Harry Potter: The RPG. I want to write it.

[Roxxy]

This just came into my head today. What I love most about the Harry Potter books is the setting. I just love the wizarding world to death, and I'm sad to have no more books to expand upon it. Well, why not do it myself? I'm thinking a point system superficially similar to the Storyteller system. The games focus would be on telling new stories with new characters, with the system being equally well suited to staying in Britain or leaving for new countries. I like the Britain of the books, but at the same time I want to imagine what the wizarding world would look like over in New England or Mexico or Germany. My own personal preference would be to run games for groups of aurors, but I don't see why someone couldn't do pretty much whatever they wanted with their group.

I know how I want the system to play out. It's levelless point buy, with magic being seperated into the groups you see in the books. Each group is improved independently of other groups. As a general rule, you can cast what you want so long as you know how (some of the more powerful spells have a requisite skill level in the spell group they belong to), though if you run around throwing avada kadavra's everywhere the local magical government will respond.

What I'm looking for is advice, any issues that come to mind, ideas for new spells, magical items, or magical creatures from outside Britain to add to this RPG, and so on. This is a spur of the moment idea, but I think it has enough merit for serious consideration.

[LemuneSD]

Sounds interesting. Don't laugh at the source, but Lego Harry Potter added some interesting ideas for spells =D There is a technical problem already in the making, a potential faction issue since nobody willingly chooses Hufflepuff. Ever.

[Roxxy]

Sounds interesting. Don't laugh at the source, but Lego Harry Potter added some interesting ideas for spells =D I'll check it out. The Lego video games were fun from a building stuff standpoint.


There is a technical problem already in the making, a potential faction issue since nobody willingly chooses Hufflepuff. Ever.I'll leave that to those playing this RPG in a Hogwarts setting. I personally want to run games for auror teams, and I really, really want to explore what the wizarding world looks like in my native California.

Exploring the wizarding world outside of Britain is one of the things I want to do most with this RPG. I want to look at places like the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Japan, China, and so on and so forth. The British wizarding world is wonderful, and this RPG will be able to be used in it no problem, but I've been in that world for 7 novels and several video games. I want to see and play in some other countries now, and if that means writing them up myself, I'll do it happily.

[CN the Logos]

You'll have to contend with the fact that while magic in Harry Potter can't reach the upper heights of insanity that's possible with D&D (you can't create your own mini-universe, as far as I know) it is still utterly broken in terms of effects that will be easily available to players. To give one small example, a moderately-gifted teenager was able to rewrite a couple decades of her parents' memories with no apparent resistance on their part, and another wizard made an entire career out of similar memory-altering shenanigans.

Indeed, magic in the Harry Potter universe doesn't seem to allow the equivalent of saves; if it hits you, the effect happens. Sufficiently stubborn people can fight back against Imperius to a limited extent, but if someone decides to blast off your ear or remove all your bones or just kill you, the only defense is to dodge (at least in the case of the Killing Curse; if there were a shield capable of blocking or reflecting it we probably would have seen it). This means, as Quirrelmort put it in one amusing bit of fanfiction, that knowing Avada Kadavra makes the entirety of Defense Against the Dark Arts unnecessary, since anything dangerous enough to threaten you can always be killed in one shot, and if for it isn't enough of a threat to justify killing, you can just Apparate away. If you want to take someone out of a fight without killing them, there are any number of other spells that will end the fight in one shot just as easily.

This means you're going to choose between fidelity to the source material or unbreaking the magic system. It's vaguely possible that there are all sorts of possible defenses against memory modification and mind control available to wizards and that Gilderoy Lockheart only targeted the especially trusting or stupid, but I'm not aware of anything official to that effect. You may or may not consider this a problem, since it's probably going to be aimed and fans of the series as J. K. Rowling wrote it and not of the series as the Orwellian nightmare it becomes with a bit of thought, but be aware that players will try to break anything and everything. It's what they do.

