Magic school curriculum

[Shinizak]

My players want to play a “magical school” game… which raises logistic questions, like:

What kind of system should I use?
What kind of world would make a magic school?
What kind of magic should be taught?
How powerful should a graduating student be?
How much should I rip from Harry Potter or Wizard of Earthsea?
And what should the adventure cycle look like?
What are the requirement to attend such a school?
What are other magic schools like?
What questions am I failing to ask?

There are a LOT of questions that I’m simply not equipped to answer in their fullest, So I’d like to ask you guys for your input.

[Pauly]

Some questions.
1) Do you want to run urban fantasy (wizards ate hiding in the real world eg Hogwarts) or high fantasy (wizarding is a normal and accepted part of life - eg Unseen University)?

2) What age do your players want to play? Middle/school high school age should have the players gaining stats each year as they get older. University age should see them at or near to their full adult stats.

3) How many systems of magic do you want? Some games have multiple ways of casting magic, others stick with one system.

4) Is it a boarding school or a day school?

5) How granular do you want the process of crafting/potion making to be?

[Satinavian]

Imho a magic school system works best with different, distinct ways to play magic users but also using the same framework of magic theory.

You could probably adapt Ars Magica or something similar for it. Then all the little wizards can have their own speciality but at least theoretically take part in every kind of magic they are taught as class. There is gradual improvement and the magic system itself is rather flexible to accommodate whatever else you want.

[animorte]

5e's Strixhaven is a "college-level" magic school that blends rather nicely with Candlekeep.

[Burley]

There's a rules-lite game called Kids on Brooms (I think). It's not as rules-lite as Monster of the Week, but it's a smaller book than most. Anyway, that's about teens doing magic. And, rather than restricting magic to prewritten spells like D&D, Kids on Brooms cares more about the effect and you can make up the magic around the effect.

I haven't played in the system, though. :smallredface:

[Quertus]

Calibrate expectations. Have a conversation with your players where you discuss what they want out of a “Wizard school” game, what they expect they’ll be spending the sessions actually doing.

Is this the only magic school in the world? Heck, is it limited to one world, and, if not, is the school Earth-centric? If the School on Earth - could the PCs be Isekai’d, maybe even the only ones from their world?

Are our myths tied into the school in unexpected ways? Can you write such content from scratch, or crib from a source your players are unfamiliar with?

Why the PCs? What makes them special? Or can anyone be a Wizard, and it’s just a random lottery who got in?

This will vary by players, but for me, I’d enjoy learning a new magic system. So, my suggestion… hmmm…

Start with WoD Mage as a base. But not modern, use… Dark Ages? Point is, there’s an infinite number of potential Spheres. Have the magic school use Spheres based on their founders.

So, for Harry Potter, there’d be 4 Spheres for a Hogwarts Witch or Wizard: Slithering, … Darn autocorrect, you know what they are. :smallwink:

The green one would be used for snakes and curses and betrayal, maybe the blue one would grant telekinesis and memory charms and dominion over ravens, and bonuses to research and knowledge skills, the puffy one would be more bonuses to stamina and crafts and extended rolls, and Creation and transmutation and hedgehogs?

Anyway, Create founders for your school (I suggest more than 4), each with their own spheres of influence. Make them “enough”, but not comprehensive: that’s where other schools (and forbidden arts, from that forbidden section of the library) come in.

This gives the opportunity for fun Merits, like
ferry blood: One of your ancestors found a dreamboat; little did they know that they actually hailed from the realm of dreams. Your blood is strong enough to grant you some abilities from your heritage - you can use the following charms regardless of your sphere ranks [blah blah blah]; however, due to your wild blood, you have a greater chance to misspell, rolling an additional Scourge die.

Early mentor: start with an additional rank in Spheres; this rank need not belong to the school the student is attending.

Transfer student: your character previously attended a different school of Wizardry. All of your Spheres are from that school. Better study hard if you want to pass your classes!

Did I call these “merits”? Yeah, they’re kinda a mix of banes and boons.

Anyway, use every tool at your disposal to set the mood of the game to match the kind of experiences your players ask for.

