Mutant High School

[Mutant for Hire]

Premise: a school for mutants of all power strengths and types, with the concept of training these mutants in how to control their powers and how to protect themselves from being killed or enslaved. There is also a strong emphasis on moral and responsible use of powers so these kids don't turn into supervillains.

School Slang Terminology:

ace - strong mutant or exceptional skill
agent - sidekick with social skills ace lacks (see "sidekick")
bird/birdie - flyer
blaster - energy projector
blip/blipper - fast teleporter
blur - speedster
bowl - hit someone in a weakness or with an overwhelming attack (see "pin")
bouncer - someone who defends by dodging
brick - er, brick
crunchy - someone with no defenses
cripple - someone who uses crutches (see "crutches")
crutches equipment used in lieu of powers
cyborg - someone whose powers work on or are augmented by tech
deuce - weak mutant or lousy skills
fan club - group of zeros/deuces around an ace
freak - someone with physical mutations
freak out - see spew
greenie - nature powers
headcase - mental powers
hyper - speedser who uses their powers a lot
ice - cryokinetic, to use cryokinesis
joker - strange/exotic/unique or unknown powers
lois - zero/deuce SO of an ace
mega - very strong powers
mental - someone with mental powers
mindblind - non-telepath
morph - universal shapeshifter
morpher - morph or transformer
multi - has a set of unrelated powers (e.g. blaster/brick)
musclehead - brick
mutt - animal powers or were-creature
pin - someone with a serious vulnerability or weak defenses (ie bowling pin)
port/porter - teleporter
precog - precognative
pyro - pyrokinetic
roach - someone with serious defenses
sidekick - zero/deuce who hangs around an ace
snoop - spying powers (eg. telepathy, clairvoynace, or shapeshift)
spew - using powers in a wild/uncontrolled fashion (see "toilet")
supers - those with powers
target - someone big or bad at dodging
techhead - cyberkinesis or cybernetic telepathy or gadgeteer
teek - telekinetic
teep - telepath
toilet - someone not in control of their powers
toilet training - learning to control powers
tweak - to use a small amount of power usually in some subtle fashion
wall - force field, to use a force field (really a force wall)
wallet - a rich student who bankrolls their friends
wannabe - 1) zero/deuce who hangs around aces, 2) ace playing at superhero
wanker - someone who uses their powers all the time
witch - female mentalist or mesmerist
wizard - someone with a vast range of powers
xeno - 1) non-human or really mutated/atlered human 2) something weird or unkown
zero - someone with no powers

[Mutant for Hire]

What are the differences between a normal high school and a mutant high school? The nested heirarchy of popularity within seniority (ie each class has its own heirarchy bsaed on popularity) is replaced by a nested heirarchy of power within each class, with social skills/looks/wealth tending to come in second. The fact of the matter is that the strongest mutants become the top of the heirarchy and the weakest ones generally either attach themselves to the stronger mutants in some ways or simply dwell at the bottom.

Even so, there is a great deal more politeness within this social system. The deuces lack power but they have a few tricks in their favor. They have numbers, solidarity, and they also know that the aces are shackled from total return warfare. Any ace who develops a reputation for being a bully to deuces tends to become the victim of a long and nasty serious of pranks. Deuces lack power but they are experts on tweaking, even more so than aces. Often these mutants have fine control their peers lack. The telekinetic can't lift cars but they can pick locks. Deuces by nature and necesity are very cooperative. Aces tend to have bigger egoes and more rivalry.

In hunter/gatherer societies where all the adults had weapons and knew how to use them, there was often a great emphasis on politeness and care at avoiding giving offense by accident. While mutant high schools don't quite go to that extent, there is an unwritten rule that if the deuces politely get out of the way of the aces and defer to them, the aces won't do anything in return, and likwise the deuces won't prank the aces. Of course this custom is violated on a regular basis, or at least its limits pushed, but for the most part everyone keeps things from exploding out of control. No one wants to bring the teachers down on them.

