Running a game set in a highschool setting?

[Togath]

In a pbp I'm running I've run into a snag, now that the players are done introducing their characters, I'm at a bit of a loss for any plots.
The setting is a high school one, with the characters being students.
The style/setting is heavily inspired by the manga/anime Rosario + Vampire, so all of the characters are monsters of some sort(disguised as human).

My main problem is that I'm just not sure how to really run this sort of plotline(I'm used to running medieval settings), I'm also not very good at long conversations in rp(I lean more towards casual/realistic conversations than rp style ones) while most of the players are fairly heavy rpers(they made it 2 1/2 pages before I posted anything other then the basic intro to the location[a bus] where they were)

[Gnomish Wanderer]

Elemental, my dear Togath, the answer is conflict! Give them a problem to face! Start hinting at a major problem with the school (maybe impending invasion of monster hunters or something?) meanwhile giving them a bunch of smaller problems to tackle one at a time (Examples like showing a new student around, dealing with a student gone wild, maybe investigating a disappearance or a teacher acting weird). With a group of heavy roleplayers like that they'll mostly handle initiative on their own, but they need a purpose.

[Togath]

Some of those should work(though showing someone around probably wouldn't, as the characters are new students).
Anmy tips for plot points that might work at the moment?
One hald of the party is going around looking at clubs(currently heading towards the science club), while the other half is messing around in the school pool.
Do you think just saying;
"the science club's rather ramshackle booth sits a boy with brown hair and dark coloured skin, as you near, he perks up and asks "are you interested in the club?""

would be enough for the group looking for the clubs?

[Yukitsu]

Play the latest two Persona games. They're basically both high school students doing high school things 90% of the time, but then they get sporadic events that make them go off and fight things. Should give you a general idea of how that sort of setting can work.

[Alejandro]

Have the cafeteria do one of those BS 'breakfast for lunch' things, where it's obviously just the breakfast stuff that didn't sell at breakfast.

Bastards.

[TheThan]

It’s a little hard to build encounters around characters you don’t know. Which is sort of what high school is about. Anyway here are some generic ideas:

School rivalries:
Across town high has stolen the school’s mascot, it’s up to the players to get it back.

Across town high’s karate* club has challenged yours to a duel/competition. Its up the players to show who’s the best.
^{* or any other competitive club.}

Across town high is trying to get important recognition, see to it that your school is recognized instead.

Sports:

The big game is coming up, but the varsity team has come down with the flu, someone needs to fill their shoes for the game.

The big game is coming up, and a magical sickness has stricken the team, find out who the culprit it, put a stop to it and reverse the magic before the big game.

Your team is invited to a tournament; see to it that you win.

Drama:

Someone is spreading nasty rumors about one of the players, put a stop to it.

Someone is picking on a new student/underclassman. Put a stop to it, as it sullies your class’s reputation.

One of the teachers is a total perv, teach him a lesion that will make him leave kids a lone or get him fired.

Someone is leaving (unsigned) love letters in one of the PCs locker, find out who it is.

A suspicious man has been seen around the school, investigate him.

[Libertad]

Play the latest two Persona games. They're basically both high school students doing high school things 90% of the time, but then they get sporadic events that make them go off and fight things. Should give you a general idea of how that sort of setting can work.

Hot damn, the Persona games are excellent! But they can be quite time-consuming.

I'd recommend checking out a Let's Play if you don't have the time or money (or console) to get the games. Here's a good one.

Burn my dread!

Back on topic, I own a very good sourcebook for this type of thing, Hero High for Mutants & Masterminds. Like others said, you should place heavy emphasis on social relationships and the conflict and drama which can arise out of them. Most importantly, give the players incentive to care, be it in the form of in-game "fate tokens" for helping out friends, or having said friends be more willing to undertake risky work for the PCs in the future.

[Hopeless]

Check out the below link to a web comic.

Eerie Chicks

It sounds like it might help you with some ideas for your game and has two spin offs that may help...

