Roleplaying in the Universe of: Harry Potter

It’s been a while since my last “RPITUO” article (catchy, huh?) As such, I’ve decided to make this one a bit more involved.

Bridget, Gabe and I went to see the new Harry Potter film yesterday. One thing I’m glad of: I hadn’t read the book since it came out a few years ago, so I wasn’t disappointed when they left stuff out, or added stuff in, because I couldn’t remember what was put in or taken out. It was a great film, highly entertaining. I would definitely recommend it to absolutely anyone.

So, how would you go about roleplaying in the universe of Harry Potter? Randal at Retro Roleplaying was asking the question a few days back, and got some good response.

You have quite a few options, which is surprising considering that there is no official HP RPG books out there (and don’t go looking for one any time soon. Apparently, J.K. Rowling has no desire to have her books converted into an RPG).

• First up, I’m going to plug the RPG Blogger’s Network here, and in particular, The Nameless Kingdom, a great blog that has recently been putting out, piece by piece, the rules to a Harry Potter RPG. They’ve been pretty good so far, from what I’ve seen. You should definitely check those out.
• Another good option is “Broomstix“, an RPG by Jared A. Sorensen, a very rules-lite HP RPG that has some great rules for backgrounds and even some basic Quidditch rules.
• Witch Girls Adventures is a very good possibility. I downloaded it from RPGNow, and have been steadily going through it. There’s even a section at the beginning saying, “we would prefer if you were to play in the universe of Witch Girls, but if you want to play a game in the universe of that wizard boy, here are some options instead.” It then goes on to list the different Houses at Hogwarts (without saying their names) and tells what rules not to use from the book to make it all fit together. And you don’t have to be a girl to play it, BTW.
• And finally, a plug for my own: A few years back, I began working on my own HP RPG while I was on deployment to the Persian Gulf. In my off time, I typed up and put together my own RPG, originally loosely based on Broomstix, but steadily drifting further away. It’s been sitting on my computer, all alone and forgotten until now. If anyone’s interested, I can email it to them, just let me know in the comments. It’s still missing a few small elements, but if I get any interest, I’ll probably get it finished up and put out there.

And that’s about it! Feel free to leave any comments you have about any of the games, or any that I missed.