I wish you luck. :smallcool:

[Roxxy]

You'll have to contend with the fact that while magic in Harry Potter can't reach the upper heights of insanity that's possible with D&D (you can't create your own mini-universe, as far as I know) it is still utterly broken in terms of effects that will be easily available to players. To give one small example, a moderately-gifted teenager was able to rewrite a couple decades of her parents' memories with no apparent resistance on their part, and another wizard made an entire career out of similar memory-altering shenanigans.

Indeed, magic in the Harry Potter universe doesn't seem to allow the equivalent of saves; if it hits you, the effect happens. Sufficiently stubborn people can fight back against Imperius to a limited extent, but if someone decides to blast off your ear or remove all your bones or just kill you, the only defense is to dodge (at least in the case of the Killing Curse; if there were a shield capable of blocking or reflecting it we probably would have seen it). This means, as Quirrelmort put it in one amusing bit of fanfiction, that knowing Avada Kadavra makes the entirety of Defense Against the Dark Arts unnecessary, since anything dangerous enough to threaten you can always be killed in one shot, and if for it isn't enough of a threat to justify killing, you can just Apparate away. If you want to take someone out of a fight without killing them, there are any number of other spells that will end the fight in one shot just as easily.

This means you're going to choose between fidelity to the source material or unbreaking the magic system. It's vaguely possible that there are all sorts of possible defenses against memory modification and mind control available to wizards and that Gilderoy Lockheart only targeted the especially trusting or stupid, but I'm not aware of anything official to that effect. You may or may not consider this a problem, since it's probably going to be aimed and fans of the series as J. K. Rowling wrote it and not of the series as the Orwellian nightmare it becomes with a bit of thought, but be aware that players will try to break anything and everything. It's what they do.

I wish you luck. :smallcool:What I'm thinking is letting people have mental fortitude saves versus mind effecting magic (the PCs are heroes, so I assume them to be sufficiently strong willed) and dodge rolls versus other magic, and using cover a lot. Shielding spells and counterspelling are also major parts of combat. Though combat spells are generally one hit and you're out, spells miss more than they hit unless one side gets the drop on the other. Also, spells like Ennervate revive stunned characters. As for unforgiveable curses, like Bellatrix said to Harry once, you have to mean them for them to work. For Avada Kedavra, you have to honestly and sincerely want to kill. A mere desire for self defense won't cut it. A certain amount of malice and hatred is necessary. That's why Moody is the only heroic character to make much use of it. He's the only one hateful enough. The same is true for Crucio. A killing curse may be an insta-win, but PCs are highly unlikely to be able to use it unless it's an evil campaign, and it can still be dodged or deflected by cover. Imperius is easier to use because it isn't so outwardly harmful, but if somebody recognized the fact that it has been used, it can be dispelled (the same is true for memory charms unless you get blasted as hard as Lockheart did). It's still not balanced, but I don't love Harry Potter for it's magnificent balance.

Also, dragons. Spells bounce right off :smallbiggrin:.

[Dr.Epic]

Well, if based on Harry Potter, all wizards have to have a HUGE penalty to wisdom and intelligence.

[Roxxy]

Well, if based on Harry Potter, all wizards have to have a HUGE penalty to wisdom and intelligence.I'll grant you most of the Hogwarts faculty, most of the Order of the Phoenix, and Ron and Harry, but Hermoine? An average Wisdom and a major Intelligence boost.

[Pyrophilios]

If you let players and their ideas loose in a Harry Potter world expect them to turn it into this kind of story (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality).

Quasi unlimited magic for everybody needs a very, very disciplined group to not descent into flame and chaos.

I had some success with a modified version of Mage the Awakening (Mana regeneration, almost purly rote based magic)
The Wisdom mechanic is very useful to keep the PCs from abusing their power (too much :smallwink:)

[Roxxy]

If you let players and their ideas loose in a Harry Potter world expect them to turn it into this kind of story (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality).

Quasi unlimited magic for everybody needs a very, very disciplined group to not descent into flame and chaos.

I had some success with a modified version of Mage the Awakening (Mana regeneration, almost purly rote based magic)
The Wisdom mechanic is very useful to keep the PCs from abusing their power (too much :smallwink:)I'll keep the possibility of mana and rote magic in mind. My other check on power is to use the local magical governments. When witches and wizards go too far, magical law enforcement officers step in. That's not to say you can't go around abusing magic to your heart's content, you just have to deal with the consequences of that choice, which can involve a numerically superior and quite pissed off force of aurors coming for your ass.

