DnD 5e. It was basically made for HP bc of its versatility.

>Sorcerer rules, wands are fluff conduits
>metamagicks
>existing spells are good enough
>maybe expand spell slots and spells known a bit

Boom, done. Easy. Next question?

>Hey /tg/ how do I make a Harr-

GURPS.

>No but like I wanted magic that was true to the origin-

GURPS.

>But Harry Potter is a nuanced universe and I don't want to use a generic roleplaying system on somethin-

G
U
R
P
S

You could try to adapt Shadowrun. It's got the spell list, and it's not Vancian magic so you got that going for you.

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>>50359320
Is there a list of alternatives to Vancian magic? I don't like the "fire and forget", but "spells make you tired" is also pretty dumb.

Harry Potter series seems to have neither of those. It makes me ask -- do we even really need to cap spells in a purely-magic game?

Hear me out -- it'd be like giving a Fighter "attack slots" and "sword attacks known", and he could only know a handful, and only use, say, a slash attack like four times a day.

That seems dumb in a traditional campaign, right? Well if Harry Potter is no martial, all caster, then why not just have it be like a sword? No spell slots, just spells known.

Though with constant magickery, you'd have to figure out ways to make counterspelling effective, otherwise fights are over in a jiffy with horrible, horrible consequences...

...actually, that sounds awesome.

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>>50359297

>>50359369
Because then you will get 1st year characters minmaxed to get the killing curse and casting it on everything that moves. If you give an ultimate weapon to solve all issues, the players will use it.

>>50359644
>literally an in-book reason that prevents people from spamming killing curse

You aren't very bright, are you?

>>50359644
If you're playing a harry potter campaign, you'd think the players would be wise enough not to spam one thing for the fun of it. It makes the game boring. You might as well play dnd

>>50359369
Maybe something like D&D psionics then? Spells can be used at-will, but boosted by using a daily resource ("You become tired").

>>50359369
This sort of comes closer to damaging Harry Potter's stability by asking "why the fuck do people not just use the best spells all the time"? I guess the idea that straight up damaging spells are likely to miss, and magic is used more often for utilities to avoid full on combat/wizard duels. But in a 1v1 duel it'd be "use stupefy, or avada kedavra if you're playing legacy and be done with it. Basically, a Harry Potter themed campaign would have to involve very literal actual fighting, just as the books did.

>>50359711
*very little actual fighting, oops

>>50359693
I think they're saying they doesn't like "becoming tired".

>>50359677
What reason was given, other than "it's banned don't do it"?

>>50359689
Players like that are certainly useful in general, sure. But a system that loose will surely spring other leaks.

>>50359739
I think murder by magic breaks the soul. No problem for a half snake lich who wants portions of his soul everywhere, but for the common man, it can be pretty terrifying. Is this sufficient to deter players from doing it? No because players aren't people. They are psychotic murder hobos

>>50359739
>What reason was given, other than "it's banned don't do it"?

While Rowling's world building is spotty at best, this is one of the things I buy wholeheartedly. Only a sociopath would be able to just pop in somewhere and start literally hating random people to death. The ability to casually shoot off Avada Kedavra at people you don't know is a clear indication of mental illness and the person capable of this should be removed from society. So yeah, I buy the killing curse being an unforgivable. Not because using it turns you into a monster, but because only monsters can use it willy-nilly.

I'd like to have a system that makes wand wood and cores have a bigger effect on an individual's casting. There's a lot of literature on it, but in the end it seems like everyone just does magic like everyone else unless they're waving the Elder Wand around.

>>50360045
I don't remember her saying that you have to truly hate someone to successfully use avada kedavra, but you seem to be implying she did. Did I forget?

>>50359770
It's cause only Psychotic murder hobos could make casual use of it. The same for the cruciatus curse. There's very little to hide behind with this one. If you can shoot off that spell at anyone you meet, there's something wrong and/or broken inside of you and no amount of extenuating circumstances can make this look good or right. You have to want the target dead with everything in you. Not 'kinda' want them dead or just very, very hurt, you have to hate them with your soul and want them dead with everything in you.

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>>50359297

>>50359216
Step 1) Erase everything
Step 2) Write anything else.
Here. You made it better.

>>50359216
>From the inconsistencies in verbal vs. non-verbal spellcasting
Can you explain what you meant by this?

>dumb names, seemingly endless amounts of highly-specific spells
Those are things I like. I like spells like "oculus reparo."

>>50359369
How about this:
Spell success is the result of a combination of dice rolls, overall skill, and more specific skills.
Each spell requires a certain number to cast successfully, if you reach a number above what is required then your spell is extra effective.
Your level is your overall skill. A level six wizard would receive a flat bonus of six to any spell cast attempt.
Specific skills are flat bonuses given to certain kinds of spells. e.g. A character is particularly good at casting a petronus, so they have four levels in petronus casting and receive a bonus of four to any attempt to cast one.
Finally you role a dice, which represents concentration, the number you get is added to your total.
For low level wizards the dice role is essential, most spells won't succeed if it doesn't go well. For higher level wizards it's mostly a bonus.
Non-verbal spell casting could just increase the cost of casting by a flat amount.

It is better in the books (believe it or not) but in the movies it's just

>MY STREAM OF COLOURED PLASMA IS MORE POWERFUL THAN YOUR STREAM OF COLOURED PLASMA
>NUH UH

>>50360646
>how we should we portray a wizard fight
>i know, star wars but with wands

>>50360646
>>50360691
>bright, colourful unique spells that have all sorts of crazy ways of incapacitating someone?
>nah, let's have bluish-white or whitish-green energy blobs that knock you over

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKm7NloL8bA

>>50360810
>Dat Hazel Court

Hnnng, they don't make them like that any more.

>>50360086
Harry once hit Bellatrix with the torturing curse after she killed Sirius. She got a moment of pain, before laughing it off and lecturing him about how momentary anger doesn't do shit for Unforgivables, and you have to really hate somebody form the bottom of your heart to use them.

>How can /tg/ make the magic in Harry Potter better?
You don't.
Potterverse magic is only there to facilitate the story, it has no real rules other than arbitrary ones made only so the main characters don't Time Turner their way around every problem
The magic is children's book magic it works only because the author needs it to work and it stops working or making any sense when the author needs that to happen too

>>50360893
>"You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain... to enjoy it... righteous anger won't hurt me for long... I'll show you how it is done, shall I? I'll give you a lesson —"
>—Bellatrix Lestrange telling Harry Potter how to use an Unforgivable curse

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Why the fuck aren't you reading The Dichotomy of Prophecy? It's an original fantasy story by the author of A Cadmean Victory, one of the best HP fanfics.

Also why was the head of MASUCA WoC? MACUSA is a racist anti-progressibe organizaiton, a WoC can't lead that.

>>50360086
>>50360946
What i do remember is that Aveda Kedavra is requires a lot of power according to Crouch!Moody
The part about "having to hate enough to kill" about Avada Kedavra specifically might be just from HPMOR

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>>50360366

>>50360936
>we have functional time travel
>what should we do with it?
>i know, with it bright kids will be able to study more

>>50360639
The die is your wand.
You can cast without rolling (e.g. without your wand) if you're good enough with a spell, but the spell can't be extra-effective.

>>50360963
>MACUSA is a racist anti-progressibe organizaiton
I know this is bait, but are there really people who complained about that?
You really need nothing better to do to spend your time building a strawman out of thin air.

>>50361164
>I know this is bait, but are there really people who complained about that?

There are always idiots ready to complain about something, so far worst that I have seen was this one lunatic who bitched how faggots are misogynistic because they'ren't sexually attracted to women.

>>50361164
>doesn't allow fantastic beasts in USA
>doesn't allow wizards and witches to marry NoMajs
>full of white men

How is it not anti-progressive?

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>>50361656
>full of white men

>>50361706
Exactly, thus >>50360963
>Also why was the head of MASUCA WoC? MACUSA is a racist anti-progressive organizaiton, a WoC can't lead that.

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>>50361713
Because "anti-progressive" isn't the same as racist. You can be not racist and still be anti-progressive if you're, say, homophobic or misogynistic.

>>50359216
You can't.

you would need to use one of the old chaos magic systems where you free-form build spells on the fly and those systems are nearly incompatible with the idiots on /tg/ nowadays because "muh rules" and "muh scientific magicks".

>>50361770
Just make something like Laser & Feelings but magic.

>>50360609
Speaking a spell in HP isn't necessary - it's as crutch. The words are to help you focus, and that's all.

It's a skill level thing.

>>50360646
It really is though - if you believe and concentrate harder than your opponent, you win.

>>50361796
What's inconsistent about that? Only inconsistency is that, in the movies, they almost always say the spell they're using, but that's just so the audience knows what spell they're using.

>>50361656
>doesn't allow fantastic beasts in USA
Objectively a good thing
>doesn't allow wizards and witches to marry NoMajs
Nothing wrong with this either, we've seen what witch&muggle relationship is like and it wasn't pretty

>>50361796
Well, not always. Some spells are exclusively used verbally (usually the more powerful ones). And movies started using unspecified white blasty thing spell abundantly from 5th onward.

