[Buffy] Need some ideas, themes, and opinions for a New BtVS game season

[mrlost]

As this maybe my only hope to escape the crappy D&D games I'm in at the moment. I need to come up with a good High School Buffy Game as the players desprately want to play a Highschool Buffy game. Most of my buffy ideas, consist of Intiative games, Wild West Slayers, and other non-highschool concepts. I need a good place to set a game, post-season seven destruction of the Sunnydale Hellmouth. If possible I was thinking about setting it near dimensional confluence/nexus. An unstable dimensional anomaly, which would suck the town into a hell dimension or something fresh. I don't want to regugitate any season of the show. Ideas on a good setting?



Second question: I need a believable high school. If have to set it in Cleveland, whats the worst Highschool there. Should I run an exchange student game, wherein the slayer is sent to England? I think that would be cool. SteveD was running a Watcher Accademy game, I think. I'm not british, and know very little about England's school system. If someone could give me the low down on how that would work, what the differences are between United States and British school systems it would be great.

Third Question: I need most of all a good series of themes for the game, growing up has been pretty over used. So any other good themes to be explored by a High School Setting? Whata you think.

Finally, I need a good villian. What kind of Big Bads should I use? If it was set in England say at the Watcher Accademy then I think a fraturnity/secret society of less than good watchers would be cool.

[Cossack]

Themes: cliquishness, the pressure to conform, the pressure to succeed, the quest for personal identity.

Watch "The Breakfast Club" two or three times and see if it sparks anything.

[Cossack]

Originally Posted by mrlost

If possible I was thinking about setting it near dimensional confluence/nexus. An unstable dimensional anomaly, which would suck the town into a hell dimension or something fresh. I don't want to regugitate any season of the show. Ideas on a good setting?

There are three approaches to this I can think of.

1. Natural Occurance. One day, all of a sudden, the town is in a hell dimension. You have no obligation to explain why and can just sit there chuckling while the PCs try to fix it.

2. Experiment Gone Wrong. Either somebody was messing around with a ritual and didn't know what he was doing, or some super-science gadget at the local university misfired. Either way, it'll look to the PCs like option #1 at first, but in this scenario there is a cause they can discover.

3. Evil Plot. Maybe a bunch of cultists who were abused are taking revenge on the town. Maybe some demons from the hell dimension in question have been bound to the town and this is the only way home. In any case, the PCs should get a chance to stop the ritual that will send the town to hell. If (when?) they fail, major rewards should be heaped on the first player who thinks to say "Well, there goes the neighborhood."

[Cossack]

More thoughts:

Villains -- What if, instead of becoming a Scooby, Cordy had stumbled across some sort of mystical power and gave in more and more to her dark side? What if the popular girl is actually a cult leader? Maybe that goth chick who leads the outcasts is in charge of a rival cult and the fued between them drives half of the bizarre happenings at the school and eventually opens the nexus thingy?

[DannyK]

I honestly wouldn't worry too much about reusing the themes from the series. They're universal themes, mostly, and the players are asking specifically for a high-school Buffy game. Adressing those same themes, except with their own characters and in their own way, may be just what they want.

It might be interesting to change the nature of the high school, though, Sunnydale High is the archetypal all-American high school.

If the school was an alternative school for troubled teens, or a magnet school for gifted kids (everybody gets artistic for free), or a crappy inner-city high school with tons of gang activity and teenage pregnancy... any of those would be fresh and interesting.

[SteveD]

I'd think about moving away from the more "occult" enemies, to get a new feel. Why not let the gateway be something akin to a stargate instead?

Buffy's theme is specifically about responsibility, that part of growing up. There are other aspects of growing up to examine. How about dealing with limitless choices? That fits well with a gate to anywhere.

How about this:

The PCs are all smart types. Not all geeks, but all intelligent types, doing well in their classes, know exactly which college they want to go to. The kind of people who, when high school ends, have a huge amount of choice. Go to Europe for a year, or be fast tracked into the corporate sector, or be hand-picked for a great program at MIT, whatever. They just can't wait to get started on their dreams. But they really don't understand the price of that much freedom and choice. So they get a glimpse of it.

One day, one of the PCs is working late with his favourite science teacher (a prominent NPC, Giles figure) and through science gone wrong (although feel free to add an explanation later!) they open a gateway, a nexus in time and space. It connects to hundreds of dimensions and time periods. They can go through it, like the Sliders kids or the Stargate people, but things also come through it, like the Hellmouth. The whole multiverse can come to them, and they can see all the marvels life has in store. And they'll learn that some marvels aren't that nice...

Of course, this throws away almost all the canon of the show. But the Watchers would be interested in a dimensional door they can use reliably (an army of slayers marching into the demon dimensions?) and a Slayer might be sent to check it out. It might be fun for Watchers to try and deal with science more than occultism - maybe they have a special branch dedicated to Mad Science stuff? Techno-watcher fun!

Maybe the physics teacher IS a techno-watcher?

A big bad should play upon this theme. The Djinn is a good one, as he offers limitless choice and power, and he might just benefit from a dimensional door. Or how about a Time Master, who is tempting them to take steps so he can live again in the future? Someone like Viggo from Ghostbusters? Time is but a door, death is but a window. Plus he can slow down time or stop it - making him almost impossible to fight!

Man, I SO want to play this now!

Steve

[Craig Oxbrow]

I wouldn't worry about the accuracy of your background (finding the worst school in Cleveland) since this is, after all, a game about Teenage Monster Hunters. The series made up a whole town, which expanded regularly depending on the needs of the episode in question.

That said, you shouldn't set it somewhere that your players know better than you, as even with the "this is a game about Teenage Monster Hunters" caveat they might still correct you on factual matters, or just find them annoying.

Since it's after Season 7, deal with the fallout of it. The Watchers haven't been wiped out, but they have lost their central command and most of their senior members. The Academy's probably gone as well, for that matter. There are Slayers all over the world, with the Scoobies forming a new group to try and find them but plenty slipping through the cracks. Faith is riding around on a motorbike acting like Cain in Kung Fu. And all kinds of strange things happened in LA last summer...

So you can feature a clueless Slayer (or more than one) among the PCs or the supporting cast (and various groups with various agendas would like to get ahold of her). You can have a Watcher "in the cold" trying to deal with the supernatural threats on his own.

As for a Big Bad, I'd start out with something that reflects the Cast to some extent. Buffy's a Vampire Slayer, so the first Big Bad was a vampire...

[Professor Phobos]

I set my game in Arkham, Massachusetts, and borrowed all sorts of things from Cthulhu. The first season's theme was basically betrayal and "ruthlessification", if that makes any sense, and the second season's theme, thus far, is helping out individuals. Or something. I'm not quite good enough for there to be "themes."

Basically, don't worry about it. With a good bunch of players, decent monsters of the week, and a nifty enough Big Bad, you'll be fine.

[Matt H]

Originally Posted by DannyK

I honestly wouldn't worry too much about reusing the themes from the series. They're universal themes, mostly, and the players are asking specifically for a high-school Buffy game. Adressing those same themes, except with their own characters and in their own way, may be just what they want.

I couldn't agree with this more.

[CasperLions]

Look at the original Persona game for inspiration of an entire town being sucked into a Hell dimension.