Last Monday my Pendragon group were forced to cancel owing ot the ongoing floods. Two of the players however texted to say they would stil like to play something - but our character sheets were 16 miles away, near Tewkesbury, and none of us being ducks...
I hadf two hours ot come up with something. I did not want to have to introduce a lot of rtules complexity, but my thoughts turned to HeroQuest. Both players I had love stories, fiction, and are good character gamers. Both are creative. We had agreed to play in a friends flat, and as he wa smoving I knew i would Have to take all the dice and books, so I chose to take a "greyfriars Prospectus", a fun book dedicated to the fictional public shcool of Frank Richards fiction, figuring Bunter & co were easily adapted, a copy of Harry Potter & "The Sorceror's Stone", and 2d20, and my HeroQuest rule book.
On arrival I quickly explained i wanted to run a game based loosely on the world of Harry Potter, and asked them to come up with ideas for two contemporary British 12 year olds. We talked about books we liked that my influence the game - John Masefield, JK Rowling, MR James, and many more. The players were happy to try the system, and I then asked them to think about their characters while we barbecued some food - saves washing up when no tap water available, and one of the players provided Sherbert Dips for everyone!
Once they had agreed they were childhood friends from a fictional village in Somerset, I sketched out the roughest of maps, and then encouraged them to invent details as they went, in keeping with the spirit of the game. They were both about to start at the big school in town, and had secrets from their aprents (and each other!) Both had recently discovered they had minor magical powers.
I chose the 100 word narrative method of character gen, then selected "skills", "relationships" etc from the list. They could have up to 5 minor magical powers each - but only choose two each as they found that worked with their character concepts. I assigned a base 13 to each "skill" etc, and then gave them 20 points to add on, and their magics began at 17 (as Common Magic). Keywords were a problem - I just dispensed with them, but decided when they got to school and were "sorted" each House (I hope you understand the concept) would have its own Keyword. (They never got that far, but I will get the players to design these - they can write a 100 word description of a house, and i'll derive a Keyword from it, and make it one of the four available to new students for session 2)
Then I quickly ran past how the rules worked, how Heropoints worked, and drew a grid. Because they are familair with pendragon it was very easy to explain really - the mechancs are very similar. I explained extended contests, and we were off - beginning with a thump at the door as a mysterious letter was develivered on a Sunday morning and when Alan the postman was clearly down the pub beer garden on his thrid cider -- it was by eagle when they rushed to look, and saw the mysterious bird flying away! The letter, base don the one in Harry potter invited them to Greyfriars School of Witcharaft and Wizardry, though eElanor was a little disconverted to be referred to as Edward and Mr! As she said, if its not co-educational yet it will be when I turn up. :)
The session revolved around their attempts to persaude their very unwilling parents to let them go to this school, their very different relations with their families, and above all the sinister secret of the boy's parents, which I just developed from the ideas he had hinted at on his character sheet, managing to tie the other characters family in to as well - and which we all added to. We played an hour past our usual end time, and both players were very excited by the possibilities of the HQ system, even in this very basic form, and really enjoyed it. We ar elooking forward to our next cancellation of Pendragon to carry on telling the story!
Sorry for the break from usual Gloranthan discussion. Normal service will
now be resumed!
cj x
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