Good Games for Simulating Harry Potter?

[Vrock_Summoner]

At this point, I've found all of one Harry Potter-specific tabletop game online, and... Well, to say the least, it's incomplete and the parts it does have are kinda crummy. So I was thinking of adjusting another system to play Harry Potter-themed games in, but I don't know any good games for the job. I was thinking of trying one of the "generic" systems like FATE or GURPS, but I don't want to dedicate time to learning them if they aren't going to work, so if people more experienced with those kinds of games would be willing to weigh how well they individually work for what I'm looking for, please let me know. I figure it's going to end up being a houseruled version of some mage-themed game, but if it's not, well, surprise me.

One thing, if possible... I'd like there to be real advancement, in terms of getting better at skills and such, but preferably not classes and the like. I've found class-and-level based systems kind of clunky and not really my type of fun. If you have a really, really great game for this that uses classes/level-based advancement, go ahead and recommend it, but if it's an "eh, it'll work decently" game with a class/level system, I probably won't be altogether interested. "Eh, it'll work decently" games without class/level systems, I may express interest in simply because a "wow it's omgfantastical" game likely doesn't exist.

Anybody got anything for this? Thanks in advance.

[ORione]

I haven't looked at this in a while, and I don't know how to evaluate how well it would work, but you could give this a look.

[Arbane]

Which one have you found? I heard of one called "Broomsitx", but I don't know if it's good.

[Airk]

Considering that the Potterverse isn't even internally consistent, this is going to be a tall order.

Exactly what are you looking for? "Students at Hogwarts"?

[Haven]

I always recommend Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition for things like this, and it looks like someone wrote quite a bit on some guidelines for playing a Harry Potter game with it.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Which one have you found? I heard of one called "Broomsitx", but I don't know if it's good.

Harry Potter and the Roleplayer's Game, a d10 shebang that basically gives you the information to make characters and advance them to approximately second year in Hogwarts and is based on a "roll d100, your skill modifier decreases the roll, you want to roll as low as possible." Not as confusing as you'd think, but not very good either, especially given where advancement caps.

Considering that the Potterverse isn't even internally consistent, this is going to be a tall order.

Exactly what are you looking for? "Students at Hogwarts"?

Hm... It's true that the Potterverse is not the most consistent in terms of its magic. I feel like teaching methods and the setting and stuff is all independent; mainly, I want to get a sort of similar magic system, where you have a certain amount of skill in a given form of magic and the higher that skill gets, the better spells you can cast in that skill. Like, you advance each skill through study or killing monsters or whatever method, rather than just going "level up!" and randomly getting better at everything. I was really hoping for something that could take you through Hogwarts and beyond, into a given wizarding career such as being an Auror or something, rather than being confined to one timeframe. Given the aforementioned inconsistency of HP magic, I was hoping for something that could be somewhat customized, or at least starts out close. (Can't perfectly match the form of something with no solidly defined form, after all.)

I always recommend Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition for things like this, and it looks like someone wrote quite a bit on some guidelines for playing a Harry Potter game with it.

Thanks, I'll check that out!

[Pex]

Ars Magica

The world fluff is similar to Potterverse, easily adaptable to modern times for hidden wizardry and running a school. Instead of the Order of Hermes Houses: Ex Miscellanea, Merinita, Bonisagus, etc., you can fiddle around to make the Hogwarts Houses. Red Caps are Squibs. The magic system doesn't match up perfectly but is close enough. If you want to mirror Hogwarts, Transfiguration emphasizes Muto and Perdo, Charms probably emphasizes Creo and Mentum, but it's not set in stone.

[oxybe]

Ars Magica or White Wolf's Mage.

Pex already talked about AM so i'll leave it at that. Mage is a bit similar in that your characters are definitely wizard types, hiding their wizardly ways from the prying muggles. When you create your character you start picking certain magical arcana, like Time, Death, Forces, etc... and upon leveling them up you get better at what that magic governs.

