D&D vs High School

[stainboy]

D&D3e is the opposite of your high school bullying heirarchy. The guys at the top are the nerds hugging their textbooks, the shrimpy super-religious kids, and the hippies. They beat up the delinquents and the band geeks, who beat up the jocks, who beat up the martial artists.

I think this explains a lot of 3e's class imbalance. Discuss.

[Traab]

Id like to take part in this but my high school was different. We didnt actually have hierarchies, I mean, everything kinda blended together, our basketball team, (state champs baby!) were also heavily involved in the knitting club. I lettered in three sports, and was a member of the nursing program, knitting club, and chess club. I honestly wonder if this whole stereotype really exists anymore, or if it ever did work like you see on sitcoms and 80's movies. I went to two high schools, one public, one parochial, and neither were setup along jock/nerd type lines.

[Zerter]

The food chain you describe is very stereotypical and does not properly describe a high school social structure. A lot of the nerds I know are into martial arts and most jocks I know are very respectful of nerds, in fact, I'm pretty sure most males could be described as nerds when it comes down to it. It's just that some are into D&D and others invite their friends to come watch the cool new wheels on their car.

D&D is a structured world where everything comes into nice little boxes, this also holds attraction to a certain kind of people that have trouble grasping the world around them. It does not work the other way around however.

[stainboy]

Whether or not it accurately reflects your high school, it does accurately reflect Archie Comics and high school comedies. People know and identify with the tropes even if they didn't personally experience them.

[Ekul]

I wasn't inside the social structure because I was absent from school often due to my condition. I spent all the time most people spend with friends or whatever on the internet watching and making both web-comics and videos.

At any rate, when I read the thread title I immediately was reminded of this (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fools/20020401a).

[stainboy]

Protest (Cha; Trained Only)

A fuzzy uses this ability to express his displeasure with activities that run counter to his ideals. It has no effect on nonfuzzies. Fuzzies can use it to help change each other's minds on a particular issue.

Check: You can change other fuzzies' behavior with a successful check. The DC is typically 10 + the target's ranks in Protest. Any bonuses a target may have on saving throws against mind-affecting abilities increase the DC.

Retry: Generally, retries do not work. Fuzzies don't seem to understand this, though, and frequently spend considerable time trying to get people to change their views.

Does the +2 protest from my Che Guevara shirt stack with my white boy dreadlocks?

[Tyndmyr]

D&D3e is the opposite of your high school bullying heirarchy. The guys at the top are the nerds hugging their textbooks, the shrimpy super-religious kids, and the hippies. They beat up the delinquents and the band geeks, who beat up the jocks, who beat up the martial artists.

I think this explains a lot of 3e's class imbalance. Discuss.

Most of the martial artists ARE nerds.

That said, High School is also a game with design issues. Terrible class balance and sketchy gameplay elements.

[stainboy]

Yeah, trying to map "Monk" to "the few kids in high school who actually know how to fight" was a bit strained.

[navar100]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Silverlich]

I was like:smallconfused: Then I was like:smallamused:, then:smallsmile:, then :smallcool:.

[Saintheart]

Does the +2 protest from my Che Guevara shirt stack with my white boy dreadlocks?

Bonuses from the same source overlap, silly. :smallbiggrin:

[Chess435]

D&D3e is the opposite of your high school bullying heirarchy. The guys at the top are the nerds hugging their textbooks, the shrimpy super-religious kids, and the hippies. They beat up the delinquents and the band geeks, who beat up the jocks, who beat up the martial artists.

I think this explains a lot of 3e's class imbalance. Discuss.

Being the former "Alpha Nerd" at my high school, (until I graduated) I didn't really see much of a hierarchy. Sure, there were those stereotypical jerks who think they're top of the food chain, but the truth is there wasn't really one to begin with. Then again, I may be too objective in my reasoning....

[Morph Bark]

High school has hierarchies? And here I thought that with the American Revolution came the doing away with that!

[Maho-Tsukai]

High school hierarchies never really existed for me either. I was a BIG nerd(and still am) yet I was actually one of the most well known/well-loved people in my school and was good friends with TWO of the super-popular girls(though to be fair I was friends with them since elementary school before they where actually super-popular.)...but yeah...nerds hung with jocks, some nerds WHERE jocks(One of my good friends was a big time gamer and member of the swim team.), not all the popular girls where the libby and none of them where upper class.(Though some of them may have been upper-middle.)

