I like Harry Potter. It's something I can share with my whole family, because everyone is a fan, so it's a constant interest of mine to see Harry Potter and the Hogwarts world in RPG systems.
Genesys seems like a very good candidate for this. It has a very open magic system that seems like it would work well with HP.
Something I enjoy about the idea of Genesys is the narrative dice system. My goal in creating an HP game is to have a co-GM game where my wife and I can play without feeling the burden of creating stories rests on either of us.
I'm also happy that Genesys uses incremental (non-level) character gains. It seems to me like it fits the HP model well.
So running down character creation step by step in Genesys, first you need a Background for your character. This is more descriptive than statistical. You answer questions about your character's life and upbringing pre-game.
In my HP example, I want to start with Year 1 Hogwarts students, so the Background would cover things that occurred for the character up to age 11.
The big question for HP is whether your character's family is Muggle, Magical or a mix. I think this is best represented in Genesys using Archetypes rather than Backgrounds. For characters with a mixed family background, i.e. one Magic-born and one Muggle parent, use the Archetype that describes how the character grew up, or the one you like best.
Archetypes in Genesys are starting skill and experience packages. They also have special Archetype abilities that are like starting Talents for your character.
Things I want to empasize in these starting Archetypes:
There is no difference between Muggles and Magic-born. Therefore I plan to offer no statistical difference between them.
The starting skills reflect life experience. Magic-born are more likely to understand magic, Muggles the mundane.
Starting Wound Threshold : 10 + Brawn
Starting Stress Threshold: 10 + Willpower
Starting Experience: 110
Starting Skills: A Muggle starts with one rank in Knowledge(Muggle) during character creation. They obtain this rank before spending experience points and may not increase Knowledge(Muggle) above rank 2 during character creation.
Unexpected: Once per session as an out-of-turn incidental, you may move one Story Point from the Game Master’s pool to the players’pool. (same as Average Human in Genesys Core Rulebook)
Starting Wound Threshold : 10 + Brawn
Starting Stress Threshold: 10 + Willpower
Starting Experience: 105
Starting Skills: A Mixed character starts with one rank in Knowledge(Muggle) and one rank in Knowledge(Magical) during character creation. They obtain these ranks before spending experience points and may not increase Knowledge(Muggle) or Knowledge(Magical) above rank 2 during character creation.
Adaptable:You character removes 1 Setback (1 Black) from any Social checks they make to associate with either Muggles or Magic-born. They add 1 Boost (1 Blue) to any checks made to deal with either Muggle or Magical items.
Starting Wound Threshold : 10 + Brawn
Starting Stress Threshold: 10 + Willpower
Starting Experience: 110
Starting Skills: A Magic-born starts with one rank in Knowledge(Magical) during character creation. They obtain this rank before spending experience points and may not increase Knowledge(Magical) above rank 2 during character creation.
Practiced: Once per session as an out-of-turn incidental,your character may spend a Story Point as an incidental. If they do so, during the next Arcana or Knowledge(Magical) check they make during that turn, you count their ranks in the skill being used as equal to their Intellect.
More HP ideas in Genesys coming soon! If you have comments on these Archetypes or the idea of HP using Genesys, let me know with a comment!
Genesys seems like a very good candidate for this. It has a very open magic system that seems like it would work well with HP.
Something I enjoy about the idea of Genesys is the narrative dice system. My goal in creating an HP game is to have a co-GM game where my wife and I can play without feeling the burden of creating stories rests on either of us.
I'm also happy that Genesys uses incremental (non-level) character gains. It seems to me like it fits the HP model well.
So running down character creation step by step in Genesys, first you need a Background for your character. This is more descriptive than statistical. You answer questions about your character's life and upbringing pre-game.
In my HP example, I want to start with Year 1 Hogwarts students, so the Background would cover things that occurred for the character up to age 11.
The big question for HP is whether your character's family is Muggle, Magical or a mix. I think this is best represented in Genesys using Archetypes rather than Backgrounds. For characters with a mixed family background, i.e. one Magic-born and one Muggle parent, use the Archetype that describes how the character grew up, or the one you like best.
Archetypes in Genesys are starting skill and experience packages. They also have special Archetype abilities that are like starting Talents for your character.
Things I want to empasize in these starting Archetypes:
There is no difference between Muggles and Magic-born. Therefore I plan to offer no statistical difference between them.
