D&D General Advise for A Mates Harry Potter/Dnd Hybrid RPG in which Albus and Scorpius persuaded Delphini not to change history so that Voldemort wins

[Bill Zebub]

I’m starting to suspect JMISBEST is an AI someone is trying to train to run RPGs by running it through increasingly improbable hypothetical gameplay scenarios and asking human GMs how they would resolve those scenarios.

Then definitely count me in on the subscription streaming service.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Sorry, I can’t help myself: it is spelled “advice” not “advise” in the context you have presented.

I am also sorry that I have no advice for your DM, nor can I advise you on how to help them.

 

[bedir than]

Sorry, I can’t help myself: it spelled “advice” not “advise” in the context you have presented.

I am also sorry that I have no advice for your DM, nor can I advise you on how to help them.

Think the OP is British

 

[Omand]

Think the OP is British

The OP has stated so in previous threads, yes, but in UK English it should still be advice as per @Uni-the-Unicorn!

Edited: spelling is hard, and ironic when you make typos while talking about correct spelling.

 

[bedir than]

The OP has stated so in previous threads, yes, but in UK English it should still be advice as per @Uni-the-Unicorn!

Edited: spelling is hard, and ironic when you make typos while talking about correct spelling.

In British English 'advise' is a noun, which is how it is used by the OP

 

[Omand]

In British English 'advise' is a noun, which is how it is used by the OP

I don't want to derail further, but do you have a source for that?

Wiktionary and my trusty physical copy of the Oxford English Dictionary indicate that advise is only ever a verb in both UK and US English.

Cheers

 

[bedir than]

I don't want to derail further, but do you have a source for that?

Wiktionary and my trusty physical copy of the Oxford English Dictionary indicate that advise is only ever a verb in both UK and US English.

Cheers

I misread this and got more confused

Difference Between Advise and Advice | Compare the Difference Between Similar Terms

Advise vs Advice Though advise and advice look similar and some use them interchangeably there is a difference between advise and advice in their usage a

www.differencebetween.com

 

[Omand]

I misread this and got more confused

Difference Between Advise and Advice | Compare the Difference Between Similar Terms

Advise vs Advice Though advise and advice look similar and some use them interchangeably there is a difference between advise and advice in their usage a

www.differencebetween.com

No problem. We all mess up from time to time. I even do it in thread comments about spelling and grammar with my own spelling and grammar (see Post #24 which I did correct, but which was silly before I did).

Cheers

 

[FrozenNorth]

I asked him that myself and he said that he forgot to ask me to ask how you think he should have the rest of the campaign pan out?, after all he wasn't planning on his 2 players managing to convince the campaigns main villain to switch sides and join the good guys

See, that’s an easy question and should have been the question to lead with.

Now what?

First, the party + Delphini have a plan, now they need to implement it. I can think of any amount of challenges to trying to implement a plan that causes major changes to the past.

Now villains. You no longer have a big bad, so you will have to replace her. How about time elementals, beings responsible for maintaining the time stream who attack the heroes during the mission and afterwards.

Of course, depending how evil/cynical the DM is, the players’ good intentions could result in a bad future. It is a common time travel trope for a reason.

 

[Ancalagon]

Have them roll a bunch of d6's and say "Gosh, the table in my head says this happens when I roll a 5, 4, red, and pocket lint", then do whatever they wanted to do anyways.

Rolling on tables isn't "bad luck", it's deciding to abdicate authority or narrative consistency in service of a chart they themselves designed! The time spent designing entries on "the king's 3rdteenth smelliest nephew orders eggplant parmesan, how much does he like it?" table doesn't make the game more realistic. It's self indulgent, which is fine, but what's the point of the faffery if you aren't going to see it through?

"tables gaming" can be a lot of fun, but the GHM has to be ready to "roll with the punches", so to speak. It's not invalid. However, as others have said, the table shouldn't be used if some of the results are troublesome for the GM.

As far as narrative consistency... life is chaotic and messy, and so are many D&D games. People make mistakes and/or are inconsistent, freak events occur, things break just at the worst (or sometimes best) time etc etc.

To me the main problems are not rolls the DM can't handle, but rather the entire scenario - time travel, harry potter... it's a mess. Although, now that I think about it, a story where the main villain is "defeated" by changing the course of their life via time travel might be interesting, if we ignore the serious paradoxes this could result in...

 

[JMISBEST]

See, that’s an easy question and should have been the question to lead with.

Now what?

First, the party + Delphini have a plan, now they need to implement it. I can think of any amount of challenges to trying to implement a plan that causes major changes to the past.

Now villains. You no longer have a big bad, so you will have to replace her. How about time elementals, beings responsible for maintaining the time stream who attack the heroes during the mission and afterwards.

Of course, depending how evil/cynical the DM is, the players’ good intentions could result in a bad future. It is a common time travel trope for a reason.

What do you think of my idea to have Rodolfus get his plan back on track by breaking out of Azkaban and putting Delphini under Imperio?

