Quick Links
The Magical School: a setting explored in all forms of modern escapism, includingDungeons & Dragons. Whether we picture ivy-covered roofs or flickering, fluorescent halls, the idea of magical academia ever endures in our artistic consciousness. Perhaps the reason we’re so drawn to the concept is the ideas behind it.
Unlike in our day-to-day, magic schools reward the strange and unusual. They bolster thrill-seeking students and champion creative solutions, and perhaps, most importantly, they give the outcast a place to call home. They also let teenagers blow things up with their minds. This is how you run a campaign at a magic school.
Decide The Purpose Of The School
It’s obvious that in a world where magic exists,a system of learning will exist in conjunction.So, figure out what sort of school this is!
It might be amagical community college, for anyone who wants to learn household cantrips and work at the same time, with classes offered to those who want to continue their education into leveling. It may also be amagical boarding school, teaching its pupils to be the best of the best, with a subplot about students at the bottom of the honor roll mysteriously disappearing every year.
Deciding your tone and theme can help.For example, if you want it to have more occultism, then you may want to check out dark academic subtropes.
Here are acouple of ideas for a purpose for your school:
This school exists to supply soldiers to a kingdom in exchange for an education.
This institution is an adventuring academy.
This school is a place for nobles to send their second-born children, regardless of talent.
This school exists to teach its students how to ward away the growing undead presence, only accepting clerics and warlocks as students.
This institution is for the best of the best, only accepting other classes on scholarships.
This institution is a Bardic college. It employs adventurers for fetch quests.
This school is part of an initiative to educate the populace on the use of magic.
This school is constantly moving across the planes, collecting students who wish to study them.
Oops, All Casters!
The problem with a magical school setting is thatit boxes out most classes. Sorcerers, wizards, warlocks, and clerics may be fine, and to some extent, bards, druids, and Arcane Tricker rogues can also be included,but the poor fighter is, for once, left in the dust.
If you want to open up this setting to other classes, youshould decide right out of the gateif you want to havean exception for martial classes.
This can becircumventedbybroadening the tropeto an adventuring academy, but you can also introduce the concept of scholarships being provided to the barbarian due to his Wild Magic subclass.
Is there a requirement to have magic?You may also say thatas long as the class can cast, they can attend,widening the customization considerably. Or, you could always have your Battlemaster Fighter trying tofake their way through school!
If you want official sources, Wizards of the Coast has a book calledStrixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos.This could be a great template for your magical school.
Create Interesting Places
Consider the mysteries of the school that have yet to be tapped. Many magical schools havesecret passages and meeting rooms.Uncovering these cangive some intrigue to your campaign, which will let you dip into the academic trope of mysterious societies and dangerous meetings.
NPCs
Your NPCs in this story are going to be divided into two major groups:professors and students.
Professors
Professors will likely be yourauthority figures, used to guide the story. Powerful allies can be found among some of them, and though you don’t have to roleplay classes, they’ll be good ways for you to hand lore to your players.
Make some of them eccentric and memorable,but don’t be afraid to have some of them take a more sinister bent!
Because your setting is so localized,you’ll have to find villains within an admittedly small group of reoccurring NPCs.They don’t have to be your Big Bads, but they’re afairly easy source of ire, especially with their positions of power in the area. They’ll slot in where the Evil Lord in a campaign might.
You may also use them as your way of introducingshopkeeps or new spells.
Students
Students are going tovastly outnumber the professors, so you should focus onsplitting them upwhen possible. You might use a house system to shave down the amount of NPCs you’re playing at a time, but you may also want to break them up into classes. A good way to do this might behaving a consistent class that moves from subject to subject together.
The students will be everything from your shopkeeps, to your quest-givers, to your allies. In truth, students can bejust as varied as the PCs,and they’ll likely bemore inclined toexplore the inner lives of their peers than their teachers.
School tropes exist for a reason. Look through a couple to create some student NPCs!
Agency In A School Setting
The easiest way to run a magic school is toallow your players more autonomy than a school would actually allow.
They don’t reallywantto play high school simulator, they probably want to play Students Run Through Corridors At Night,so make sure you have times of day when they can ditch class or escape their dorms!
Another good way to give your players more agency is to introduce projects. Perhaps there are dangerous quests assigned to the players through the school that maygive them leave from classes to explore other areas.you may do this with field trips, but you can also do this via the good ol' school mystery.
Having there be a big, pressing issue will also disrupt the school’s function as normal.If students go missing and the school is desperately trying to stay open, professors and particularly annoying hall monitors may be on the fritz,allowing your players to explore at will.
Getting The Players Together
An issue that will crop up is that your playerswill likely all be different classes.While awesome in real life,having to constantly switch between the players to roleplay their various schedules might get tedious.
Consider putting them in detention throughout a break together, or asserting that they’re all a part of the “Exploratory Program.”
Unless you have a specific reason to roleplay a class in full, such as aminigameor a specific roleplay moment, you may want to relegate the bulk of the classes to rolls and summaries.
Figure Out The Stakes
Is there a Big Bad threatening the school, or an encroaching war that may rip the continent in half? Or is the biggest issue in the campaign having a date for prom?Decide what’s important in this setting.
One recommended way to handle this for a longer form campaign is tohave one big issue and pepper the story with smaller issues.
Perhaps a dragon slumbering beneath the school is starting to wake, but your characters also really, really have to win their duels during the winter solstice party, or they’ll be forever ridiculed.You may also want to up the stakesby making the school itself quite deadly, so succeeding becomes a goal.
As is, you may decide the school is the setting rather than the plot, andescaping the school might become a quest on its own…
