tl;dr: Harry Potter Add-on for Chronicles of Darkness. Scroll down for documents and a short list of system Pros and Cons.
I love Harry Potter. More than anything I’ve always wanted to be able to go to Hogwarts, sling magic and ride brooms. Of course this is never going to happen, but I can dream. More than dream, I can roleplay. But there wasn’t a roleplaying system I could find that didn’t involve learning a whole new system, nor was there one that had a decent amount of depth to the mechanics to allow it to adapt to whatever situation and style the player’s wanted.
I also love the Chronicles of Darkness series by WhiteWolf. Theirs is an adaptive system with depth and range and it is perfect for more advanced roleplay. If that’s something you like too, my friends and I, we made something that could help you. Without further ado, here’s something very different from my usual content of angsty poetry: a system for role-playing your own wizards and witches in the style of a Chronicles of Darkness Add-on.
Some time ago, my friends and I wanted to play a Harry Potter inspired RPG. We searched around for a system we liked but nothing seemed to have the depth and ease of access we wanted. We considered a Hogwarts system that used your grades in subjects to determine your spell proficiency, but this didn’t adapt well to life outside Hogwarts. We thought about using a d20 system similar to D&D 5e, but we couldn’t find any sheets for it that we liked and when we considered all the different spells and dice categories we’d be working to and the uncertainty of spells, we continued our search. Then we considered what we already know has a great magic based system, Mage: The Awakening 2nd ed.
Mage: The Awakening 2nd ed by WhiteWolf has a brilliant spell construction system that feels amazing to use. It scale really well with character progress with players going form only being able to cast on one person for a short while, to growing and being able to affect whole cities for years. The system doesn’t use dice modifiers, it just uses more or less dice which I feel appeals to the dice gremlins in all our souls (If you don’t own a dozen d10s, there is a free WhiteWolf Dice Roller app to help). Mage also has a system of punishment for overly ambitious magic (Paradox), but we removed that in favour of a softer, more forgiving magic system. Instead we just take a lot more Dramatic Failures.
So, we pieced this system together from the Harry Potter Wiki and modified the Mage: The Awakening 2nd ed spell system to play better as a soft magic game. Please note we built this as we needed it so it doesn’t cover absolutely every aspect of the Harry Potter world. What it does cover are the core aspects of building characters, casting spells, and combat. If you are already familiar with the Chronicles of Darkness (COD) system, the character creation and basic play will be a breeze.
If you are unfamiliar with COD, most of the mechanics are just a Google search away or if you can get your hands on a World’s of Darkness Core Rulebook of some descript, either from the base game or from Mage: the Awakening/Ascension, in addition to the documents provided, it would be a big help.
There’s a lot more I could say about Mage and our game, but maybe another time. Here’s a quick look at what works well and what needs tweaking in our add-on.
Pros of our system
- The back-and-forth nature of our combat system is intuitive and engaging.
- Spell casting is fun and it is easy to specialise.
- Can be used for both Hogwarts and the wider HP world.
- More forgiving spell casting to suit the relative reliability of HP magic.
- Wand customisation lets you connect your character’s personality to their magic.
- All the Pros of the COD system: Rolls feel fair, the system drives roleplay through character rewards, etc.
Cons of our system
- There is a learning curve, but once you’ve got it, you’ve got it.
- Harry Potter is a soft-magic system which makes it hard to get consistent results from the magic. This just means being a more lenient Storyteller.
- Our Combat Spell list is incomplete. If you have suggestions for spells and their effects in a fight, let me know!
- It doesn’t cover everything in the HP universe.
- All of the Cons of the COD system, the main one being it can take a bit to wrap your head around how the dice work and what to roll when.
The Documents
You are more than welcome to use this document for your own games. I’d like this to be a community project for people who like Harry Potter and want a workable system to roleplay in. So if you are reading the document and find something to improve, that is broken or incomplete, or just want to add something, please comment either here or on the document and I’ll make changes and additions accordingly.
- The COD Wizarding World Compact Rulebook
- Character Stat Sheet
- Expanded Character Profile Template (This is for your own personal character backstory and details)
Final Note: While searching for HP RPG systems, we did find a group of lads in America playing a HP game using COD as a part of a roleplay podcast. They were aurors in America but I can’t remember their name. We based our character sheet off a picture of theirs they shared on their Twitter with some modifications to better suit our system. Whatever rule changes they made were not available so all the mechanics in our document where made by us. (When I went looking for the podcast I’m talking about, I couldn’t find them anywhere. If you know who I’m talking about, let me know so I can credit them!)
Disclaimer: This is a not-for-profit fan creation. Chronicles of Darkness is a product of WhiteWolf. Harry Potter is a product of J.K. Rowling.
Balter Through the Pages 