This just came into my head today. What I love most about the Harry Potter books is the setting. I just love the wizarding world to death, and I'm sad to have no more books to expand upon it. Well, why not do it myself? I'm thinking a point system superficially similar to the Storyteller system. The games focus would be on telling new stories with new characters, with the system being equally well suited to staying in Britain or leaving for new countries. I like the Britain of the books, but at the same time I want to imagine what the wizarding world would look like over in New England or Mexico or Germany. My own personal preference would be to run games for groups of aurors, but I don't see why someone couldn't do pretty much whatever they wanted with their group.
I know how I want the system to play out. It's levelless point buy, with magic being seperated into the groups you see in the books. Each group is improved independently of other groups. As a general rule, you can cast what you want so long as you know how (some of the more powerful spells have a requisite skill level in the spell group they belong to), though if you run around throwing avada kadavra's everywhere the local magical government will respond.
What I'm looking for is advice, any issues that come to mind, ideas for new spells, magical items, or magical creatures from outside Britain to add to this RPG, and so on. This is a spur of the moment idea, but I think it has enough merit for serious consideration.
Would the system cover Hogwarts adventuring or just post-Hogwarts?
It would be fairly universal. With the wizarding world's fairly static technology level, the system would be able to support adventuring in pretty much any time period you wanted. Also, while Hogwarts adventuring in definately a possibility, it's not all you can do. You could spend an entire campaign as an adult auror without ever thinking about the time you spent at Hogwarts. Or maybe you live in California, and Hogwarts isn't even the local school in the first place.
Discussion from Giant in the Playground:
You'll have to contend with the fact that while magic in Harry Potter can't reach the upper heights of insanity that's possible with D&D (you can't create your own mini-universe, as far as I know) it is still utterly broken in terms of effects that will be easily available to players. To give one small example, a moderately-gifted teenager was able to rewrite a couple decades of her parents' memories with no apparent resistance on their part, and another wizard made an entire career out of similar memory-altering shenanigans.
Indeed, magic in the Harry Potter universe doesn't seem to allow the equivalent of saves; if it hits you, the effect happens. Sufficiently stubborn people can fight back against Imperius to a limited extent, but if someone decides to blast off your ear or remove all your bones or just kill you, the only defense is to dodge (at least in the case of the Killing Curse; if there were a shield capable of blocking or reflecting it we probably would have seen it). This means, as Quirrelmort put it in one amusing bit of fanfiction, that knowing Avada Kadavra makes the entirety of Defense Against the Dark Arts unnecessary, since anything dangerous enough to threaten you can always be killed in one shot, and if for it isn't enough of a threat to justify killing, you can just Apparate away. If you want to take someone out of a fight without killing them, there are any number of other spells that will end the fight in one shot just as easily.
This means you're going to choose between fidelity to the source material or unbreaking the magic system. It's vaguely possible that there are all sorts of possible defenses against memory modification and mind control available to wizards and that Gilderoy Lockheart only targeted the especially trusting or stupid, but I'm not aware of anything official to that effect. You may or may not consider this a problem, since it's probably going to be aimed and fans of the series as J. K. Rowling wrote it and not of the series as the Orwellian nightmare it becomes with a bit of thought, but be aware that players will try to break anything and everything. It's what they do.
I wish you luck. :smallcool:
What I'm thinking is letting people have mental fortitude saves versus mind effecting magic (the PCs are heroes, so I assume them to be sufficiently strong willed) and dodge rolls versus other magic, and using cover a lot. Shielding spells and counterspelling are also major parts of combat. Though combat spells are generally one hit and you're out, spells miss more than they hit unless one side gets the drop on the other. Also, spells like Ennervate revive stunned characters. As for unforgiveable curses, like Bellatrix said to Harry once, you have to mean them for them to work. For Avada Kedavra, you have to honestly and sincerely want to kill. A mere desire for self defense won't cut it. A certain amount of malice and hatred is necessary. That's why Moody is the only heroic character to make much use of it. He's the only one hateful enough. The same is true for Crucio. A killing curse may be an insta-win, but PCs are highly unlikely to be able to use it unless it's an evil campaign, and it can still be dodged or deflected by cover. Imperius is easier to use because it isn't so outwardly harmful, but if somebody recognized the fact that it has been used, it can be dispelled (the same is true for memory charms unless you get blasted as hard as Lockheart did). It's still not balanced, but I don't love Harry Potter for it's magnificent balance.
Also, dragons. Spells bounce right off :smallbiggrin:.
If you let players and their ideas loose in a Harry Potter world expect them to turn it into this kind of story.
Quasi unlimited magic for everybody needs a very, very disciplined group to not descent into flame and chaos.
I had some success with a modified version of Mage the Awakening (Mana regeneration, almost purly rote based magic)
The Wisdom mechanic is very useful to keep the PCs from abusing their power (too much :smallwink:)
I'll keep the possibility of mana and rote magic in mind. My other check on power is to use the local magical governments. When witches and wizards go too far, magical law enforcement officers step in. That's not to say you can't go around abusing magic to your heart's content, you just have to deal with the consequences of that choice, which can involve a numerically superior and quite pissed off force of aurors coming for your ass.
I think one interesting thing about Harry Potter is that it gets both the "Magic is inferior to guns" and "Magic is totally unstoppable" treatments from different fans/antifans/people on internet. The idea that you can kill or disable anyone in one shot all day long, with no way to stop you but to kill or disable you first, or seek cover/escape is one of the features I think that would make the system feel unique.
I brainstormed up a pitch for a Harry Potter RPG a bit ago and I kind of liked it, so I'll repeat it here. It IS essentially a concept for a system homebrewed essentially from the ground up, so it might not be helpful to you, but maybe some of the ideas will be adaptable.
Essentially, one of the themes of Harry Potter is that friendship and family and community is important, and makes us stronger together than apart. To emphasize this, I felt that having combat systems essentially be all about teamwork. In-setting, spells can be stronger or weaker, but they tend to exert their full strength on the target.
Because of this, I was going to have no formalized Hit Point system, or any specific measure of how wounded you are. Instead, each spell that hits you inflicts its specific status effect, from wobbly legs to unconsciousness to death. These effects would have counter-curses which would remove those effects. So the idea is that if you're in a fight with some death eaters, you would all scurry to cover, and when one of your team was knocked out of the fight, one or two wizards would provide covering fire while another goes over to the fallen compatriot, tries to identify the curse that knocked them down, and attempts to get them on their feet again. A key to combat would be essentially managing the action economy to have more spells going downrange from your side than your opponents' at any one time. Your stats could be godlike, but real power comes from having friends.
The statistics/advancement system I came up with was meant to represent students of a wizarding academy, so if you wanted to play adult Aurors, this wouldn't really be an appropriate system for you. Essentially, your stats would be the school subjects... Charms, Transfiguration, Defense against the dark arts, Potions, and if I could figure out how to gamify them, Herbology and History of Magic. I also devised a base 'athleticism' stat to help resolve issues of basic movement, physical trials, fist fights, and so on. The character's "level" is their year in school, and their stats are their OWL levels between 1st and 5th year, (T, D, P, A, E, and O) then "NEWT" if they qualify for NEWT level classes (ideally balanced so only your specialty allows for NEWT level advancement, I know HP, Harmony and the Bear got NEWT classes in everything ever, but I figure in a game, having different levels of competency among subjects is a good thing. 7th book Hermione might have been represented in this system as Charms: NEWT, Transfiguration: E, DaDA: O, Potions: O Athleticism: A, while HP might be C: E, T: E, DaDA: NEWT, P: E, A: O)
The actual system behind this whimsical way of denoting skill level was that spells would have a Year rating and a Difficulty rating. Year would represent how advanced the spell was... you were assumed to know all spells of a lower year than you, and the plot would follow your character learning the spells of the year the story currently took place in. If you had learned a spell (in class or in the library after hours or from a tutorship), you could use it, but its difficulty subtracted from the probability it would take effect, and your OWL would subtract from the Difficulty score. So to grab numbers from out of nowhere, a Death Eater with a Shield Charm up across a dark street might be 50% likely to be affected by a Stunner spell, but Stupefy is a difficulty level E spell and you only have an OWL of A, so it's... say, 20% harder, and you now only have 30% chance to knock out that Death Eater. If you had an O, it might be 20% easier.
I like the idea of a strong team based focus without tracked hit points. It makes sense from the point of view of the books, and could be fun for a cooperative RPG. Combat tends to be fought with great reliance on cover and movement or as a series of spell duels, depending on the circumstances (just like the books). The year/grade based system wouldn't work because I don't assume the characters to be of school age, but the basic ideas behind it are valid. The grade system could be replaced with a simple skill level, for example.
I wish to play the mary sue class. They are really lucky/strong in the Harry Potterverse.
I'm interested in the classes, will it have a luck reroll system?
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Would the system cover Hogwarts adventuring or just post-Hogwarts?It would be fairly universal. With the wizarding world's fairly static technology level, the system would be able to support adventuring in pretty much any time period you wanted. Also, while Hogwarts adventuring in definately a possibility, it's not all you can do. You could spend an entire campaign as an adult auror without ever thinking about the time you spent at Hogwarts. Or maybe you live in California, and Hogwarts isn't even the local school in the first place.
The reason I ask is that it's like two different games. The Hogwarts student is subject to more rules and authority; they are restricted for the most part to the school; they don't have nearly the same skill with magic as an adult. There would need to be rules for the classroom, the four Houses, the House Cup and the other elements that wouldn't apply to the adult/Ministry part of the game.
If you are living in CA, what would be the explanation for you becoming a wizard. Would there be rules for making your own school up? Your school background seems a big part of the HP world.
The reason I ask is that it's like two different games. The Hogwarts student is subject to more rules and authority; they are restricted for the most part to the school; they don't have nearly the same skill with magic as an adult. There would need to be rules for the classroom, the four Houses, the House Cup and the other elements that wouldn't apply to the adult/Ministry part of the game.Would the system cover Hogwarts adventuring or just post-Hogwarts?It would be fairly universal. With the wizarding world's fairly static technology level, the system would be able to support adventuring in pretty much any time period you wanted. Also, while Hogwarts adventuring in definately a possibility, it's not all you can do. You could spend an entire campaign as an adult auror without ever thinking about the time you spent at Hogwarts. Or maybe you live in California, and Hogwarts isn't even the local school in the first place.
I haven't really thought about this.
If you are living in CA, what would be the explanation for you becoming a wizard. Would there be rules for making your own school up? Your school background seems a big part of the HP world.
I'm writing up a description the wizarding world of the country the story takes place in beforehand, and the players will be told where witches and wizards learn magic and what those places are like.
Do to it's size and population, the United States has three schools of witchcraft and wizardry. One is in Massachusetts, one is in Louisiana, and one is in California. Which one a child attends depends on where in the country that child lives. From Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky south Louisiana is the school. North of that, Massachusetts is the school. From North Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, and the western part of Texas west California is the school. People who live in non-state territories of the US go to the nearest school (so Samoans go to California, and Puerto Ricans go to Louisiana). I have yet to name the schools or write up their cultures or exact locations within their states, but I will.
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I'm interested in the classes, will it have a luck reroll system?
I'm not using classes, I'm going with a point based system. I have no plans for luck rerolls.
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Would the system cover Hogwarts adventuring or just post-Hogwarts?It would be fairly universal. With the wizarding world's fairly static technology level, the system would be able to support adventuring in pretty much any time period you wanted. Also, while Hogwarts adventuring in definately a possibility, it's not all you can do. You could spend an entire campaign as an adult auror without ever thinking about the time you spent at Hogwarts. Or maybe you live in California, and Hogwarts isn't even the local school in the first place.The reason I ask is that it's like two different games. The Hogwarts student is subject to more rules and authority; they are restricted for the most part to the school; they don't have nearly the same skill with magic as an adult. There would need to be rules for the classroom, the four Houses, the House Cup and the other elements that wouldn't apply to the adult/Ministry part of the game.
If you are living in CA, what would be the explanation for you becoming a wizard. Would there be rules for making your own school up? Your school background seems a big part of the HP world.
The thing is, those aren't actually GAME rules, they're rules of the school. Kinda like most fantasy worlds probably have laws against killing people....yet your band of murderous hobos generally goes around killing people and taking their stuff.
The thing is, those aren't actually GAME rules, they're rules of the school. Kinda like most fantasy worlds probably have laws against killing people....yet your band of murderous hobos generally goes around killing people and taking their stuff.Would the system cover Hogwarts adventuring or just post-Hogwarts?It would be fairly universal. With the wizarding world's fairly static technology level, the system would be able to support adventuring in pretty much any time period you wanted. Also, while Hogwarts adventuring in definately a possibility, it's not all you can do. You could spend an entire campaign as an adult auror without ever thinking about the time you spent at Hogwarts. Or maybe you live in California, and Hogwarts isn't even the local school in the first place.The reason I ask is that it's like two different games. The Hogwarts student is subject to more rules and authority; they are restricted for the most part to the school; they don't have nearly the same skill with magic as an adult. There would need to be rules for the classroom, the four Houses, the House Cup and the other elements that wouldn't apply to the adult/Ministry part of the game.
If you are living in CA, what would be the explanation for you becoming a wizard. Would there be rules for making your own school up? Your school background seems a big part of the HP world.
That's how I view it as well.
The Salem Witches Institute is mentioned in canon. It's not entirely clear it's a school, but I figured I'd mention it.
Do to it's size and population, the United States has three schools of witchcraft and wizardry. One is in Massachusetts, one is in Louisiana, and one is in California. Which one a child attends depends on where in the country that child lives. From Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky south Louisiana is the school. North of that, Massachusetts is the school. From North Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, and the western part of Texas west California is the school. People who live in non-state territories of the US go to the nearest school (so Samoans go to...
I'm thinking of using the Salem Witches Institute as an organization devoted to education about why muggles should be left alone. What I want to say happened at Salem is that it was caused by a young witch playing magical pranks on the local townfolk, but all of the people executed were muggles, not magical folk. This incident is used in the US as a prime example of why not to screw around with muggles, and as a result was chosen by the Salem Witches Institute as both a name and location.
For school rules, I recommend looking at a homebrew game that I was in that was basically like a Korvosan Hogwarts. It was pretty cool actually.
Without a robust luck reroll system, unless you continually fudge the villains to be useless, everyone will be dead halfway through the first session.
@meatrace: Are you a sockpuppet for 3.5 Loyalist, or is there a source (that you're both scrupulously avoiding mentioning) for this "luck reroll system" that you're both so adamant about?
Without a robust luck reroll system, unless you continually fudge the villains to be useless, everyone will be dead halfway through the first session.
With a functional dodge/cover system, not necessarily.
