Prom

I never went to prom during my high school years. My reasons for this included not having a date, not knowing how to dance, being generally terrified of large gatherings of my peers, and being too cheap/poor to get the proper clothes and such. All of which I covered up with a sort of sneering contempt of high school activities like dances and such.

Yes, I was that kid.

So when I ran a game full of high schoolers, you can bet there was no way I was going to miss giving them a prom experience. And sure, it was a prom experience full of danger and horror, but it was a prom experience nonetheless.

I wanted to make sure we focused on everyone’s outfits, the way the different characters expressed themselves through fancy clothing (Gus surprised me with his, did he surprise you?) including hair and makeup and all the little things that one fiddles with to try to make their prom outfit perfect.

I wanted to make sure there were opportunities for dances and flirting and spiking the punch and all the assorted stuff that, pop culture has assured me, goes along with the prom experience.

I had the intention of putting in a scene of a crying girl in the bathroom (her date ignored her in favor of asking Jess to dance) but those plans fell by the wayside when my players (as my players tend to do) forced me to jump forward with things. I’m still a bit regretful that I missed out on putting that scene in, as I feel it would have enhanced the whole prom experience and made the episode a little bit better.

But that’s cooperative storytelling for you. You don’t always get to do the cool stuff that you plan to do, even if you’re the GM. Instead, everybody gets to stir the pot with their own spoon, and all in all I think the result is much better on the whole that way.

Sera