>>50359216
Imho Harry Potter magic works better as a plot device, normally for light-hearted adventures with the occasional bit of drama. The greatest conflicts the characters face cannot be resolved with magic (or at least not only with magic) since they involve a moral dilemma and/or require wits and discretion rather than raw power.

I would only play Harry Potter with trustworthy players, and it would be a rules-light game with focus on interpretation and story.

Basically what the books are and/or try to be, specially the first (good) ones.

>>50361052
"It takes real strength of character, and not everybody's got it. you lot could all point your wands at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed."
From what I remember of book 4.
It's generally inferred from that, and what Bellatrix said in 5, that it means you have to truly want them dead in your heart of hearts, not just in a fit of rage.
Though Snape proved that you can do it as a form of euthanasia if you truly believe it's the best thing for them, so hating them to death isn't necessarily right. Probably more like just willing them to death.

>>50359739

You have to wholeheartedly want to cast the curse.

In the 5th book Harry uses "crucio" on Lestrange, but since he did it so out of rage, the curse was severly dimished

TL;DR you have to be a sociopath to use them

>>50361991
If it really said "strength of character", then i obviously have to concede. Though i distincly remeber than i polish translation it did mention "magical power". Might be mistaken obviously.

>>50362007
Well, he did use Imperio without problem.
Though it's obviously not as -bad- as other two, you could probably do as much evil using Oblivate. And i guess intent to use it, not abuse it also counts. But curse is a curse, and Unfogrivable at that

>>50362014
I might be confusing it with his explanation on resisting the Inperius curse, but from what I recall, it implied that it was the mentality that mattered.
I don't think power levels were ever really mentioned outside what your skills reflected.

>>50362037
Found it
> "Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it — you could all get your wands out and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed."

>>50359216
>Anyone tried to run HP campaigns?
Yep.

>What system did you use?
Free-form forum role-play with judges, of which I was one.

>How did you do magic?
There was a list of spells by grade level and you could do spells in your current grade level but you might suck at them. Ones beneath your grade level could be done much more easily. Ones above your grade level were pretty hard to do and, even if you got them to work, might not work as well as you'd think. You'd also have a specialty (like charms or transfigurations) that'd help you do what you were trying to do.

>>50359770
>I think murder by magic breaks the soul.
I always thought it was why the Avada Kedavra was seen as particularly horrifying: it doesn't just kill you, it annihilate your soul or something. But I'm not sure if it works with Sirius weird post death thing.

Also you guys seem to forget that whatever the reason people think it's the blackest magic ever, that's what they think. Using it make you a dangerous black mage in their eyes. People don't like dangerous black mages. You become a criminal and aurors will be on you asses.

So potential reasons not to use the Avada Kedavra all the time:
> Shit's horrifying
> Killing people is bad, bro
> Straight up power requirement
> Maybe "truly willing to have people dead" idea
> Every one fears you, you're a criminal
I think that's enough reasons to justify against the use of the spell.

>>50362200
All the Avada Kedavra victims are summoned successfully by the Resurrection Stone and Dumbledore appears in the border between life and death. Also, Voldemort survives it through the use of Horcruxes, rather than getting annihilated by it. So yeah - it pretty clearly leaves their soul intact. You might be thinking of Dementors.

>>50362411
I really like Orders of Magnitude interpretation of Killing Curse - it is just a tool for reliably forcing a Death Burst, and the fact that it never fails to kill is just a prerequisite for its main function to work.

>>50361839
>Nothing wrong with this either, we've seen what witch&muggle relationship is like and it wasn't pretty
Only because Magical Britain treats muggles like they're some sort of mildly clever animal, the way we treat dogs. They'll get upset if you torment them for no reason, but if you suggest they might be capable of sapience you're just one of those crazy muggle people.

>>50362411
Are they? I'm not sure I get all those post death phenomenons and how they differs.
We have:
> Ghosts
> The Reverse Spell thing in the Goblet of Fire
They are said to be "echoes", so I guess they are not the real thing, but in the same time they interact with Harry as if they were conscious beings.
> The Resurrection Stone
They are described as "shades", but what does it means?
> Freaking Dumbledore
"I'm to busy dumping exposition to truly die."

>>50362993
Yeah, it kinda gets silly. Still, it's at least evidence that Avada Kedavra doesn't do anything worse than kill its victims, and there's no indication it does do something worse.

>>50360963
I thought that it was fairly established that wizards didn't bother discriminating in sexist or racist ways when they had non-magical people to hate on.

Like, in the HP books the ministers go Baginold, a woman, Fudge, a somehow-popular jackass, two dipthongs in a row, and Kingsley, a black guy who apparently ends up serving for decades.

>>50363140
I guess.
Oh, and I could have add paintings of people who somehow seemed to act like the actual people (like the previous directors paintings) despite not being them.
Or even inferi but those are just animated corpse.

>>50363278
It's hard to be prejudice about things like sex and race when there's a whole vast class of people that are quantifiably inferior to all of you.

>>50363530
I dunno, muggles and wizards seem pretty well balanced to me. Muggles can't magic, wizards have so little common sense they make drunk rednecks look like paragons of reason.

>>50363612
You don't really need common sense when you can just magic 99% of shit that offends you away.
>too stupid to figure out how to use a bathroom? just swing your wand and shout pantius cleanius and nobody will know

>>50363636

Well unless they heard you yell of course

>>50363636
The fact that they need to be told not to do the plethora of dumb shit they do on a regular basis makes it a good thing that they don't know anything about firearms or basic technology.

They'd glass the planet before lunchtime just to see what would happen.

Wizard government is probably the equivalent of the only smart guy at the table face palming at the other 4, who think pissing on the sleeping dragon would be a hilarious idea.

>>50363826
>Wizard government is probably the equivalent of the only smart guy at the table face palming at the other 4, who think pissing on the sleeping dragon would be a hilarious idea.

Wizards are governed by GMs?

>>50361839
>witch&muggle relationship is like and it wasn't pretty
what? When?
All I remember is that kid from the movies where he went "me mums a witch, dads a muggle. Bit o a shock when he found out"

>>50363612
Yeah, but "common sense" is something you can learn. Magic isn't. You either have it, or you don't.

>>50363952
>what? When?

Did you forget that everyone's favorite snakeface is an end result of muggle&witch (daterape drug assisted) crossbreeding.

>>50363860
Smart wizards of influence in the ministry = the face planing GM
Smart wizards in general = the despairing player looking dumbfounded at his compatriots
average wizard in the ministry = That Guy
Average wizard = the retarded players

>>50363996
So because of one bad example.. it means that everyone else is destined to fail?
"Hey guys.. remember Hitler? Yeah.. Don't have kids. It will only end badly"

>>50359216
Closest I was to ever being in a Harry Potter campaign was a forum game, probably back when I was first into forum RPs. (Maybe four years ago at this point.) All I can remember is that we used wikipedia a shit ton, and generally the rule was that you could do anything as long as no one bothered to question it. Not necessarily the best, but then again, Forums RPs generally aren't.

>>50359297
Also this. GURPs has an astounding magic system. My biggest complaint about GURPs magic is you really only need a shit ton of Fatigue Points, one high level spell, and altered time rate. Then you can kill just about anyone without trying. It's not pretty, let me tell you, having everyone running around trying to alter their time rate just so they can be the very best. Or failing that, everyone would run towards Fire Magic and shoot exploding fireballs at each-other.

Fucking. Exploding. Fireballs.

>>50359689
>Players
>Trusted to do anything beyond fuck shit up
Good one.

>>50363980
>Yeah, but "common sense" is something you can learn.
Not if you're a wizard. Kind of like how magic is something you can learn if you're a wizard but impossible if you're a muggle.

>>50360110
So, what, we have some kind of Sanity system and when it drops low enough you unlock the ability to use fucked up magic?

>>50359216
I never figured out if magic tired wizards out or not in HP. If it didn't, then they would use it basically every second of the day for several things right? But it also didn't seem that hard for most characters so it doesn't seem to make them tired.

>>50364174
They practice magic for hours in classes, and the only fatigue they suffer is the sort that you always suffer when you keep doing the same thing over for hours in class.

Didn't guys try doing this shit before?

Regardless, for areas outside of magic I'd recommend taking inspiration from Monsters & Other Childish Things for a strictly Hogwarts-focused game where you play as students. The system places a larger emphasis on relationships and emotional injury than most systems I've tried out that still retain a focus on physical challenges as well. Since a decent proportion of the books is Harry and co. dealing with growing up and general school life as well as magical duels and wizard shenanigans, I'd say this is necessary.

>>50364244
But once they know it, do they still get tired from doing it?

>>50359216
I dunno, I don't really think it needs to be made any more granular. There are a bunch of worded spells that do various bullshit, but all the unworded spells mostly come down to brute force telekinesis and lasers. I always figured it was like a skill level thing - Brute force is easy to do without conceptual pillars granted by verbal components, but the more powerful or finicky spells generally need those verbal components unless you're REALLY good.

That the magic isn't formalised and soullessly categorised is part of the appeal.

