Super School Boogaloo Two: Ripping Off Quidditch

[Lawnmower Boy]

The current challenge: super student athletics. How would you do it? How would you use (super) high school sports as a plot element?

 

The set up is perfect. Mopy, conflicted, lovelorn teenagers go to a high school where they learn algebra and how to fight supervillains with their awesome powers. Thanks for all the help, guys! But there's lots more that can be done with the setting. For example, J. K. Rowling made huge mileage out of quidditch. P.S. 238 does soccer. This thread is for ....er, homaging those concepts.

 

When I looked a this, I decided that Rowling made a mistake by getting rid of the field trip. So I'm using a high school cricket* league that involves my generic American high school playing others around the world. So you've got Japanese teens linked to the Tokyo Super Squad, the Indian Super Division, Tiger Squad, and, of course, the preppy cross-country rivals at Ravenwood Academy.

 

Now, I'm open to suggestions for staffing these teams or new teams, if you want to offer them, but that's setting the bar for your creativity awfully low. How would you handle this? House leagues, like quidditch? Local league? World-wide? Intergalactic pan-dimensional?

 

And what about the sport? Is it invented, like quidditch? Real, like the X-Men playing soft ball? Modified real one, like PS238 playing soccer?

 

What kind of players do you imagine? A big lug of a Japanese hero who plays in a tuxedo? Shaolin soccer? Rugger for bricks? A shy Japanese-American witch getting a chance to let her hair hang out by juicing up the old horsehide? (Thanks, Major Tom!) All American quarterback? Cheerleaders? Chess club?

 

*Because it seemed like a good idea at the time. That's why.

[Cancer]

Re: Super School Boogaloo Two: Ripping Off Quidditch

 

I think this is a school league, where the schools happen to be scattered more or less world-wide. Whether that affects school rivalries is up to you as a plot element, I would guess.

 

If you make up a sport, decide what elements you want to emphasize. Quidditch was (in the final analysis) just all about catching the snitch, which sets DEX and flight above all else, so the beefy guys are strictly window dressing in such a game. If your game is more like, say, rollerball, then the brick types move more into the limelight.

 

For really strange ideas, you might look over the weirdness of the old Almost Anything Goes series, seeing if you can amalgamate some of the individual elements into a broader single-field team competition. Or, you could look at 43-Man Squamish or Australian Rules Football.

[brionl]

Re: Super School Boogaloo Two: Ripping Off Quidditch

 

Hey, I was going to say 43-man Squamish.

But it depends on how many super-students there are, and how many schools are in the league. With lots of students & lots of schools you could have several sports. Super-football for the bricks, Super-Basketball for the more agile ones. Debating Team/Science Fair for the brainy ones.

For smaller groups of students you could have a combination sport like full-body contact laser-tag. Set up your Danger Room for an urban/jungle/full howling blizzard environment. Put in a couple of objectives, or just go for last man standing. Of course you'd want lots of cameras for spectators.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Super School Boogaloo Two: Ripping Off Quidditch

 

I think this is a school league, where the schools happen to be scattered more or less world-wide. Whether that affects school rivalries is up to you as a plot element, I would guess.

 

If you make up a sport, decide what elements you want to emphasize. Quidditch was (in the final analysis) just all about catching the snitch, which sets DEX and flight above all else, so the beefy guys are strictly window dressing in such a game. If your game is more like, say, rollerball, then the brick types move more into the limelight.

 

For really strange ideas, you might look over the weirdness of the old Almost Anything Goes series, seeing if you can amalgamate some of the individual elements into a broader single-field team competition. Or, you could look at 43-Man Squamish or Australian Rules Football.

 

Quidditch is a great example of an invented game that doesn't work. It's all Harry, all the time, and, to give Rowling credit, she caught on to the problem pretty quickly, but was still stuck with the game as written. Perhaps more importantly at a deeper level, quidditch fails to emphasise the magic at the magic school. It's all about the broomsticks, which seem closer to magic items than spellcasting. Fortunately, Harry-the-Seeker gives narcissists something new to go as on Halloween.

 

League play seems to require set rules, and without leagues, how can you have rivalries?

 

Tackling games seem to be out. Even with healers on the field, you don't actually want bricks tackling mentalists. This is actually the thought process that got me to cricket. Bricks have some outlet for their powers as fast bowlers without overwhelming the field.

[FrankL]

Re: Super School Boogaloo Two: Ripping Off Quidditch

 

Calvin Ball. The ultimately adaptable game.

[Tasha]

Re: Super School Boogaloo Two: Ripping Off Quidditch

 

Or you could use Quidditch as a basis and actually try to adapt it into something that is playable.

 

ie all players either fly or use jet/antigravity packs. Each player has a safety device that cushions a player incase of KO or equipment malfunction (you don't want any dead superkids on the field in case of accidents).

 

You could have a series of Bludgers (ie balls that track quickly moving players as hard as a football tackle). These can be thrown by someone strong enough to over come their flying, and also be influenced by the team's mentalist. Also can be shot at by energy projectors to also change the ball's trajectory. (make it against the rules for anything but a bludger ball contact a player)

 

The Snitch is a quickly moving small thing that is actively trying to dodge players. Finding it. catching it and getting it to the goal (a floating goal the size of a basketball basket).

 

basically you work the game into something that Mentalists, Bricks, Energy projectors, martial artists etc all have roles to play. Quidditch is a great start because it's almost a superheroic game by itself. The rules from the books are ridiculous and need to be changed into something that is actually fun to play and watch.