[Lord Il Palazzo]

My first tip would be to have plans to enlarge the scope at some point in the future. Exploring a strange high school might be fun at first, but giving the players the opportunity to explore the world this kind of school exists in could help keep things fresh later on once the novelty of the monster school has worn thin. Are disguised monsters common in human society? Do any other people know about them? How do they react? If monsters are hiding their existance, why? Are they afraid of sparking a witch-hunt or does it just make them more effective predators? Are the monsters a unified group or are there factions that don't get along (the typical were-wolves vs. vampires bit, perhaps)?

Even if you don't want to leave the school setting, find ways that what's going on in the larget world could affect the school or what's going on in the school could affect the larger world. If nothing's at stake besides day to day high school life, that's less interesting than if something bigger or more important is playing out beneath the surface. Look at the early Harry Potter books for an example of events at a single school having connections to bigger goings on.

[Togath]

It’s a little hard to build encounters around characters you don’t know. Which is sort of what high school is about. Anyway here are some generic ideas:

School rivalries:
Across town high has stolen the school’s mascot, it’s up to the players to get it back.

Across town high’s karate* club has challenged yours to a duel/competition. Its up the players to show who’s the best.
^{* or any other competitive club.}

Across town high is trying to get important recognition, see to it that your school is recognized instead.
None of these would work in the setting unfortunately, as the school is in a bubble dimension.



Sports:

The big game is coming up, but the varsity team has come down with the flu, someone needs to fill their shoes for the game.

The big game is coming up, and a magical sickness has stricken the team, find out who the culprit it, put a stop to it and reverse the magic before the big game.

Your team is invited to a tournament; see to it that you win.
These ones could work, and some of the pcs may be planning to join the swim club.


Drama:

Someone is spreading nasty rumors about one of the players, put a stop to it.

Someone is picking on a new student/underclassman. Put a stop to it, as it sullies your class’s reputation.

One of the teachers is a total perv, teach him a lesion that will make him leave kids a lone or get him fired.

Someone is leaving (unsigned) love letters in one of the PCs locker, find out who it is.

A suspicious man has been seen around the school, investigate him.
These could all work very well, especially 1...possibly 3 as well...would it be too cliché to use the teacher that is a kraken for number 3?

responses in bold to save space

Play the latest two Persona games. They're basically both high school students doing high school things 90% of the time, but then they get sporadic events that make them go off and fight things. Should give you a general idea of how that sort of setting can work.

I'd forgotten all about that series, and have actually been meaning to go back to them, I may look to them for some inspiration then.

Hot damn, the Persona games are excellent! But they can be quite time-consuming.

I'd recommend checking out a Let's Play if you don't have the time or money (or console) to get the games. Here's a good one.

Burn my dread!

Back on topic, I own a very good sourcebook for this type of thing, Hero High for Mutants & Masterminds. Like others said, you should place heavy emphasis on social relationships and the conflict and drama which can arise out of them. Most importantly, give the players incentive to care, be it in the form of in-game "fate tokens" for helping out friends, or having said friends be more willing to undertake risky work for the PCs in the future.

I'll probably take a look at the Let's Play there.
I'll also take a look at that sourcebook(I'm even using the right system in this case)

Check out the below link to a web comic.

Eerie Chicks

It sounds like it might help you with some ideas for your game and has two spin offs that may help...

I'll look into that one as well, from the first few pages it looks similar to the source material I'm using for my campaign's setting, but in web comic form.

[Togath]

My first tip would be to have plans to enlarge the scope at some point in the future. Exploring a strange high school might be fun at first, but giving the players the opportunity to explore the world this kind of school exists in could help keep things fresh later on once the novelty of the monster school has worn thin. Are disguised monsters common in human society? Do any other people know about them? How do they react? If monsters are hiding their existance, why? Are they afraid of sparking a witch-hunt or does it just make them more effective predators? Are the monsters a unified group or are there factions that don't get along (the typical were-wolves vs. vampires bit, perhaps)?