>>50359711
You probably need more focus to cast them, or they're physically draining. After a prolonged fire fight, you're probably just firing a Force push.

Military training probably offsets that.

>>50364348
As far as I remember, only in the same way that repeatedly performing a task over and over again will tire you out. If you've ever done data entry you know that sort of tired.

Why not use Mage: The Ascension? With a decent Storyteller and enough HP players I'm sure it could be modded to play well.

Mage society runs along side sleepers (muggles) spells work better with foci (wand and words with here)

Just a thought

>>50364572
Awakening would work better - it has better rules regarding Rotes, since magic in Harry Potter is seldom Freeform. You'd also have to limit it to 3 dots in spheres and cut out Paradox.

>>50359216
>How can /tg/ make the magic in Harry Potter better? From the inconsistencies in verbal vs. non-verbal spellcasting, dumb names, seemingly endless amounts of highly-specific spells, etc.

Why do you want to turn it into the Nasuverse?

>>50359216
Only the movies do nonverbal. And I always took that as re-firing weaker versions of the last spell cast.

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>>50364628
Well, it most certainly would help it in certain areas.

>>50364565
Are there any spells that make them less tired? If so, why don't they cast that at themselves all the time?

GURPS is a meme game with shit mechanics.

>>50364715
Gurps general would disagree

>>50359216
Endless highly specific spells, dumb names and inconsistencies is part of what makes Harry Potter appealing to its major demographic. It's not a magic system, it's just magic. Harry's a wizard going to wizard school the way kids would think of a wizard going to wizard school.

GURPS is perfect for what you are looking for OP. There are a lot of different magic systems, each with options to customize them for whatever you are trying to do.

>>50364715
>GURPS is a well known game with great mechanics.
ftfy

>>50365048
The concept of a in-depth, borderline scientific or very specific magic system is also shit and a modern invention for fantasy, though. It's a gimmick that mostly appeals to the "fantasy fan" demographic. It becomes a pissing contest of who has the most "unique" or "complex" variation on a dusty cliche, same as people endlessly using Tolkien's races or thinly veiled versions of them

I've been turning this one over in my head for a while and I think a GUMSHOE System hack might be a great answer, 80% of the books are the kid dicking about the school trying to solve a mystery/string of horrible murders. The way you just tick off skills answers the issue of spells quite nicely as you having "Just the spell for the situation".

You have about 3-5 weeks of school per-session depending on how much is going on, your background is what shapes your skills during the 1st few years but as you pick electives and hobbies you start differentiating based on that. The similar structure works if you want to play as a cell of aurors investigating dark magic shit.

Might need to play with combat a little but it shouldn't have to happen that often.

>>50360774
The fight is at the end of Phoenix where Voldy and Dumbles take the gloves and wreck the ministry building is reasonably creative on screen and I believe even more so in the books, someone animates the fountain statues there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gICAyWCvXuQ

>>50359216
> Shit setting
> Written by a normie
> Beloved by normies
Op, are you just trying to make a game to get laid?

>>50366069
You forgot your REEEEs, /r9k/friend

>>50366069
Your dominion over the hobby has ended, old one. The new age is ours. The age of normality has begun.

>>50359216
If you really want to be able to do every single retarded piece of magefuckery Rowling ever thought of then it's probably going to have to be Ars Magicka, particularly if you want to do it in an academic setting.

>>50359677
The only caveat is that you have to be powerful and a murderous asshole, so basically a minmaxed PC.

>>50365520
Thank fucking god someone else feels this way

>>50362434
>Death Burst
WTF is a Death Burst

>>50363530
To paraphrase Tperry:

> In fantasy worlds, black and white team up to beat on green and blue

>>50362200
>I always thought it was why the Avada Kedavra was seen as particularly horrifying: it doesn't just kill you, it annihilate your soul or something.
There's nothing in the books directly that suggests that as far as I remember, I think the reason they find it uniquely horrifying is that their medical care is amazing and so people rarely die of lesser spells cast in anger, plus that it's a spell designed only to kill so you've got to be a pretty sick fuck to learn it in the first place. In terms of lethality nearly any muggle that sees it would probably consider it an incredibly inefficient way of killing someone, but wizards are a little short on alternate methods.

>>50363530
I don't know about quantifiably inferior, muggles lack some of what wizards consider to be basic capabilities and in some cases magic IS straight up better (healthcare and mass transit for example), but muggles have wizards whipped in several fields, specifically weapons technology, space exploration, communication technologies, astronomy and the general field of computing.

>>50366430
I'd argue muggles have wizards beaten for mass transit, too. Remember, they still go to Hogwarts via train.

>>50366430
Wizards have never bothered to learn about any of those, so to them muggles are quantifiable inferior. They only know what Muggles can't, to the point that a man who wanted to learn how a car (a century old invention) worked was regarded as a freak with a pointless hobby. To be fair, most inventions before the 1900s aren't exactly amazing to a wizard. Muggles only very recently caught up.

>>50366685
Muggles probably invented trains in the first place. There's no way wizards know how to make such a complicated machine, especially since their version of magic is too fairy tale-ish to make magitech out of.

>>50359297
>GURPS

Jesus Christ, how horrifying.

ok, so you're a ravenclaw, so to pay for your intelligence, you need to be pyrophobic, alcoholic, a habitual liar blah blah blah

Gurps is bullshit in a lot of ways.

>>50366228
Stuff that produces ghosts etc. Basically what can but doesnt have to occur when a magical person dies. Not sure if its canon or MoR canon

>>50366762
Definitely not actual canon.

>>50366685
I think the Floo network is probably the best model for metropolitan commuting you can possibly have, it's essentially a multi-destination portal in every home and every workplace. No congestion worth a damn, no crowded sidewalks, let me tell you it kicks the shit out of getting around real life London.

I don't want to call the Hogwarts Express backward because I suspect it exists at least partially for whimsical or traditional reasons, the same as horse drawn carriages in the western world tend to be anachronistic and mostly for the fun of it.

>>50366695
This does seem to be the case, for some insane and impossible reason wizards knowledge of the muggles around them seems to be around 150 years out of date give or take.

>>50366786
Possible, but either way i like the general idea

>>50366762
In the books a ghost is just a dead wizard that refuses to leave the world, the implication being that most wizards don't turn into ghosts but that all of them, or at least any of them, could.

>>50366831
Yeah, that is about right in Oders/SigDig/HPMOR too. Horcrux for instance uses it to create the imprint.

>>50366797
It doesn't really hold up though. Why would the actual point of the spell be the off-chance of producing ghosts?

>>50366848
Don't know about those others, but HPMoR fucks up everything about the Potterverse so badly there's no point in even using it as a talking point.

>>50363530
>>50366373
I've always found this to be pretty stupid. A lot of racists hate homosexuals even if they're from their same race. And that's just one petty example. There's enough hate on the human heart to hate black, green and blue.

>>50366862
Its implied to be very useful once you know how to, for >>50366848 for instance
>>50366876
I like it, even if it obviously does deviate massively in terms of canon.

>>50366430
Yes, but that's environmental. The average wizard has the same potential to learn and invent as any other human being. They're literally just People+.

>>50366882
Wizards have an incredibly small gene pool, it'd be pretty hard to maintain racism when your parents give you the choice of marrying either the black girl or your niece.

>>50366882
I'm not saying that there aren't any racist wizards, but when you as a group can do fantastic shit that a large swath of the population can't the line between "Us" and "Them" bends a little bit to accommodate.

>>50366896
It's not that it deviates from canon, it's that it deviates from canon solely to make Harry look good. I think Partial Transfiguration is the best example - he makes a big deal about how it's completely impossible and no wizard has ever done it before, so Harry can come up with a way to do it through sheer force of will because SCIENCE, and now it's this big awesome thing only he can do and proof of how smart he is, as well as his secret weapon.

Meanwhile, in the real Potterverse, Neville is chasing after a teacup with legs again.

>>50363996
He was Magic Snakehitler because her mom used that love potion, not because the parents where from different worlds. He would have been evil even if Voldemom had magiraped a wizard.

>>50366960
All right, i don't think that HPMOR is the hottest shit since sliced bread, but i still enjoyed it much more than I enjoy HP, at least now. And I do like SigDig/Orders much better - but i am a sucker for High Scifi settings that disguise themselves as fantasy, so there's that.

>>50366790
Wizards do just fine without looking into Muggles, so they have very little incentive to update their information.

>>50366960
I think the real problem is that he tried to cram stuff into too small a timeframe, and went overboard with his donut Steele concepts.

Like their mass wizard battles in year fucking one.
If he'd had a bit of restraint and used time skips, it wouldn't have nearly been as obnoxious.
That's ignoring how much of a tool he is IRL, and failing the noble houses reading comprehension test

>>50366876
What the hell is MoR?

>>50367002
I can see them not understanding the minutiae of muggle life because they don't need to know, but christ half of them live next door to muggles, the level of ignorance is astounding. Hell, there are enough mudbloods at Hogwarts that there should always be someone around you can ask about random stuff.

