... and the Root of all Evil. I

We're having the last session of this book today, so it's time to start the public presentation. 

( Chapter 1: Heatric Alley )

 

Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw concluded today

We ran 6 sessions, dedicated to 3 sessions per book. Actually, it ended up being 3.3 sessions for book 1 and 2.7 sessions for book 2, and probably could have used another few hours to do out all the in character stuff but a) it was damn hot, b) the time wasn't available and c) to have the best effect it would really have to be on another day after the adrenaline high of the big finish. 

This was, I felt, a very successful experiment on a lot of levels. First, I had fun and the players all said they had fun. 

All the individual game sessions felt very Harry Potter, as did the story arcs. The home brew game mechanics worked very well, though combat was a pain - if I use these sorts of mechanics again I will ditch using the degree of success or failure for sequencing the action in the round and just have an initiative roll. Fortunately fights were very rare, so it wasn't a major issue. While the plotting and game design was very labor intensive, it produced the correct flavor. Perhaps my duplication of the pacing and themes of the books was a little obsessive, but it was worth it for the look on Jim's face when he realized that Professor Night was their DADA teacher, and that he was a photo negative of Gilderoy Lockheart.

The group jelled well, though in retrospect it was a mistake to try to fit Jason in, as his schedule only let him make one game of six and trying to accommodate him there really threw off the pacing of that session. I was successfully able to run a game with a much younger player in with a group of adults (1 player in his 40's, 3 in their 30's, one who was 11 at the start of the game). This makes me feel better about introducing kids into games, which I know is in my future. The sorting out of players based on the prospectus worked. My wife got to game and enjoyed herself.

Finally, it was nice to be able to state "we're running this for 6 months and will cover 2 books" and actually do that. When we started I asked the players if they wanted to do one book a session, one book over the whole arc or something in between. A plurality of the players had asked for 6 sessions on one year, which might have worked but would have turned the game into a "let's explore the world of Harry Potter" game rather than "let's run a game that feels like Harry Potter", so I exercised some GM fiat and am much happier for it. In retrospect, I can't even imagine that I offered to run 6 books in 6 sessions. It would have been a blur. 

I don't know that we'll ever come back to this setting or these characters. I don't have any other plot ideas on hand, but on the other hand it worked. For now, it's nice to be able to close the book and step away with everyone happy.  I hope the players enjoyed it as much as I did.