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Author Topic: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really  (Read 7468 times)

Offline YPU

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Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« on: August 08, 2011, 04:23:26 PM »
Like many of you I have a whole lot of idea's and plans floating around in my head, some come and go while others stay and grow. (no rhyme intended) One of the idea's I have been totting around for quite a while now is that of a harry potter like skirmish game; imagine if you will a magical castle, a wizardry school in a world fallen on dark times. The established order has fallen and the hidden world of magic is in anarchy after the climactic battle against some dark force or other shattered any balance and order the wizardry community might have once known.
Inside the castle rival gangs duke it out to gain control over the semi-sentient castle, some groups used to be classmates, others fought for the dark lord and are now trying to gain control over the castle, groups of magical creatures and the self defence force of the castle are also on the prowl. Amidst this all are groups of teachers trying to hopelessly establish order.

Just another idea I wasn't planning to do to much with, but some of my regular RPG players as well as wargaming buddies have shown more then the usual interest in this idea, so perhaps it warrants a deeper look.

Now I have a horde of idea's for this game, exploration rules, all sorts of warbands and equipment, using dungeon tiles for random maps etz.

Anyhow, I feel the first step here should be to establish rules. No matter which way you turn it this is going to need customization since nearly every model is going to be a magic user, tough many not of a very high level.
There are a few rule sets  I am currently thinking on.

Savage worlds showdown: Not a common choice on these forums but I like them and think especially the magic system lends itself well to multiple users. I also like the division of extras and heroes.

Flying lead and/or Songs of blades and heroes Flying lead is meant for semi modern "shooter" skirmishes but might also work to represent simple damaging spells flying everywhere, with different weapons to represent different spells perhaps. Songs of blades and heroes is far more a mellee game then a shooters game, and its magic system is less then great IMHO, but it does contain a lot of fantasy staples that could prove helpfull, its rules for dungeons and campaigns could also easily be adapted.

Something custom I could naturally write up my own rules, hopefully with some help from here?

Something else? and not a dead parrot.  lol
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Offline magokiron

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #1 on: August 08, 2011, 06:59:44 PM »
I don't own Occult Wars, but have heard some good things about this set of rules:

http://darksidegames.net/Occult_Wars.html

PLUS Wargames Vault has right now a special offer of the pdf so it's only USD$6.00:

http://www.wargamevault.com/product_info.php?products_id=82135&affiliate_id=333411

Now, for your "Not Harry Potter" adaptation, here you can find a TMP announcement:

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=236913

Hope that helps.
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Offline coggon

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2011, 02:18:03 AM »
  Savage worlds showdown: Not a common choice on these forums but I like them and think especially the magic system lends itself well to multiple users. I also like the division of extras and heroes.

 

Have you seen the magic system from SW 'Solomon Kane' book?  For me at least in works better for 'combat magic' than the regular SW system.  PM me if you are interested in further details?
"MY enthusiasm greatly exceeds my talent"-Me

Offline Puuka

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #3 on: August 09, 2011, 02:29:23 AM »
I've been looking for some "not" Harry Potter figs. My GF made a custom HP Monopoly board and just has some cheesy cardboard tokens. I wanted to surprise her with a set of figures, but couldn't find any good ones.
Looking for a set of rules that adaptable for different genres.

Offline YPU

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #4 on: August 09, 2011, 09:49:02 AM »
Have you seen the magic system from SW 'Solomon Kane' book?  For me at least in works better for 'combat magic' than the regular SW system.  PM me if you are interested in further details?
Its been a while since I laid eyes on the solomon cane book, but it uses a penalty on the roll depending on how powerful the spell is and how many spells the wizard has in play right? I believe that's actually the same system that Showdown uses, as its a lot easier then keeping track of power points. (not all that HP like anyway) I heard the bolt spell, pretty much THE attack spell, so very important for this, has gotten updated in the new savage worlds deluxe edition, I wonder if they will carry the changes over to showdown.

Puuka, Yea I noticed this as well, Hasslefree has Alyx, (link) But beyond that I haven't found much either. Its not a huge problem for as I figure this, look at the HP movies, the further they go the fewer people are wearing school uniforms especially in the last movies it get rarer and rarer, so any teen model should do for me really, as the uniforms would really start to get rare after an apocalypse like event.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2011, 09:58:20 AM by YPU »

Offline coggon

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #5 on: August 09, 2011, 01:25:44 PM »
Its been a while since I laid eyes on the solomon cane book, but it uses a penalty on the roll depending on how powerful the spell is and how many spells the wizard has in play right? I believe that's actually the same system that Showdown uses, as its a lot easier then keeping track of power points

That's pretty much it, except you say "penalty roll", I say "difficulty roll" lol  And its a lot easier than keeping track of Power Points.