>>50367025
Which ones live next door to Muggles? They seem pretty isolated, and the Mudbloods all get bullied into not talking about their own culture. The wizards who do learn about Muggle life still don't find it anything special, ignoring it once they get back to their homes.

>>50367025
Remember that they get taken from their families at age 11, and hidden away in a boarding school for 3/4 of their life. Then once they're adults, they find out their education is completely useless for anything except being a wizard, and they're less employable than a sixth grader. They don't get a lot of muggle time.

>>50367025
From what I can recall the actual knowledge wizards have is totally inconsistent, because none of the ones who do know anything bother to teach the others. The wizard wearing a sundress was a perfect example.

>>50367019
Methods of Rationality, a fanfic that rewrites HP with WHAT IF HARRY POTTER WAS ACTUALLY A SCIENTIFIC GENIUS BEFORE HE GOT TO HOGWARTS

>>50367019
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

It's a fanfic, the only thing I know is that it's really into it's own smartness

>>50359216
>How can we polish a turd?
Why should we want to?

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>>50367070
Why is that being mentioned at all, let alone being considered the same level as the actual books?

>>50367070
Also, what if the entire universe bent over backwards to show how smart he was.

>>50367019
A fanfic.

Originally sold as what if Harry was raised with a scientific mindset, then quickly went into the deep end with OC concepts and power creep coming out of nowhere and derailing the more interesting premise.
Had a lot of wasted potential

>>50367044
>>50367025

That's even if they want to know. Why bother asking the boring mudblood about the boring shit that happens in the boring muggle world, that's like asking a squirrel what goes on in the tree all day. Muggles are mostly harmless, unimportant, and can be safely ignored.

Now all that might be wrong, but any explanation about why that you give is going up against hundreds of years of ingrained racism.

>>50359711
There seem to be very little actual "damaging" spells for combat use. Most combat spells that aren't exclusively the tools of villains are debuffs.

On one side, there's Disarming, Blasting (reducto), Stunning, Cutting (sectumsempra), Torturing, Killing and whatever that fucking purple Getsuga Tenshou thing was, the last four explicitly being Dark and two of them being an instant life sentence in Azkaban. Patronus is the hard counter to Dementors, but other than having a messenger when all other communication is being surveiled, it's useless in day-to-day spellwork.

On the other side, there's Jelly Legs, Leg-locker, Full-body Bind, Confunding, Conjuctivitis, Impediment, Bat-Bogey,

>>50367063
Add in the fact that there really doesn't seem to be that many employment opportunities in the wizarding world your average muggleborn wizard is probably pretty fucked once he leaves Hogwarts.
>no enough muggle education to get employed even as a burger flipper at local mcdonalds
>wizard society looks down on you so your chances of getting one among them is pretty low
>spending most of the your formative years at some creepy castle surrounded by insanity and wandering horrors has probably left you with psychological scars

>>50359216
Magic in the Harry Potterverse neither makes sense nor is internally consistent.

You'd probably be best taking a narrative game like FATE, and just having like 6 or so magic skills with different functions, so that players can make up their own spells and descriptions for their actions and only have to match them to their die results.

>>50367100
Because I mentione its spinoff had a cool concept for Killing Curse
I regret doing that.

>>50367119
Harry Potter's setting isn't really great for a combat-heavy game. You'd definitely be having more adventures where you need to get out of dangerous situations through clever escapes or riddles instead of beating up enemy wizards or killing trolls.

>>50367044
Practically any of them that live in London will live next door to muggles, the Black residence is on a muggle terrace. The Weasleys live in a village and so live among muggles, they state in the book that Hogsmeade is the only all-wizard village so by default everyone else has muggle neighbours. They may not talk to them much and the muggles probably know fuck all about wizards but they've got to be vaguely aware of the muggles, you wouldn't expect them to know what a SIM card was for instance but I'd expect them to understand basic stuff.

I also don't know about them getting bullied, that's never really shown in the books so I suspect the author just didn't think it through that ten to eleven year olds would know a lot more about the world than they do in the story. Plenty of wizards are muggle born and will have had a full UK primary education prior to Hogwarts, plenty more have one muggle parent or muggle-born parent.

As I say, it's a literary conceit rather than a decent bit of storytelling, they want the kids reading it to feel clever and laugh at the silly wizards when they get basic stuff wrong.

>>50367150
We all read some things that we may be embarrassed of when we were young Anon, no regret in that.

>>50367100
There's a segment of tg that practically worships it, because it goes the complete opposite direction to the original books 'it just is' magic and whimsical nature - it really appeals to the sort of person who sees fictional character's fuckups and thinks 'I can do better than that'.
Like putting a Horcrux on a satellite or making one from a grain of sand in the Sahara

>>50359216
So... does anyone even remember Harry Potter past the first three movies? After that it kind of just dropped its charm like a sack of dead puppies.

>>50367161
>I also don't know about them getting bullied, that's never really shown in the books
Hermione was bullied for it, that's how Harry learned the name mudblood. But yeah, the wizards' level of knowledge is mostly just whatever fits a gag.

>>50367169
Ah, I forgot it's forbidden to enjoy things on 4chan

>>50367178
I liked the first four books. Five was okay, six was when it really lost me.

>>50367175
I do like how it mocked the idea of "let's make your soul jar somewhere there aren't any souls!" though.

>>50366182
A Harry Potter game is probably not going to be that kind of game though.

>>50366757
>ok, so you're a ravenclaw, so to pay for your intelligence, you need to be from a conspiracy-theory-believing household, possibly on the spectrum, otherwise socially oblivious blah blah blah
There's a precedent.

>>50367175
>>50367233
You mean it goes to "what if there was a that guy/powergamer/munchkin in HP"

>>50367155
That sounds like something /tg/ would love, desu senpai

>>50367182
>the wizards' level of knowledge is mostly just whatever fits a gag
I normally really enjoy working out why fictional systems work as they do but in harry potters case you really do just have to go 'Rowling didn't think it through'.

To move away from their knowledge of muggles for a moment, consider the biggest two word fuck-you in the series; 'wizarding law'. The way Rowling wrote it, wizarding law seems to say that you can enter binding magical contracts on behalf of other people. That is just plain retarded, no sane legal system would force Harry to fight a dragon despite him saying he didn't do it, everyone in charge of sorting it out saying it was impossible for him to have bullshitted it, that blatant high level tampering had happened, that Harry has well known powerful living enemies and that he was in two different ways ineligible to take part anyway. That simply is not a sane basis for contract law.

Practically everything in the book that seems retarded is either Rowling being a railroading tit, Rowling not thinking it through all the way or Rowling being satirically critical of the UK social class system. I love working out why shit happens in fiction but you just can't do it with the potterverse, it makes too little internal sense.

>>50367175
>Like putting a Horcrux on a satellite or making one from a grain of sand in the Sahara
Wait, the author had Voldemort do that?

Did he even read the fucking books?

>>50367328
Almost as if fanfiction changed the characters, you know.

>>50367321
I don't know, the Tri-Wizard Tournament seemed fitting with how magical contracts in fairy tales tend to be nonsense legally but are overpoweringly bound by the wording.

>>50367353
But that's one of the core parts of his character.
If you replace that, you may as well have him be a muggle supremacist.

Why bother writing about a setting if you're going to completely ignore most of it?

>>50367379
Because SCIENCE

The story sort of plays out like people trying to break 3.5 in forum hypotheticals.

>>50366910
The fact that they're so small is weird in itself. You'd think that wizards have enough of an advantage to outcompete muggers easily.

>>50367394
Well, I suppose there's a good reason that fanfic is generally used as an insult.

>>50367321
I'd put decent money on Crouch tearing off a scrap of an assignment he wrote his name on, repairing it, and throwing that scrap into the gauntlet.

>>50367397
They're a culture that highly discourages race mixing (in a world where magic can just skip a generation and most families don't have lots of children, that means bloodlines can just drop out of the running at any time) and they don't compete with Muggles for resources or living space. Their own laws and traditions keep their gene pool small.

>>50367321
>you can enter binding magical contracts on behalf of other people
That was just Crouch being really good at fucking with the cup, wasn't it?
As in, the cup genuinely "thought" it was Harry.

Why the ancient rules had to actually be followed on the other hand, that's never explained, but the Tournament as a whole seems like the sort of thing that might be cursed into making that shit binding - on pain of what I have no idea

>>50367321
Wizarding law could be less about logic and more about preventing shitty magical results that care less about social mores.

EG, there's that thing snape does with draco's mum where he makes a magical promise to help draco with his missions however he can, and if he doesn't the spell kills him.

Not exactly a great basisfor a legal contract, but there's probably some wizarding law that tries to prevent people from just doing this or perhaps to help people fulfill their promise and then just punish them afterwards for promising criminal shit.

>>50367441
That could make sense if wizards just came into existence relatively recently and the social situation of their generation caused those conditions. But it seems that wizards have just sort of always been around, so there's gonna be some variance that leads to diversification of Wizarding societies, and then the ones which propagate best will become numerically dominant.