One of the fundamental tensions that these mutant students face is to hang out with people with the same powers or with those of different powers. To some extent it depends heavily on what one wants. To take an example, bricks spending time with other bricks can relax with people they can casually roughhouse with without breaking anything by accident. Bricks often worry about dating non-bricks for the danger of accidentally damaging things. For telepaths, there is a relief at not being with the mindblind. And of course speedsters like people who can keep up with them. Flyers too for that matter. There is a commonality of experience and sense of belonging that comes with spending time with people with the same powers.

The flip side is that a brick can stand out more among non-bricks. Hanging out with a non-brick, they become a popular person in the group any time excessive strength is needed (those pesky jar lids). Likewise being the only one in a group with mental awareness helps ease the fears of those around them who are worried about mentalists spying on them. A heterogenous group is much more effective than a homogenous group, which has the weaknesses of a monoculture.

Of course this is more of an issue for aces with strong powers than deuces. In general those aces who are leaning towards a career as a superhero form a circle of friends who have a mixed group of powers. They also attend the telepath club or the brick club or whatever organization is set up around certain powers, and attend that group from time to time. Deuces have tendencies in this direction, but not as strong as their powers generally don't dominate their lives. When you can only levitate a brick at full power, you find other uses for your powers in general.

Circles or teams as they are called really are ace things, not deuce things, and a lot of the entertainment for the deuces in these schools is watching the aces playing all sorts of social games with each other. In general the heirarchy is settled by who is stronger, though they have to be very careful about determining who is stronger. Teachers tend to frown on open battles. Of course the internal cohesion of these teams isn't the strongest and so individuals do a lot of moving around between teams. That is part of the mutant high school soap opera.

Not everyone at these schools is necessarily going to want to become a superhero. Most of them are learning self-defense to cope with anti-mutant prejudice (presuming it exists) or they're worried about what might happen if someone attempts to recruit/enslave them. Deuces and aces with non-combat powers (powerful precognatives or clairvoyants) are really the types to get that sort of training. Learn to control them, use them to their greatest extent but otherwise lead normal lives. Not all aces are even interested in such a profession, just wanting to learn control so they can lead normal lives and self-defense to keep their normal lives. But just as some jocks hope for athletic scholarships, some kids are gunning to be superheroes someday. Circles of these types plan to go on as teams but few outlive high school. Much like high school rock bands, come to think of it..

Teachers in these schools are a very dedicated (or masochistic) lot. In general forbidding all use of powers is next to impossible. In general they focus on preventing cheating on schoolwork and on anyone getting hurt. They focus most of their attention on the aces, recoginizing their greater potential for havoc. The general technique for dealing with aces, developed after trial and error is to coopt them into the system. In general aces are held to a higher level of discipline, but they are also given greater power and authority within the school system. When these schools are under attack, the techers rely in part on the aces to help the teachers protect the deuces. Of course it doesn't always work out and there is at least one mutant reform school.

This technique is not without some controversy, by those who charge discrimination against deuces. It is true, to some extent, but the teachers point out that aces are held to a higher standard than deuces are in these cases. They are simply having to deal with the fact that some students just are more powerful than others. The philosophical ideal of equality breaks down when you have people who can bend paperclips with their mind on one end and virtual demigods on the other end. Treating those two equally as equals just runs into problems.

[Jae Sun Lee]

I like!

Currently, I am a player in a Mutant High kinda game. I am passing on this link to our GM

[Mastermind]

Me too!

[Mutant for Hire]

Thankee. I just sat there and tried to think about what the hell of my high school experience suddenly had everyone started developing varying powers of varying degrees.

The slang was one of the things that I tried to come up with as well to instill a greater sense of versimilatude.

[Tim]

great idea, consider it stolen!

I'm going to be running a super high game soon, but only a really small school with normal students also.

TimS.

