HylianRose

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

<Snipped quote by HylianRose>

With the context of such a significant power disparity between the years, most especially 4th years being a cut above everyone else, will all PCs being required to start as 1st years? Since dueling is a big part of the RP and unless anime protagonist shenanigans are pulled, I don't see a way anyone can compete with a 4th year PC unless they're a 4th year themself.

I deliberate exclude teachers from the equation because teachers are obviously meant to be a master at their craft, otherwise, they won't be a teacher in the first place lol.

@Izurich

Hmm... I see your point. Maybe we have class rankings instead? That way 1st years compete with 1st years, etc.

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

Alright, the Headmaster is up. If I have time I'll try to get to filling out some of the other major NPC roles, such as the Duel Coordinator.

For now, here are a few of the other Knight/Noble pairings I'd used in the past. They don't have Character sheets like the Headmaster, but I can give you a rough idea of what their dynamic would be/is.

Cain and Criston

Cain Yuver

19 years old
25th Knight
Noble: Criston Cross

Criston Cross

18 years old
Noble
Knight: Cain Yuver

Dynamic: Cain is older and wiser, though still a bit of a trouble maker. Criston is playful and immature, lady's man. Cain has slowly started to pick up on Criston's tendencies and is often there before Criston can get himself into trouble. Criston doesn't much like being a noble and doesn't want to take up his father's work at the nearby Academy. He dreams of being a singer. He tends to treat every day as if it didn't matter.

Cedric and Ethan

Cedric Green

17 years old
Noble
Knight: Ethan Walker

Ethan "Demon" Walker

17 years old
18th Knight
Noble: Cedric Green

Dynamic: Cedric grew up in the family of a mob boss. Though his father wouldn't appreciate him calling him that, but Cedric never wanted for anything. Except for a house that wasn't filled with men who want to fight each other all the damn time. Growing up, Cedric never knew if his father would come home alive and that twisted his reality of how the world works a bit. He is conniving and cut-throat. He will do most anything to get his way. Ethan is a rather depressed young man who just wants to make it through HS. Though he never complains about the way Cedric treats him, he doesn't seem to enjoy it. Still, he never complains and does whatever Cedric asks of him.

Henry, Isaac, Ivan, and Marie

Henry and Isaac McGregor

(Henry = Brown Hair, Isaac = White Hair)
17 years old, Fraternal Twins
1st and 2nd Knight, Henry being Rank 1
Henry's Noble: N/A
Isaac's Noble: Marie Constantin

Marie Constantin

17 years old
Noble
Knight: Isaac McGregor and Henry McGregor

Dynamic: Twin Knights just sounded cool. Henry is the more serious of the two, with Isaac being a bit more fun loving. They both love Miss Marie as she has been their childhood friend from nearly birth. Each of them would do anything to protect her. It took a LOT of coaxing for the school to agree to two knights for one noble, but they eventually did. However, officially, on paper, Henry has no Noble.

Coren and Philip

Corenthia "Coren" Jones

18 years old
3rd Knight "The Sword Stealer"
Noble:

Philip Parish

18 years old
Noble
Knight: Corenthia Jones

Dynamic: Corenthia takes her job VERY seriously. As the daughter of the CEO of the biggest Bodyguard company in the country, she has a lot to live up to. Corenthia, in her own right, should be a noble but chose to be a knight instead. She practices constantly to the point where she doesn't even really know her Noble very well. Philip is young a foolish. His family are rich but don't expect too much of their 3rd son. So, Philip tends to be a lot more... relaxed that most.

I hope this helps a bit? If not, please let me know. Happy to help.

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

I just realized the nearest town is 20 miles away and it takes 30 minutes to walk there.

@Animal

I never claimed to be intelligent. LMAO. I'll fix that at some point. Thanks for pointing it out!

I'm not really sold on ranking-based teams, sort of for the same reason you bring up.

@Crowvette

Could you elaborate on that? What do you mean?

<Snipped quote>

Thank you.

<Snipped quote>

This is a school, so perhaps how they perform in their examinations determines their positioning? I imagine that knights would have more practical examinations.

On the other hand, perhaps it's just social standing?

@Expendable

Hmm... That's a fair point. But I think that the positioning would take into account the entire pair's score. And would rank them together rather than separate them. I/E Rank 1 Knight/Noble are scored together (maybe with different tests) and find that at the next rank announcement, they have moved down to rank 4 and drama ensues where the pair is fighting over who did worse, etc.