A Death mage can cause things to break or degrade at a much faster rate. An Forces mage can control fire/wind/water/earth/etc to various degrees. A Time mage can alter the flow of time around them. Fate mages control luck, destiny and happenstance.

Let's say that our four mages are chilling out together, watching Fairy Tale (because they're all big anime nerds and FT is like One Piece, but with wizards) eating some pizza and breadsticks and suddenly Forcemage knocks over his glass of water.

**** is spilled all over the floor.

Each of our three theoretical wizards has their own way of solving this horrendous problem:

The Death mage infuses the water with the forces of entropy, causing it to rapidly evaporate over a much smaller amount of time.
The Force mage simply uses his power over the elements to either draw the water back into the glass or heats it up so it evaporates.
The Time mage blinks out of existance and reappears after everyone is gone and the water has naturally evaporated. He also missed several episodes.
The Destiny mages causes a chain of events to occur that ends with "...and a towel drops on top of the water, absorbing it all"

Of course a muggle would just stroll to the nearest bathroom, grab a towel and dry it off, but we're talking 'BOOT WIZ'RDS 'ARRY!

For the purpose of HP, if you really want to emphasize the "specific spell" aspect, you could have various spells require a certain level of mastery in one or more aracana. This would mean that wizards that focus on one or two arcana can do incredible feats with them, while others who spread out their learning a bit more can deal with a wider array of situations.

Then again, show me a problem Avada Kedavra doesn't solve and I will show you horrible lies.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Ah, somebody is in fact working on Harry Potter-fying Ars Magica on the Atlas site, but Ars Magica magic is... Too strong. And there's far too many abilities, since you have to combo them.

I'll look at Mage. Which one? Ascension or Awakening?

[White Blade]

FATE is really solid for everything, though you might have to hack it a bit to line up. FAE was obviously intended to be viable for Harry Potter, and I think it could do it well. Both systems are by far the easiest to pick up games I've read.

If you want crunch, Hero System can do almost as much as Fate, but is ultra-crunchy. Still, with basic familiarity I think that you could simulate HP pretty easy.

[Tyrrell]

Ars Magica

The world fluff is similar to Potterverse, easily adaptable to modern times for hidden wizardry and running a school. Instead of the Order of Hermes Houses: Ex Miscellanea, Merinita, Bonisagus, etc., you can fiddle around to make the Hogwarts Houses. Red Caps are Squibs. The magic system doesn't match up perfectly but is close enough. If you want to mirror Hogwarts, Transfiguration emphasizes Muto and Perdo, Charms probably emphasizes Creo and Mentum, but it's not set in stone.

Ars Magica has a more descriptive magic system than anything else out there. Characters end up with magic that is distinctly their own and only become more individualized with experience. Mystery initiations map very well on to things like Voldemort's horcruxes. This works great for a setting like the potter setting in that you have amazing depth of options and stories everyone plays a mage and there is little overlap even if characters are doing very similar things. It works against doing exactly the potter setting in that Ars Magica describes everything and is very specific. The specifics are quite different than those of the Potter setting.

Ah, somebody is in fact working on Harry Potter-fying Ars Magica on the Atlas site, but Ars Magica magic is... Too strong. And there's far too many abilities, since you have to combo them.

That's not really wrong but it is odd that the second part of your statement contradicts the first. Ars can have such great variety in part because magic is split up into far smaller chunks than in a game like Mage the Ascension. It would take a great deal of experience for an ars magica magus to gain the powers of life or forces 3.

[Pex]

Until someone creates "Harry Potter & The Roleplaying Game", you're not going to find a game that exactly works like in the books. You'll always have to adapt or just get over differences that remain. There's not going to be any Ars Magica Seelie Court with House Merinita as their champion in a Harry Potter game, but it is not far fetched that various rules or references regarding Fey in Ars Magica could be applied to Centaurs, Goblins, and House Elves. Instead of House Merinita, they'll be SPEW.

