deathly hollows

[subplotkudzu]

Thanks to ashacatI've finally finished the Harry Potter series, and have two thoughts:

One, now that she's rich beyond all imagining, do you ever wonder if Rowling's ex ever wanders by looking to borrow a couple of quid?

Two, several events in book seven reminded me of something I'd noticed in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - when our heroes were in situations where they were about to die, they instead lost something of value. For example, in Sky Captain during the Pteradon attack where rather than falling down the gorge or becoming monster chow Polly loses one of the shots on her camera and Joe drops his pistol - the latter a useful tool for coming events, the former a defining aspect of the character. It struck me at the time as a workable pulp game mechanic - trading a game ending bad outcome for one that would make simply it more difficult to succeed.

Likewise in Deathly Hollows Harry nearly dies in leaving Privit Drive but loses Hedwig instead, nearly dies in Godric's Hollow but instead breaks his wand, nearly dies in the Malfoy house but Dobbie dies in his place. Now, I know that in  HP this is meant as the classic stripping away of the heroes tools to test his resolve, but it still triggered the connection. And again, I wonder how well it would work as a game mechanic. 

chaduhas something similar in place already in PDQ, where damage can be taken against the ranks of any skill (for instance, damage from a swordfight could first go against your Dapper Dresser trait rather than your Dashing Swordplay trait, because you want to keep the Dashing Swordplay as high as possible as long as possible in a swordfight. If you're trying to seduce the evil genius's beautiful daughter, you'd put the temporary rank loss from her cutting remarks against Dashing Swordplay, since being a Dapper Dresser is more useful for seduction). To get the same feel as the events in the book and movie you'd have to rank out several items either permanently or temporarily sacrifice ranks in them to avoid other worse consequences. 

One thing this does mean is that if I ever run my Pulp Atlantis game I'll probably settle on PDQ as the engine for it as the best place to test this out. 

Comments

[chadu.livejournal.com]

Woot.

:)

CU

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Out of curiousity, how would you, oh Game Designer, handle this? After all, the losses I'm mentioning are tangible things rather than temporary rank losses. Would you just give the characters more 1 upshift devices or minor gifts (the right wand gives a +1 Upshift, Hedwig is a Good rank gift, etc) up front and then let the player sacrifce them to either avoid some nasty turn of events?

Or would a Hero Point expendature to change a scene require such a sacrifice of items (perhaps not even ones that give upshifts, but are just useful)?

I'm curious, oh Monkey King

[chadu.livejournal.com]

I like your second concept.

Also, you could count the loss of items as a form of "Continuing Damage" I suppose. Like, when Harry's wand gets busted (a Damage Rank on his Wizard Quality), he cannot recover that lost Rank until he gets a new wand.

If I did that as GM, I'd probably hand out Hero Points to ease the sting. If I opted to do that as a PC (basically, refusing a portion healing at the end of a Scene), I'd expect Hero Points for it.

Interesting idea.

CU

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Hero Points which can then be used on a thrilling "not actually dead" and "I know something you don't know" climax. :)

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Love the Icon, BTW. My wife just got to Master Longbottom's big scene and she let out a loud "whoot".

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Thank you, made it myself.
Someone else out there has one that says "Why yes, I am made of Awesome."

It figures that once again, my favorite character of the series is the "Wedge Antilles."

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I think my "Wedge Antilles Fan Club" button got lost in our last move. So we're on the same page here.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I'm still working out the details, but to get the right feel it would probably have to be a sacrifice of a tangible benefit rather than a meta one like Hero Points to make a life-saving scene edit. Of course, you would still have those Hero Points to spend later.

I think the difference is that it would be the player's choice to take the long term reduction, permanent loss of a toy or what have you rather than other, potentially game ending consequences (such as, say, dying from an overwhelming attack like an Avada Kevada curse). Since it is the players choice it's as much a deferral to the player's control of the game as accepting the expendature of hero points, so I wouldn't charge or reward HP for it.

As a counterr example, if Harry's player (or you as GM) decided to break Harry's wand as a plot or character point then yes, Hero Point away - this only applies if the other outcome is "Crushed to death by giant snake", in which case just getting a broken wand is clearly a benefit (and might even cost HP to access.