[Jerthanis]

Indeed, magic in the Harry Potter universe doesn't seem to allow the equivalent of saves; if it hits you, the effect happens. Sufficiently stubborn people can fight back against Imperius to a limited extent, but if someone decides to blast off your ear or remove all your bones or just kill you, the only defense is to dodge (at least in the case of the Killing Curse; if there were a shield capable of blocking or reflecting it we probably would have seen it). This means, as Quirrelmort put it in one amusing bit of fanfiction, that knowing Avada Kadavra makes the entirety of Defense Against the Dark Arts unnecessary, since anything dangerous enough to threaten you can always be killed in one shot, and if for it isn't enough of a threat to justify killing, you can just Apparate away. If you want to take someone out of a fight without killing them, there are any number of other spells that will end the fight in one shot just as easily.

I think one interesting thing about Harry Potter is that it gets both the "Magic is inferior to guns" and "Magic is totally unstoppable" treatments from different fans/antifans/people on internet. The idea that you can kill or disable anyone in one shot all day long, with no way to stop you but to kill or disable you first, or seek cover/escape is one of the features I think that would make the system feel unique.

I brainstormed up a pitch for a Harry Potter RPG a bit ago and I kind of liked it, so I'll repeat it here. It IS essentially a concept for a system homebrewed essentially from the ground up, so it might not be helpful to you, but maybe some of the ideas will be adaptable.

Essentially, one of the themes of Harry Potter is that friendship and family and community is important, and makes us stronger together than apart. To emphasize this, I felt that having combat systems essentially be all about teamwork. In-setting, spells can be stronger or weaker, but they tend to exert their full strength on the target.

Because of this, I was going to have no formalized Hit Point system, or any specific measure of how wounded you are. Instead, each spell that hits you inflicts its specific status effect, from wobbly legs to unconsciousness to death. These effects would have counter-curses which would remove those effects. So the idea is that if you're in a fight with some death eaters, you would all scurry to cover, and when one of your team was knocked out of the fight, one or two wizards would provide covering fire while another goes over to the fallen compatriot, tries to identify the curse that knocked them down, and attempts to get them on their feet again. A key to combat would be essentially managing the action economy to have more spells going downrange from your side than your opponents' at any one time. Your stats could be godlike, but real power comes from having friends.

The statistics/advancement system I came up with was meant to represent students of a wizarding academy, so if you wanted to play adult Aurors, this wouldn't really be an appropriate system for you. Essentially, your stats would be the school subjects... Charms, Transfiguration, Defense against the dark arts, Potions, and if I could figure out how to gamify them, Herbology and History of Magic. I also devised a base 'athleticism' stat to help resolve issues of basic movement, physical trials, fist fights, and so on. The character's "level" is their year in school, and their stats are their OWL levels between 1st and 5th year, (T, D, P, A, E, and O) then "NEWT" if they qualify for NEWT level classes (ideally balanced so only your specialty allows for NEWT level advancement, I know HP, Harmony and the Bear got NEWT classes in everything ever, but I figure in a game, having different levels of competency among subjects is a good thing. 7th book Hermione might have been represented in this system as Charms: NEWT, Transfiguration: E, DaDA: O, Potions: O Athleticism: A, while HP might be C: E, T: E, DaDA: NEWT, P: E, A: O)

The actual system behind this whimsical way of denoting skill level was that spells would have a Year rating and a Difficulty rating. Year would represent how advanced the spell was... you were assumed to know all spells of a lower year than you, and the plot would follow your character learning the spells of the year the story currently took place in. If you had learned a spell (in class or in the library after hours or from a tutorship), you could use it, but its difficulty subtracted from the probability it would take effect, and your OWL would subtract from the Difficulty score. So to grab numbers from out of nowhere, a Death Eater with a Shield Charm up across a dark street might be 50% likely to be affected by a Stunner spell, but Stupefy is a difficulty level E spell and you only have an OWL of A, so it's... say, 20% harder, and you now only have 30% chance to knock out that Death Eater. If you had an O, it might be 20% easier.

