D&D General Are You There D&D? It's Me, J.R.R. Tol-KEEEEN!

[Mind of tempest]

I dunno. I feel like if I handed D&D to a relatively nerd-knowledgeable person and said, “List its influences,” Harry Potter wouldn’t be the first thing that popped to mind.

• Where are the teenage angst mechanics?
• Where are the arbitrary but super important divisions into houses? (Tribes, schools, castes, whatever.)
• The sporting event that takes on outsized importance in the characters’ lives?
• The division between the magic-users and the muggles?
• The secret world that is hidden just down a diagonal alley from the normal world? (D&D has basically zero Hermetic or esoteric beliefs within it, because none of the occult/magic stuff in D&D is secret!)

For influences on D&D, I could definitely see someone say “Oh, it’s like (video game X)” or “(board game Y)” or even “(those old books from the ‘80s and ‘90s by Feist and Eddings)” [which would be to mistake the things that were influenced BY D&D for the things that influenced UPON D&D] [although of course at this point it’s an ouroboros eating its own tail].

I’m now curious if a serious market research company ever ran an open-ended “list all the things that remind you of D&D” survey what it would reveal. My money is that Harry Potter would be barely a blip.

is harry potter best run as a world of darkness game?

 

[Aldarc]

is harry potter best run as a world of darkness game?

I would probably consider Fate Accelerated first, especially when it has sample characters like this one:

Fate Accelerated is pretty good at running characters who have generally similar skill sets. So if everyone is a wizarding student, their primary differences may be about how they solve problems, personality quirks, and other narrative aspects.

 

[rhythmsoundmotion]

is harry potter best run as a world of darkness game?

Dread, we all know little Harry is going to die, but when will it happen?

 

[Mind of tempest]

Dread, we all know little Harry is going to die, but when will it happen?

two nanoseconds ideally as I hate the media property to AM levels

 

[Joshua Randall]

is harry potter best run as a world of darkness game?

No idea. I have never run, played in, or even talked to anyone who ran nor played in a WOD game.

I know. I'm weird that way.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Tolkien is overrated. Yeah I said it.

Actually, as far as Snarf's post, it seems Tolkien was over-written, lol. (And oddly enough, Snarf didn't somehow make it even wordier.)

 

[Parmandur]

Actually, as far as Snarf's post, it seems Tolkien was over-written, lol. (And oddly enough, Snarf didn't somehow make it even wordier.)

Tolkien neither overwrite, nor was he underwrote: he wrote precisely as much as he meant to.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Tolkien neither overwrite, nor was he underwrote: he wrote precisely as much as he meant to.

Apart from when C S Lewis imprisoned him at the top of his tower.

 

[Bill Zebub]

You ever think what LotR would look like with thri-keen instead of hobbits?

Not until I read this post. Now I'm going to have nightmares.

 

[Shardstone]

Not until I read this post. Now I'm going to have nightmares.

Imagine the Scouring of the Shire but the Thri-Kreen run over Saruman's orcs. Fro-do and Sam-wiz come back and together they all cannibalize Saruman, ushering in a thousand years of wisdom.