Crossposted to RPG.net and Story Games.

So, my girlfriend's birthday is coming up this month. I offered, as one of my birthday presents to her, to teach her how to play RPGS. She leapt at the chance.

Originally, we were going to play tweaked D&D, but on reflection of her tastes in fantasy lit and my attempts to explain the rules to her, this was a Monumentally Bad Idea™.

But we both love Harry Potter. Love it. To death. Except for one book. We were both deeply dissatisfied with Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

So we decided to use the FATE/Spirit of the Century system to play Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts, complete with a three way war between the Ministry of Magic, the Order of the Pheonix and the Death Eaters; hormonal surges done RIGHT (or, well, roleplayed accurately); and Mysterious Mysteries of Unexplained Mystery.

She came up with ten doozies of aspects for Hermione Granger, with a little coaching. They are:

-I have a crush on Ginny Weasely that I cannot admit to (I swear it was the first thing out of my girlfriend's mouth.)
- My parents are dentists
- Transfiguration Master
- No tolerance for divination
- Harry and Ron's close friend
- Top contender for brightest Witch at the school
- "We could be killed, or worse, expelled." (Classic.)
- Looks up to McGonnagal
- More bottled up than she lets on
- Absolutely stunning, when she bothers

Any suggestions on running The Spirit of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, besides academic rivalries, threats of expulsion, exhortations to let it all out, unique opportunities to clean up nicely, and, of course, Ginny Weasely licking an ice cream cone in Hermione's presence (I'm sorry, I'm being really bad today)?

my suggestion would be to look into how the board games and any other games "CCGs, rpgs, etc etc" are made. then makeing a call.

Hello,
It sounds like you will have a lot of fun. Since the world of Harry Potter, the characters and style are well-defined, you should have no problem creating the proper atmosphere for the game. Check out wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_potter as your resource if you don't have an official one.

From a few passages I've read in The Philosopher's Stone, the stories are definitely mysteries with obvious and subtle clues. So, creating an adventure should be quite easy. The one great thing about the setting is the use of structure with classes, teacher presence and scheduled activities. The students have to juggle the daily academic load, dodge authority and figure out the mystery. I would think timing is everything. Also, the point system that determines who wins the House Cup could be very useful in letting the players know if they're on track.

You could have the in-game date of the story climax fall on Hermione Granger's birthday, September 19. I assume you'll play the game on your girlfriend's birthday, too. You could buy small curious gifts for your girlfriend that you reveal during the game. The gifts are also clues or important props for the game, too. Of course, provide mystery cupcakes with unique effects for each player.

I'm not familiar with the system you've selected; however, thanks for NOT using D&D. Immediately, I thought of Ars Magica (the pdf is free http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=774&) because of its unique magic system and character creation.  A little tweaking and name-changing would make it work perfectly.

Troy

Thank you!

The system I'm using, FATE, is the system from Spirit of the Century.  Just because Aspects - character traits you can create, destroy, invoke and compel action from - are such useful tools.

Hi everyone,

Unfortunately, this isn't a topic for the Forge. Tell you what, though - when you do play, then post all about it in the Actual Play forum.

No more replies to this thread, please.

Best, Ron