So I never really saw a hierarchy, and most of the big physical fights in my school where over relationship issues and far from the cliche' jock beating up nerd scenarios.

However, this observation is very predictable...because, lets face it..most of the people who make and play PnP RPGs tend to be viewed as nerds, geeks ect...so it's only logical that the game would show the biases of it's creators and players somewhere...

[Knaight]

High school has hierarchies? And here I thought that with the American Revolution came the doing away with that!

Do you mean the same American Revolution which gave power exclusively to white male land owners? That one? Sure, it erased the influence of formal nobility in the U.S. but it left a blatant hierarchy, and the whole "American Dream" is all about hierarchy, merely one in which one isn't stuck at a particular point due to being born there.

[Shep]

At my high school, the captain of rhe basketball team and most popular kid in school was also the valedictorian. Popularity had more to do with being emotionally on an even keel than it did with what hobbies you were into or how you did in school. Back in my day, a nerd was a person who acted in such a way as to be unpleasant to be around socially. Some of them did well in school, some of them didn't. One of my friends in the chess club didn't even graduate high school.

Stereotypes are pretty useless at best, and at worst they can limit you if you buy into them.

[Maho-Tsukai]

I totally agree with your statement because that's what it was like at my school, to an extent. I find that most of those sterotypes are just tired cliche's and people latch onto them because they are familiar. It's hardly a reflection of real high school. I mean, if a blatantly geeky person like me who drew anime pictures while bored in class, quoted earthbound on a regular basis, played Mugen during lunch and spent most of his time outside of the classroom in deep political or spiritual/religious discussions could be well liked and actually never once bullied in his high school carrier you know that such sterotypes are nothing but tired cliche's

[Wyntonian]

If you get your ideas of high school from a disney movie, then yes, you're correct.

But real life? I've lettered in two sports, and I'm going back to clean up one last time. I suppose that makes me a jock. But I'm also a martial artist, and I'm taking a bunch of advanced classes. So I guess I'm a nerd. But a bunch of the other jocks have decided I'm a raging homosexual (Their opinion, not mine or my girlfriends) and that it is their duty to beat me down whenever possible, so I can honestly say that, to some people, I'm a bit of an outcast. So yeah. And the best part is I fit better into most false entertainment-industry based social constructs than most people. Trying to fit a completely artificial system like D&D into a equally artificial system like the stereotypical idea of high school just falls apart.

[Knaight]

Yeah, that is pretty much the case. Even from just what people publicly let on, you can see the whole nerd-jock disparity is B.S. The valedictorian of my year played soccer well, was interested in stereotypically "dumb person" music, was a huge math and science nerd, and was fairly smart. A friend of mine is a huge nerd, plays D&D, Magic the Gathering, and Fudge, and does foam weapon combat. Not that anyone at school knows, as he keeps this secret, and is known there as a track star. I, personally am both a math-science nerd and a theatre nerd, which Hollywood teaches us are mutually exclusive traits. So on and so forth.

[Mikeavelli]

High School was more about circles than hierarchies. On the individual level there was a core group (the people I ate lunch with, mostly) - followed up by friends you have outside class (through sports, clubs, hanging out outside school, whatever). These are the people I'm still in touch with today, and they vary pretty widely in their interests, but for the most part follow the track of college (some dropped out halfway through, but everyone I'm still in touch with at least attempted it) - some did sports, but most didn't.

I was by far a stereotypical nerd, but the only actual bullying I ever endured was from some pothead who ended up getting expelled halfway through freshman year.

[hr]

The whole fighter/wizard jock/nerd metaphor does actually bear a little fruit when you're in the real world if you extend it past high school. Someone who spends their youth buried in books will tend to go to college, choose a challenging area of study, and end up with a high-paying job out of it in the end. Whatever amount of time you have to spend missing out socially in the beginning, you can win back tenfold when it all finally pays off.

Does it make me a bad person to enjoy coming back home and finding old classmates from high school working at gas stations and supermarkets?

[Tech Boy]

Sadly, this still exists in my school. I can only pray for your "respectful Jocks."