And yes, the ranks are mostly social standing. Think about it like the Score list in Japan where students are listed for all to see with their scores. It's important for the Nobles that they are ranked highly if they want good jobs and good futures.

I'll post the examples here shortly!

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

I feel like it'd be kind of fun to have a split of old-world nobility and more contemporary people of power, there could be tension there where neither generally see eye to eye but have to interact since they're all playing on the same field. Perhaps that could be the difference between nations where some have nobility still and others (probably like America since it was brought up) have different systems entirely.

Perhaps Saint Valerius has a pretty well-defined amount of classic nobility students, but has got attention from other people wealthy or powerful enough to send students recently, and have got a number of people who may be foreign to the overall culture but are still there for the education offered? It could be a small side plot if characters "from abroad" are made.

<Snipped quote by Animal>

Magical firearms would probably be way easier to write duels with than actual ones if we're having any at all, though I'm not married to having them either way.

@Crowvette

If we really wanted to spice things up, we could do things similarly to Fire Emblem Three houses and have students there that aren't necessarily there because they want to be but because of politics, they are there as an olive branch or a power move, etc.

@Expendable

I'll post the Headmaster and some of the example pairings soon. The example pairings were never super fleshed out, but I can give rough ideas of their dynamic.

@ERode

That's pretty good! I think we could potentially take bits from that to our world. Like, commoners typically don't have magic. And it's outlawed for them to have it so when little peasant boys and girls (the common folk) have powers, their parents force them to hide it or their children risk getting taken away.

As for the drama bit, I don't necessarily mind that as long as we're all able to interact. My biggest concern with "solo" anything is that the player will get stuck by themselves and basically write their character in this little bubble, separated from others. Which is fine for a time, but I just want to avoid that. IF you join a public, large group RP to write by yourself, good on you. But maybe just go write by yourself. So, to reiterate, yeah I'm fine with pairings changing and for there to be solo knights or nobles. Maybe a Noble lost their knight who went to become the knight for a more powerful noble, or maybe they died along time ago? I think there's some potential there for fun.

@Crowvette@Expendable

Hmm... That wasn't necessarily in the original plans, since a Knight/Noble pairing is meant to be a strong bond, but I suppose if we think about it their first Knight might not always be the best fit. I certainly don't mind having a first week were there are little to no pairings and the characters are getting introduced to one another however I do find that moments like that, we tend to get lost in the weeds, so to speak. We'll spend so much time on the intro and pairings that we'll never get to the good story bits. That's my only caveat to that.

Otherwise, I'm perfectly fine with whatever we'd prefer to do with the pairings. I certainly do like that top knight and top nobles get paired, but I also think that we might run into trouble with that potentially? Feel free to shake me out of my thoughts if I'm being weird or too critical but if Rank 1 Knight and Noble are incredibly good together, how does one fall rank before the other? How would Rank 1 Knight lose their position with Rank 1 Noble or vice versa?

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

<Snipped quote by HylianRose>

As long as those hard limits also apply to adults (which practically means there are no minor-exclusive hard limits), then I'm very sure I can adapt without any nagging feeling, because they're off limits, period, regardless of the age of the fictional character in question.

That said, once you confirm my statement above, I believe this discussion will be over.

@Izurich

Oh! I'm sorry, yes! The exclusions absolutely would apply to all characters. Sorry if I made it seem like it would only apply to the child characters. That's not the case at all!

Speaking generally, I think we can just treat this in the standards of modern shounen anime?

Violence is A-Ok, and characters are allowed to explore their sexuality, but no on-screen sex, no portrayals of drug use by characters, and I feel like we can all agree that sexual harrassment and assault is super fucking awkward to just flatout write out in public? Generally I don't make a distinction in terms of the age of the characters myself; I just default to that sorta ruleset no matter how old the kiddos are.

I personally say 'one hit = loss' for the Duel setup though. Like, considering the presence of poisons and curses and all, just a scratch upon your Noble's pretty face could have massive consequences. Don't want the Knights to start approaching their actual bodyguarding careers with the reflex of "Nah, I can let two hits pass".

