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Anonymous10/12/25, 18:38No.96738706
Thoughts on running a dark academia game? What is your take on this aesthetic? Advice?
I'm thinking of runing something about ecret fraternities somewhere in Oxbridge, murder mysteries, and perhaps some occult or paranomral phenomena
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Anon10/12/25, 19:06No.96738951
>Thoughts on running a dark academia game?
Nigger, it's a visual aesthetic. You might as well ask on my thoughts on running a Frutiger Aero game. Just run Call of Cthulhu.
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Anon10/12/25, 19:15No.96739051
Check out the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling OP.
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Anon10/12/25, 19:20No.96739082
What system? Maybe WoD?
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Anon10/12/25, 21:13No.96739844
The only reference I can think of is the Wednesday series
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Anon10/12/25, 21:34No.96739976
Is there something you particularly want aside from the aesthetic.Trail of Cthulhu seems perfect for what you are going for it's a bunch of academy kids trying to figure out stuff
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Anon10/13/25, 06:29No.96742452
Here is a man who loved the Occult. Include something left behind from him would be cool. Buried Nazi secrets.
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Anon10/13/25, 06:58No.96742550
I have to say, I always have one big question whenever it comes to these settings.
What happens when the students (i.e. the PCs) get too powerful?
Think about it this way, these people are at the equivalent of college. They (technically speaking) haven't even gone out into the world to start their careers.
If the PCs are insanely powerful (and they will get really powerful at some point) just from attending college, what will they be like once they're unleashed upon the outside world? Is that the usual standard for graduates?
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Anon10/13/25, 14:53No.96744429
There's that Magnus Archives game, though I've heard mixed things about it. Biggest complaint seems to be that the mechanics don't fit the setting well and it would've worked better as a COC-type game rather than whatever Monte Cook thing they went with.
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Anon10/13/25, 14:57No.96744468
My thoughts can be summarized by this picture.
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Anon10/13/25, 16:58No.96745286
Miskatonic University focused CoC adventure is the best I could come up with
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Anon10/13/25, 17:06No.96745337
What the fuck is "dark academia"? You can't expect people being familiar with the autismal categories for every little thing you fags keep pulling out of your asses.
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Anon10/13/25, 21:52No.96747176
That image is such a mood.
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Anon10/13/25, 22:00No.96747222
Chthulu has an entire part of its setting that is Miskatonic University, pretty much all his books are situated around a fictional area of New London, and this is a prevalent landmark. I've even generated random AI slop for when I would come around to DM a Miskatonic investigation session.
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Anon10/15/25, 13:25No.96758443
Call of Cthulhu for sure.Beyond that, come up with a table to randomly graveyard secret societies. Assign each professor at least one evil occult goal. The school only teaches good magic, but there are a thousand "private tutoring" groups to learn the fun stuff. The PCs are invited to a group with no real option to refuse our else they become next week's sacrifice.
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Anon10/15/25, 14:27No.96758820
I had an idea that I wanted to stat up the characters from The Secret History for Call of Cthulhu. There's some creepy stuff from Greek history and mythology that could be invoked(the brazen bull, Typhon, the labyrinth etc).
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Anon10/15/25, 18:42No.96760480
>ai slop image
Why...
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Anon10/16/25, 09:27No.96765208
Bubblegumshoe might be worth reading, even if you just take a few parts of it.
Likewise, you could probably hack Mothership or WoD's Storyteller system to fit.
It really just depends on what you plan to have in your game.
I almost wonder if you could hack Paranoia into a school setting, it feels like there would be a unusual amount of parallels, but I'd have to read through it again.
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Anon10/17/25, 02:42No.96771219
But this thread is (allegedly) about running a "Dark Academia" game, & FPBP is right, just use CoC. You already know you want low stakes, it's up to the GM to keep them low, make guns rare, make only low damage weapons available. I don't know much about Gumshoe so I won't comment, but CoC is purpose built for playing professors or students investigating weird cults.Overall though you said you want to run a game & I respect that you're trying to run something instead of begging for a game to play. So what I think you should do is really make what the students are studying important to the adventure. The killer wrote a note in Latin or Ancient Greek as a clue, or used a certain poison or method of killing the target only a biology student would know. It helps reinforce the setting, it makes the players feel extra special & useful because no one else in the party has that knowledge & it can help them narrow down the killer even if they don't get the clue, because now they have a rough guess of where the killer could be found searching through the university's departments or enrolled students.
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Anon10/17/25, 04:13No.96771794
What the fuck is dark academia? You study for exams but also your teacher is a vampire or some shit? Your car broke down and you have to walk to class, but it broke down because of a wizard? What is the difference between this and normal school?
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Anon10/18/25, 09:52No.96780511
It's the Kids on Bikes subgenre, but goth lol.
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Anon10/18/25, 10:13No.96780565
Here's some inspirado.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhUOnEOTq78
https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/573976
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb0MXivyeuA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=howQTwfJx2g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65PuRDl8_zA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3lt9-C6x78
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBZ3QubfYmA
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Anon10/18/25, 10:37No.96780609
Bumps for the bot thread! Bytes to the byte throne!