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Simple Tabletop RPG for Harry Potter Needed

RetroRoleplaying Posted on by

I have a friend who is looking for a simple (and inexpensive) RPG his kids and their friends can play that could easily be adapted to a Harry Potter/Hogwarts setting. I know there are all sorts of online HP roleplaying sites, but my friend is looking for a tabletop RPG. The child who would be GMing this is about 12, very bright, and reads a lot. The players would be slightly younger (8-11) and are “pretty average kids.”

I don’t think there are any official Harry Potter RPGs and have no idea what rules would be simple enough for this age group. If any readers have some ideas, I’d love to hear them as I’m drawing a blank on this.

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Anonymous

Absolutely, it works as a great writing starter too, if that's how one wants to use it. I realized after I posted here that I didn't exactly write kid friendly rules. The truth is I love to play it too, so I didn't exactly scale down my language. I guess that will be my next project, a kid friendly version of the rules.
-Benjamin

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Randall

Benjamin,

Yes, their dad bought them a copy of Witch Girl Adventures and they have been playing several times a week haveing a great time.

I just took a look at 6X and will be passing this on to a couple of teacher friends who work with special needs kids. This looks like it is could work well for getting them to write stuff out without looking like school work. The idea of writing down six possible outcomes is great, IMHO.

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Anonymous

I'm sure these kids are off happily playing their Harry Potter RPG by now, but if anyone else is interested, I developed a very simple RPG for introducing kids to Role Playing Games without burying them under mounds of expensive rulebooks. It's called 6X and can be found here:

http://screamingargonaut.com/2009/08/23/6x-the-one-page-role-playing-game/

It's free and I play tested it extensively with my games club at the middle school level (I'm a teacher). They loved it. Hope this helps someone.

-Benjamin

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a. dude

Here's mine. I went pretty far out of my way to make the game resemble the books as much as I could. Even came up with a combat system to simulate schoolyard fights as opposed to life and death duels with dragons. Small numbers, easy to learn, totally free, lots of details, and extensible. Only problem is writing the rest of Hogwarts in terms of setting(class, a day job, 3 cats), but any GM worth his salt who read the books can probably run it just fine. It really is that easy.

http://namelesskingdom.com/hogwiki

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Anonymous

Witch Girls Adventures is easoly the best system for what you want to do.

http://www.witchgirlsadventures.com

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anarchist

Note that the link to Dungeon Squad on JH Kim's page is wrong. It should be

http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/dungeon-squad

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anarchist

There's a page on RPGs for children here:

http://tlucretius.net/RPGs/kids.html

and here:

http://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/whatis/kids.html

One problem you might have is that any simple game will probably only have one wizard class, and there are four different types in the Harry Potter world aren't there? Or do they all have much the same abilities? Maybe you'd have to work out spell selection based on the different houses.

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a. dude

Head over to http://namelesskingdom.com. I'm working on one that is totally free and designed for younger gamers(simple, you only need d6's, et cetera). People who've seen it have liked it so far.

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Anonymous

Risus?

Couldn't ask for more simple than that and would work well with the almost fairy-tale atmosphere of HP.

And loot the other alternatives for game world ideas!

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Randall

I've passed all these options on to my friend. I suspect his children and their friends will be playing "Harry Potter" by the weekend with one of the freebies.

The funny thing is I thought my Google search-fu was pretty good, but I did not find any of these games when I searched for one. Therefore, I'm especially grateful for all the suggestions. Thanks folks!

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Paul Kasper

A Savage Worlds conversion just got posted on Savagepedia:

http://savagepedia.wikispaces.com/Savage+Conversion

Using this plus the Savage Worlds Core Book ($10) will have you playing in no time!

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Knightsky

Besides the aforementioned "Broomstix", there's also "Wizardry and Wichcraft", which can be downloaded at http://wizardryandwitchcraft.sverok.net/main.html – it's a bit longer than Broomstix (about 100 pages), and seems to be written in a White Wold 'Storyteller' style, but hey, it's free.

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Michael S/Chgowiz

I think you could easily do this with m20 modern + magic.

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Superhero Necromancer

I've always liked "Broomstix," an unofficial HP RPG that can be downloaded for free here.

It's probably worth taking a look at the character sheet (pdf here) and 16 page full game (pdf here) to see if they fit what you're looking for.

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Anonymous

There is a fella unveiling his Hogwarts RPG on this blog:

http://namelesskingdom.com/

But he is doing so a tiny bit at a time, so at this rate your friend might be better off looking elsewhere.

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Randall

Tim: Witch Girl Adventures looks like it might work from the description. I'd never heard of this game before. Thanks for pointing it out.

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Timothy S. Brannan

I suggest Witch Girls Adventures, http://www.witchgirlsadventures.com/

It is fast, easy, cheap ($20 for print or PDF), and it even has a Potter-like set-up built into the game.

I highly recommend it.

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Unknown

I use a slightly modified version of "Trollbabe," and let the kids define their re-rolls on the fly. Even my 4 year old does well with it.

The main part is letting them imagine and tell stories and have fun… just like we do.

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