Silven Crossroads/Harry Potter RPG speculation

[Vigilance]

For someone who broke a "big rule" of fantasy these books seem to be selling awfully well. Easily the most successful fantasy series since LOTR. Much more than all those series that "follow the rules".

I wonder why that could be?

Could it be that people like magic to be mysterious? Like it when literature doesnt give over to genre fiction so completely the authors let others make "rules" for them and shove them into tight rigidly controlled boxes?

Nah. Must be something else.

Chuck

 

[JimAde]

Especially given that there are. Like that bubble spell.

It seems Harry and co just don't know where to look for infos. Which is not surprising -- I knew who Nicolas Flamel was, and that's a knowledge every muggle can have.

A major problem of Harry Potter's world: they don't know munchkins, minmaxers, and co. In year 2, Lockhart cast a spell that removes bones. Harry-as-a-PC (or, rather, Hermione-as-a-PC) would have jumped on that opportunity to learn that spell as an attack spell. In year 4, in the train, Harry and the Weasleys discover that mixing furnunculus and jelly leg knock unconscious someone and furthermore "decorate" him nicely. Then, why don't they use this knowledge on the death-eaters?

I'm sure that the raid on the ministry of magic, if the DA was a party of PC, would have resulted in a dozen of casualties for the Death-Eaters...

That's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. Having the characters run into these powerful spells makes good story, but could make bad games. On the other hand, maybe you could use a mechanic like the d20 Modern Defense stat (except for magic) and it goes up quickly for wizards. So a kid or teenager PC trying to throw such a spell at an adult will probably fail. If you assume that kind of passive defense (whether innate or from spells) and just assume the books don't bother to mention it, then it might work.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Goblet of Fire, and Order of the Phoenix has passages about resisting spells. In RPG mechanics, it would best rendered with skills -- just like spells themselves.

I think it can just be easily modeled by the kids getting more levels as they get XP. Harry, Ron, and Hermione would obviously have more XP than most of their classmates, with Harry having the most of all (having a high-CR encounter with somebody at the end of every book...).

For a d20 game, I think we might need to have different classes of wizard, including prestige classes, to represent differing styles and abilities.

Brad

 

[JimAde]

I think it can just be easily modeled by the kids getting more levels as they get XP. Harry, Ron, and Hermione would obviously have more XP than most of their classmates, with Harry having the most of all (having a high-CR encounter with somebody at the end of every book...).

For a d20 game, I think we might need to have different classes of wizard, including prestige classes, to represent differing styles and abilities.

Brad

Actually, this could address the power problems, too. You could have "kid-classes" that advance normally with HD, etc. and give you access to certain spell lists. Then you could have "adult classes" that are kind of like prestige classes, in that they have requirements, but also include some kind of defense that makes it hard, but not impossible, for "kid class" spells to affect you. And "adult class" casters would be able to dispel "kid class" spells very easily. And if you don't finish your training, like Hagrid, you never get the "adult class" levels.

I think you'd need some kind of mechanic for this, otherwise you have to assume that all the adults in the books are 10th level and up, since they dispel and counter the kids' spells without a thought.

 

[Desdichado]

Because Rowling broke a big rule of Fantasy: she didn't set out the "rules" of magic. She had the most ideal situation ever to explain to the reader how magic works and what the rules are. The protagonist is a wizard first learning about magic in a school for wizards. There can hardly be a more ideal situation for explaining magic.
However, she never does this. Not in five books has Rowling set out clear rules for her magic.
Thus, any RPG would have to extrapolate from her sketchy material. Unless she reverses her trend in the last two books, there will be problems with making a HP RPG.

That's only an RPG rule, not a fantasy rule. In fact, you could almost state that the opposite is a rule... if you explain exactly how magic works, it ceases to be magical and fails to serve as a plot device, which is her main reason for using it in the first place.

The biggest flaw I have found in her books is that allegedly, no wizard ever made a spell that allowed someone to breathe underwater. This is simply preposterous in my mind.
Breathing underwater seems like something that people dream about a lot, somewhat like flying, and no one ever making a spell that did that is ridiculous to me.

Uh, have you read the books? Several characters cast spells that allowed them (or someone else) to breathe underwater, including Cedric Diggory, Victor Krum, whatsername the French girl, and the four "prisoners" who were underwater asleep.

Explaining why Harry couldn't find a spell, that is different--perhaps the mer-people or something made wizards swear to stay on land or perhaps that lots of spells and such were lost in You Know Who's time of power, okay, but saying that not one wizard ever made a spell to breathe underwater makes no sense to me.

See above. Harry couldn't find the spell because he put it off more than anything else. Also, because apparently there's no good index of spells anywhere.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Especially given that there are. Like that bubble spell.

What "bubble spell?" You mean something one of the other contestants was using?
I don't remember exactly which book it was in, but this was the one with the wizards contest, the Goblet of Fire maybe, I forget.

