Suggestions for Reasons To Send Harry Potter on an Adventure

[Mistwell]

I run a game (been on hiatus for a while, but reviving soon I hope) where the PCs are students at an arcane/adventuring school called Mistwell University.

I've often sent the students on adventures based on their getting detention at the school for naughty things they've done, and having to do a seemingly harmless task for a professor that turns into a harrowing adventure. For example, they were sent to secure a house the school had inherited from a former student (boarding up the windows and doors and such, removing some valuables, so it could safely be kept empty for a few years until the school figured out what to do with it), and it turned out to be a haunted house.

But that 'detention' excuse is running a bit thin, and I would like some fresh ideas on excuses to get the students out to adventure.

The campaign is generally run as a series of one-shots, where the plot begins and ends within one or two sessions, and the students always are back at the school at the end (if they ever left). The school also has a variety of magic portals that can transport them back and forth from a specific destination, so travel to a location is rarely an issue.

I'd like some ideas from the good creative folks here on excuses for getting the student out into potentially dangerous situations (or ideas on those situations).

 

[Steel_Wind]

If you had a haunted house adventure - then I presume the PCs came in contact with the "haunter", right?

Whatever that was - use one or more of those restless souls as the link to the next adventure.

Hooks:

• decendant of spirit come to PCs for help, as sprit ancestor revealed to decendant that PCs were able to help with this specific problem
  
• spirit previously aided/released in to the afterlife asks for PCs help in aiding an descendant/loved one in peril
  
• spirit exorcised from the Haunted House is still condemned and seeks vengeance/requires help
  

In most of these cases, a medium might prove to be a great and unexpected bridge to the spirit if that's the hook.

Use a fortune telling/seance or other travelling psychic selling harmless entertainment may prove to be the link to the adventure. Even a Ouija board or something similar can prove to be the initial link to set things off and running.

 

[Ourph]

There are a number of situations you can borrow or modify from the HP books...

- A friend is missing/needs rescuing but the Professors are as stumped as the students (except for the PCs who stumble upon an important clue).
- An arch nemesis (another student) is plotting something naughty, but the Professors won't take action without some kind of proof.
- A new Professor is up to no good, but the PCs can't prove anything without evidence.
- One of the PCs needs the ingredients to make a potion (love potion, luck potion, etc.) but doing so will require sneaking off campus/stealing from the school lab/foraging in a dangerous place/etc.
- A PC's familiar has wandered into the Dungeon/Dark Forest/Teacher's Lounge/Haunted Tower/etc. and the PCs have to sneak out after lights out to look for it.
- The PCs need to look something up in the Restricted Section of the Library, but the key to that room is kept in an inaccesible place and guarded by a number of scary traps/tricks/monsters.

:edit:

Great idea for a campaign by the way! Sounds like fun.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Wouldn't it be really easy to set up a school homework/project/exam that serves as the hook for an adventure?

 

[Oryan77]

The star athlete Alb Undy from a rival school named Polk University, who is famous for scoring 4 touchdowns in a single game, has been raiding the girls locker room with his group of buddies nicknamed the 'No Ma'am' clan.

The PCs catch them in the act and hopefully try to stop them. Maybe a chase through school grounds could ensue? They find out that Alb had actually discovered that one of the girls from Mistwell is really a monster and he was trying to find proof. Will the PCs investigate or will they assume Alb is simply up to no good?

 

[Mistwell]

There are a number of situations you can borrow or modify from the HP books...

- A friend is missing/needs rescuing but the Professors are as stumped as the students (except for the PCs who stumble upon an important clue).
- An arch nemesis (another student) is plotting something naughty, but the Professors won't take action without some kind of proof.
- A new Professor is up to no good, but the PCs can't prove anything without evidence.
- One of the PCs needs the ingredients to make a potion (love potion, luck potion, etc.) but doing so will require sneaking off campus/stealing from the school lab/foraging in a dangerous place/etc.
- A PC's familiar has wandered into the Dungeon/Dark Forest/Teacher's Lounge/Haunted Tower/etc. and the PCs have to sneak out after lights out to look for it.
- The PCs need to look something up in the Restricted Section of the Library, but the key to that room is kept in an inaccesible place and guarded by a number of scary traps/tricks/monsters.

:edit:

Great idea for a campaign by the way! Sounds like fun.

Those are all excellent ideas, thank you!

 

[Mistwell]

Wouldn't it be really easy to set up a school homework/project/exam that serves as the hook for an adventure?

Yes. One of the planned adventures I have in mind is going through the third year dungeon exam - an adventure modeled on one of Jonathan M. Richards' great "Challenge of the Champions" adventures from Dungeon magazines of the past.

 

[Mistwell]

The star athlete Alb Undy from a rival school named Polk University, who is famous for scoring 4 touchdowns in a single game, has been raiding the girls locker room with his group of buddies nicknamed the 'No Ma'am' clan.

The PCs catch them in the act and hopefully try to stop them. Maybe a chase through school grounds could ensue? They find out that Alb had actually discovered that one of the girls from Mistwell is really a monster and he was trying to find proof. Will the PCs investigate or will they assume Alb is simply up to no good?

Oooo nice one!

 

[Stormonu]

Having played Wizards 101 (thanks to having seen it in the banners here), I'd raid that game for some ideas. I believe they have a wiki of quests.

And some additional ideas:

- A jealous student curses one of the player's wands. Unfortunately, the wand backfires in a spectacular fashion, harming another student. The players need to find out who cursed the wand and get them to confess or risk getting detention (and from what you've run, that ought to be incentive enough to hunt down the offender).

- A mysterious new student arrives at the school, and the PCs are assigned to help the student fit in. However, the student has some sort of dark secret, that if it gets out, could put the entire school at risk.

- During class, one of the more befuddled teachers accidentally summons a powerful, otherworldy entity. The entity seals off the classroom from the rest of the school as it makes plans to accumulate power and wreck the entire faculty and staff. With the players stuck "on the inside", they have to find a way to thwart the entity and send it back from whence it came.

- Someone has been selling miniature crystal balls to students, allowing them to cheat on tests. However, the crystal balls have the side effect of wiping all of the student's memories afterwards. After a few of their friends - or perhaps themselves fall prey to the unscrupulous seller's items, the characters need to track down the perpetrator, stop him from selling more wares, and retrieve the memories he's been stealing from the students.

- A rival school recruiter secretly approaches the students, attempting to entice them to their "exclusive school", only to reveal himself/herself to be a cult leader seeking to bring down the school and enslave the students.

- A school magic competition is announced. Characters who excel in various classes can enter the competition to help boost their own grades and/or gain acclaim as paragons in their magical aptitude. Of course, whether an evil entity is twisting the competition for his own foul means is up to you...

 

[Herobizkit]

qv the old WB serial Charmed. Rinse and re-flavor at will.