Hi Folks

I'm looking for advice on whether and how to run a Harry Potter game where events didn't play out as they did in the final book.   I'd be looking at such concepts as:

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1) Snape not helping Harry out.
2) Harry needing to die as the final horcrux
3) Harry and Hermione shipping.

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I've got loads more ideas but I'd like to know if this has 'been done before' and whether folk are at all interested in a darker, more serious Harry Potter game.

Note that I expect this to be adult with enough time having passed 'in hiding' after the final year to cover all appropriate bases.

That all being said, if this was to run, has anyone got good ideas for a system to use to run this?   Should it be freeform?

Many Thanks and looking forward to any and all advice and input.

Freeform vs. a set game system is basically what are you going to be comfortable with?


Freeform has expectations of common sense from the players, so beware of that. If you use a system (Broomstix and Cauldronz, for example), you probably need to have more of an overplot or direction for the game.


As for a 'darker' game, not my cup of tea.

I'd be ok with either, StarMaster.

Common sense, I've found is in limited supply 'in genera' while Broomstix seemed quite limiting when I've used it before.

As for the darker part - I guess it's more about the books ending on an all too obvious high.  So darker not in the vampire sense, but more in the sense of betrayal and loss that Iexpected it to end on?

As a long time fan of Harry Potter, I don't see Snape not helping Harry out. This is my personal view mind you. Mostly because its such an integral part of his character through all of the books.

I think that while its been done before, you can tell a different story by allowing other people to fill the shoes and play how they think it should happen. It really depends on how you want to do it.

If your looking for a quick system Windows is good, Savage Worlds can also work.

Otherwise it sounds like you want to write something freeform, which has its own perks as well.

Ultimately the reason for his helping may not have been due to his unwillingness to help....

I have been pondering using one of the diceless or semi-diceless systems.  Amber... or Fate?

Maybe a d20 system? Have Harry gain another power besides magic that "Voldemort knows not....." I'm also a big fan of Harry/ Hermione shipping. It made more sense to me than Ginny.
Seemed rather forced in a way. Of course,look at fanfiction for ideas; there is at least one fanfiction where Harry becomes a Green Lantern and another a student of Dr. Strange.

Harry Potter is hard to do with a dice rolling system.  You need to solve for the Stupefy Problem.

Someone hit with Stupefy (or, in the case of kids who don't know it, the Full Body Bind curse) is helpless.  If they fail to block or dodge, it's combat over and they're at their enemy's mercy.  This is boring, and in a dice-rolled fight, there is really no good reason in most systems I've seen proposed to use any spells other than Stupefy (attack) or Protego (shield) in a combat.  Whoever fails to block the Stupefy loses.

I'd suggest a freeform game but make people build characters with some sort of standard attribute system and possibly some skills they're good at.  Make them choose what they're good at magically.  And require common sense from your players.  The world of Harry Potter is not a good one for dice rolling.

Just my two cents.

I'm rather fond of the idea that when he ran into the column to go to Hogwarts that instead he put himself into a coma so that the whole thing has been a dream.  ^_^