[Roxxy]

I like the idea of a strong team based focus without tracked hit points. It makes sense from the point of view of the books, and could be fun for a cooperative RPG. Combat tends to be fought with great reliance on cover and movement or as a series of spell duels, depending on the circumstances (just like the books). The year/grade based system wouldn't work because I don't assume the characters to be of school age, but the basic ideas behind it are valid. The grade system could be replaced with a simple skill level, for example.

[Raimun]

I'd totally roll a fighter. :smallcool:

[Hiro Protagonest]

Well, if based on Harry Potter, all wizards have to have a HUGE penalty to wisdom and intelligence.
I'm going to assume that because you said "all", you're talking about the fact that they can't function in muggle society except for muggle-raised.

If that's the case, then it's like saying everyone these days takes huge penalties to int and wisdom because if we were transported back to the iron age with no way of recreating our tech, not many of us would know how to survive.

I'd totally roll a fighter. :smallcool:

If it is a cover-based system, it could actually be a decent milsim system if you add all the rules for modern equipment.

...And now I'm totally going to play a half-blood who spurned magic beyond the basic stuff and is crazy about the military.

[Sylvos330]

I think a White Wolf style system or even a D6 style would work well with the Harry Potter world.

You could have specific Skills required to cast certen spells. For example to defend against harmful mind effects you could put ranks in Occumency, and to attack you could have ranks in Legilimency.

There could be a Defence skill for blocking spells and Dodge for outright ducking.

I'm currently playing in a Harry Potter game using 4E and reflavored every class to fit into the world. The ideas the players came up with are amazing.

[Imbasel]

If you're interested at all I made a hp d20.

https://sites.google.com/site/harrypotterd20/home

[Mordar]

I think a White Wolf style system or even a D6 style would work well with the Harry Potter world.

You could have specific Skills required to cast certen spells. For example to defend against harmful mind effects you could put ranks in Occumency, and to attack you could have ranks in Legilimency.

There could be a Defence skill for blocking spells and Dodge for outright ducking.

I'm currently playing in a Harry Potter game using 4E and reflavored every class to fit into the world. The ideas the players came up with are amazing.

I very strongly agree - White Wolf is exactly what I thought of when I read the OP. I would consider the schools of magic (Defense, Occlumency etc) to be Disciplines instead of skills...though there might need to be a basic "cantrips" array of spells available to all the wizardlings. Perhaps rank in the School serves as an additive?

Muggles would have very limited ability to resist magic, but clearly wizards (and other "awakened") critters would be better able to fend off spells.

Instead of Clans (ala Vampire), Houses could be developed beyond the Hogwart's Four that represent other focus or teaching styles...the schools from Goblet of Fire present a couple of choices, I think, very different from G/H/R/S.

The Storyteller system allows for flexible effects depending on the nature of the target (in this case, muggle vs. wizard/awakened), a broad system for result generation, and lacks the rigidity of games like DnD...so I think it would be a (relatively) easy port that would still retain the flavor presented in the books and films.

Certainly wouldn't want to play a d20/GURPS version of Harry Potter, I don't think...

- M

[Wyntonian]

I think the narriative style of the movies would match a FATE-based system pretty well. Skills for different types of spells "schools", dodging, awareness, lore and other things you'd need to roll for. Stunts could be specific abilities, like Harry being good at flying or disarming people, Hermione being a good researcher, etc. Powers could cover being able to turn into an animal, whatever it's called, or that one woman, who could change her physical features, or other stuff.

Different refresh/skill levels could be good for representing different skill levels. Different years in school would have more or less skill points, a different skill cap and more or less refresh.

I dunno, I just like the system.