 

[FrozenNorth]

See, that’s an easy question and should have been the question to lead with.

What do you think of my idea to have Rodolfus get his plan back on track by breaking out of Azkaban and putting Delphini under Imperio?

I haven’t read the Cursed Child so I only know the basics. It involves time travrl and going back in time to change the outcome of the battle ehich lesds to a bad future.

But generally speaking, players din’t really appreciate when the work they’ve done is undercut by deus ex machina: if they’ve done the work to persuade the villain to change sides, having someone else show up to mind control the villain evil again may feel like a cop out.

 

[Gradine]

Maybe find a setting with even a modicum of internal consistency if this is going to be an issue

 

[JMISBEST]

The Cursed Child is garbage, and cannot be canon regardless of what Joanne says, because it breaks the mechanics of time travel established in Prisoner of Azkaban. The book (and the film) establishes that time travel via time turner can’t change the past, because by the time you use the time turner, the “changes” you set out to make have already been made. This is evidenced by the fact that it was Harry who saved his past self and Sirius from the dementors. And in fact all of the trio’s actions in the past are actually foreshadowed in the book (and in the film) before they go back and perform them.

But even if you don’t accept that, it’s also impossible to go back in time nearly that long by time turner. Prisoner of Azkaban establishes that each turn of the time turner takes you back one hour (Dumbledkre recommends that three turns ought to do it, and they go back three hours). To go back in time a single year would take 8,760 turns. Assuming one turn per second, that’s just under about 2 and a half hours. To go back 13 years would take about 32 and a half hours of nonstop turning. Even if you grant that they could do that, they would be physically exhausted from sleep deprivation, badly dehydrated, and probably very hungry when they arrived.

13 years(?), yeah right, add on a decade and well over another half a year

That's because of the time taken to make the deal, complete preperations, decide on back up plans, come up with back up plans for their back up plans Albus and Scorpius have completed The Christmas Term of their 6th year, its now The 21st of December and their going back to The 2nd of may 1,998, that's more then 23 and a half years

 

[JMISBEST]

Another question. My mates added 3 more players and here's their characters, they don't have a clue that Dlphini's Voldemorts Daughter, if they did they'd turn her in, and likely Albus and Scorpius too, and none of them are in it for Delphini. How do you think Delphini could be persuaded to let them tag along?

The 3 new players are playing Rose Granger, Ron took Hermione's Surname and Rose wants to save Fred, Edward Lupin, wants to save both his parents and hopes to kill Bellatrix but he know's he'll never pull it off, and my Mate has given Greyback A Daughter called Varni that wants revenge on her father for turning her mother into A Werewolf and if it wasn't for Harry Potter Greyback/her own father, would have done the same to her

 

[Charlaquin]

13 years(?), yeah right, add on a decade and well over another half a year

That's because of the time taken to make the deal, complete preperations, decide on back up plans, come up with back up plans for their back up plans Albus and Severus are completed The Christmas Term of their 6th year, its now The 21st of December and their going back to The 2nd of may 1,998, that's more then 23 and a half years

Ok, 23.5 years? That’s 205,860 hours. At one turn per second, that’s 57 hours and 11 minutes of nonstop turning. 2 days and 9 hours, no sleep, no food, no water, and no bathroom breaks. They’re going to arrive hungry, severely dehydrated, delirious from sleep deprivation, and in severely soiled clothing. Hope they didn’t lose count at any point during that time.

 

[Ancalagon]

Another question. My mates added 3 more players and here's their characters, they don't have a clue that Dlphini's Voldemorts Daughter, if they did they'd turn her in, and likely Albus and Severus too, and none of them are in it for Delphini. How do you think Delphini could be persuaded to let them tag along?

The 3 new players are playing Rose Granger, Ron took Hermione's Surname and Rose wants to save Fred, Edward Lupin, wants to save both his parents and hopes to kill Bellatrix but he know's he'll never pull it off, and my Mate has given Greyback A Daughter called Varni that wants revenge on her father for turning her mother into A Werewolf and if it wasn't for Harry Potter Greyback/her own father, would have done the same to her

Why on earth would you add 3 new players to that situation?

My advice is to build a time machine to avoid those 3 players joining.

 

[bedir than]

It's very rare to be able to fix a game that's falling apart by doubling the size of the table

 

[Ancalagon]

Seriously speaking, adding 3 players in the middle of a complex game AND the new players won't agree to the course the existing party has taken is a great way to destroy the campaign. There is no reasonable advice we can give you here beyond "don't do it!".

 

[JMISBEST]

Seriously speaking, adding 3 players in the middle of a complex game AND the new players won't agree to the course the existing party has taken is a great way to destroy the campaign. There is no reasonable advice we can give you here beyond "don't do it!".

The 3 new players don't mind the course the existing party has taken, their simply having their characters/Rose Granger, Edward Lupin and Varni Greyback, do what they think they'd do in this situation