I love Harry Potter! At home we talked about the idea of a Harry Potter game, inspired by Mark Plourde as mentioned on the Cypher Speak Podcast. So here's 2 ways to handle it: as a Fate skill system.
In Fate Core, the game expects 18 skills. Here's a trial of mapping Hogwarts school subjects to skills.
Apparition
Astronomy
Arithmancy
Care of Magical Creatures
Charms
Defense Against the Dark Arts
Divination
Dueling - replace Fight and Shoot
Flying Lessons - replace Drive
Herbology
History of Magic - replace Lore
Muggle Studies
Potions - replace Crafts
Transfiguration
also non-school subjects
Contacts
Provoke
Rapport
Resources
The school subjects cover almost everything I'd want in a Harry Potter game, but I wanted to be able to explain why the Malfoys are so well-known and connected without using school subjects, so Contacts and Resources stayed in from Fate Core. Additionally, Provoke and Rapport seem important for dealing with other wizards (and perhaps House Elves). I think that Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology and Muggle Studies may all be parallels to these skills for specific audiences.
Cypher System skills are easy. Take a subject or another skill and be Trained, Specialized or Inable to use it. All the same skills as Fate apply, but they could also be more flexible and deal with other concepts.
In Cypher, I might consider making students Trained in subjects appropriate to a grade year but Inable in other skills - for example, second years might be Trained in Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Flying Lessons, Herbology, Potions and Transfiguration but Inable in Apparition and Dueling.
I might also say that first years have only a couple of skills they are Trained in, but that's pretty common in a Cypher System game. This is probably too many separate skills for a Cypher game.
Instead you could have a list like:
Magical Lore (replaces Astronomy, Arithmancy, History of Magic)
Care of Magical Creatures
Charms
Defense Against the Dark Arts
Dueling
Flying Lessons
Herbology
Potions
Transfiguration
Skills for positive and negative social interactions are common in Cypher, so no separate Provoke and Rapport skills.
Apparition (becomes a Magic flavor ability)
Divination (becomes a Magic flavor ability)
For a Cypher System HP game, I would let characters take Magic and Skills and Knowledge flavor abilities. Character Types would reflect their interest in study. To keep the 4 Character Type model, I might use:
Gryffindor for Warrior
Ravenclaw for Adept
Hufflepuff for Explorer
Slytherin for Speaker
UPDATE: I edited the type associations after giving it some thought. I'm exploring this in more depth in a future post.
This House-based model might restrict the characters too much - not sure! I'll have to play with this. But a Clever Gryffindor Who Would Rather Be Reading could be Hermione, while a Brave Gryffindor Who Loves to Fly could be Harry.
More thoughts in time.
In Fate Core, the game expects 18 skills. Here's a trial of mapping Hogwarts school subjects to skills.
Apparition
Astronomy
Arithmancy
Care of Magical Creatures
Charms
Defense Against the Dark Arts
Divination
Dueling - replace Fight and Shoot
Flying Lessons - replace Drive
Herbology
History of Magic - replace Lore
Muggle Studies
Potions - replace Crafts
Transfiguration
also non-school subjects
Contacts
Provoke
Rapport
Resources
The school subjects cover almost everything I'd want in a Harry Potter game, but I wanted to be able to explain why the Malfoys are so well-known and connected without using school subjects, so Contacts and Resources stayed in from Fate Core. Additionally, Provoke and Rapport seem important for dealing with other wizards (and perhaps House Elves). I think that Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology and Muggle Studies may all be parallels to these skills for specific audiences.
Cypher System skills are easy. Take a subject or another skill and be Trained, Specialized or Inable to use it. All the same skills as Fate apply, but they could also be more flexible and deal with other concepts.
In Cypher, I might consider making students Trained in subjects appropriate to a grade year but Inable in other skills - for example, second years might be Trained in Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Flying Lessons, Herbology, Potions and Transfiguration but Inable in Apparition and Dueling.
I might also say that first years have only a couple of skills they are Trained in, but that's pretty common in a Cypher System game. This is probably too many separate skills for a Cypher game.
Instead you could have a list like:
Magical Lore (replaces Astronomy, Arithmancy, History of Magic)
Care of Magical Creatures
Charms
Defense Against the Dark Arts
Dueling
Flying Lessons
Herbology
Potions
Transfiguration
Skills for positive and negative social interactions are common in Cypher, so no separate Provoke and Rapport skills.
Apparition (becomes a Magic flavor ability)
Divination (becomes a Magic flavor ability)
For a Cypher System HP game, I would let characters take Magic and Skills and Knowledge flavor abilities. Character Types would reflect their interest in study. To keep the 4 Character Type model, I might use:
Gryffindor for Warrior
Ravenclaw for Adept
Hufflepuff for Explorer
Slytherin for Speaker
UPDATE: I edited the type associations after giving it some thought. I'm exploring this in more depth in a future post.
This House-based model might restrict the characters too much - not sure! I'll have to play with this. But a Clever Gryffindor Who Would Rather Be Reading could be Hermione, while a Brave Gryffindor Who Loves to Fly could be Harry.
More thoughts in time.
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