[CN the Logos]

What I'm thinking is letting people have mental fortitude saves versus mind effecting magic (the PCs are heroes, so I assume them to be sufficiently strong willed) and dodge rolls versus other magic, and using cover a lot. Shielding spells and counterspelling are also major parts of combat. Though combat spells are generally one hit and you're out, spells miss more than they hit unless one side gets the drop on the other. Also, spells like Ennervate revive stunned characters. As for unforgiveable curses, like Bellatrix said to Harry once, you have to mean them for them to work. For Avada Kedavra, you have to honestly and sincerely want to kill. A mere desire for self defense won't cut it. A certain amount of malice and hatred is necessary. That's why Moody is the only heroic character to make much use of it. He's the only one hateful enough. The same is true for Crucio. A killing curse may be an insta-win, but PCs are highly unlikely to be able to use it unless it's an evil campaign, and it can still be dodged or deflected by cover. Imperius is easier to use because it isn't so outwardly harmful, but if somebody recognized the fact that it has been used, it can be dispelled (the same is true for memory charms unless you get blasted as hard as Lockheart did). It's still not balanced, but I don't love Harry Potter for it's magnificent balance.

Also, dragons. Spells bounce right off :smallbiggrin:.

Having to "mean" the Unforgivables just means that the only people with easy access to instant death, direct mind control (as opposed to indirect mind control via memory alteration) and magical torture are the people that don't have a problem with those things. So... the bad guys. Or evil player characters. Of the three Unforgivables, Wrack Crucio is probably the hardest to cast, since most people don't like torture for the sake of torture and there are other spells available if all you want to do is render someone incapable of continuing to fight.

The real kicker though is easy memory alteration. In a stand up fight, wizards would be easily beaten by a modern military, but they aren't going to provide muggle forces with a stand up fight. All a wizard has to do is get within wand-range of the muggle leadership, and suddenly he is in command via magical brainwashing. If you don't explain why all major politicians in the world aren't the mind-controlled slaves of some dark wizard with a better grasp of subtlety than Thomas the Psychotic Murderer, the setting suddenly becomes very dark.


I think one interesting thing about Harry Potter is that it gets both the "Magic is inferior to guns" and "Magic is totally unstoppable" treatments from different fans/antifans/people on internet. The idea that you can kill or disable anyone in one shot all day long, with no way to stop you but to kill or disable you first, or seek cover/escape is one of the features I think that would make the system feel unique.

I never said it was a terrible idea or that it couldn't be done. I was just pointing out some potential problems with a straightforward adaptation, particularly if the OP's goal is a system focused on magical combat (e.g., auror teams, like the OP mentioned wanting to run games based on). Mad-Eye Moody was probably just paranoid enough for his line of work; the casualty rate for people involved in no-holds barred magical combat has to be obscenely high.

I agree that it could be a fun, interesting system provided we get a decent explanation for why the world isn't ruled by a few powerful and paranoid wizards with memory charms (or maybe it really is, and beneath its cheery surface the wizarding world is actually more grimdark than Warhammer 40k). Anyone creating an RPG based on this setting just needs to take a few things into account when crafting the system; I have no doubt it could be done well with some thought.

Count me as another vote for Storytelling/Storyteller if you don't want to create an entirely original system. Savage Worlds might work too. I don't think a class and level based system like D20 is appropriate for a setting where all the major characters are magic users who are only slightly hardier than mere mortals, especially since saves don't matter in the Potterverse.

[Sylvos330]

Further expanding you could even add bonuses for specific races if you wanted to alow Half Giants, Half Veela, Goblins, and Half Goblins off the top of my head.

For each school you could give specific spell groups like the vampires disciplines. After all each house was stronger in certain areas. Heck if you wanted to go nuts you could add bonuses for the other two major schools if someone wanted to do an Aurer campaign.

[Jerthanis]

I never said it was a terrible idea or that it couldn't be done. I was just pointing out some potential problems with a straightforward adaptation, particularly if the OP's goal is a system focused on magical combat (e.g., auror teams, like the OP mentioned wanting to run games based on). Mad-Eye Moody was probably just paranoid enough for his line of work; the casualty rate for people involved in no-holds barred magical combat has to be obscenely high.

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly, I was more remarking at the fact that I can't count the number of times I've tried to express to people why exactly the Minister of Magic asking the Muggle Prime Minister for a group of commandos with machineguns would accomplish somewhere between less and nothing in the fight with Voldemort.