[nHammer]

Sweet Jesus man, that was pretty fook'n good. I think you really capture a viable school enviroment for those with superpowers.

How about making this an article in Digital Hero?

[Mutant for Hire]

Originally posted by Tim
great idea, consider it stolen!

I'm going to be running a super high game soon, but only a really small school with normal students also.

TimS.

Expect there to be a divide between normal students and the rest of the powered students. The heirarchy of power in the powered group is still going to hold out. Of course martial artists and techno-geniuses can manage to hold their own.

There are interesting divides there. The students with inheremt powers see the ones lacking such powers as inferior. The gadgeteers see themselves as superior because they worked for their powers and can upgrade them at will. The martial artists also have this worth ethic chip on their shoulder. Remember the wonderful tendency in high school to elevate your own peer group above all others.

Of course gadgeteers have problems at school because most schools frown on kids walking around with all sorts of fancy weaponry even at the best of times.

And remember the natural tendency of students to "bunch up" automatically provides you with your PC group, as well as rival NPC groups. And there's even a justification for a diverse group of powers in the group as well. A brick prefers to hang out with non-bricks because they stand out and are more useful around non-bricks, for example.

Expanding on a previous post, the really powerful students are likely to be the ones to get an entourage of low powered students or non-students. Star power and all that. No decently strong mutant is for the most part going to want to be the sidekick or flunky of someone else, but for a low power mutant, they're already on the low end of the social spectrum. By patronage of a powerful fellow student they rise in status.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Hate to say this, but you just broke apart your own school.

Think about what you just posted: 'gadgeteers', 'martial artists', 'normals'. This isn't Mutant High, this is Teen Champions In a Box. Either go with Mutant High, or go build the Teen Titans or some such, but don't fumble the two together.

If you're going to build Mutant High, -everyone- is a mutant -- from the guy with photographic lightning reflexes to the kid who can breath (and talk) underwater to the chicken-looking guy who can (if he tries really hard) fly. You may very well have massive clique-building (see current X-Men issues with the 'expanded school' for examples), but you aren't going to have 'gadgeteers and gizmoteers' over here, 'martial artists' over there, and 'mutants' over that way; they're all mutants, so they all know that their particular abilities aren't earned, they're inborn.

'Gadgeteers' will probably be your brainy clique, while 'martial artists' are more likely going to be your speedster clique; since these are all MUTANTS, there's a completely different flow going instead of 'hey, I can upgrade' or 'gee, I really worked hard, you're a slacker'. Arrogance of a different type may exist -- consider Quicksilver (various X-Groups) or Northstar (Alpha Flight, now X-Men), two total pricks with cause, or who considered themselves to have cause. As Pietro once said, "Imagine how it feels standing behind an old woman who can't use the ATM. I feel like that all the time." Arrogance of a different type may set in, but it's of the sort of 'I betcha I can kick your ass if I wanted to' thing that gamers do with their characters all the time.

Also, you should probably decide whether it's Charlie Xavier's School for Mutants, or Emma Frost's Massachusetts Acadamy with Mutants On The Side. The first accepts ONLY mutants, while the second accepted normals but had a 'school within a school' -- and a secret one at that, the mutants automatically becoming their own clique. If you want a broad mutant base, enough to have 'power/ability dynamics', to accept normals is the kiss of death, because like in any school, brawls will break out, and when powers are involved -- especially the untrained powers of new mutants -- Norm Deaths Will Surely Follow.

[Mutant for Hire]

Originally posted by Wyrm Ouroboros
Hate to say this, but you just broke apart your own school.

Think about what you just posted: 'gadgeteers', 'martial artists', 'normals'. This isn't Mutant High, this is Teen Champions In a Box. Either go with Mutant High, or go build the Teen Titans or some such, but don't fumble the two together.

Didn't think it through all that carefully, and this isn't my school. I'd need a lot more details about the school proposed to try to figure it out. I was just playing off the idea that in addition to the mutants you had the really talented martial artists and gadgeteers. Teen Champions is a bit different from Mutant HS, more than a little, I agree.

