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Eldritch High puts players into the roles of students at the Alexander Circe Academy for the Study of the Esoteric and Eldritch Arts - a four year high school that locates teens that have magical powers, shelters them, and aims to direct them on the proper path.
A ton of roleplaying potential is packed into this little 39-page RPG, which is played with a deck of standard playing cards for each player and the headmaster (GM).
Characters are created by answering questions about their background - Where are you from?, What do you look like?, What is your stereotype?, etc. - and then choosing their class schedule and electives. Players choose a class that their character is a Prodigy, select Gifts (Elven Blood, Teacher's Pet, etc.), and choose one of the five dorms for their character to take up residence. All of these items are filled out on a character sheet that resembles a class schedule form.
Each of these details grants them bonuses in potential Risks, those moments when a character attempts an action. A Risks involves pulling cards from the deck - one card for freshman, two for sophomores, and so on - plus any bonus cards from Gifts, Dorm, and so on. Drawing 10 or more value in cards allows the player to take narrative control of the story, and any unused cards can be saved for additional opportunities to add details to the story.
The game is formatted to model the high school experience - game sessions represent a week of a semester, players choose how much of their character's downtime is spent on studying, practicing, and goofing off - each with potential benefits for the character. An extensive Headmaster section that covers metaplots, dating (including brief rules for character romance), exploration, and more.
If all of this seems somewhat familiar, and you're wondering if this RPG could be stripped down and refitted to play in the world of a very popular series of fantasy school novels - the simple answer is yes. But the setting presented here is intriguing enough to encourage running it as is.
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