Offline YPU

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #6 on: August 09, 2011, 01:53:23 PM »
That's pretty much it, except you say "penalty roll", I say "difficulty roll" lol  And its a lot easier than keeping track of Power Points.
Oh yea, I might be a bit rusty on my terms but that system is indeed what is used in the savage worlds skirmish rules (free from the peginc website for anybody wondering) I do seem to remember that book having a few very flavourful spells (animated hands strangling?) tough I seem to remember them taking a long time to cast, after all this game is going to be the magical version of a gang shoot-out.

Offline coggon

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #7 on: August 09, 2011, 01:59:41 PM »
I've never used the magic rules from Showdown (Back story-I was introduced to Showdown by a group I had joined.  Loved the rules so much that I went out and bought The Explorers Edition, and that has served as 'canon' since then.)

FWIW, the only time I used the Kane version, I only had two practitioners of magic on the board, and it worked for us.  Don't know if you are familiar with Harry Dresden at all, but I had a Lei(sp) line running down the middle of the board.  If the spellcaster was on that line, they got a +2 to their roll.  Might work at Hogwarts in that in some parts of the castle, its easier for Harry and the good guys  to cast a spell, and some places its easier for the Death Eaters.  I'll stop with the unsolicited advice now lol

Offline YPU

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #8 on: August 09, 2011, 09:25:55 PM »
Unsolicited advice is always welcome.

And indeed I am quite aware of Harry Copperfield Blackstone Dresden, one of my favoured series of books I'll have you know.

I am still leaning towards Showdown tough I feel I might need to trim a lot of things down, perhaps edit together a smaller version for myself to work from. For instance intimidate and taunt, on one side I love how they work in the RP game, but I am not entirely sure about using them in a skirmish. Then again it does give some very nice RP elements, you can just imagine some the taunt from a scrawny first year setting the not to smart raider up for a smacking from another character.

Here is a question for you gents, would small groups of extras fit into the setting? would a gang consisting of a few groups of unnamed students and a few named characters be more or less interesting then all character games?

I have a huge number of options in mind for characters, and I am currently leaning towards making some sort of army lists, for different factions. This would then come with all sorts of options for characters to be given op top of that. IE a list of skill packages for teachers of specific classes, plus additional staff, and a list of general options including things like bloodlines or even race (half giant sports teacher, could be a fun model) other options could be background and equipment related, for instance an option that arms your character with a gun, perhaps the teacher used to go out hunting? (shotgun) or maybe a student has criminal ties (uzi?)

The standard gang (a group of students) could include a max of one teacher (class mentor, whatever they call them) while a optional band could consist purely of teachers and staff  (all characters thus very elite but lacking numbers)

Another options would be to make all of that randomly rolled, would make for a very interesting group I am sure but those things always make it harder to find minis. (I am a bit of a stickler for WYSIWYG in skirmish)

any idea's on the matter?

Offline Argonor

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #9 on: August 10, 2011, 09:23:13 AM »
I've been looking for some "not" Harry Potter figs.

Am actually amazed that noone has made a range of these, yet... or a clix-range...

TMP has a thread: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=145884
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Offline coggon

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #10 on: August 10, 2011, 02:08:11 PM »

How big a game and how many players are you planning on?  I've never used SW as an RPG, only as a skirmish game.  Our SW-SD pulp games are often 5-6 players.  Each player had 1 or 2 Wild cards and 3-4 Extras.  Everyone was more less familiar with the rules, and it went fine as long as the scenario was balanced.

(More unsolicited advice follows  lol)
If it were me, I'd load up the wild cards with quirky edges  and larger dice for their powers.  And don't be afraid to make the extras powerful too, as long as EVERYONE's extras are powerful.

For example, maybe Harry gets a +2 to his spellcasting when facing Deatheaters that he has a grudge against, or maybe Harry could have the edge "No Mercy" against the same Deatheaters?

Insert some some random quirkiness for Bella Lestrange?  I'll get back to you when I figure that one out. ;)

I think the only limit is your imagination


And I would leave 'taunt' in-I think its essential to any game set in a school. lol lol lol

Offline YPU

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #11 on: August 10, 2011, 07:42:28 PM »
Actually I don't think I will go for named characters, rather taking the basic feel of the setting, putting in a good deal of localized post-pock and stir.

Offline aducknamedjoe

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #12 on: October 21, 2021, 05:37:05 AM »
Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but I was wondering if anything ever happened with this? It's surprisingly difficult to find any homebrew Harry Potter skirmish games out there.
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Offline Major_Gilbear

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #13 on: October 21, 2021, 01:27:13 PM »
Well, you could try adapting Frostgrave, which would need very little doing to it as it's basically already quite close to the premise in the OP.  :)

Not to mention that, since the original post, Knight Models has recently released a licensed HP skirmish game complete with miniatures... Not homebrew, but it might be of interest all the same.

Offline aducknamedjoe

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Re: Not Harry Potter skirmish game... no really
« Reply #14 on: October 30, 2021, 01:01:52 AM »
Thanks, yeah I'd heard of the Knight Models one but reviews of it have been...poor to middling from what I can see. I'm just shocked with the popularity of the franchise there aren't more conversions or homebrews of existing rulesets, ideally with lists of spells I could yoink...

 

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