The starting skills reflect life experience. Magic-born are more likely to understand magic, Muggles the mundane.
Archetype: Muggle
Brawn 2 Agility 2 Intellect 2 Cunning 2 Willpower 2 Presence 2Starting Wound Threshold : 10 + Brawn
Starting Stress Threshold: 10 + Willpower
Starting Experience: 110
Starting Skills: A Muggle starts with one rank in Knowledge(Muggle) during character creation. They obtain this rank before spending experience points and may not increase Knowledge(Muggle) above rank 2 during character creation.
Unexpected: Once per session as an out-of-turn incidental, you may move one Story Point from the Game Master’s pool to the players’pool. (same as Average Human in Genesys Core Rulebook)
Archetype: Mixed
Brawn 2 Agility 2 Intellect 2 Cunning 2 Willpower 2 Presence 2Starting Wound Threshold : 10 + Brawn
Starting Stress Threshold: 10 + Willpower
Starting Experience: 105
Starting Skills: A Mixed character starts with one rank in Knowledge(Muggle) and one rank in Knowledge(Magical) during character creation. They obtain these ranks before spending experience points and may not increase Knowledge(Muggle) or Knowledge(Magical) above rank 2 during character creation.
Adaptable:You character removes 1 Setback (1 Black) from any Social checks they make to associate with either Muggles or Magic-born. They add 1 Boost (1 Blue) to any checks made to deal with either Muggle or Magical items.
Archetype: Magic-Born
Brawn 2 Agility 2 Intellect 2 Cunning 2 Willpower 2 Presence 2Starting Wound Threshold : 10 + Brawn
Starting Stress Threshold: 10 + Willpower
Starting Experience: 110
Starting Skills: A Magic-born starts with one rank in Knowledge(Magical) during character creation. They obtain this rank before spending experience points and may not increase Knowledge(Magical) above rank 2 during character creation.
Practiced: Once per session as an out-of-turn incidental,your character may spend a Story Point as an incidental. If they do so, during the next Arcana or Knowledge(Magical) check they make during that turn, you count their ranks in the skill being used as equal to their Intellect.
More HP ideas in Genesys coming soon! If you have comments on these Archetypes or the idea of HP using Genesys, let me know with a comment!
Hi Hans!
ReplyDeleteWe just followed each other in Twitter and then I looked at some of your tweets and found this.
I am definitely intrigued by Wizarding world in Genesys. I am currently hacking No Thank You, Evil! for Hogwarts and calling it No Thank You, Voldemort! Basically characters are a wizard or witch at Hogwarts, and have a noun of wizard/witch, and descriptor/adjective is your Hogwarts House, and then each House has a few different foci/verbs which I call "Wizarding Talent." For instance, a person may have a character of a Witch from Gryffindor House who Fights against the Dark Arts. The Witch part gives basic stats, the House increases Tough by 1 (Ravenclaw increases Smart by 1, Hufflepuff increases Awesome by 1, and Slytherin increases Fast by 1, which is good for sneaking). The wizarding talent of "who Fights against the Dark Arts" reduces the difficulty/goal for any combat roll against evil by 1. I haven't done anything with the whole Muggle vs Magic-Born vs Mixed, but after reading what you did in GeneSys, that is an interesting idea, I'll have to think about it some.
Anyway, I'm thrilled to see someone hacking another cool game for fun Harry Potter stuff!
Brian, my apologies for not replying to this sooner! I didn't see an email or a notification about your comments and happened upon them today.
DeleteYour ideas re: HP in NTYE sound AMAZING. I've looked at the HP world through Cypher, Fate and now Genesys and it always makes for a fun project. I think your NTYE ideas sound terrific.
When I run NTYE it's typically for my 2 & 4 year olds and my wife, so this could be a fun way to go!
Thanks for sharing your ideas!
No worries! I should look in your archive for posts about HP in Cypher. At one point I had this harebrained scheme to expand my NTYE Hogwarts game to expand to Cypher as well, with the kids playing students using NTYE rules, and with adults playing Hogwarts professors using (more) full Cypher System rules. I concluded my game design skills were probably not up to the complexity of the task, but the concept was pretty neat anyway. Drop me an email if you like and I'm happy to share some of my stuff with you, and welcome any feedback.
DeletePS if you want to know more about what I've got so far for my hack, drop me a line at bpkurtz-at-gmail.
ReplyDelete