>>50367536
He added a fourth house with Harry as the only contestant, that's why he gets selected yeah. As for the rules, given the safety concerns i can't see the cup doing anything too bad or they'd have refused to use it. Even then they should have worked around it by taking Harry down early before everyone else and having him deliberately fail each task and just putting a plank over his line on the score board.

The problem with that kind of legal thing is that 'fuck you I'm a wizard' doesn't work when everyone's a wizard

>>50367536
Magic laws always have to be followed to the letter, no matter what. That's like, the first rule of getting out of any bad deal with a devil.

>>50367536
Yeah, the whole situation smacked of fairytale bullshit. I always got the impression that, for as big a deal as it was made out to be in the present, the tournament was a much bigger deal back when it was first conceived.

>>50367675
It was made by wizards, and started in the 1200s or something - I'd imagine "right or wrong" has never been anywhere near the tournament.

Well, until they stopped it because everyone kept dying

>>50367595
The wizarding societies we did see were all fairly homogenized in their racism, but if you have to have a better explanation, most countries' birth rates decline as their quality of life increases. Considering wizards have lived the high life damn near forever, their numbers probably don't increase much each generation.

>>50367675
Why didn't they just put Voldemort's name in the Goblet, if the penalty for not competing was still in effect?

>>50367019
A Harry Potter fanfic by the LessWrong autists. If you are familiar with the LessWrong """community""" you should already know to stay away.

>>50367126

On the other hand if your good at Transfiguration and Charms you can make or duplicate almost anything

>>50367775
The penalty would be on the schools, not the participant.

>>50367800
I am not familiar with LessWrong at all.

>>50367775
In universe, who knows? We can bullshit reasons why it would or wouldn't have worked until the cows come home.

Out of universe? Because then what does she do for the next three books?

>>50367708
Thing about that birthrate decline is that it's a modern trend. If high quality of life becomes universal and remains so for much more than two or three generations, that interaction between quality of life and birthrate is going to be reduced in severity by a lot. Hell, it only really happened at first as a reaction to decreased infant mortality. If you looked at population graphs from a hundred years ago, before those forces came into play, increased quality of life indicated increased reproduction. Then humanity started hitting different population limits. But wizards aren't really up against any particular limiting factor other than those few resources that they compete with muggles over.

You guys have all this thread here and there no mention of HPatTTRPG. The guy who made it ever ran a quest thread here.
If even fixes most of the complaints itt.

>>50360086
I remember specifically Crabbe was good at dark arts because he was a hateful little monster.

>>50367815
You lucky duck, you.

>>50367119
Well, they are literally books for kids

>>50367915
post it

>>50367815
Good for you; keep it that way

>>50367397
My theory is that it's very common for wizard dynasties to become inbred and eventually infertile, so they disappear.

>>50367915
Please avoid using massive acronyms that most people would not identify and that will show no results on google. It's not that hard to write complete names.

>>50368527
I've only just heard of it, but given the context it's fairly simple to infer that it's Harry Potter and the Tabletop RPG.

>>50368527
You should know what HP stands for, considering the topic of the thread, and you should know what TTRPG stands for given the topic of the board. The intervening letters can be inferred from the fact that they're small and from the standard format of the book titles.

>>50366757
>so to pay for your intelligence, you need to be pyrophobic, alcoholic, a habitual liar blah blah blah
If you can't make a character without picking shitload of disadvantages (and average GM won't allow to get them for more than 20-30 points anyway), you might have a serious munchkin and That Guy issues.
Or just being very, very green to GURPS.

Seriously, if you can't make a character yourself, describe what you need on GURPS general and say how big is the budget - they can squeeze just absurd characters with barely any points at all and without min-maxing.

But hey, what do I know, I only play GURPS for 15 years.

>>50359216
>Anyone tried to run HP campaigns?
Working as a part-time GM in local youth centre will do that to you.
>What system did you use?
Tried D&D 4e, 5e, GURPS, Ars Magica and a homebrew modular thing by my friend
>How did you do magic?
If you want to stick to the books, you can pretty much throw any rules through the window. Seriously, this shit just doesn't work. It managed to break down GURPS Sorcery, a feat I myself consider impossible

>>50368543
>>50368634

Easy to say that when you know there's a thing called like that. It could really be everything. Although it was more of a general complain after finding myself in the same situation with unrelated acronyms on different parts of the internet.

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>>50368747
Anon, how fucking new you are to the hobby to be confused by TTRPG?
Is it really so fucking hard to decypher it as TableTop Role-Playing Game

I mean I get it, this is one of those "I just saw this movie and want to make this setting so bad" threads plus it's Pottershit, but come on! At least have some basic dignity

>>50368807
Always assumed it was Traditional Tabletop Roleplaying Game

>>50364628
>inconsistencies in verbal vs. non-verbal spellcasting
>dumb/edgy names
>seemingly endless amounts of highly-specific spells
Sounds like the Nasuverse already.

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>>50368401
There are two more books for spells and potions, but they're both unnecessary. Spell and potion creation rules in the core book will let you do anything in those books.
Basically, with a few quick discussions with your GM you can fix most of the magic issues under this system. Guys like Dumbledore make all custom spells and blow them up to be stronger than precise, generic spells. Silent casting is done at a small penalty but is otherwise identical to normal casting. Wands give a bonus to all spells for being well made, a bonus to a school of magic based on the wood they're made of, and a bonus to a particular spell based on their core.
Most or all of the problems with the magic system from the books can be fixed with these rules, a little discretion, and the imagination for custom spells.
AFAIK, the writer still lurks here.

>>50367070
>>50367100
Because HPMOR's Harry actually investigates the nature of the magic in-universe scientifically, which helps iron it a little. It addresses a lot of the problems OP had, like why you have to scream "WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA" like a moron or why you shouldn't transform objects into mist around breathing creatures and so on.

>quickly went into the deep end with OC concepts and power creep coming out of nowhere and derailing the more interesting premise
The thing is that HPMOR is primarily a propaganda tool for the LessWrong community. It's not meant as a proper story so much as a way to explain Why We Fight to people who aren't familiar with AI alarmism, rationalism and transhumanism. It's basically LessWrong's Atlas Shrugged, and about as well-written.

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>>50368999

>>50369176
What kind of place is LessMore that they have a Harry Potter fanfic explaining their views on AI Alarmism and Transhumanism? This sounds insane.

>>50368999
Close enough.

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>>50369176
>It's basically LessWrong's Atlas Shrugged, and about as well-written.
My fucking sides

>>50369176
>Because HPMOR's Harry actually investigates the nature of the magic in-universe scientifically, which helps iron it a little.
Not really. That's the premise, but the kid does maybe one or two science experiments, and the rest is Aristotelian "If I think SCIENCE really hard I'll get the answer" bullshit.

>>50369045
Worth noting also that a few slight expansions on the rules that were discussed in the threads where this was originally made correct for other problems like why Dumbledore can cast without a wand (treat wandless casting and silent casting like it's own class and require a number of hours spent studying it before it can be used without penalty).
On top of that, a little bit of headcanon will fix the last few little cosmetic things like why there are so many specific spells with silly faux-latin names ( the ministry made a list of learners spells to demonstrate magical basics and gave them names that were easy to memorize but not normal to speak in casual conversation to make them easy to focus on. That's why adults like Molly still use specific spells but masters like the Hogwarts teachers use huge custom spells like the massive transfiguration spell that animated the school's statues in the last movie.)

>>50369229
>the ministry made a list of learners spells to demonstrate magical basics and gave them names that were easy to memorize but not normal to speak in casual conversation to make them easy to focus on. That's why adults like Molly still use specific spells but masters like the Hogwarts teachers use huge custom spells like the massive transfiguration spell that animated the school's statues in the last movie.
...Whoever came up with this idea is a fucking genius. That's an absolutely brilliant explanation.

>ITT: People try to put reason and logic into one of the most patchwork magic system in existence, made fully and entirely on the fly, while in the same time being a content of a children book

Is this still just naivety, or already autism?

>>50369176
It should be noted that it inspired a slew of other shitty rationalist fanfics like MLP: Friendship is Optimal or Pokemon: The Origin of Species that do the whole "let's take a rational look at this franchise" and "see how perfectly rational I am" shtick.

>>50369226
LessWrongers wank over the scientific method so much that they have a rather idealized approach to it.
To be fair, you could argue Harry is more like a 18th century naturalist than a modern research team, he's taking over from wizards and alchemists after all. Due to being 10 years old and perpetually grounded he had little liberty to mess around with the fabric of reality during his school year, it's implied at the end of the fic that he's finally going to start working seriously.

>>50369297
>Is this still just naivety, or already autism?
It's /tg/

>>50369260
That one was mine, actually. I'm sure I'm not the first to think of it, but that's how I explain it to friends whenever we discuss HP lore. So thanks!

>>50369353
It really hammered home how up his own arse the guy is when he tried to argue that calories in/calories out doesn't work for losing weight, via sophistry.

>>50359216
Oh hell no...
I've managed to almost forget how bad it was to have regular Pottershit threads on /tg/

>>50369209
A very nerdy one obviously. Honestly I didn't expect it to shock /tg/, that sort of behavior is pretty common even here and in other communities you probably frequent if you think about it. They're also fond of sci-fi, anime and Lovecraft references, predictably.

