Campaign set in an university

[Kilmore]

I'm starting a campaign set in an university. The characters are first level, with an additional character level so they can multiclass or choose a race. They will be the children of nobles, churchmen, educators, or other priveleged characters, perhaps even their own older PC's. The characters will still be learning their character classes at the University as my campaign setting doesn't believe in letting 1st level adventurers go out and play without adult supervision.

The fighters will be learning strategy and tactics, mages theory and practice of magic, priests theology and spiritualism, bards music and history, rogues umm... business and sociology... so on.

The adventures they will get into... well there's still monsters and threats in the area the University is in, so the party will get to go monster whacking in the off times. In fact, the "ROTC" sponsors monster hunting field trips to train their cadets.

The school culture is a dueling culture, with fencing clubs, magic clubs, competitive and occasionally painful sports, etc.

But more importantly, the players will start getting into the political manipulations of the city and the school. There should be plenty of fighting.

A couple of questions:
1.) What would be the best way to bring fraternities into this? By character class? I don't think so. By region? Not bad, and it has historical precedent, but if the PC's come from different areas, it might not be that good. I suppose by ideology would be the best. I want to encourage a good number of fraternities, soirorities, secret societies, and so on.

2.) How should the character's school experience translate into character advancement? Suggest the learning of skills and feats as related to the classes the PC's take? I'm thinking about allowing cross class skills to be bought at class skill levels for the duration that the character takes a semester relating to that skill.

3.) Any ideas? I'm aware that I could do worse than consulting the Harry Potter books for a school campaign. I'm also thinking of the Girl's Revolution Utena anime.

 

[dave_o]

Iunno, as far as ideas go, but GOD I wanna play this.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'm doing something similar to this in my next campaign, although it won't be fully based in the University. ONe page you might want to take from Harry Potter is drawing the adventure out over a long period of time - I plan on having the first adventure be just before school starts, the next during a mid-semester break, and the one following that during a winter break.

That leaves room for a little non-adventure time to pass, so it doesn't seem like they're under ridiculous levels of danger.

In my game, the University is composed of "Colleges" like the ones in Oxford or Cambridge - these take the place of "Fraternities" in the ordinary American sense of the word. Although the University teaches magic, the Colleges are not based on Schools of Magic, but rather on philosophical interests: one school is interested in Travel magic, another in the End Times (so they often learn both Divination and Necromancy), another is interested in Constructs, and so on. There could be Transmuters or Conjurers from multiple colleges.

 

[Altalazar]

That sounds like a cool idea - so now that months have passed - how did it go? Is it still going?

 

[omedon]

The idea reminds me of Final Fantasy 8 a little bit. It starts off in a university and monsters are around. The characters are sent out on a military excersise to test what they learned.]