A couple of years ago we finished listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks (and watching the movies and visiting The Making of Harry Potter) and ever since I've wanted to run a game where the PCs are Aurors hunting dark wizards. This summer I got my act together and prepared a one-shot which I ran for my daughter and her cousins, and then at Furnace.
While I'm sure there's a space for an improvised game where you come up with a dark wizard with a sinister plan, I don't really work like that so I wrote a more traditional investigative scenario. I based it around a dark wizard’s wand, added some classic Harry Potter locations, monsters and characters, and there you have it.
Much of it is canon - and some of it isn't. According to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Harry really is head of the Aurors, and Hermione is the Minister of Magic. The villain isn't canon though, and I made up the bit about the dementors' origin.
I used Fate Accelerated for my game system partly because it seems eminently suitable (one of the sample characters is from a wizard school) but mostly because it's the system I am most familiar with.
Characters
My initial plan was for the players to create their own Aurors. I prepared blank character sheets and a simple worksheet that took them through character creation.
While this was fine for the first run, some of the characters were a bit random and didn't really work as a group. So for the second run (at Furnace) I prepared a set of pre-generated characters that were more coherent and in the event worked really well.
I also answered the question one of my nephews asked - "Why do we need so many Aurors for this?" So I turned it into a training mission - with two experienced Aurors accompanying three trainees (although in terms of "power" they were all equally competent).
The real reason I had five Aurors is because that's how many players I had . But I'm pleased to have a more "realistic" reason - and in the second game the players really ran with the whole trainees idea.
Setting Grid
I created a setting grid (used for Backstory Cards) with some pre-defined questions so that I didn't need to bring the cards with me. I seeded the grid with people and places that were relevant to the scenario, which I think is the right way to use a grid for a one-shot.
Unfortunately my original questions were based too much on the Backstory Card questions, and they didn't do the job that I wanted them to: to tie the characters together and into the setting.
So after the first adventure I adjusted the questions so that all of them involve another character in some way. (I ran it for five players at Furnace - I got them to answer one question each, creating a bond between them and the player on their left. That way everyone had bonds to two other players. You can read how that went here.)
One thing that helped is that I seeded the setting grid with places and people that would appear in the story later on, and so for a one-shot it worked really well to bring in characters or places that had already been established.
Game files
 |
| Me (right) and five Aurors |
Much of it is canon - and some of it isn't. According to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Harry really is head of the Aurors, and Hermione is the Minister of Magic. The villain isn't canon though, and I made up the bit about the dementors' origin.
I used Fate Accelerated for my game system partly because it seems eminently suitable (one of the sample characters is from a wizard school) but mostly because it's the system I am most familiar with.
Characters
My initial plan was for the players to create their own Aurors. I prepared blank character sheets and a simple worksheet that took them through character creation.
While this was fine for the first run, some of the characters were a bit random and didn't really work as a group. So for the second run (at Furnace) I prepared a set of pre-generated characters that were more coherent and in the event worked really well.
I also answered the question one of my nephews asked - "Why do we need so many Aurors for this?" So I turned it into a training mission - with two experienced Aurors accompanying three trainees (although in terms of "power" they were all equally competent).
The real reason I had five Aurors is because that's how many players I had . But I'm pleased to have a more "realistic" reason - and in the second game the players really ran with the whole trainees idea.
Setting Grid
 |
| Death Eater masks |
I created a setting grid (used for Backstory Cards) with some pre-defined questions so that I didn't need to bring the cards with me. I seeded the grid with people and places that were relevant to the scenario, which I think is the right way to use a grid for a one-shot.
Unfortunately my original questions were based too much on the Backstory Card questions, and they didn't do the job that I wanted them to: to tie the characters together and into the setting.
So after the first adventure I adjusted the questions so that all of them involve another character in some way. (I ran it for five players at Furnace - I got them to answer one question each, creating a bond between them and the player on their left. That way everyone had bonds to two other players. You can read how that went here.)
One thing that helped is that I seeded the setting grid with places and people that would appear in the story later on, and so for a one-shot it worked really well to bring in characters or places that had already been established.
Game files
- The Aurors scenario
- Blank character sheet
- Instructions for creating an Auror
- Five Aurors (two senior Aurors and three trainees)
- Aurors setting grid
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