If you're going to build Mutant High, -everyone- is a mutant -- from the guy with photographic lightning reflexes to the kid who can breath (and talk) underwater to the chicken-looking guy who can (if he tries really hard) fly. You may very well have massive clique-building (see current X-Men issues with the 'expanded school' for examples), but you aren't going to have 'gadgeteers and gizmoteers' over here, 'martial artists' over there, and 'mutants' over that way; they're all mutants, so they all know that their particular abilities aren't earned, they're inborn.

Agreed. The social dynamics are going to remain what they usually are. Torn between the need to fit in and the need to stand out.

Even so in a large enough school you are going to see things like a flyer's club and a telepath's club and a club where people can exclude everyone outside of their group by being able to do something.

'Gadgeteers' will probably be your brainy clique, while 'martial artists' are more likely going to be your speedster clique; since these are all MUTANTS, there's a completely different flow going instead of 'hey, I can upgrade' or 'gee, I really worked hard, you're a slacker'. Arrogance of a different type may exist -- consider Quicksilver (various X-Groups) or Northstar (Alpha Flight, now X-Men), two total pricks with cause, or who considered themselves to have cause. As Pietro once said, "Imagine how it feels standing behind an old woman who can't use the ATM. I feel like that all the time." Arrogance of a different type may set in, but it's of the sort of 'I betcha I can kick your ass if I wanted to' thing that gamers do with their characters all the time.

That is why I said the power heirarchy is going to be that of strength. However you have to realize in some cases you're going to have a paper/scissors/stones sort of issue. The mentalist can fry the brick's brains out while the brick can take the mentalist out with a single punch. Mutually Assured Destruction.

And of course something to remember that the level of violence the students can actually get into is going to be constrained. Serious uses of power could get a student expelled, and may be fairly easy to detect as well. A mutant school on average I think will take the direct use of powers by one student against another pretty seriously. Or for their own benefit.

Expect these schools to have things like psi detectors all over the place to detect clairvoyance and telepathy, especially at exam time. General energy detectors to determine the use of wide a range of powers as possible.

However students will find ways around the system, but violence is going to be dangerous for a student to indulge in, on the superheroic level. The teachers will get involved. Now quiet and sneaky uses of powers are another matter. TK to lift a trick isn't as useful in a high school as TK that can be used to pick a lock or toss a balloon filled with something icky on someone.

Remember that most of the scheming at your typical high school are popularity games.

Also, you should probably decide whether it's Charlie Xavier's School for Mutants, or Emma Frost's Massachusetts Acadamy with Mutants On The Side. The first accepts ONLY mutants, while the second accepted normals but had a 'school within a school' -- and a secret one at that, the mutants automatically becoming their own clique. If you want a broad mutant base, enough to have 'power/ability dynamics', to accept normals is the kiss of death, because like in any school, brawls will break out, and when powers are involved -- especially the untrained powers of new mutants -- Norm Deaths Will Surely Follow.

Agreed. It really boils down to pure mutant or mixed school, and the numbers. The school dynamics shift dramatically with the number of students there. A school like the old New Mutants or Generation X where you only had a few students is much different than a school with a few dozen students.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Mutant for Hire
Didn't think it through all that carefully, and this isn't my school. I'd need a lot more details about the school proposed to try to figure it out. I was just playing off the idea that in addition to the mutants you had the really talented martial artists and gadgeteers. Teen Champions is a bit different from Mutant HS, more than a little, I agree.

Agreed. The social dynamics are going to remain what they usually are. Torn between the need to fit in and the need to stand out.

Even so in a large enough school you are going to see things like a flyer's club and a telepath's club and a club where people can exclude everyone outside of their group by being able to do something.

