So ive started a campaign based in a victorian steampunk universe. the PCs play a group of children attending a school for "gifted individuals" (kind of a Fable 1 meets X-men thing) Ive been running it for a little bit and the group seems to be really enjoying it but my problem is.
A) i need it to feel a bit more steampunkish.
B) I need it to feel more like they are in a boarding school.
Ive pushed both points as best i could but i could really use some new ideas. so please all ideas are welcome.
For steampunk you might want to have a look at the Zeitgeist adventure path sold here in the paizo store.
For school you could probably read you some Harry Potter and copy a few elements (excentric teachers that you love/hate/pity, a game that rival factions that exist in the school use to compete against, some "holy item" for every faction, some initiation rite...).
Memories of boarding school.
1. Bad food, really bad food.
There where weekends (about once a month) where I simply did not eat anything but bread and cereal because every meal would be something that made me feel ill, such as horribly cooked Kippers(I don't like fish at the best of times, kippers especially, but this was more than simple dislike, the kippers were so salty, and so over cooked they where basically inedible), eggs(I cannot eat eggs without being sick, and there would sometimes be three meals where eggs were a major element of the meal), and belly pork, with more fat than meat, and swimming in oil. Vegtibles where consistantly over salted, and over cooked, and rarely deviated from cabbage, peas and carrots, however when it did, it would do so to horrors such brussel sprouts.
2. Smells.
Big old buildings smell, of damp and mildew. Add 120 boys between 11 and 16, pressed together into rooms of about six at a time, add communal showering, with barely working nozzles, the odd weak blader, athletes foot and much else besides and you get an unmistakable and vile stench. Boarding schools smell, of boys and off over cooked cabbage, off blocked drains and floor polish.
3. chores.
During my time as school, I swept and hovered several leagues of carpet, polished many miles of banister, and moped more floors than the mind can easily hold. Life at a boarding school often holds many chore, from making your bed to near military standard, and polishing your shoes to the same, and large parts of the schools cleaning regime. Get the boys to do it, and you don't have to pay some one to do it, label it character building and the parents might even consider it a bonus.
4. Religious Indoctrination.
Boarding schools are, very often also religious schools. You have to go to church, you have to appear to take it seriously, you have to say the words and pretend you mean them. You cannot say 'I don't believe this rubbish, show me even the slightest evidence its real' If you do... well.. that leads onto the next bit.
5. Limited freedom, limited still further.
Life in a boarding school is a long lesson in obedience and compliance. You are indoctrinated, to a level that approaches institutional abuse. When you eat, when you wash, when you change your cloths,when you use the toilet and even when you sleep are controlled through out about 3/4s of your waking time.
You get perhaps two or of your own time during the week, and even at the weekend your free time is rarely more than about 14 hours. Even this is tightly regulated, there is always one one watching when your a junior, and when your a senior, the people watching at your fellow school mates, eager for their prefect badges.
But that free time is precious, and the staff hold it as their ultimate sanction. If you buck the indoctrination religious or otherwise in anyway you loose your trip out into the local town on Saturday, a punishment called a 'gating' where you are given busy work, in the form of a section of text, which you must copy out. Break times during the school day can be denied also, as can free time in the evening of week days. Additional chores can be set.
I'll post some more stuff later :D
I think "gifted individuals" might be a little broad for whatever you're trying to accomplish. It might be easier to build an Order or something off of your boarding school, something that virtually all classes can find themselves a part of. Religion is an excellent pick, as are any other ideologies. Emphasize the fact that their skills will be put to the test in service of that idea.
Also, how old are we talking about? You can consider both an 8 year old human and a 14 year old human a child, but the two age groups provide drastically different images. Also, how are you combating the old "Elves age slower than humans throughout their whole lives" nonsense when it comes to handling PCs of non-human races? I personally advert it just by saying that the book's minimum Ages are cultural and not biological, but this is something you need to think of for your adventure.
As for invoking a "steampunk" feel, the entire phenomena of steampunk is mostly technology-based, so if you want to invoke a steampunk feel, you need to make sure that your players have a lot of interaction with steampunk technology. You might want to do things like adding custom equipment to adding bits of fluff like clockwork constructs that clean up the school and serve as groundskeepers. With any luck, we'll be seeing more clockwork monsters in Bestiary 3 (Bestiary 2 has a Clockwork Golem that will serve nicely in the meantime).
So ive started a campaign based in a victorian steampunk universe. the PCs play a group of children attending a school for "gifted individuals" (kind of a Fable 1 meets X-men thing) Ive been running it for a little bit and the group seems to be really enjoying it but my problem is.
A) i need it to feel a bit more steampunkish.
B) I need it to feel more like they are in a boarding school.
Ive pushed both points as best i could but i could really use some new ideas. so please all ideas are welcome.
I have bad memories about trying to run a campaign with a boarding school like theme. Then again, that GM was a complete jerk as a whole.
For Steam Punk, try digging up information on Iron Kingdoms. It is a DnD 3.5 so is completely compatible with pathfinder. My only recommendation is to some how power up some of the classes, like the Gun Mage "Compare him to classes like the Inquisitor and Bard. He would need a power up if your using 3.5 rules. A D8 for health, more skills per level. Most people seem 6 + int seems fine. A few bonus feats like Amateur Gunslinger or rogue talents like snap shot for better steam punk gun man flavor here and there maybe?".
http://privateerpress.com/iron-kingdoms
Great steampunk setting and very vase too.
Overall, it should be fine, and in fact I think it could easily work well with the "boarding school" idea depending on what you did. How many levels do you plan to keep your players in school? Level 6 Adventures should have long graduated from college. :p
and if I may invoke some nerd rage. You can always try an Eberron campaign. That is pretty steampunkish. YEAH I SAID IT! :p