It's also said that the Bayesians are the jedi to the sith Neoreactionaries, and I didn't come up with that analogy.

>>50369406
>'Rational' right up until they must confront themselves

Poetry.

>>50369209
Also transhumanists are weirdly fond of shitty fiction for some reason:

http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html

>>50369406
I remember there was a minor shitstorm about how he decided to push his kooky ideas about how space-time works, basically arguing that his big brain should be given more weight than the entire intellectual output of all mainstream physicists.
Due to the high concentration of Jews, LessWrong is also full of psychologists and psychiatrists who think their field of work is full of voodoo and question every study that comes out.
It's an endlessly entertaining place.

>>50369353
>LessWrongers wank over the scientific method so much that they have a rather idealized approach to it.
HPMoR has nothing approaching the scientific method, though. It's all "think about how things should work, get really upset they don't work that way, think really hard why it should work, and viola, it works." When a scientist gets something wrong, they should go "how interesting, why does that happen?" not "fuck you universe!"

>>50361139
I like to think that every time anyone has fucked with time, it's gotten scrubbed from reality by the Department of Secrets or some shit, leaving wizard-kind with very little documentation on proper time magic; people with Time Turners are basically trusted guinea pigs.

>>50369198
It makes none
But, now you have gone
And you must be looking very old tonight

>>50369636

They treat Science as a Religion, rather than a process so it's not really surprising the response to conflict with beliefs is 'Fuck you!'

>>50369842
I think you misinterpreted the other anon. What they go "FUCK YOU!" at is the universe, not other people's beliefs.

They treat other people's beliefs with thinly-veiled disdain, instead.

Anyways, I haven't really seen them treat 'science' as a religion. They just consider it the solution to most problems. Can you blame them?

>>50367379
Voldemort is given a different set of goals and justifications so that smart!Harry doesn't run into stupidasfuck!Voldy.

Quirrel is written as very, very competent. He's basically written as someone who actually took steps towards conquering the world.

>>50369919
They yell "fuck you" at the universe because they think if you apply SCIENCE to something, it must work the way you want it to. That's the opposite of the scientific method, and absolutely closer to religious dogma.

>>50369986
No, that's not what they do anon, who are you even talking about? They say fuck you to the universe because they're so idealistic they get mad when the world keeps throwing curveballs. Once your community's large enough, there's always going to be a stream of family deaths being reported, and these are people that really really really want death ended (and AIs not murdering).

I really have no clue what makes you think they do science wrong in that way. They go out of their way to call each other out for wanting specific results. They're so unbiased on most things it's creepy.

>>50369986
I'm not really sure I see what you mean, can you give an example?

>>50369297
Yes.

>>50369919
You haven't read HPMoR then. At least a third of the chapters have Harry yelling about something not working the way he wants it to, or dismissing outright the idea that it could work differently than how he thinks it should. For fuck's sake, there's canonical souls in Harry Potter, and he utterly dismisses the idea that anyone could believe in them, and obviously people just believe they believe they exist.

>>50369919
>Anyways, I haven't really seen them treat 'science' as a religion. They just consider it the solution to most problems.

I remember quite a bit of 'No, this is bullshit' because physics won't do what they think it should when magic in harry potter is concerned. Rather than going 'Well, if something is happening physics says is impossible than physics is clearly wrong'

>>50370068
Technically there are ghosts and shit like horcruxes and body swaps and sapient wizard hats but they're explained away as Sufficiently Advanced Magic instead of "real" souls.
I remember him sperging over Parseltongue but I can't remember if it really gave sentience to snakes or if it was a perception.

>>50370053
Getting infuriated by magic requiring a precise set of movements and incantations instead of being free form.

Deciding that Dementors couldn't possibly be what people thought they were, and they had to actually be incarnations of death.

Every goddamn thing having to do with partial transfiguration.

Screaming about how McGonnagall turning into a cat completely violates conservation of mass and energy.

Deciding souls can't possibly exist, and dismissing any and all evidence that they might.

And so on.

>>50370078
But you're talking about people who are Bayesians first and scientists a distant second. Physics can't just be wrong, the probability that I'm tripping balls and seeing impossible stuff is astronomically higher than the probability that our current physical knowledge is useless.

>>50370068
But that's because Harry is a character in the story. He doesn't represent the ideal rationalist. The way people from that community explained it to me, his prideful autism is treated as a problem they specifically work against.

Also I've read the story, you're not going to convince me Harry's some moron about souls in his setting. We know souls exist there, he only has the word of a bunch of "adults", when he's a little shit wired to disbelieve them.

>>50370148
>Getting infuriated by magic requiring a precise set of movements and incantations instead of being free form.
He was frustrated at his inability to figure out the rules behind them.

>Deciding that Dementors couldn't possibly be what people thought they were, and they had to actually be incarnations of death.
He didn't just "decide it", he actually has a special ability to see them for what they are, regular people don't want to see it or pretend not to see it. The moral of the story is that normies shield their minds from looking at death rationally while transhumanists are very sensitive to the issue and can't look away. It's why Harry is much more disturbed and vulnerable to them initially.
Dementors are probably the most important and overused beings in the entire fic, try to understand their role.

>Every goddamn thing having to do with partial transfiguration.
I vaguely remember that he failed to perform it at first because his understanding of the nature of matter was incomplete but he succeeded when he went full granular. It's about the importance of having a proper map of the territory, in Eliezer-speak.

>Screaming about how McGonnagall turning into a cat completely violates conservation of mass and energy.
Well it's true.

Everything is much easier if you just imagine that Harry is a cartoon mad scientist.

>>50370164
If he's a flawed character, don't present his viewpoint as if it's correct for the entire story. Also, "he only has the word of a bunch of 'adults'" is kind of how science works. I only have the word of a bunch of adults that electrons exist, but I'm either taking their word for it or testing it myself. Him saying souls don't exist in that universe like me saying the moon landings were faked and dismissing any explanation to the contrary.

>>50370309
>He was frustrated at his inability to figure out the rules behind them.
No, he was sincerely upset by the fact that the universe cared how you pronounced Wingardium Leviosa at all.

>He didn't just "decide it", he actually has a special ability to see them for what they are, regular people don't want to see it or pretend not to see it.
Yes, that's my point. He came to the conclusion not as a result of asking a question and experimenting, but simply drawing a conclusion and having that conclusion prove correct. Not to mention it's complete bullshit - the fuckers suck out your soul, leaving you biologically alive but devouring everything that makes you you. If anything, his transhumanist perspective should make him weaker against Dementors, because they believe there can't be anything worse than death, while Dementors are (un)living proof that oh yes there can be.

>I vaguely remember that he failed to perform it at first because his understanding of the nature of matter was incomplete but he succeeded when he went full granular. It's about the importance of having a proper map of the territory, in Eliezer-speak.
Again, he comes to that conclusion not as a result of experimentation, but simply deciding it has to be true and forcing himself to make it true. It would have been interesting if the laws of magic didn't obey the laws of physics as we knew them - if an object was an object, no matter what you thought about gluons. He could have learned something. But instead, he gets it right on the first theory.

>>50367397

Maybe it's like how developed countries all have below replacement fertility. Wizards just invented personal conveniences and advanced medical care early on, and their population stagnated or dwindled. Except for the Weasleys.

>>50370554
The Weasleys are a poor Irish family outlier, naturally. Come to think of it, did ANYBODY else at Hogwarts have any siblings at all?

>>50370593
Indian twins, but other than that I can't remember any other brothers.

There's a few others, but not at Hogwarts - the Blacks, the Dumbledores

>>50370646
The weird kid with the camera had a little brother.

>>50370534
He didn't have the word of scientists, though. He had the word of a bunch of adults that didn't particularly care to test the beliefs they're comfortable with.

Honestly you're just grasping at straws at this point. Dementors sucking out your soul kills "you", so what the fuck is the difference? To Harry "death" as a concept is the end of the self. The dementor's kiss is perfectly within that definition.

Also just because he got his transfiguration to work the way he intended, that doesn't mean he's actually correct, just like making a horcrux doesn't prove souls exist. Magic is bullshit, and you can't see the inner workings, just guess at them.

The story is perfectly fine, you're just a pedantic fuck.

>>50370646
The Greengrass background NPCs are sisters. Draco marries the younger one.

>>50368700
I played GURPS once and it was the worst fucking time of my life. No fun was had by anyone and every time we tried to accomplish anything it resulted in successive failures.

AND THEN CAME COMBAT. I don't even wanna talk about the combat so much that was garbage. Enemies kept shooting us in the fucking face and we couldn't hit shit

Skill checks are fucking math problems each time and with so many fucking modifiers to check every time it's fucking constant stream of bullshit

FUCK GURPS WITH REBAR

>>50370703
I notice you skipped past my entire point, which is that he doesn't do science, he just screams at reality until the author makes it work his way. It's not the methods of rationality when he's just an irrational brat who has the writer on his side, changing the world so he wins first time he tries to figure out anything.

