How do you do a high school RPG about bullies and mean girls?

Oh, seconding this. Fiasco is the perfect engine for a game about high school bullying. Have the tilt be the class nerd committing suicide over it.

i always wanted to do a persona campaign as a player than a GM (which will never happen I'm practically a forever GM for stuff outside of DnD because my group is too scared to run anything outside of DnD)

which sucks because there was a character i really wanted to try out for it too

keep an eye out here for One Roll Engine generals, we have a big Persona conversion project and several running campaigns. The system works well with having a persona.

MonsterHearts is absolutely this. It's a great system for high-school drama and as has been said there's literally a class for being the bitchy popular girl

push on the sexual tension
youtube.com/watch?v=QzqUTJ7U3xs

>suicide
>not a lockdown when the trenchcoat mafia comes to 3rd period

>Trenchcoat mafia comes to third period.
>School locks down thinking they're going to shoot up the school.
>It's really Al Capone coming back from the dead to make sure they're still putting sell by dates on milk cartons.

I don't think you should assume the Queen to be just that tough. You can as well have that skin for the boss of a gang, honestly.

I mean:

>Origin: most popular, most dangerous, cult leader, source of the infection, firstborn of the hive mind

Also the Witch is probably the final bully possible, in her own way.

Played this: fiascoplaysets.com/home/fiasco-high

It was hard not to roll ourselves on the floor, for real.

yeah, the first time I saw the Queen in play it was as the head of a gang. The current game I'm in has a Queen as well as the 'hottest girl in school' which is amusing since it's clear the girl playing her doesn't know how to act sexy.

How is running a game of Monster Hearts? I've been tooling around with some ideas for a game but I've never had a chance to run a game of PbtA and I'm kind of apprehensive about it. The one time I played a game of it I didn't quite have a firm grasp on the system and it didn't really function well.

Does anyone have any advice for running a game?

>How is running a game of Monster Hearts? I've been tooling around with some ideas for a game but I've never had a chance to run a game of PbtA and I'm kind of apprehensive about it. The one time I played a game of it I didn't quite have a firm grasp on the system and it didn't really function well.
>Does anyone have any advice for running a game?
I would also like to know these things

as someone who's run two MH campaigns the rulebook's GM section actually does a really good job explaining most of the important parts, make sure you actually read and remember it. In more specific terms here's how to handle the first session:
>create the seating chart with space for 15 people
>let all the PCs decide where they sit
>fill out the rest of the spaces with NPCs
>for each NPC ask the player of a PC they're adjacent to and one other player questions about them relating to their character
>by the end each NPC should, therefore, have a relationship to at least two of the PCs
>then there are three recommended ways to start the session itself: start a fight, throw a party, have someone go missing
>whichever one of these you pick it should be fairly easy to use the tensions described in the relationships to figure out who else it would bring each of the PCs into conflict with
>put the PCs in scenes with those people and then use the GM moves liberally to keep the conflict going
that should get you through the first session

What's a good source of inspiration for background details or relative realism?

You know King Arthur stories had a lot of sleeping around. I wonder if MH would work for that sort of story?

Give it a read. Decide how it works for you. So honey whatcha waiting for?

Maybe do what an user from a previous thread that brought up Heather's said. Make each archetype of highschool stereotypes be a patron god of that group of people. The God-King Chad, the Bitch-Queen Heather, the Nerd-Alchemist Eugene, the Yearbook-Scribe Becky, and so on.

I mean, when it comes to high school RPGs, you kind of don't want realism, you want caricature. You don't want a realistic look at high school life, because that probably won't actually have the crazy over-the-top personalities that really drive such a story. You want 80's high school movies, you want John Carpenter and Mean Girls and Heathers and all manner of outlandishly charming students as characters. Realism has its place, but is best left as a spice to accentuate the strangeness and charm of the people there.

At least that's my opinion on it.

MH is built on a few important points
>the characters are strongly emotion driven and have poor self-control
>remours and reputation are very important in shaping peoples' opinions of you
>the characters are bad at understanding others or coming to mutual agreements

And what'd you use as a reference for realism?

This is what Maid was created for

MAID is based on the assumption that all the PCs are trying to earn the approval and affection of a single NPC, so it would only work for a high-school game if you're assuming a harem situation

i almost ran a hs campaign for my friends who all went to the same high school
>players start off their final year as high school seniors
>mild HSAU fanfic shit.
>we've been friends since middle school so they'd get all the references and stories i put in
>campaign would just give us all feels as we play on high school nostalgia as i reference countless other students that we all knew and shit
>campaign would run for a solid week. every day represents about a month of the high school grind, bringing up more shit from that time
>literally just play feels-simulator as i exaggerate all the shit we've done together

i can't do it anymore because new players came into my group and half of them didn't go to our school. damn i want to run this now.

user, this is the beauty of the game.

My Infernal was an average Joe that basically with the use of a good-timed Bargain or two became the hottest guy in the school
(I mean, he did it mostly to get to know a cute girl, but just that, he didn't want the baggage)

MH is about school sterotypes but the real beauty is just you will be stereotypized against your will.

I did a decent/good oneshot. No probs, really, execpt that like 95% of PBTA it's not really a oneshot game. Not exactly sure what to say, try asking us something more specific?

>the characters are strongly emotion driven and have poor self-control

The second is not totally true. They're tempted. Tempted as fuck to us their powers. I'm not talking only about something like the Witch that basically has a Death Note, a Fae WILL try to get a promise, etc.

And we would too.

A level-headed character is actually a good idea because as Maxine Caufield said with great powers come great bullshit.

Life is Strange isn't actually that great as a character inspiration though, is it?

For MH?

Well, I dunno, Chloe would be an interesting Mortal. And possibly Nathan as a Werewolf or Infernal.
>oddly enough I can't fit Victoria

BUT what is a goldmine are the characters and their dramas as NPCs inspirations.

>Treat side characters like stolen cars.
>Embrace melodrama.
>Give side characters simple,
divisive motivations.

Do I need to say anything more? Steal that shit like it's water and you've been in the desert for a week.

Hell, I wouldn't even mind too much almost directly stealing scenes, honestly.