For TTRPGs, it largely just depends on whether or not you want to have stats to begin with. I'd say that flat modifiers and extra dice could exist together though. One indicates that a skill is more consistent, while the other one indicates that a skill is more risky. Could have people's natural dice pool exist in tiers too, so say, a beginner Knight naturally rolls with a 2d6, while a more experienced Knight naturally rolls with a 3d6.

The plot itself will definitely have to be figured out though. Right now, the state of the world itself seems kinda nebulous, so it's personally hard for me to imagine what would happen to the school. Like, what do Nobles do? Why are there Knights, rather than professional bodyguards with guns and shades? If there are Nobles, does that mean monarchies are still in place for powerful nations? What's America doing? etc.

@ERode

As usual, excellent points and questions! I'll try to address them piecemeal.

For the first part about violence and sexual acts, etc, I agree. That's a very good way to address it and treat it.

The one hit k/o definitely made me chuckle because you are correct. The dice roll could just determine who got hit first and then it's up to the writers to write out how that happened.

I'm pretty opposed to a stats system. While I do think it could be fun, I think it does lean us as someone mentioned previously more towards the ttrpg side of the site. Which, I don't want to do. I just want an easy way to determine who would win to avoid any arguments players might have over fights. I do really like the idea of number of dice being affixed to the year/seniority of the character and then the abilities then modifying that roll if that's something that we'd like to do. Again, I'd likely be handling rolls just to keep things fair for all which means that a lot of these roll things aren't something you'll even really need to worry about. Just, "hey rose, A and B are going to duel, can you roll to see who wins?" I'll go to their sheets, make the rolls and respond, "Here's the scores! Looks like A will win this duel by a small margin."

I'm definitely in agreement concerning plot and the world itself. Let's see if we can't figure that out together as well.

Questions to Answer
What are the Roles of Nobles?

Nobles are the elite of the world. They are the future leaders, the CEOs, the Business men and women. They are at this academy to learn and to grow as future leaders of the world to make it a better place. Nobles are often from families that have existed for centuries and are tied to former royalty in the nation. You can think of them like land owning dukes, lords, and such. Many of them are setting up to become mayors, governors, political party leaders, etc.

Why Knights and not Pro Bodyguards?

Let's assume that 'Knights' are like pro-bodyguards, or will be once they've grown up. The idea behind the Knight/Noble pairing is that the Noble grows up with the Knight and develops a level of trust with them as they grow together. It's meant to be an incredibly close bond and the Knight is meant to act not only as their bodyguard but as their support. I.E. A Knight should be able to do anything a Noble can do in order to help support their success.

My thoughts for this were set on tradition. We can make a decision on whether or not guns exist in this world, but for the purpose of the RP, let's assume that regardless guns are prohibited in the school. At most, they might hold gun safety/gun classes where they teach you how to use a gun. However, the duel is meant to be a more traditional, cultural thing. Something that has developed over time in their culture into the event that it is today. Obviously I'm fine with expanding that more and understand that it might not explain everything.

Monarchies?

The original thought was that Monarchies do exist but only as a show, not necessarily a bit part of the government. However, I am not at all opposed to Monarchies existing and there being kings/queens, princes/princesses, etc. I quite like that sort of stuff so I certainly wouldn't say no.

America?

I mean... If England still has Monarchies, who's to say America doesn't too. But maybe they don't follow the duel traditions and have a different way of teaching, educating and otherwise preparing their elite for the world.

@The Savant

I absolutely agree.

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

<Snipped quote by HylianRose>

Understood, thank you for your wisdom and respect for differences in preferences.

For context, I'm in my early 30s, and I've been roleplaying for almost 2 decades now, which meant I started in my teenage years, from then till now, I've never let the age of fictional characters ever affect me from writing the story I want to tell.

I grew up with Doraemon (the Adventure series is most relevant to this topic), Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, etc. In all of those aforementioned fictional series, plenty of heavy stuff ranging from violence to SA happened to minors as well as adults. I've never felt discomfort because one, I know being a minor doesn't somehow make you immune to them, and two, they're fictional, they're - essentially - storytelling tools.

Regardless, I'll always respect your authority as the GM as this is your world and here, your word is law.

So, with that said about yourself and myself, if we can find a middle ground that satisfies us both, it'll be awesome, but if not, then it's no issue.

