I said I would, and I finally did. I made the Hogwarts RPG into a downloadable, printer friendly RTF Document, available here. This has, for the most part, been playtested, and should be a great quick pick-up-and-play game. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been working on this Harry Potter-themed tabletop RPG, and have  gone out of my way to emphasize both simulation and simplicity, no mean feat but I think I did it.

Some highlights of this game-

• Small numbers, simple arithmetic. If you want to play this with small children the math is very, very easy to understand. This doesn’t have to be a children’s game, but it certainly can be and I think that is it’s greatest strength.
• Classes and personal experiences make up your character’s skillset, rather than a profession-like system or a strictly skill-based game. The classes themselves are designed so that they simulate Hogwarts classes by progressing from easy spells to more difficult ones along basically a linear curriculum. The Experiences are a two-way roll, a chance in six or a skill that can be advanced like a class, and can be customized for different needs very easily(I even wrote guidelines! I usually am HORRIBLE at writing documentation)
• The Yield System. Instead of making a combat-oriented game, any in-game aggression can be handled via the yield system where winners and losers are determined without threat of lethality in the controlled environment of Hogwarts, and where roleplaying the after-effects of such situations is much more important to the game over all because the aggression doesn’t actually matter. Kind of like high school.
• Two playable species for the Hogwarts school, Humans and Centaurs, House Elves and Goblins  forthcoming.
• Also, the rules for creating demihumans and half-breeds are available here at the website

Currently it has the Character Creation, Classes/Skills/Experiences, Gameplay, and Creatures, but it does not have specific equipment or locations.

Since the bulk of the Hogwarts RPG posts for the past several weeks have been fantastic beasts, I think it’s about time I explain how the creatures can be used to create more interesting kinds of characters. Here I have two methods, one for Player characters, and one for non-player characters. for more on character creation for the Hogwarts RPG, see  Characters: Students, Houses, Teams and Classes.

To create a nonhuman or demihuman Player Character, first you must get approval from the Headmaster.

• Player Characters: Nonhuman

If the headmaster says that you can create a nonhuman or demihuman character, you can use a fairly simple form to decide how your character’s attributes can be bought. First of all, nonhumans only get 1d6 points to spend on their base attributes(Strength, Willpower, Intelligence, and Social), which start out at the base level in the creature description. However, all special abilities known to that type of creature are automatically included in the characters description as “Experiences.”

When playing a nonhuman character, one usually has limited access to certain kinds of magic, with restrictions ranging from a lack of opposable thumbs to social controls and legal issues. If your character’s species has some kind of special restriction, such as a house-elf’s slavery or a vampire’s inability to cross water or go out in sunlight, these characteristics must be truly dealt with in play.

• Player Characters: Demihuman

Demihumans, or Half-Breeds, are part human, part creature beings who tend to disply more humanlike characteristics than non-humanlike characteristics. Examples would be Hagrid, Professor Flitwick, Madame Maxine, Fleur and Gabrielle Delacour, and by a twist of fate, Bill Weasley. Demihumans have the same method of generating attributes as normal humans, but rather than simply assigning points, after the abilities have been assigned adjust them based on the following chart.

Additionally, they have a 50% chance of inheriting any traits that the nonhuman species posesses, as long as it fits in with basic humanoid physiology.

Demihumans also have a special skill(Experience-Type), social based, called “Heritage Masking.” It represents how well the character can resist attempts to guess his or her ancestry in situations where the need should arise. This skill is a percentile based skill with simple success or failure rules. This also is the skill that determines whether a student can be accepted into Hogwarts in spite of being half-breed, and a demihuman student is required to spend 3 of his starting experience points in this skill.

• Non-Player Characters: Both

Non- and Demi- human non player characters are much more common in most games than non- or demi-human player characters. When the GM wants to make a nonhuman or demihuman non-player character he need only start with a base creature and adjust it to meet the needs of his NPC. Some guidelines are.

1. For nonhumans, one can easily use the PC method to create down-to-earth kinds of NPC’s, but if you want to have an NPC be the “King of all Dragons” or the “Cleverest among Leprechauns” or the like, the character should be MUCH more powerful than an average creature of that type.
2. For demihumans, it is often useful to think of the species as starting places and to pick the one that affects the character more(Based on his own backstory) is often beneficial.
3. At the end of the day, the mechanics are the same. If in doubt, or it isn’t important to have great stats, just make an educated guess.

Centaurs are magical half-horse, half-human beings. Despite being intelligent and dignified, the centaurs were classified as beasts because they did not wish to be associated with hags and vampires.

Attributes

6 Health

• STR:
• WIL:
• INT:
• SOC:

Abilities

As intelligent, tool-using creatures, each centaur has his own set of abilities according to the [Characters: Students, Houses, Teams and Classes | Character Creation] section.

I’ve always liked playing versions of myself, or myself, in games. I think it comes from a long standing desire to truly escape from the dullness of my sheltered childhood. I realize now that dullness beat the heck out of some of the adventures children in the world have, but I still appreciate a good ‘Me’ Game.

One problem that arises when creating a ‘Me’ game is the decision of how to assign ability scores. One or two resources to account for equivalent ability scores exist, especially for converting INT scores to IQ, multiple versions of which exist. The following table follows the school of thought that a ‘Me’ game should use ability scores that work equivalently with real-world measures. So, here’s the table I use now, appended with D&D ability score equivalents to the prevalence of that ability level.

*Reaction Time Test

There is another method of calculating AD&D stats specifically located at KevinHaw.com