A few months ago I asked about a Harry Potter PbtA hack. I wasn’t really keen on the few that I’ve found. (There was a great Monsterhearts re-skin that was really cool, but not exactly what I wanted.) So I decided to make my own. It’s largely a Masks re-skin, but with some changes. This is a first draft.
Here’s a link to the Basic Rules and Playbooks. If anyone has suggestions, I’d love to hear them. Formatting isn’t great, but I’m working on that. Especially looking for anything that would help add to the Harry Potter feel, and I would really like to add some additional moves to each playbook (especially ones that might give each one a unique mechanic or really distinguish them from the other archetypes).
Feel free to comment here, or on the Drive doc. And if anyone tries it out, PLEASE tell me everything!
Hope you enjoy!
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7-OWr_sSXtiTnRMaV96WjBfOHM
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7-OWr_sSXtiZkQ0MHBOTlJBbGM
Kinda sad you didn’t use the label thing from Masks, but I don’t know how it would have worked when the adults are your litteral teachers…
I need to think more on this.
What was the monster hearts reskin called?
Pierre M I thought about using it, but I really wanted to make this so you could play kids or adults, so it just didn’t seem right. I love that mechanic too.
Seth Halbeisen I believe it was called Monsterwarts.
Adam West playing adults or children should probably be for two différent games (I think).
Pierre M it certainly could be. But I didn’t think it needed to be. There are plenty of systems that can do both.
You can of course do both, and your system will probably work fine; yet, it won’t handle properly (or rather, as I think it should) the special relationship between teachers and pupils. Harry is purposely humiliated by Snape, and it’s an impoirtant part of the stories. Dumbledore has a complex link to Harry, caring and using him simultaneously. McGonagall is trying to make sure Hogwart’s laws are respected and want Harry’s crew good deeds to shine upon Gryffindor.
There won’t be moves for that.
To be honest, I have absolutely no clue on how to handle those situations…
If I may, flashbacks could prove useful in this game (even though there are none in the books) to explain how a character get some piece of information (new spell, historical knowledge…).
Looks great.
Ten points to Whats-yer-house for adding the other schools.
Henry de Veuve I’m a Thunderpuff!
Adam West Ten points to Thunderpuff, West. Well done, there’s a good fellow. (says the Lecturer in Invisible Runes)
The playbooks are good (esp the ties and personality descriptions) but you gotta expand the number of moves & reduce the C&P’s from Masks.
Adam Goldberg I definitely need more moves. Would love to hear ideas if anyone has them.
If you are interested in teachers <> pupils relations, I have a few ideas (which I still need to clarify)
What about taking inspiration from the gendered moves in Sagas of the Icelanders, and have a separate set of basic moves for teachers and students? Adults in HP are skilled and have knowledge they can impart, but are often blind to threats or constrained by decorum and thus unable to act. Kids recognize the threats more quickly and are free to act on them, but generally lack an understanding of the threat’s history and don’t start with the skills they’d need to address those threats–but can learn them.
The difference between teachers and students can be handled in the narrative. I want this to be capable of playing Fantastic Beasts as easily as Goblet of Fire. What I’m looking for is moves that let the archetypes really feel like they have very different agency.
If someone wants to run with this and turn it into a separate game for students or teachers, go with my blessing. But that’s just not the game I wanted to do.
Alan Scott I’ll look at Sagas and see if there’s some stuff I can swipe from there. Thanks for the suggestion.
Consider how each char reacts to authority. Draco has his minions, Harry has adult strangers always coming to help, Ron has his huge family…
Hello Adam. I think this hack in progress is quite cool, and I am preparing a game with my boys.
I tried to create agendas, principles etc… (see link).
I like the idea of having both students and teachers as PCs. Right now, teachers are just grown-up students. Should they be tainted with parody ? Perhaps add something like “if you are a teacher, choose a parodistic downside in the list” in the playbooks? Perhaps the quick and dirty way could be “remove 1 to your lower Trait and never advance it ever”? With an adjective describing their personality flaw ? I aim to play to see if something like this works.
I am also working on a “Worldbuilding choices” workbook to structure how to chose things like necessity of a wand (or not) to do magic, where is the school located, etc…
Comments welcome 🙂
dropbox.com – MJ reference.pdf