Yes there are teachers around that attempt to prevent the things that are done, but us larger nerds (Blacksmith & 2nd Degree blackbelt here) have to keep our eyes on the little ones. It's just how it works, I'm not complaining. :smallamused:

[Esprit15]

My school doesn't really have a hierarchy. I'm a nerd/geek IB student and am on the swim team, one of my gamer friends is on the football team, and I have almost never heard of bullying in my school. We tend to get allong quite well.

[Knaight]

My school doesn't really have a hierarchy. I'm a nerd/geek IB student and am on the swim team, one of my gamer friends is on the football team, and I have almost never heard of bullying in my school. We tend to get allong quite well.

Unless your school has about 40 students, I can almost guarantee that there is bullying. Its just much harder to see when you aren't directly involved in it, on either end.

[Acanous]

Truth. I very much disliked high school, and was extremely glad to be out of it. Not all bullying is physical. Just because you don't see someone being pushed into lockers in the hallways doesn't mean they aren't hounded by rumormongers, cyber-bullies or being intentionally excluded from social gatherings.

The biggest difference, really, is that nowadays, there's cross-pollination of intrests. Jocks that love cars know their way around the internet (Because hey, check out THAT custom car down in Kentucky! Thing goes 0-225 in 8 seconds!) While more options and programs like archery, billiards and dance let the geeks take more of an interest in phys-ed.

The fat kids are still picked on, as are the short guys and the flat chested girls.

[GenericGuy]

Unless your school has about 40 students, I can almost guarantee that there is bullying. Its just much harder to see when you aren't directly involved in it, on either end.

High school was both educationally and socially boring to me, the supposed “drama” and “political intrigue of feuding between cliques” was greatly exaggerated in fiction. Most of the “jocks” were too busy flirting with girlfriends or drinking and partying to care what the “nerds” were doing, and the nerds were too busy doing the same at their own parties. The two groups had little reason to associate with one another, so they didn’t.

and we had a student body of 1500.

[Knaight]

High school was both educationally and socially boring to me, the supposed “drama” and “political intrigue of feuding between cliques” was greatly exaggerated in fiction. Most of the “jocks” were too busy flirting with girlfriends or drinking and partying to care what the “nerds” were doing, and the nerds were too busy doing the same at their own parties. The two groups had little reason to associate with one another, so they didn’t.

Again, these are things that are very hard to see from the outside. I couldn't see any bullying at my high school, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. I actually knew someone who switched schools due to bullying, and I hadn't even known she was bullied before that happened, let alone the extent. You didn't see any "drama" or "bullying" or "political intrigue of feuding between cliques", that doesn't mean they didn't happen. For those of us largely detached from the school at large -and I certainly was, in my IB enclave, even with theatre and social groups that were largely non IB- it tends to be invisible.

[Lhurgyof]

The food chain you describe is very stereotypical and does not properly describe a high school social structure. A lot of the nerds I know are into martial arts and most jocks I know are very respectful of nerds, in fact, I'm pretty sure most males could be described as nerds when it comes down to it. It's just that some are into D&D and others invite their friends to come watch the cool new wheels on their car.

D&D is a structured world where everything comes into nice little boxes, this also holds attraction to a certain kind of people that have trouble grasping the world around them. It does not work the other way around however.

Egh, ours had it's own heirarchy but it was weird.


Cool kids (broad, I was in here for being the class clown), Smartypants kids, Underclassmen, the smelly kids, and that was really it.

[Morph Bark]

Unless your school has about 40 students, I can almost guarantee that there is bullying. Its just much harder to see when you aren't directly involved in it, on either end.

It also depends on what you consider bullying. Some only count physical bullying for one, which is something that mostly occurs amongst boys, whilst they do not take into account psychological bullying (verbally or specifically excluding someone from a group).

[Zonugal]

I have to relate to the others in this thread in that my high school didn't really follow the mold of the typical 'class' or 'tier' system. The arts were highly regarded and almost all of our jocks either did band, choir or theater in their off seasons. If I tried to look at the tier system though the top students were the kids who did everything. Honors, sports and arts. If anything my high school was dominated by gishes.

And I can't comment towards bullying because while I am sure it happened, it didn't happen to me. That is what you get when you convince all of the Samoans to have your back should a fight break out. What can I say, being a Bard has its perks...

[Esprit15]

Unless your school has about 40 students, I can almost guarantee that there is bullying. Its just much harder to see when you aren't directly involved in it, on either end.

True, I should correct that: it is not a huge problem and is normally restricted to personal conflicts where both sides participate fairly equally.