The "expand the scope of the campaign after a while" bit is definitely a good idea, and since I am using a setting, I already have a few ideas how various pieces interact(as an example, the reason the monsters stay hidden is to make the humans less nervous and more easily used)

[Diskhotep]

You said this was a pbp game so I don't know what system you are using, but I highly suggest checking out Joe McDaldno's Monsterhearts, an Apocalypse World hack. Based on the characters they made and some leading questions I asked, I was able to improvise the first session (which I pitched to them as "the pilot episode of the new teen horror drama on HBO").

For those interested in such things, here is how the first session played out:

Spoiler

Show

Just ran my first session of Monsterhearts, which went surprisingly well.

Tonight, on a very special Monsterhearts…
Episode 1.1 - Pilot

Starring:
Camilla, the Queen: Lead singer and guitarist for the up and coming band “TBD”, Camilla is a rising star at Westerberg High. Will she burn bright or fade away with the dawn? Only time will tell.
Kyle, the Werewolf: Brash and impulsive, Kyle struggles to keep his lycanthropic heritage a secret from all but his closest friends. Dare he confide in his girlfriend Emily, or will she be safer not knowing?
Annalee, the Witch: That quiet girl, brooding in the corner? She knows a secret or two. And strange things happen to those who cross her. Best to stay on her good side (if she has one).
Stark, the Fae: Charming to some, eerily disturbing to others… everyone has an opinion about Stark. Some say his absentee dad is in prison, others say he is an important politician buying the family’s silence with money. One thing is for sure: he will hold you to your word, or you will pay.

The episode begins with Camilla, Kyle, Annalee, and Stark in homeroom. While classmate Isabella tries to convince Camilla to audition her for the band, Kyle is confronted by Kevin, who wants him to stop dating his sister Emily in exchange for a deal on a “new” used car. Kyle agrees to hear him out after school, but has no intention of giving up Emily. Meanwhile, Stark attempts to get Ursula to intervene with her younger sister, who torments his middle school-aged sister, but is shut down. At some point it is noticed that Angela is missing, and cannot be reached despite Camilla’s efforts to do so.

Later, Kyle informs Emily of her brother’s plan, and she agrees to meet later after he talks to Kevin. With Camilla’s assistance Stark gets permission to leave school to get flowers for their homeroom teacher Mrs. Romero, whose husband recently died in an auto accident. Annalee is mocked by Ursula in gym class, and steals a few strands of her hair from her locker while the other girls are in the shower.

After school, Kyle meets with Kevin, and rides with him to the used car lot to discuss Emily. Kyle informs Kevin that he will not give Emily up, and Kevin insults him. Kyle takes a swing at Kevin, but is beaten by the larger boy and left at the dealership. Meanwhile, Stark goes to the Burial Grounds, a hipster coffee shop built on the site of an abandoned cemetery, to talk the owner to let Camilla’s band play there. He is not entirely successful, but does extract a promise from the waitress Samantha that she will do her best to convince him that “TBD” would help improve the business.

Annalee spends her afternoon in her room, working a hex to get even with Ursula for taunting her. Camilla’s band practice is marred only by her growing worry for Angela, who still has not answered her calls. She swings by her house, but nobody appears to be home, so she finds Stark to talk about her concerns. Kyle meets up with Stark at the Burial Grounds and asks him to help get even with Kevin by humiliating him publicly. Stark agrees and begins plotting with Camilla on how best to go about this, while Kyle sits with Emily and tells her how the meeting with her brother went. She gently tends to his black eye and scrapes, then the young lovers sneak off to be alone.

At dinner, Annalee’s mother tries to get her to open up about her school day, but Annalee shuts her down. Camilla and Stark go back to Angela’s house to find it completely dark with a couple of days’ worth of uncollected mail in the mailbox. Not wanting to get caught by the neighbors, they leave.

Later that night, Camilla is playing her guitar and letting her mind drift when she has a sudden vision of Angela running down a corridor and screaming as she is enveloped by an ominous darkness. At the same time outside of town, Kyle’s evening run in the forest is filled with visions of him hunting down and attacking someone, perhaps Emily. Stark is troubled by strange sounds and winds that seem to come from the stones he can’t seem to help gathering, and Annalee uses her scrying mirror to witness a scene from the past – Stark’s mother dallying with a strange and otherworldly figure in the forest. All four of them go to bed with troubled thoughts.