Also, Rowling out and said Dementors are the incarnations of depression, not death. They feed on your happiness, and leave you a prisoner in your worst moments. They're driven away by embodiments of positive emotion so strong they can't touch them. They suck out your soul and leave you "alive" but hollow. There's literally nothing about them that suggests they're little deaths besides a burning desire to make babby's first Transhumanism metaphor.

>>50370763
But even if dementors are incarnatiosn of depression, that wouldn't make Harry's approach unrealistic. Harry considers animal patronuses to be attempts at distracting oneself from the phantom of death. That can apply to depression just as well.

Harry in HPMoR is wrong so many fucking times. You're just holding onto the few times in which he's dramatically correct because it's all you have. The story would be boring without those moments.

Honestly, what's your beef with it? Do you just hate the author? Do you hate the concepts in it? You seem more interested in screaming 'muh canon' than actually arguing against the quality of the story.

Surprise surprise, fanfiction is not beholden to what Rowling says. Nobody fucking cares.

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>>50370716
0.1/10, because you made me reply

>>50370860
I gotta say, the one fanatically defending a story here doesn't seem to be your opponent.

>>50370860
Not that anon, but it's a low quality story. I'll admit it rubs me the wrong way with how the writer takes his smug attitude towards magic and tries to fit in in his points of view rather than accepting the world doesn't work that way, but beyond it the story is just bad. His writing is crap, his prose is terrible, and the way he handles the characters and logic of the setting is embarrassing. Worst of all his the obvious grudges he has against certain characters like Ron and Snape.

>>50370860
I hate the total waste of the premise. A scientist investigates magic and puts their scientific skills to the test? That's a fantastic premise. But it's wasted by an author who regards science as a religion, where if you just believe in science hard enough then science will deliver miracles into your arms. It's bad science, it's bad writing, and it's bad propaganda.

As for why I keep harping on canon - why are you even pretending you're writing fanfiction if you're going to ignore it? What's the point of pretending you're writing about rational!Harry when you change how the universe works to make him right all the time instead of having him change his beliefs when he learns how the universe actually works?

>>50370534
>No, he was sincerely upset by the fact that the universe cared how you pronounced Wingardium Leviosa at all.
Can you seriously not empathize with that? It proves Magic was designed by some chucklefuck.

>If anything, his transhumanist perspective should make him weaker against Dementors
Yes, that's exactly what happened. He eventually conquers them but he was practically allergic to them at first. He's a paragon of transhumanism in both cases.

>It would have been interesting if the laws of magic didn't obey the laws of physics as we knew them - if an object was an object, no matter what you thought about gluons.
But gluons actually exist and "objects" don't exist in the same sense.
Matter being made of subatomic particles and so on is a truth, innumerable experiments confirmed it.
Complete transfiguration targets "objects" in a programmatic sense, partial transfiguration tried to target poorly-defined parts and random chunks of matter so whatever part of the universe is in charge of interpreting magic spells failed to compile the request until he handled it correctly.
>he gets it right on the first theory.
Yes, by starting from the correct physical premise that matter is waves of energy n' shit, which is a good idea since it's true.

Look, it's like he was trying to turn water into wine inside a bottle and it failed. On closer inspection the bottle was actually empty, so he instead tried to turn air inside into wine and it worked. You don't need to personally perform extensive experiments to figure out that an empty bottle is full of air and not water, that's a given. Should he have been able to fill the bottle with wine with a turn-water-into-wine spell even if the bottle had no water in it, just by believing the bottle initially contained water? The point isn't that magic obeys the laws of physics (it doesn't by definition), it's that the physical universe and its laws does exist and magic acts upon that.

>>50370976
You're missing the point so hard it almost sounds like you're sarcastic.

>>50370976
And in case I haven't made it obvious in my post, magic in HPMoR is understood to be very much like a programming language or something like that. Spells are functions with dumb names etc.

>>50371018
>functions
Or keywords rather.

I always thought the wand lore in Harry Potter was only accurate up to a point. The wand being specifically suited to the wielder is a great magical idea, but the person who you are changes since when you were 11. (And also your grip, as I was a shrimp when I was 11 and now I'm closer to Hagrid in size)

>>50371000
Either matter is made of subatomic particles in HPMoR or it's not, in the latter case it's a miracle that the universe works anything like ours. It's "strongly" implied by the entire universe that all our scientific knowledge is still valid even if magic was somehow added. Particles exist and are as relevant and reliable as gravity so you have to account for that.

In the bottle analogy, complete transfiguration is a fill-bottle-with-wine spell (or turn bottle into wine I guess), while partial transfiguration is the turn-water/air-into-wine spells. Fill-bottle-with-wine works nicely on an empty bottle. Turn-water-into-wine fails because an empty bottle doesn't have water in it, it has air. Turn-air-into-wine works since the bottle is full of air.
Your objections are inane and boil down to "turn-water-into-wine should have been turn-contents-into-wine" or "the bottle should have been full of water in the first place."

>>50371313
The wand lore put out in later materials on Pottermore note this, and there's a particular story given as an example about a brave who became a boring middle ages doffer. The wand got pissed, stop being attuned, and set his slippers on fire instead of summoning them.

>>50371366
Except this is a universe that cares what you say when you wave a wand, where broomsticks and jet engines follow different laws of motion, and where humans can turn into cats while retaining the same level of sapience. Whether or not particles exist is irrelevant, what's relevant is whether or not magic cares they exist, or if it just cares what an object is.

But even if you won't concede that, it's still shitty writing because he still gets it right on the first theory. "If I think about how magic should work this way hard enough, it'll work this way." Then boom, he thinks hard enough, and it's done. He never questions the possibility that this form of transfiguration was developed in a way that makes partial transfiguration impossible, and he might need to develop a new form from the ground up. He never suggests that maybe magic requires him to visualize the target and he needs to use an electron microscope to get at the atoms themselves. He just prays to science for victory.

Plus, the whole thing is moot anyway, because partial transfiguration is not only possible, it's easier than transfiguration. All you have to do is fail at transfiguration and you'll get a partial transfiguration. Hermione gets points because her matchstick is silver and kind of pointy in Sorcerer's Stone - but it's still not quite a needle or a matchstick. So all that sturm und drang, and he achieves a feat any idiot does on their first day of class, but now it's special because the author decided only he gets to do it. That's bad writing no matter how you look at it.

>>50371791
It shows that you haven't actually read MoR...

Partial transfiguration in MoR isn't transforming something halfway, it's transforming only a small portion of a whole object. Transfiguring a chunk of concrete into petroleum when it's part of a wall

The whole point is that the way the spell determines its boundaries is unknown. Harry experiments by pushing the visualization boundary further than wizards could

Anyways, it's not even his first theory. He has to push it further and further, over a good few attempts before he can do it, and it's treated seriously as a possible hazard and as a possible weapon. It's even considered to quite possibly be the power Voldemort knows not

The writing at that point in the story is quite good, you're just an asshole

>>50367268
Have you not seen Slytherin?

>>50372452
>it's not transfiguring a thing partway, it's transfiguring a thing partway
Uh-huh. You can draw whatever arbitrary distinctions you want, but it's still the exact same thing. Part of an object is transfigured, part of it isn't. Doesn't matter if it's a circle in an eraser, a thin layer of metal over wood, or a pincushion with legs.

Also, it absolutely is his first theory. "Objects aren't solid, so if I don't think of them as solid, I can transfigure part of them." The fact that he thinks imagining atoms is enough doesn't change the fact that the principle he decides is sound is sound - the universe is rewritten by fanfic the author to make it sound.

The writing is terrible, and you're just an asshole who can't admit his masturbation fodder of a fanfic was written by a science cultist instead of a scientist.

>>50368700
>I have 15 years of mindcaulk and ossified houserules for this system, anyone who doesn't read my mind for them must be the asshole!

GURPS is bad and you should feel bad for spending 15 years on it instead of HERO/Champions.

>>50372606
Also, what he says is kinda disingenuous.
>they can squeeze just absurd characters with barely any points at all and without min-maxing
>they can squeeze just absurd characters
>barely any points at all
>without min-maxing
Sure you can, buddy.

>>50359739

If you recall from Harry's Defense Against the Dark Arts class in his fourth year, Moody (Crouch) declared that the whole class could straight up attempt to use the killing curse on him and he wouldn't get so much as a bloody nose. He makes some vague point about not having enough power (and possibly the intent) to use the curse to any real effect.

That said, once you iron out those kinks, there appears to be no reason you couldn't spam it the way Voldemort does in the final battle. Not the best worldbuilding, but there you go.

>>50369842
The thing that pisses me off about them all is the same thing that annoys be about XKCD; they think of science and knowledge primarily as something to make them look better, not as a means to an end or something to improve mankind

>>50373061
I'm sure this is true. They're definitely lying when they consistently and constantly talk about science as a way to improve mankind's existence. You see right through them anon. Did you find one of their sciency fashion magazines?