[doc neon]

I've actually given a system like this some thought, and here are a few ideas I had.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind about the HP setting is that the heroes are heroes. There needs to be some kind of mechanic to show that teenagers can fight serial killer Nazi cultists and come out on top. I was thinking that there should be some kind of Luck/Hero point system, which would essentially allow you to burn a point and say, "that spell didn't hit me," or, "I get an obscene bonus to hit that Death Eater," especially since plenty of spells stun, kill, or otherwise take you out of the fight immediately. The points could be treated like hit points and recover over time, but, in keeping with the series' theme of weak nice people beating strong mean people (I should write a dissertation about this, I know) I was thinking that you could recover points by helping others out or otherwise being a nice person. I think it might synergize well if you were playing a school-age game, because you would actually get a mechanical reward for helping out the dumb kid in Herbology. I loved Jerthanis' status effect system as soon as I read it, and it would probably work well on its own, but I think a point system might add to it.

You've also got to worry about ridiculously overpowered spells. It's actually stated that Avada Kedavra is unblockable and an instakill, so it seems pretty powerful. You could always add a large chance of failure, but that seems like it'd take away from the drama, and once you got over the skill level where you can reliably cast it, the problem would come back. I think that the best way to handle it would just be to make high-powered "magic-missile" style spells ridiculously inaccurate, thus giving you an excuse to use all of the fun jinxes, charms, and transfiguration spells.

The setting, meanwhile, can be made as bright or grimdark as you want without changing canon, which is actually a pretty nice thing. I think it was mentioned that one of the Order was a bodyguard for the Prime Minister, so that may be a reason that world leaders aren't attacked; there's too much wizard presence around them. We never see aurors investigating anything, so it might be that they've got great CSI-style spells that let them find murderers quickly, and they were just cowed into submission during Voldemort's first reign. On the other hand, you could certainly rule that most nations are just puppets of a secret cabal of wizards; whatever floats your boat.

[Sith_Happens]

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly, I was more remarking at the fact that I can't count the number of times I've tried to express to people why exactly the Minister of Magic asking the Muggle Prime Minister for a group of commandos with machineguns would accomplish somewhere between less and nothing in the fight with Voldemort.

You mean besides the fact that there's likely at least one person in the wizarding world who's had the sense to invent the Bulletproof Charm?

[prufock]

I started a system based on the Harry Potter setting several years ago but never followed through on it. It was basic D&D 3.5, and I think that may have been part of the problem - the D&D model doesn't work well for Harry Potter, for a number of reasons.

I started to think of other ways to run it, but I've never really come up with a perfect model. A D6-type system is simple and flexible, and I've used it for space exploration and horror games before. This would make magic usable all the time and based on an ability roll, so you would either need a different ability for each school of magic OR group them under abilities with individual schools being specialties you can select. It includes action/hero/brownie points to improve rolls and you can recover these by being heroic.

Another idea was to use Mutants and Masterminds. You can build pretty much anything with this system, and spells aren't limited per day or anything. Your proficiency with different schools of magic could be determined simply by your rank in a given power. However, being a d20 system it is still very "combat-based," and the feel doesn't seem right for a Harry Potter game.

For my money I would probably go with D6 as a starting point, make it as simple as possible to start and then expand out to cover what you need.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I think the narriative style of the movies would match a FATE-based system pretty well. Skills for different types of spells "schools", dodging, awareness, lore and other things you'd need to roll for. Stunts could be specific abilities, like Harry being good at flying or disarming people, Hermione being a good researcher, etc. Powers could cover being able to turn into an animal, whatever it's called, or that one woman, who could change her physical features, or other stuff.

Different refresh/skill levels could be good for representing different skill levels. Different years in school would have more or less skill points, a different skill cap and more or less refresh.

I dunno, I just like the system.
Reminds me of the official RPG for another wizard named Harry (http://www.evilhat.com/home/dresden-files-rpg/).

[Wyntonian]

Reminds me of the official RPG for another wizard named Harry (http://www.evilhat.com/home/dresden-files-rpg/).

