The Time The Genre Characters The Rules The Cast

     Mr. and Mrs. Wimble are away for the weekend leaving their perfectly normal 16-year old son Eric in charge of the house, and we all know what that means:

      The Genre:   Ninja High School is set in the genre of the wacky teen comedies pioneered by Japanese cartoonist Rumiko Takahashi, whose manga serve as the source for numerous anime series (Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2, and Tenchi) and the inspiration for American games and comics such as Teenagers from Outer Space and Ninja High School. The basic concept: Take a normal high school setting right out of TV, complete with teen angst, school pranks, the prom, nerds versus jocks, romantic rivalries, cutting classes, and all the other usual cliches. Then add ninjas, aliens, giant robots, ancient prophecies, mad scientists, witches, caped superheroes, time travel, talking animals, magic slippers, lost civilizations, radioactive spiders, and insane super-intelligent computers. If you can imagine Happy Days or Saved by the Bell crossed with every comic book ever written then you've got the idea.
     Ninja High School (the live game) is based loosely on the Ninja High School comic book, though, with a few exceptions, none of the actual characters from the N.H.S. comic book will be used, just the general setting (your average American high school), tone (free-for-all farce), and gimmicks (just about anything bizarre). This specific game is also a sequel to three earlier Ninja High live games I've run: Episode 1: the Substitute, Episode 2: Chem Lab, and Episode 3: Lunch! Unlike those games, which had pre-generated characters, players in Episode 4, though free to reprise characters from earlier episodes, have the chance to create their own unique characters.

      Making a Character:   To submit a character for NHS Episode 4, simply send your answers to the following questions to smartin@library.ucla.edu. Character submission deadline is April 1, 2002. Late submissions will be accepted but will be less detailed. Similarly, early submissions will more strongly affect the plot and the game -- if you're one of the early character submissions, don't worry about naming rivals and friends. As characters arrive I'll be putting them up on the web site and you'll be able to fill in those details later in the process.

1. What is your name (the real you)?
2. What is your character's name?
3. Is your character a stereotypical teen archetype (examples: football player, class clown, star athlete, teacher's pet, over-achiever, science geek, dropout, drama queen, rich kid, party animal), a fantastic archetype (examples: alien visitor, ninja princess, time traveller, new age witch, mad scientist, chivalrous knight, battle-mech fighter, evil necromancer, Rambo, Sherlock Holmes), or some mix of the two? Note that despite the seeming power dominance of the fantastic roles, the mundane teen roles all have equally valuable game powers - this is a world in which an alien spaceship can be taken over with a laptop computer, Attila the Hun becomes putty in the hands of the prettiest girl in school, and a horde of rampaging zombies can be sent to detention by the authority of the hall monitor.
4. Every NHS character has a secret. What is your embarrassing secret which you don't want anyone else to know? (Your secret may double as the answer for one or more of the other questions.)
5. What is the over-arching motivation for your character? (Examples: greed, lust, power, food, knowledge, romance)
6. All NHS characters are involved somehow in a romantic rivalry. Is your character the object of a romantic rivalry? If so are you a clueless individual totally oblivious to the fierce competition for your affection, or are you a heartless heartthrob ruthlessly manipulating your suitors for amusement? If you are NOT the object of a romantic rivalry, then who is the object of your affection and who are your competitors for his/her attention?
7. All NHS characters are involved in some kind of rivalry to be the best at some sort of sport, skill, or other endeavor. What is the field in which you must excel and who are your rivals?
8. Which other characters are your friends? For each friend, make up some past adventure which you shared.
9. Do you know anything about the aliens or why they are here? Be creative!

      The Rules:   All abilities will be handled by cards which should say everything you need to know on them. Most abilities will be totally unique, so I can't give many general rules, just read them carefully.
      One type of card everyone will have is an "ID Card". This card will contain various coded information on it. Certain players have abilities that let them see your ID Card under specific conditions. If someone asks to see it, show it to them, but pretend you don't know that anything unusual is happening. Do not reveal the actual codes to other players or what the codes mean. For example, if you discover that Mary K. is an alien you can tell people "Hey, Mary K. is an alien!" but not "Hey, anyone with a Q on their ID card is an alien!" or "Hey, Mary K. has a smiley face on her card, anyone know what that means?"
      In a complete turnaround from my normal GMing style, combat will be handled entirely by the referees. If you want to fight someone then simply start acting it out. Doesn't matter if you're using lasers, katanas, or fisticuffs, just start "play-fighting" with your opponent(s). Remember, this is anime combat, so it should include lots of posing, martial arts cries, and announcements of what type of attack you're using. (Example: "Ha-YA! I shall slice you with my mighty Cheese Shredder of Doom! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!", then strike a dramatic pose and hold it for ten seconds. Repeat with variations.) Combat continues in this vein until a ref shows up and tells you the results. Any time before the ref shows up, combat can end with no effect on anybody if all combatants agree -- it was just a frantic five-minute flurry of sword slashes, fireballs, laser blasts, and mental attacks in which nothing and no one was actually struck.
      Combat can have one and only one possible effect on your opponent: knocking him out for a minute. You can't kill or maim anyone, just knock them out for sixty second -- even with nuclear fire breath or a +5 vorpal chainsaw. On the other hand, combat can cause massive damage to the physical environment around you, up to and including destruction of the entire house. So be careful, or Eric's parents will be miffed when they return to the smoking ruin that was their home.

      List of Characters: