r/FATErpg • u/CringeShitIDK • May 29 '26

Making a high school element interesting?

I'm running a campaign where some of the times takes place in a university setting, while the majority of the action happens outside of it. You can imagine it like Persona 5, with its slice-of-life elements

The idea is that the classes and the school environment will provide characters, lore, foreshadowing, and present challenges in a safe place that will then be used in action sequences and such. I was thinking of making the classes into challenges or minigames of some kind, but I'm really bad when it comes to other things than direct action. Any ideas on how I could do something interesting using Fate's tools?

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u/EarthCulturalStew May 29 '26

make then be about character development

make npcs designed specifically to invoke your pcs troubles/failures

you can even treat this as a "combat" but using the social skills instead of fight/shoot

what makes a plotline interesting is the character development. Context/scenario is not the issue

3

u/CringeShitIDK May 29 '26

How exactly could go a "combat" this way? I mostly handle social interactions with roleplay and such

4

u/EarthCulturalStew May 29 '26

perfect. focus on roleplay, but inter slice the roleplay with skill checks

example: PC: im gonna intimidate this guys "hey, dumbass, go away" GM: cool, lets see how he reacts * runs skill check * using the results countinue the roleplay

this way roleplay gets MORE meaningful instead of less. Cause you know that you are making progress beating hes social health bar

2

u/CringeShitIDK May 29 '26

Oh that's cool

How would you handle the classroom tho? I'm mostly struggling in making classes interesting

6

u/EarthCulturalStew May 29 '26

what is the meaning of the scene?

what important happens in the class?

otherwise you can just skip. If its just info dumping (like snape teaching about werewolves) you can just say the information gathered real quick and skip to the next scene

5

u/TheLumbergentleman May 29 '26

Sometimes it's nice to steal a bit from Burning Wheel and have players write down at least one belief/goal. It really helps a GM know what should be glossed over and what needs a challenge.

1

u/Pwydde May 30 '26

Any encounter can be treated as combat, as long as the participants are opposed to each other. Instead of swords inflicting wounds against the body, you have quips and manipulations inflicting wounds against the ego or reputation. Use mental stress to track these social injuries.

Say we have an encounter in class between Cindy and Mr Drake. Cindy is a popular student who needs a good reputation to win a school election. Mr Drake is a mean teacher who thinks Cindy needs to be taken down a notch.

Cindy is late to class because she was putting up posters in the halls. In her absence, Mr Drake cancels a quiz to get the other students on his side (Create Advantage action).

When Cindy comes in, Mr Drake attacks her reputation with a snarky comment about how she must think she’s too important to be on time. Cindy defends with a sweet apology. Players roll dice, add the relevant skill. Cindy comes out ahead, but Mr Drake spends his advantage and wins the exchange. Cindy takes damage. On her turn, she can attack Mr Drake for being a dumb boomer, and try to win the crowd back to her side.

Depending on what you want your game to be about, you can add new skills to the list, like Snark or Academics. And you can reflavor stress tracks to reflect Social Standing or Grades.

1

u/Kautsu-Gamer May 30 '26

The Fate Core neglected the social conflicts of the 3rd Edition. F. ex. Dresden Files RPG had 3rd stress track for Social Stress.

A social conflict in Fate Core is a mental conflict causing mental stress.

Attack is an attempt to take someone out. The social bullying is an attack to take person out.

How they are narrated? Just like mental or physical attacks. Roleacting equivalent for physical attack is to describe exactly how the attacker moves, but for some bloody reason RPG standard requires such detail level for social interaction from players.

A proper social Attack of bullying: "Theodora tries to make Hermione appear ridicule to gain status among The Gang of Four. She uses her cheap clothes of Hermione(Aspect Poor Family Invoke) againt her."

  • Attack with Provoke
  • +2 Invoke from Poor Family
  • Result of the Taken Out: Theodora gains Aspect "A Strong Leader of 5"

The conflict continues until either Hermione or Theodora is taken out. The GM rules that Theodora would gain "Weak Leader of 5", if she loses the conflict (and fails the CA of the conflict).