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Harry regularly beats guys way "stronger" than him? Well, his Aspects (Saving-People Thing, Uncomfortably Famous, My Parents Are DEEEAAAAAAAD, Good Friend) get compelled every page, so he's left with a ton of Fate Points to help him kick Death Eater ass. He probably has some stunt about disarming people/nonlethal combat, too.

[prufock]

I figured I'd drop a few things here.

First, there's this homebrew Harry Potter system (http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/coda_hp_rpg/), complete with an adventure module. Figured you might be interested in having a look, it might give you some ideas.

Second, over at Atomicthinktank I found a sample M&M Harry Potter build (http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?p=1036377#p1036377) (first year). He's only PL 2 as written here, which seems low, but keeping in mind he's still new to this whole wizarding game and is still prepubescent.

Third, my basic idea for a D6 HP system.

Abilities: Power, Quick, Brains, Cool, Magic - for adult wizards, you would get 15 points to spend, min 1, max 5, on a 1-for-1 basis. For students just starting out, you could probably use lower point buy, maybe 8 and give them an extra point at the end of each year. You get one specialty for each stat (ie Muscle specialty could be climbing); your stat counts as 1 higher for your specialties only.
Power is for melee fighting, grappling, pushing things, breaking things, climbing, lifting.
Quick is for modes of movement, ranged attacks, flying a broom.
Brains is for knowledge, technical skills, medicine, herbology, potions, arithmancy.
Cool is for persuasion, intimidation, keeping a level head, and luck.
Magic is for spells that don't fit one of the other categories, sort of an innate arcane might.
As normal for D6 system, you roll a number of D6s equal to your score in that ability.

Spells: According to this list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spells_in_Harry_Potter) there are less than 100 spells mentioned through the series, however in the setting one could assume there are many more not mentioned. This list also doesn't cover potions, herbology, anything that isn't really a spell.

My thinking here is that it's just as well to give casters a "spells known" list, which would include potions, herb pastes, and so on. After all, no single wizard knows ALL the spells, though the more experienced ones may certainly have a long list. For students, start with a number of spells equal to their Brains or Magic score (whichever is higher), though for story purposes they may not know them until classes start. Each year they would learn a number of spells equal to this score. A fully licensed graduate wizard would therefore have 8 x Brains or Magic spells known.

Special stuff: You can cast spells silently at -1D6. You can cast spells without a wand at -2D6 (or should that be higher?).

Spells or effects that affect other people/objects affect one of the ability scores, draining or increasing it. Once a score hits 0, the target is unconscious, immobile, insensible, or unaware. For example, the petrifying spell targets Quickness.

This is my basic starting point, if you want to run with it. I could build it up, but I personally don't have any interest in running a Harry Potter game (and if I did I would likely use M&M anyway). My interest in it was passing.

[prufock]

Apologies for the double-post, but I've been thinking about this some more and become more convinced that Mutants and Masterminds (preferably 3e) is really the way to go to run this game. If you want to play students, start them with a PL = their year at wizard school, so first years are PL 1 -- they're small, weak, and not very experienced at this whole wizarding thing. They know a few minor spells at low ranks. The standard point buy of 15 might be a little low, but not by much. Give them Shrinking 2 (permanent) for free, perhaps. Each year they have the option to remove a rank of Shrinking, but they don't get any points back for it.

While there are upwards of a hundred spells, they mostly fall into half a dozen or so categories for effects. Just say different magic words for different uses of the effects.
- Move Object. Lots of specific spells fall into this category.
- Affliction. Hexes and Curses are pretty much all Afflictions, and you can buy them as alternate effects.
- Transform. Transfiguration falls under this category.
- Create/Summon. Forms objects out of thin air or calls them from another place.

There are other, more particular spells that use other effects, such as nullify, energy/element control, environmental control, growth, shrinking, concealment, deflection, flight, mind control, etc. Some spells are so specific that they should be features or just power stunts (which would be any spell you don't use on a regular basis).

Your rank in particular effects models your effectiveness with particular spell types. You can also use these rules to create weird creature types, like werewolves, metamorphs, animagi, half-giants, and so on. Honestly this system was MADE for stuff like this.