The Next Horizon
As I gear up for the new site, which I’ll start taking live in about 24 hours, I can’t help but wonder what else is over the horizon. What niche has yet to be filled. Seriously, I woke up at 3:30 this morning with a concept that’s one step in that direction, and yet there are others yet to be discovered.
Now, I’m not talking about some new system that let’s you play elves or vampires. I’m talking brand new stuff. Stuff that, if it exists, isn’t well known amongst the general geek community. So, here’s my humble contribution to the future of gaming:
Highschool: The Role Playing Game
That’s right. We all either survived it, or will survive it, so why in the hell would we want to go back and live it through a video game? Simple…because then we could do it right! Imagine being the jock instead of the computer nerd? Imagine being the captain of the cheerleaders rather than the wierd goth everyone laughs at? Or, conversely, imagine you’re just the way you are, but are able to torment the living hell out of those who made your life difficult?
Think about school for a moment. You have combat (fights in the cafeteria), A ruler who expects you to do things a certain way and to help him out from time to time (a principle), minor rulers who give you tasks on a regular basis (teachers), and evil creatures bent on destroying you (schmucks who gave many of us crap in school). Let’s face it…you lived D&D! So why not take it into a new venue?
Now, this would need to be a skill based system, rather than a class based system…at least that’s my thinking. And, I think it could be fun. Of course, class based could be fun too. The Jock class, and AV Geek class, the Goth class, the list is almost endless. Or, I guess you could all play drama geeks and reenact High School Musical…but why would you want to?
I’m not going to bore you to death with details, because mostly I don’t have them. Seriously, this idea is a mere two hours old, so who knows.
But this idea alone makes me wonder what’s over the next horizon.
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The Geek Emporium 
It’s not exactly what you’re talking about, but check out Grimm from Fantasy Flight Games. Characters are all children. There are classes for jocks, nerds, dreamers, etc. And then you adventure through a world of twisted fairy tales and legends.
Comment by David | September 12, 2008 |
Sounds like something worth looking at for inspiration if nothing else 😉
Thanks for the tip!
Comment by Tom | September 12, 2008 |
That’s funny, but it also sounds painful. I ran one and only one HS-themed game, and it was basically the movie Die Hard, but it took place in our school instead of an office tower. All the characters were action-hero super versions of themselves (e.g. if you had ever taken any martial arts, you were actually pretty good at HTH. If you knew a little BASIC, you got the Computer Programming skill. Every player (and the GM) anonymously submitted stats for themselves and all the other players, which the GM averaged out and then added +2 to each – there were no hurt feelings. Still, in hindsight, I’d probably use a standard array of stats and have each person arrange them as they saw fit.).
The game was a lot of fun, despite my being gunned down by a terrorist when we tried to escape out the loading dock, but we steered very clear of actual HS life. You couldn’t pay me to roleplay that again…
Comment by .o. | September 12, 2008 |
Geez…was it that bad? 😉
I see this as being a silly game, rather than a serious one, because no one wants to role play a serious game about high school 😉
Comment by Tom | September 12, 2008 |
China is over the horizon. Well… or Hawaii, depending on which way you look. North and south don’t count, not being real American compass points.
Comment by Liambic | September 12, 2008 |
That’s one way to look at it 😉
Comment by Tom | September 12, 2008 |