[atanamis]

Looking at your questions:
System: you can use any system you want to, and that will shape what the rest of the flow looks like. If you use a system like D&D, your school might take in adult students and train them to level 5. You can use something like Fate and create custom aspects and stunts based on the progression. I'd consider what systems you have played or run before, but more so what ideas in systems excite you as a game runner. You can make any system work, you just have to think about what kind of game you and your players want.

World: Any world where magic exists could have a "magic school". A world where magic can't be taught but is just found from within would have a school where students can be exposed to different things that might expose innate powers. Or one where they are kept safe from each other during this phase, or one where they go to keep others safe from them. A world where magic requires knowledge would have places where people acquire that knowledge, whether anyone can learn it or just the "gifted". This could be a fantasy world, a steampunk world, or a modern world where magic schools are either public or secret. Honestly, probe what excites you and your players most and do that.

Magical education: This gets into what the schools goals are. Does this school only teach a subset of magics that exist and consider others repugnant. Does it teach everything, even things that the culture might find repugnant. Does the school try to keep students safe, or does it not really care that much? This will impact whether classes are dangerous, or just a setting for social drama. Maybe your school takes in thousands of supplicants, and graduates dozens of survivors. Maybe it is a day care for privileged grade school students. I'd actually farm out to the players what classes exist. Ask them what their parents favorite classes were when they attended, and what class their character is most dreading. Then figure out how that fits with the system you decided to use (do these classes give skill points, or improve general knowledge, or what).

Graduates: This is an interesting one, and shapes the kind of world in which they exist. Are graduates movers and shapers of their world, or do they now need to apply for an internship with another magic user? Are students sponsored by world powers and expected to work for their sponsor after? Do they have massive debts they need to repay? Maybe magic school just teaches you the theory, and it takes a hundred years to learn the practice. More likely, you want graduates to be reasonably powerful since it will be more fun for the players. But what the school teaches and power level don't have to be the same. You can have a first year student who is powerful but doesn't understand how their magic works, and a graduate who understands deeply but lacks much inherent power.

Ripoff: Steal as much as will be fun for you and your players! If they want to attend Hogwarts, that's what you do!

Adventure Cycle: This depends a lot on what you and your players find fun, and the nature of the school. You can have a school that sends out groups of students each semester to do an adventure as a final exam, which might be anywhere on the range of dangerous. You could have a school where students are trying to assassinate each other for "best student". The challenge of a magic school is that you have a constrained environment that students have to keep coming back to. So if they piss off a teacher, you have to decide whether they can get away with that or if that is now a permanent part of their world. Their rivals are more likely to stick around than if you were running a dungeon crawl. But you can also have there be threats to the school each semester that they have to figure out how to overcome, or if you and your players want run a pure social soap opera! I know players who find combat boring, and would rather sit in the tavern for whole arcs. A magic school is perfect for that kind of story.

Requirements: So from your world you know whether magic is public or secret, and whether it can be learned or is innate (or somewhere in the middle). If innate, you could allow non-magical students who want to understand the theory, but in most cases would not. There might be students expecting to have powers rise that have not yet surfaced. Or you could have a school where only those who can afford to can attend, and maybe have a student there on scholarship or need based grant. There could be academic tests, and magic could be something only available as a post-doctoral program for people who have already received deep education on theory. Or maybe just a blood test for your midiclorian count.

Competition: Other schools could belong to rival nations with whom your school might be at war, they might be part of a civil collegiate affiliation and run varsity sports against each other. They might teach schools of magic your culture finds offensive or which require human sacrifices. They might teach better knowledge or be frauds. Maybe the school your players are attending was a "safety school" they are attending because they couldn't get into Harvard, and when they have competitions they feel like they have something to prove? Maybe one of your students chose (or wasn't able) NOT to go to their parents alma mater, or even to the school one of their parents works at?

[Wintermoot]

Adventuring as a Wizard 104: Meatshields and how best to placate them
Adventuring as a Wizard 112: Identify/Detect Magic: What information to share and what to keep to yourself
Adventuring as a Wizard 203: Buff spells: You don't have to be the hero