I distinctly remember Harry searching desperately for a water breathing spell and he couldn't find one, and then the elf comes up with this magic mass of worm-like things that did it. If he couldn't find one at Hogwarts, there should be some reason why there wasn't one there.

For someone who broke a "big rule" of fantasy these books seem to be selling awfully well. Easily the most successful fantasy series since LOTR. Much more than all those series that "follow the rules".

I wonder why that could be?

Could it be that people like magic to be mysterious? Like it when literature doesnt give over to genre fiction so completely the authors let others make "rules" for them and shove them into tight rigidly controlled boxes?

Nah. Must be something else.

Yeah, so did the Oz books, and look how many L. Frank Baum wrote.

The source of my comment on it being "a rule" is from the book "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" by Orson Scott Card. I guess he doesn't count, huh?

Explaining how magic works isn't a big rule of fantasy. For example, in D&D it isn't explained any more than it is in HP, yet this RPG seems to do fine.

Actually, you may be incorrect. I might not remember the HP books exactly, but here goes...

In D&D, we know the sub-schools of spells(E.g. Pattern, Figment, Compulsion), we know what wizard magic can and cannot do (in general, it doesn't heal, it doesn't create permanent objects at low levels, it doesn't deal with alignment very much), we know who can become wizards and what they do to get their spells (Intelligent creatures, and they have to memorize spells from spellbooks), we know what graduations of power there are in spells (spell levels 0-9).
If I remember correctly, which I might not be, this information isn't gone over in Rowling's books in detail.
There is a small amount of information on the difference between Charms and (IIRC) Summoning spells in the Goblet of Fire (the one with the wizards contest). But none of this is made very clear to the reader. It is all mentioned in passing.

See above. Harry couldn't find the spell because he put it off more than anything else. Also, because apparently there's no good index of spells anywhere.

Why she didn't simply say it explicitly, then I don't know. It was my impression that it didn't exist as a spell, at least at Hogwarts, NOT the apparent reality that the spells existed, but he couldn't find them because there was no index of spells.

That's only an RPG rule, not a fantasy rule. In fact, you could almost state that the opposite is a rule... if you explain exactly how magic works, it ceases to be magical and fails to serve as a plot device, which is her main reason for using it in the first place.

See above for Orson Scott Card's book.
Some general explanation of magic would be helpful. I am not bleating for explicit treatises on magic in every novel, I am simply saying that I think Rowling should have provided more information than she gave.

Uh, have you read the books? Several characters cast spells that allowed them (or someone else) to breathe underwater, including Cedric Diggory, Victor Krum, whatsername the French girl, and the four "prisoners" who were underwater asleep.

I read up to book five.

The reason for the light detail on the magic just hit me...this isn't a story about where HP is, it's about what he does in dealing with his problems. In Card's words, this is a Character Story, about a persons changes, not an Event story about what someone does. Duh.

 

[Desdichado]

I read up to book five.

The reason for the light detail on the magic just hit me...this isn't a story about where HP is, it's about what he does in dealing with his problems. In Card's words, this is a Character Story, about a persons changes, not an Event story about what someone does. Duh.

There are only five books so far. The book in which more than half a dozen characters breathe underwater is book 4.

But yeah, as I said, magic in the Harry Potter books is a plot device. That's how it is in most fantasies. It's not a "rule" of fantasy that magic needs to be catalogued and explained, regardless of what Orson Scott Card (who's primarily known for writing science fiction anyway) says if most successful fantasies ignore it.

 

[Vigilance]

Yeah, so did the Oz books, and look how many L. Frank Baum wrote.

The source of my comment on it being "a rule" is from the book "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" by Orson Scott Card. I guess he doesn't count, huh?

Yeah Orson Scott Card counts for me. But *he* wouldnt be the one pointing at a good book and talking about it "breaking rules".

He would be the first to tell you that rules were made to be broken, and that if a book works as a holistic entity, then its a good book. Regardless of how many "rules" it breaks.

Chuck

 

[seankreynolds]

That was part of it, I'm sure. What I recall from the time was that her biggest beef was with the creation of new material. In her mind, any new details about her world would be made up by her and appear in her books, not in licensed RPG books. I honestly can't blame her for making that call.

I remember it more as, "I don't want anyone else other than me putting words into my characters' mouths or making my characters do things." And that included kids pretending to be Harry, Hermione, etc. playing the official HP RPG. Strange.

 

[seankreynolds]

Agreed. There was a pokemon RPG, but I don't see millions of people playing it. Understanding and enjoying RPGs takes a bit of a mental switch, liking the subject isn't enough.

That Pokemon RPG (the Pokemon adventure game) sold well over a hundred thousand units, and probably much more than that. I remember Ryan Dancey saying something about how well it sold.