-of-Life no matter if it’s realistic or fantastical is a popular genre of all ages. I won’t deny that many of these RPs are not my cup of tea (or to my preferred quality level) but to assume and come off like you are better is really deplorable. Plenty of dramatic cinema, television, and literature are what we call slice-of-life stuff and that doesn’t detract from their quality when they are good. The biggest legitimate complaint I can see is the subjective feeling of boredom and I get that but it is the GM (and the players) responsibility to entertain themselves and keep interest flowing. I’ve seen RPs on the guild with several flavorings added to the typical school life scenario and not just fantasy but psychological horror and mystery; these RPs get swept under the rug for your run of the mill standard yeah, but is it right to call it all generic trash with no talent and only made by youths? Is that where we are?

Also, I give props for those who run casual and advanced level games within the genre. We need more of you, keep it up.

Heck, even writing out a normal day is difficult because it can be so repetitive. It takes a lot of brain work to come up with a post that isn't completely bland and boring. Especially my roleplay, because it didn't have any sort of supernatural powers or magic.

@Undine

That's the kind of slice of life/school life RP I've always wanted on guild but I gave up when they were impossible to find. I'd kill for something like that.

[Ellri]

Heh, @Gowi.

Those are some major generalizations. To defuse them, we'd personally rephrase the first one to "many high school RPs are shallow and easily made, but can be both deep and complex if done right."

The second one we lack facts to support or deny. We see no real reason for it to be true, though. There is nothing about such concepts that says "no adults".

[Hipster]

You know what I think I'm going to stop my bitching and make a non-highschool rp