That is why I said the power heirarchy is going to be that of strength. However you have to realize in some cases you're going to have a paper/scissors/stones sort of issue. The mentalist can fry the brick's brains out while the brick can take the mentalist out with a single punch. Mutually Assured Destruction.

And of course something to remember that the level of violence the students can actually get into is going to be constrained. Serious uses of power could get a student expelled, and may be fairly easy to detect as well. A mutant school on average I think will take the direct use of powers by one student against another pretty seriously. Or for their own benefit.

Expect these schools to have things like psi detectors all over the place to detect clairvoyance and telepathy, especially at exam time. General energy detectors to determine the use of wide a range of powers as possible.

However students will find ways around the system, but violence is going to be dangerous for a student to indulge in, on the superheroic level. The teachers will get involved. Now quiet and sneaky uses of powers are another matter. TK to lift a trick isn't as useful in a high school as TK that can be used to pick a lock or toss a balloon filled with something icky on someone.

Remember that most of the scheming at your typical high school are popularity games.

Agreed. It really boils down to pure mutant or mixed school, and the numbers. The school dynamics shift dramatically with the number of students there. A school like the old New Mutants or Generation X where you only had a few students is much different than a school with a few dozen students.

Concerning the need to maintain discipline among the students - I don't think it is an accident that the mutant schools in Marvel Comics are run by telepaths. That is probably the only type of super that could keept these kids "honest." Except, a technological genius with lots of toys could keep tabs on all these hormonal muties.

[BlackSword]

This is a very interesting idea and quite a bit of thought has gone into it. Also don't forget the late-bloomers, those who have weak powers which end up developing slowly, or later, like the skinny kid that ends up turning into a brick in the summer between junior and senior year. How do people see him and how does he see himself, is he cocky now that he's big or does he still see himself as the skinny kid everyone picked on.

[Mutant for Hire]

If there are any latent mutants at the school, they are going to be handled with care. Excluded but not mistreated, on average. Assuming there's no way to tell what sort of power is going to come in and how strong it is. After all that kid you pick on now might turn out to be stronger than you later.

Again, courtesy becomes more important in an armed society which is what a mutant high school is. Even an American school might develop something along the lines of a Japanese heirarchal structure of careful politeness and recognition of different levels of rank. A Japanese mutant high school (very likely given Hiroshima and Nagasaki) is definitely going to make it easy to tell who is stronger than who.

[PhantomGM6101]

Originally posted by Mutant for Hire
If there are any latent mutants at the school, they are going to be handled with care. Excluded but not mistreated, on average. Assuming there's no way to tell what sort of power is going to come in and how strong it is. After all that kid you pick on now might turn out to be stronger than you later.

Again, courtesy becomes more important in an armed society which is what a mutant high school is. Even an American school might develop something along the lines of a Japanese heirarchal structure of careful politeness and recognition of different levels of rank. A Japanese mutant high school (very likely given Hiroshima and Nagasaki) is definitely going to make it easy to tell who is stronger than who.

Actually there is a superhigh school campaign and it's being played at Yahoo groups. It's called Champions High School and it chronicles the adventures of Teen hero groups and their mentors in missions on or off campus. In addition to the usual travails of super life[secret ids and all] they'll have to deal with the baggage taht comes with teen age life. The teen heroes also have to deal with Peer pressure[being tempted to use thier powers for personal uses like party tricks],Cliques[one of the girl PCs is being selected by the popular girls to join them] ,School bullies[the high school jock's chosen one of the PCs as his patsy----and finds himself on the floor as a result], and dealing with school authorities[a PC is hauled in for detention and is let off when Grond attacks the detention room].
here's the URL for the group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/championshighschoolpt2
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ultimate _Champions
HighSchool
check'em out why don't you.

[Ellis]

It's a really cool idea, but you may want to not use some of the slang you have in there (Ace, Deuce, Joker), since it's part of Wild Cards, and in the event you publish it, that could be a problem.

But a special school for mutant kids is a nice idea.