@Izurich

Absolutely! I've been RPing since my teenage years as well and as a younger person never really thought about it as much, but as I grew into adulthood, I started to be a bit more uncomfortable with how minors are some times portrayed in writing and in stories. At least, I think I have. I'm not sure if that's a product of pop culture and the media manifesting itself, but there is still some level of discomfort I feel deep down with it. And if I'm honest, I'm finding difficulty in placing the feelings into words. Because I do absolutely agree with you and I do think we can come to a compromise as writers. For now, I'm okay with things happening to our characters as they would adults, with the except of those things that I find to be hard limits for myself in writing. Sometimes heavy topics can be difficult to deal with on any given day just based on all the other stress you've had to deal with in the day.

I want to be sure, regardless of the age of our characters, that at the end of the day writing is a fun past time. If you can agree to that, then I think we'll have no issues RPing together.

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

That reminds me, do mythical creatures exist in this world?

@Animal

I've thought about that! And considering there is magic, I wouldn't be opposed. Though I do think it would be fun if they were incredibly mythical. Like no one thinks they're real, not even the teachers. So when one does show up, very rarely, it's more.. impactful?

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

<Snipped quote by HylianRose>

Thank you in return for being patient and not make wild assumptions when I brought up these kind of topics.

To make long story short, essentially, I do not put fictional minors on a pedestal, I don't see them as deserving any special treatment, I enjoy stories that does not tip-toe around the fact that all sorts of things can happen to people, just people, regardless of age.

If a story strays away from gore, sexual matters, or other heavy stuff on a meta-narrative level because the author wishes to maintain a certain atmosphere, then that's fine, but if the story does so specifically because the characters aren't adults? Then... I'll respectfully disagree and will live and let live, I do not agree with such sentiments but I won't fault them for having those either, and in such situations, the best way to avoid needless conflict due to subjective preferences is to stay out of each other's way.

@Izurich

Honestly, you do make a great point. Things do happen to minors in real life just like anyone else and censoring that is taking away from level of realism and reality from the world. I suppose then, my points do still hold that I don't want to read details of gore and/or drugs etc but more on the level of regardless of age. I keep thinking about things like My Hero Academy and how they handle drama and heavy topics because those are children and things do happen to them. People die, children have their abilities taken from them, hurt horribly. And I don't really think twice about it other than enjoying the story. I think it may just take some time for me to get away from this idea and this discomfort of being 29 and writing stories where children are the subject. But that's not something I need to project onto you or this story.

However, there are still limits to things and as you said, compromises that need to take place in a group rp. We need to be aware of everyone's limits and what they are comfortable reading/writing/interacting with. I fully believe that heavier plots should be discussed with all writers who might be involved prior to implementation. I'm not going to include a character who was a survivor of SA without first clearing it with ALL who might need to read or interact with it.

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

@HylianRose Hmmm, you made some good points, but I need to settle something with you to properly gauge whether I'll fit with the vibe of the RP or not.

Right now, to me, between this part:
<Snipped quote by HylianRose>
Plus your rather extensive elaboration about limits, all tied to one aspect, the ages of these fictional characters, I have the feeling that we won't see eye-to-eye in how we see fictional characters as storytelling tools. Personally, I do not like to censor my creativity, but I understand that in a group RP, compromises and concessions are inevitable, so I just wish to know whether or not we're too different in the way we enjoy fiction.

If we don't, great, then we can work something out, but if not, I'd rather we find out now rather than later, save the both of us the potentially wasted effort and all that.

@Izurich

Honestly, very fair and thank you for wording it so respectfully.

In what ways do you see this potentially censoring your creativity? I'm trying to understand, I guess, what the real question is here? I think, from my perspective, I'd just like to be careful about portraying minors because they are so young. Not that I think anyone would portray them in a bad/poor way. Hmm...

When you say characters are story telling tools, what do you mean by that?

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

Alright, so I'm going to try and cover a few people at once per topic so that everything is a bit more cohesive.

1. Age. Seems like the majority either want High School age or are ambivalent towards the ages of the characters. After thinking about it myself (and considering things like Pokemon and My Hero Academia ages) I think I'd be perfectly fine with playing characters age 16-18. I just think that, considering my own age, we need to be very careful and cognizant of how we are portraying minors. I don't think it will be an issue, but I just want to say it all the same.

