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Kid Jake
2015-01-01, 05:04 PM
So my Pathfinder group should be meeting up tomorrow and one of the things they've expressed an interest in is, for some reason, running a school for the various children in the village they've conquered/'saved'. Now it sounds like a situation rife with plot hooks and hilarity, but I'm having a hard time thinking of ways to make the experience interesting. The majority of the schooling itself will be done by NPCs, but the PCs have insisted on having a hand in the children's educations themselves.

The LE cleric of Asmodeous wants to teach religion, history and as much magic as he understands and the CE (believes he's CN but there's no way in hell that's true) Fighter/Cyborg/Walking Zombie Apocalypse wants to teach gym. The cleric I'm sure intends to subvert the easily impressionable kids into devil worshipers before it's all done with and I'm pretty sure the Cyborg-Zombie just wants an excuse to wear shorts and berate children.

The school itself is going to be old school with a variety of children aged 6-14 (plus a newly created Flesh Golem) all under a single roof. A local innkeeper and the party's Artificer/Mad Scientist buddy will be the other teachers. I've mapped out a few personality traits and talents that the kids have, but haven't developed them much more than that yet.

I'm working under the assumption that they're all going to be dead within an IC week knowing the Fighter's knack for accidentally escalating things, so I'm hoping to take 'em for one helluva ride in the meantime. Who knows though, they might become part of the regular cast; they routinely surprise me.

So how would you go about making this an entertaining and rewarding experience for the players? Should it just be played for laughs? Should they forge a prepubescent army? Should they just repeatedly egg the Fighter's house until it stops being funny to the rest of us?

TheCountAlucard
2015-01-01, 05:11 PM
As anachronistic as it'd be, my default assumption would be "play it for laughs."

Red Fel
2015-01-01, 05:23 PM
As anachronistic as it'd be, my default assumption would be "play it for laughs."

This. From what you describes, it sounds like they just want to have a "beach episode," where they step in, each one describing what they do for (or to) the kids. Let each one describe it in turn, give them a few named NPClings to play with, come up with one or two minor incidents (a food fight, one of the named NPClings gets sent to the headmaster's office, one of the named NPClings has a crush, some kobolds attack the school, etc.), and then, at the end of the day, describe the NPClings' reactions. For example, do they run in fear from the gym teacher? Does one give one of their PC teachers a hug? An apple? A monologue?

A little bit of heartwarming, a lot of laughing, and very little substance. That's how I'd run it.

One thing to keep in mind, though: Adventurers can't really run a school. At least, they can't work there for a long period and still be considered adventurers. Retired adventurers, sure; and they could certainly be members of the school board. But they can't really work there and still go on adventures, unless they're very brief adventures. So consider that angle as well.

Faily
2015-01-01, 06:00 PM
Might be a bit on short notice, but I'd recommend taking inspiration from Aaron Williams' PS238 comic. It's about an elementary school for kids with super-powers, with the teachers all being retired superheroes. It might be something that would work better on a longer scale than a Beach Episode, but I at least wanted to mention it. ^_^

Maybe some of the kids will ask their teachers & saviours embarrassing questions, like the classic "so where do babies come from?", or more D&D-oriented "can someone get pregnant from kissing a succubus?". Or in general try to derail their attempts of education with asking about their adventuring, like how they took down this or that bad guy, what sort of magic did they use to defeat a monster, etc?

Kid Jake
2015-01-01, 06:01 PM
Adventurer might be the wrong word, they're a pair of wanted sociopaths that tricked a town into making them their Mayor/Sheriff and alternate between saving the town from the problems they themselves caused and trying to raise an army to overthrow the regime that's chasing them. They're level 6-7 at the moment and so far the entire campaign has taken place within a day's walk of their front doors.

At present they're even more locked down than usual because the fighter infected a neighboring town (like...all of them at this point) with ghoul fever during a street fight gone hilariously wrong. Not sure how into the school they're going to be, but the campaign has changed drastically already, so they may intend on opening an R rated Hogwarts.


I do like the kobold suggestion though, I've been trying to encourage them to go hunt down the little bastards for a while now and that might do it.

Kid Jake
2015-01-01, 06:04 PM
Might be a bit on short notice, but I'd recommend taking inspiration from Aaron Williams' PS238 comic. It's about an elementary school for kids with super-powers, with the teachers all being retired superheroes. It might be something that would work better on a longer scale than a Beach Episode, but I at least wanted to mention it. ^_^

Maybe some of the kids will ask their teachers & saviours embarrassing questions, like the classic "so where do babies come from?", or more D&D-oriented "can someone get pregnant from kissing a succubus?". Or in general try to derail their attempts of education with asking about their adventuring, like how they took down this or that bad guy, what sort of magic did they use to defeat a monster, etc?

Thanks, I'll look into that for later.

That would definitely play into the fighter's personality, he stops random passerby to tell them about his adventures (As he remembers them) so he'd get a kick out of that.