Hello,
ran few mini campaigns of Hogwarts RPG and had a blast. And here with a couple of new questions, to make it even better : )
1. If a player chooses another player's character as a friend, does that mean another player can only choose him as a friend as well? (Same with rivals)
2. Do you have any tips on how the game works best: is it better to always keep the players as one group? Because when I let them do their own stuff separately, which is common for most PbtA games, it doesn't work well : /
3. As mentioned by the author, the game is meant to be played for students only. But why the "Create Your Wizard" step 1 says "Your witch/wizard may be a 1st-7th Year student, or a graduate like a teacher or staff member."?
Thank you!
Hey Marrsho! Glad the mini-campaigns went well. Answers:
- Nope, friends & rivals are asymmetrical – you might consider someone a friend or a rival who doesn't feel strongly about you at all. When a player chooses another player's character as a friend, only the player doing the choosing writes down a name.
- As the Narrator, you have 2 General Moves covering "splitting the party" – Split Them Up & Put Them Together. When characters are together, think about ways you could split them apart for drama & to spotlight players. When they're apart, think of ways to bring them back to the same place or get them to join forces. If you're having difficulty, I'd keep them together by giving them a shared goal, or at least asking where they're planning to meet up after completing separate tasks. If you're really struggling to motivate them, remind them that mechanics like getting help (+1 to rolls) or clearing Conditions rely on being with other characters.
- Good point! The game is heavily geared towards playing as a student. I should probably remove that phrase.
Hope that helps!
Hey frain! No, I don't, for that's the specifics of that kind of system – the adventure is created collaboratively in the process. You all are authors, unlike "classic" games, like D&D, where you have the pre-written scenario and basically you are the only narrator. You just have to try it once and trust your players, in fact, RPG newbies play that kinds of systems the best because they don't have thinking cliches from other RPGs, and just let their imagination out :) But you have to know the basics of HP Universe (movies are enough in fact) and if you need ideas about villains and their plots, you can read https://harrypotter.fandom.com/
Also, listen to the podcast above, the last 30 minutes or so is the mini actual play from David. It really helped me.
Here's a 4 session long actual play aswell. Wish you the great game! I'm sure you will have a lot of fun! :)
Thank you for the explanation and resources! Knowing that movies are enough to master this game, from someone who already mastered campaigns, is reassuring. I understand that I must spend some more time reading & watching about the HP world, before the first session. It will be a pleasure to do and increase the probabilities of a successful test session.