Mysterious Beginnings (Tales of Hogwarts 1)

Another awesome game of Tales from the Loop last night had me thinking again of using the game to play in the wizarding world of Harry Potter...

Original ideas for character sheet for a
Harry Potter RPG

Instead of me just getting frustrated that the game doesn't exist, I just figured I'd pop my ideas down here in a "thinking out loud" way so you could see which direction I was heading in.

There are a few sticking points when it comes to tweaking the Tales from the Loop system to working with Harry Potter. Of course, the big question would be how magic works, but I'll come to that later. 

First of all, the basics.

Luck

In Tales from the Loop, the older you are, the more experienced you are and the more capable you are of doing things. Age means you've learned more, can do more, and sometimes people take you a little more seriously. You also get more points to put into your Attributes. As you grow, your Attributes increase too.

To balance this, the characters have a "Luck" stat which allows them to reroll when they've failed. Your "kid" (as the characters are called) is aged between 10 and 15 years old, but your starting Luck is equal to 15 minus your age. So if you're 10 years old, you have 5 Luck points, etc. My character in the game we're playing at the moment is 13, so has 2 Luck Points at the beginning of each session.

In Harry Potter, we follow the characters longer during their time at Hogwarts, so the easiest option for this is to allow more Luck Points (mostly because they will not have the benefit of an "Iconic Item" - more on that later). So, I'm going with your Luck being equal to 8 minus your year at Hogwarts. So first years start with 8-1 = 7 Luck Points at the beginning of each session, and a fourth year starts with 8-4 = 4 Luck Points.

Pride

Pride is a really interesting stat in Tales from the Loop. It's something that gives you a boost, makes you feel strong, or awesome. It's usually something that motivates the character, but it is also used to give you an automatic success if you think your Pride comes into play in a particular circumstance in your game. You only get it once per Mystery, but using it also means you get XP.

Instead of Pride, I figured you could replace it with House. The pupil's House in Hogwarts is important, and a source of pride. You could list the descriptors for each house as follows -

 

Gryffindor - Bravery, Chivalry, Courage.

Hufflepuff - Loyalty, Kindness, Honesty.

Ravenclaw - Wisdom, Creativity, Originality.

Slytherin - Cunning, Ambition, Leadership.

If your student acts in keeping with their House, they can use the benefits just like Pride.

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I'll follow this up in coming weeks with a look at tweaking the Attributes and Skills to suit the wizarding world.

Before I finish though, I thought I'd share a little document I found on my hard drive. Over a year ago (the date on the file is January 2017) I'd had another surge of determination about the Harry Potter RPG. I'd started to think that maybe the game could get to the licensing stage if the words "roleplaying" were omitted from any pitch. 

That in mind, I started to think of the game as a mystery game, with components that basically acted as character sheets and so on for a traditional roleplaying game, that could be promoted and marketed as a family mystery game. Players control pupils at Hogwarts, and attend classes, learning the skills they need to solve an overarching mystery. Expansions could add further years and more lessons and mysteries...

Nearly a year before the mobile game with a very similar name would be announced I created this document for Harry Potter: Mysteries of Hogwarts game. I've posted a copy below so you can see what I had in mind...

Click to enlarge, this is the pitch I started in Jan 2017...

Until next time, be excellent to each other.

- Dave