[Sith_Happens]

I always recommend Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition for things like this, and it looks like someone wrote quite a bit on some guidelines for playing a Harry Potter game with it.

Thanks, I'll check that out!

M&M 3rd Edition has an SRD. Given the sheer number of spells it's possible for a single character to know, it's likely you'll end up needing to use the Variable effect.

[Aedilred]

Until someone creates "Harry Potter & The Roleplaying Game", you're not going to find a game that exactly works like in the books. You'll always have to adapt or just get over differences that remain. There's not going to be any Ars Magica Seelie Court with House Merinita as their champion in a Harry Potter game, but it is not far fetched that various rules or references regarding Fey in Ars Magica could be applied to Centaurs, Goblins, and House Elves. Instead of House Merinita, they'll be SPEW.

Here you go. N.B. I have no idea whether this is any good and take no responsibility for its quality; I just found it.

I think an official HP RPG is probably off the table at least for the foreseeable future; it's almost inconceivable that someone hasn't already tried to licence one. I seem to remember hearing a few years ago that JKR wasn't a fan of RPGs, but I don't know whether there's any truth to that.

[neonchameleon]

Broomstix is the standard - but Memento Mori games appears to be down. Archive.org to the rescue. Most of the other Harry Potter RPGs are far, far too heavy and (like the one linked by Aedilred) try to have modifiers for everything.

I'm also, of course, going to recommend my own Houses and Wands. Light, fast playing, based on the Apocalypse World engine, and with character sheets that fit onto a post-it note.

[prufock]

M&M 3rd Edition has an SRD. Given the sheer number of spells it's possible for a single character to know, it's likely you'll end up needing to use the Variable effect.

Variables are intended for characters whose whole power suite can change on a whim, like morphers, metamporph, animagi, etc.

Most wizards would likely just have a variety of alternate effects. Twenty points can give you twenty alternate spells, and you can always add the Dynamic extra so you can have multiple spells active at once (albeit at lower rank). Also, many of the various spells in HP would fall under the same effect in M&M (IE just about all the transfiguration spells would be the Transform effect, despite all needing different incantations). Don't forget, you'd normally just use your points on spells you're good at and would use a lot. If you need a spell not on your list of effects, there's always Extra Effort and Hero Points.

A generic D6 system would also work pretty well for this, I'd say.

[Ailowynn]

Which one have you found? I heard of one called "Broomsitx", but I don't know if it's good.

Broomstix is pretty simple and good fun, if not extensively playtested and all that. I can't seem to find the PDF right now, but if you can, you should give it a shot. As far as official systems go, I'd recommend Fate. I can't think of anything that you see in HP that it couldn't handle, and the system has the right feel for an HP game.

[the OOD]

If you are comfortable with the idea of hacking/moding FATE then that would probably be one of the best-possible options for an long-running high-roleplay campaign. If you are not so comfortable with moding the system and you can't find anyone to help you, that may or may not be a problem depending on your game.

[I would recommend against ares magica for a harry potter game, but pex probably know the system *much* better than I do, so...]

[Zejety]

mainly, I want to get a sort of similar magic system, where you have a certain amount of skill in a given form of magic and the higher that skill gets, the better spells you can cast in that skill. Like, you advance each skill through study or killing monsters or whatever method, rather than just going "level up!" and randomly getting better at everything.

Quality of the system aside (I like it but many people here disagree), The DarkEye/Das Schwarze Auge 4E (and the 5E beta) seems to fit your criteria. Progression is not level-based; you directly invest EXP into enhancing your skills point-buy style. Spells are leveled exactly like skills.
Complicated spells cost more points to improve and all spells become more expansive the more points one has already invested.

There are traits and feats that make you a quicker learner of a certain school/type of magic or a specific spell, too.

The system uses mana points and one can burn through them pretty quickly. For a more Potter-esque feel, you may want to turn some knobs there.