2. I want the combat to still be mostly story-driven. The idea here is to create an exciting fight and have an end result that contributes to the over-all story and plot of our world we're building here. I do think that people's suggestions (thank you to @ERode and @Duoya) concerning changing from a d20 to a d6 system. I did want to ask if you had any more suggestions for that? Should major and minor abilities modify the roll as a plus numerical or should they add a d6 to your roll. I'm not super familiar with TTRPGs outside of Pathfinder/Savage Worlds/Deadlands so any help and advice there is appreciated for the betterment of the RP as a whole.

3. Seems like most people want to keep the NPCs open and a little vague until it's necessary that they are.. no longer vague. I do really like the idea that @ERode mentioned regarding making 1-2 NPC characters that have some relationship/connection with your main character. Maybe they were childhood friends that became estranged due to drama between families. Maybe this person is someone that used to work at their home (one of the faculty in this case), etc.

Something that I used to do as a DM for DnD is have people create characters, give me some back story, and then I gave each character a connection to the others. For example, let's say player A creates a delinquent knight and player B creates a Noble who's father is the head of the Police Department for the area. I might PM both players and let them know that Player B's character knows about Player A's character's reputation and is keeping tabs on them. Things like that that might connect characters a bit more organically? Obviously, you guys can do things like that too. I think it's important that the world feels real, alive. Otherwise it's all just separate character who have no reason to interact with one another.

4. Seems like the consensus here is to start off more light and care-free but slowly develop into something a bit darker. I'd love to hear some of the ideas here for what kind of darker plot we can get into. I can formulate ideas, but those are my ideas and what I might find fun. I want to know what YOU find fun. I also want to know what people's boundaries are. I don't anticipate getting too heavy with such young characters, but I don't think death is necessarily off the table. But I want to gauge everyone's level of comfort and how far they're willing to go. I'm going to classify this RP as like.. E for everyone? But obviously drama is best served when there are real stakes involved. So.. but anyway, please just let me know what your limits are. For me, I'm a bit iffy on things like drugs and anything sexual (obviously considering the age of the characters) and explicit descriptions of gore. I'm fine with things like loss of limb/etc, death, etc but I don't want it described. Like.. for example, if there's a revolution and a rogue band of rebels comes through because the school still support the current prime minister (or what have you) and they take the life of a random npc student or something. I would deem that a pretty heavy topic I'd want to discuss with you all prior to introducing it.

I also want to start off with a lighter plot to begin with, that much I know. Something with lower stakes like the gossip Douya mentioned. As always if you have ideas, please send!

5. @ERode, I honestly love your idea here. I think that adding Nobles in the fights gives them more stakes and does make sense lore/world wise why the duels even take place. This world is pretty but only on the surface level. Underneath it's nasty and violent (marginally at least). I also think we could fluff it a bit, kind of like laser tag? you know how the chest thingy lights up when it's been hit? Maybe the barrier has a system built in where it can take three hits before it throws an alarm to stop the fight and that a victor has been decided.

@Duoya Let me take some time to brainstorm some class ideas as well as advantages that ranks might have. I'm thinking classes would be your general core education classes like a normal HS might have, but along side PE you might have mandatory "Duel Ed" or "Offensive/Defensive Magic". And Extras like Practical Magic or Business. If you guys have any ideas for classes or privileges that might be given to the top ranked students, please let me know!

Now to address questions and everything else;

@Fading Memory

I personally have no qualms with someone just hanging out!

@Expendable

I'm thinking somewhere in between. European inspired but not an exact match if that makes sense. Mostly so we can have some wiggle room if we need to change up Europe to suit our story needs. You absolutely can have npc servants as a noble! Your Knight would likely be your main bodyguard, but I don't think I'm opposed to them having more than one body guard. That is something we can decide together. I'm going to spend time this weekend (hopefully) creating a spreadsheet for the dorms so we can easily track who rooms with who, who stays where, etc. But that's still up for debate and your input. I personally like them needing to share a room with another noble because that lends itself to even more interaction which is important for an RP like this to thrive. But if you're confident your noble would still interact in a meaningful way with other characters, then I don't mind their money getting them some special treatment.

---

I do have some example pairings that I made previously when I had NPCs for this RP. If you'd like me to share them, I'd be happy to.

If I didn't answer your question or you feel like I ignored you, please, please let me know!