Harry Potter d20?

[Set Harth]

I've been rereading Harry Potter lately in preparation for Book 5 this June and I thought it might be cool to Roleplay Harry Potter using d20 Modern or something similar. We could makeup our own American Wizard’s school and roleplay the game that takse place in wizarding world of the US.

I was thinking of something like this for a Setting:

Salem, Massachusetts, home of the Good’s Institute for Young Witches and Warlocks. Founded 1696 in memory of Sarah Good, an innocent muggle falsely accused of Witchcraft and executed in 1692. The School is located on the grounds of the old Hawthorne Mansion in Salem. Patterned after the famous Hogwarts of Great Britain, Student are sorted into four houses, (Four cool House names to be thought up). At the Institute play the American version of Quidditch called SpellBall (rules to be determined later but Americans prefer using hoverboards instead of old fashion broomsticks.)

I can’t think of any other changes to make but this was just a taste of what could be done. What does everyone think?

 

[KitanaVorr]

It sounds good - but if you want to keep the harry potter feel, you probably should go through the magical spells and fix them so they sound like the spells used in the books. Speaking of hoverboards - is this set in the future?

Harry Potter Lexicon website is a good place to get lots of encyclopedic information.

 

[Arani Korden]

The tricky thing with using d20 Modern is that with the Advanced Class setup, spellcasting doesn't really kick in until at least third level. There are some possible work-arounds, though (I've been thinking about this very subject off and on myself.)

Anyway, if you want players, count me in.

 

[Evoulos]

Sounds good!

 

[Calim]

let us say i am with interest myself and would be willing to help out in anyways needed thinking of doing this with d&d with my live group but did not have the nerve so if all works out well maybe we will see

 

[Sen Udo-Mal]

Another idea might be to use Incantations from Urban Arcane... make that the only kind of magic or something...

 

[Tanstaafl]

Another good reference for this type of game would be the 'Young Wizard' novels by Diane Duane - I think there are six; the wizards in these stories learn their craft from a book 'So You Want to be a Wizard' that changes itself based on what they've learned and what they need to know instead of an established school.

 

[Lichtenhart]

I'd really love to play in a game like this. Especially if you plan on allowing half-giants students.

 

[Arani Korden]

After pondering for a while, this is What I'd Do (tm) Take it for what it's worth.

I'd run an Urban Arcana game set in a Hogwarts-like school, instead of trying to specifically recreate the Potterverse. This would enable a focus on duplicating the feel of the books, rather than having to worry about details. Plus, it'd be less work, and I'm lazy.

Students would all have either the Hedge Wizard or the Novitiate background from the Urban Arcana book. This would give them access to both a limited degree of spellcasting and (through the Arcane Skills feat) Use Magic Device as a class skill. With UMD and a school-supplied variety of training scrolls, wands, etc. the students could experiment with a variety of magic while occasionally failing spectacularly. (For those without the UA book, the backgrounds and feats can be found here - yes, it's all legal and stuff.) Conveniently, neither background has an age limit, and used togethere they'd allow for a full range of base classes. (Privately, I think that Harry's a Fast hero, Ron's Dedicated, and Hermione's Smart (obviously.))

Races - most pcs would be human (with the UA shadowkind human providing for a split similar to Muggle-born and Wizarding families), with maybe one player running a goblin or gnome or half-ogre or whatever.

As far as houses go; between the core d20 Modern book and UA, there are four spellcasting Advanced Calsses. Four classes, four houses - you could map each house to a class, saying that the houses approach training differently; I'd kinda like to see the Techno-mage focused house myself. Or not, since the Hogwarts houses don't seem to vary that much in training.

Anyway, just some thoughts. I'd really like to see this game get off the ground.

 

[Arani Korden]

Almost forgot. Have each player create both as 1st level student PC and a (10-15th level) NPC member of staff. This would ease the NPC creation burden, while still letting the GM decide who's secretly in league with the dark forces of whatever.