We'll see how next week's session goes.

[Togath]

I may take a look at that system for inspiration(though I am currently at least, using MM2E), though the setting I'm using is very high powered.

[Arbane]

Are you planning on the game being more serious-ish or humorous? You can crib from Buffy and/or Teenagers from Outer Space, respectively.

Random ideas:

Introduce the characters to the action/combat rules with the "help" of the sadistic PE teacher.

The school's haunted, want to figure out by who and why?

One clique is actually a coven of witches. Can you figure out which before the one who hates you curses you to death? Can you get them to stop?

Hm, turns out the school's basements are a LOT bigger and older than you'd expect. Get some flashlights, rope, and a ten-foot pole!

People are turning up dead, and despite the method of death looking like something you'd do, it's not your fault. Stop whoever's killing them before monster hunters show up the pitchforks and torches come out!

Oh, crap, there's monster hunters in town. Better be extra-quiet for a while. Too bad some other major crisis just erupted where being able to use powers would be a BIG help. (Might not work in a pocket dimension.)

[Slipperychicken]

The high school orchestra is getting more competitive than normal, especially as seating-placement tests come up. A star violinist's instrument has gone missing, and she has at least one obvious rival and his goons as suspects. You need to get it back before the big test! [the object can be pretty much anything; an art project, a research paper stored on a flash drive, a programming assignment, etc. Maybe the "big test" is a competition for a scholarship to some prestigious music academy]. The party will need to investigate to find the missing instrument, whether that means tracking, eavesdropping on the goons, or just beating/torturing them 'till they fess up the location.

A friendly NPC has a crush on someone, but she/he/it needs a difficult-to-obtain item to impress the crush. Maybe a beautiful flower from a giant plant being stored in a science room, guarded, and the plant might be an encounter in itself as it attacks the PCs in self-defense with prehensile vines, venus-fly-trap-style mouths, and poison-fumes.

Students go to the adjacent woods to smoke (or some other act which adults can't know about), but haven't been coming back, and people are getting worried. No one's told the adults, fearing the students will be punished for smoking. The PCs must trek through the forest, where they must deal with whatever dread monster has been abducting students. The forest can instead be a basement, a hole in the ground leading to a cavern/sewer, or any other such location.

Some bullies (perhaps monstrous) corner the PCs and demand their lunch money or other valuables, threatening violence and humiliation if they don't fork over the cash. More of a random encounter, with a number of possible solutions. They can give in (which will only exacerbate the problem as the bullies will see them as easy prey), fight the bullies, evade the bullies, use mind-magic to incapacitate/dominate them, talk them down, or even earn their respect through toughness.

A nice promising student has committed suicide, and her ghost is tormenting several well-known bullies and mean-girls, plus an innocent or two. Deal with the spirit, which can be weakened by holy symbols and light magic (a student-magician can banish the spirit completely with a special ritual, although this will leave the Spirit in hell or limbo. This ritual will require special ingredients). There is a harder quest which the Spirit needs to complete before it can pass into the "good" afterlife, perhaps exacting revenge or acquiring a stolen item.

[Asheram]

... That simple "running a game set in a highschool setting" gave me a pretty funny little idea to an "Xcrawl Academy."

Thank you.

[Randomguy]

It really does depend on the setting:

If it's something along the lines of Buffy, then there won't be any combat encounters in the hallways and it would probably be mostly social and rp interactions, with combat ones happening after school. Some monsters may secretly be students, but they probably won't attack in broad daylight.

If it's closer to Percy Jackson, then there's at least two groups of secret monsters in every high school, some good and some evil (more groups are evil), with some of the teachers involved as well. An encounter in the hallway is likely if there are no teachers or only evil teachers around. Probably not on the first day though.

If it's closer to Harry Potter, then the school is basically designed to give the students xp points, everyone's got some magic powers and entering the science club room should trigger a reflex save to avoid a trap made to keep non club members (or members of science clubs from other schools) out.