How do you make a campaign campy and/or cheesy? In a Buffy the Vampire Slayer kind of way

How do you make a campaign campy and/or cheesy? In a Buffy the Vampire Slayer kind of way.

Teenage adventurers juggle secretly saving the world, a forbidden romance, and the struggles of daily life.

So basically just Buffy?

Or teenage Justice League with a Batman/Catwoman romance for good measure.

Now I want to play in a Power Rangers setting. Any opinions on the new movie trailer?

The dragon has stolen the statue of liberty and the prom's tomorrow.

I'm OP, not but I think the trailer looked mediocre. Still hype for the movie though.

Like, something like this:

A huge, sprawling mage academy where all the most promising youths from all over the world are taken to study magic.

Except that the mage academy is secretly a gateway to hell or something, and for some reason almost nobody believes them. "Pfft, yeah right, the headmaster would have noticed". Turns out the headmaster is actually a demon or something.

And along the way, a reformed succubus or whatever escapes hell and joins the party.

>and the prom's tomorrow
This never gets old.

I WANNA PLAY IT SO BAD

never ever.

I'd say just do buffy. Have magical creatures trying to kill superpowered HS students and just let it form organically from there.

>teenage heroes
>world-threatening evils and hot dates treated with equal importance
>the phrase "major -age" with the - replaced with suck, squick, etc.
>lots of one liners
Anything I'm missing?

so your average Masks: The Next Generation game?

I don't know. I haven't played it. But if so, I want to.

>teenage heroes
the basic premise of Masks, teenage superheroes
>world-threatening evils and hot dates treated with equal importance
Fighting supervillains gives conditions which can best be removed by having a personal moment with a teammate. those same conditions can also be inflicted by a person whose opinion your character cares about being angry with you

Holy shit, that's awesome. Have you played it? Is it good?

I have, in one session one of the characters took a bunch of conditions when he was fighting a supervillain and lost control of his magic powers, he also hurt one of his teammates in the process, after the fight the two rode motorcycles along the beachfront and talked about life to recover

That's... very much what I had in mind. I'm pretty eager to play this.

Another important point: If you want it to be camp like Buffy, then you want the camp to be able to fall away for seriously heavy moments too.

So, what shows, books, etc., would make good teenager camp/cheesy/awesome campaign fodder?

>Buffy
>Power Rangers
>Harry Potter
>Young Justice

What am I missing? I feel like there should be way more.

Wow, I've been looking for something exactly like this

Thanks user!

>In a Buffy the Vampire Slayer kind of way.

Keep in mind that with Buffy, the world and story is largely serious, but the characters themselves are snarky, and that is where most of the camp comes from. With different characters, that could have been a totally straight urban horror adventure show. What makes it humorous is that the characters are sarcastic and witty individuals, who play off whatever is happening with a degree of levity. But are not pure lolrandumb tardos incapable of being serious when something dramatic does happen.

So talk this over with your players and make sure they create appropriate characters in terms of tone and personality. Having a spectrum is okay, like how Giles is very stern, and then Xander is very comic, but no one should go to absolute extremes. Giles is not incapable of being humorous, and Xander is not a giggling idiot.

Then create adventures that are serious in tone, and play off things like people's in-game relationships and goals, but maintain a more or less PG-13 level of grim. Then be accepting of letting the players riff off things and find the humor in situations, while gently pulling them along more serious storylines.

>Giles is not incapable of being humorous
One of my favorite smartass comments in the show is from Giles.

>Principal Snyder: "You know, some things, I can just smell. It's like a sixth sense."
>Giles: "Well, actually, that would be one of the five."

You can't make a campaign anything. You present the setting and how your characters act within it is what makes it campy, serious, grim, wathever.

So just make sure your NPCs aren't taking stuff too seriously, put showmanship over pragmatism and avoid extremelly objectionable themes.

Write like a pompous, pretentious white knight who think snark and sarcasm are substitute for wits and humor.

play world of synnibarr. Done.

Come on user, that's just mean. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemies.

It all goes back to that scene from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie -- Paul Reubens as a vamp who gets stabbed in the chest, and gets all...campy...as he slowly dies. THAT was the heart and soul of BtVS.

It's all about being jaded and bored, so you make fun of yourself, especially in the face of supernatural horror. You already are experts at this.

What you mean faith trying to kill Buffy, failing, almost dying, and then beefing angel to kill he isn't isn't campy or comfy?
>That time Angels final season whipped back and forth between playful angel/spike banter and gunn being dead while an elder gods is he not as a meat puppet

Don't forget X-Men Evolution!

Let's all just agree to not talk about Angel, okay?

Show me on the doll where the bad Whedon touched you.

Worst part is, that's the third last episode. Real mood whiplash. Though in general the Wesley/illyria shit in s5 was pretty much GOAT.

Easiest way? Let the players know, and let them contribute to the silliness openly.

Like, one of the best oneshots I ever ran was a B-horror movie -inspired game, and it was exactly why it worked; I let players know this well in advance and they went with it. They acted according to the stupid logic of B-horror, and the final result felt bretty legit because of that.

I was actually thinking of the season one finale.

>Giles... I'm sixteen. I don't want to die...

How could I forget that?