>>50373235
Yes, anon, people are capable of lying about their motivations when they are less than noble.
Glad you caught up.

ran an all magic campaign using Complete Mage and Complete Arcane as reference, at one point a high school-type scenario is involved

that's the closest I to Harry Potter we were able to get...

God yes, i love Harry Potter's magical tone and mix of utility and mysticality. However I make my magic systems 'inspired' by Harry Potter in the same way DnD magic is inspired by Vance.

That way, I can chop out the stuff that's either too powerful or poorly implemented and keep all the other great stuff.

For instance, I'm implementing my magic systems so Wizards can use a necklace or magic ring as a magic focus, but they have slightly different rules and limitations then a traditional wand. Or staff, for that matter.

>>50362411
I'm almost 100% certain that there's this huge Dumbledorey explanation in one of the later books about how Avada Kedavra splits your soul in half and Voldemort used it to create the horcruxes. It doesn't break the victims soul no, but the perpetrators get's buttfuqed

>>50364650
That isn't true, most of the best wizards in the books use nonverbal spells, including Harry. It's specifically stated that it gives you an edge in combat because then your opponent doesn't know what he/she should be countering. That could play into a tabletop game too, when you get extremely good you can take pc's or npc's unawares by using non-verbal to basically ambush them.

>>50364710
Not that we officially know of, but they have some healing spells. I suppose that if you focused on healing you could learn a spell to counteract fatigue, but I'm pretty sure healing wizards/witches have to go to St. Mungo's right after school to train their entire lives in it. It's like an entirely separate school of magic that they don't go over in primary school.
That could also play into classes maybe, if you split the various schools up into classes. Naturally you could cast various spells from all of them but your main school would be more powerful and you would know more of those spells. Defense Against the Dark Arts class is obviously great at combat while Charms is your basic bard.

>>50359711
>>50359644

People forget that there are reasons not to use certains spells. They are either illegal or are considered dark and evil and thus socially unacceptable.

Aside from that, it's very clear in the books that certain Wizard simply cannot perform certain spells due to lack of talent, wizarding power or the wrong disposition.

The characters we follow in the books are mostly exceptional magicians, and are not a good indication of general magical ability.

Also, the unforgivable curses require a Evil alignment to actually work. Harry tries using the cruciatus curse on someone at some point at it simply doesn't work since he doesn't enjoy torturing people.

>>50366790
Wizards knowledge of muggles is out of date because they've been in hiding. They used to be open about magic but Muggles started advancing technologically and then turned of the wizards/witches so they hid themselves away. Since then they generally focus on internal affairs and so have lost track of what the muggles are doing.

>>50367126
The magicians by Lev Grossman explores the whole idea of what Wizards might do after school in an interesting way imo.

It's a bit depressing though.

So is there still seriously no system out there that does freeform magic in a way that is fair or balanced at all?

>>50364659
Best Caster, right there.

>>50374571
That's not an issue with Avada Kedavra, that's caused by murder in general. Deliberately murdering someone damages your soul, although it'll heal unless you tear off the damaged chunk and stuff it in a random object.

>>50371791
>Except this is a universe that cares what you say when you wave a wand, where broomsticks and jet engines follow different laws of motion, and where humans can turn into cats while retaining the same level of sapience.
Yes, if and when magic is involved. Otherwise everything applies.
>Whether or not particles exist is irrelevant, what's relevant is whether or not magic cares they exist, or if it just cares what an object is.
What I'm trying to tell you with the bottle example is that magic typically doesn't (classic magic is all fill-the-bottle-with-wine spells, the contents don't matter, only the target) but Harry is discovering a new form of magic that does (turn-water/air-into-wine, in which case the contents of the bottle matter and natural observation and physics are more reliable than the hearsay of alchemists here.)

>>50372572
>"Objects aren't solid, so if I don't think of them as solid, I can transfigure past them."
Which is entirely correct.
>the principle he decides is sound is sound
He didn't decide anything, the principle was sound since a few minutes after the Big fucking Bang.

>the universe is rewritten by fanfic the author to make it sound.
You're suggesting the exact opposite, retard. You're asking for the author to alter the fabric of the universe (but without any visible effects) just so magic works the way you want it to.

Oh look, only 24 posts till this bullshit disappears!

>>50375728
>he thinks it disappears instantly once it hits bump limit!

laughingravenclawsluts.png

>>50375599
>You're asking for the author to alter the fabric of the universe (but without any visible effects) just so magic works
Yeah that's magic. When he has to rewrite out the fact that magic bends physics so his theories are always correct by applying physics to magic, it's bending the setting to make it sound.

>>50375728
I'm going to start a new thread just to spite you. I want you to know it was me, and why.

>>50374627
I can only imagine that healing magic requires specialization because if every wizard knew it, they'd only act more batshit.

>>50374649
Harry's really not an exceptional wizard: his grades are always mediocre. The only thing he's super talented at is riding his broom.

>>50376262
his grades are probably shit because he's constantly stuck in on whatever magical bullshit is happening that year.

>>50376262
Grades have nothing to do with it, it's spelled out that you specifically need to hate someone.

>>50376289
Also the teacher of one of his main curriculum classes for five years was incredibly biased against him and gave him shit test scores over the pettiest things.

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Harry Potter is terrible, and J K Rowling is a hack.

>>50376305
I was talking about the other spells that people fail, not the Unforgivables. The guy was talking about how people can't cast lots of spells and we only see exceptional wizards, but Harry's a fairly average one. Talents for most magic seem to be like real talents: some people are more inclined to be good at them, but hard study is the answer instead of having the right blood.

>>50376262
He was decent at pretty much everything outside of HoM, Divination, potions and DADA, the former three he was bad at due to shit teachers and the latter he excelled at.

He was generally above average, but not outstanding

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>>50370068
> For fuck's sake, there's canonical souls in Harry Potter, and he utterly dismisses the idea that anyone could believe in them, and obviously people just believe they believe they exist.

With that attitude, you'll never going to get anywhere in Metaphysical Biology.

Brb, juggling souls between bodies and copy pasting pieces of them as I see fit.

>>50376469
>dada

Gotta wonder how they kept finding people willing to accept a teaching position for that before the series started. After couple decades of people only lasting a year or less in that position one would think that for most people reaction to being offered a position to teach DADA in Hogwarts would be less "I'm a honoured to accept this position" and more "thanks but no thanks, I don't wanna end up like the last dozen guys who taught it".

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Can I just say I enjoyed the movie simply for the fact that Wizard Battles when not done by shitty students are apparently Warp Spider skirmishes?

>>50360086
It's not that you have to truely babby hate the person, there quite literally can't be any room in your error of judgement to cast the killing curse. If there's any small spot in your brain that feels like you really shouldn't kill that person, whether you know it or not, it wouldn't work. That's the reason voldermort is such a magic monster, fuck the horcruxes and all the other dark art shit he's done. The fact that his brain let's him kill anyone he wants at anytime is what makes him The threat.

>>50376549
There only seems to be one school in England, there's always more teachers with that level of exclusivity. Most of the Dark Arts teachers don't die anyway, they just quit or move on to better jobs.

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>>50361128
>goodkind
>better
>than literally anything

>>50376554
>Pretty much every adult Wizard knows how to Apparate
>This is because learning Teleportation is like getting a drivers licence in the wizarding world

They'd have to be stupid not to. I liked the battles in the movie as well.

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I remember something about some part of 4chan making a setting within HP that was focused on America, or if it had originated there instead of Europe

lots of magical guns and motorcycles were involved and native American roots

also had a brief idea for a parody setting of it using Weird Kids in Monsters and Other Childish Things at one point, for fresh into the school kids and some house rules for attempting new spells outside your wheelhouse

I'm still fucking waiting on JK to go into detail about the state of Wizarding Australia.

C'mon, Rowling, give us something, anything! Please!

>>50376644
You know it'll be the laziest, half-assed answer. Pretty much everything after the actual books is just her throwing out whatever happens to be in her head at the moment.

>>50376579
The point
---
The moon
---
Your head

>>50366198
Good, now you can be wrong together

New thread when

>>50376549
I always assumed that most people ended up leaving the position due to fairly mild reasons.

>>50374655

Which would work just fine if they didnt have a constant influx from the Muggle World.

>>50376549
I've been checking out the HP reread on tor and the author makes the point that "did you know the DADA job has been cursed for years?" should be one of these spooky stories older students love to tell, not some kind of big secret.

>>50376684
I'm still not over "Castelobruxo". "Hogwarts" was rather clever because it's a dignified fantasy place with a name that is anything but, which is rather funny. Then you have a place that is just Portuguese for "wizard castle".

>>50374734
Try very depressing.

>>50374936
There's MaOCT. You can build spells as skills and that would make them freeform and still mechanically competitive

>>50376968
>tfw you get headhunted by every other prestigious school of magic because you managed to spend a full year as DADA professor without any scandals.

I feel like a proper Potter RPG should encourage the GM to come up with their own magic plot devices, and build an intrigue around that. Every year Harry encounters new possibilities and they always end up being part of some mystery, big or small.

>>50377177
The first DADA professor after the war ended probably got very paranoid as the year came to a close.

>>50359216
It's not an inconsistency of verbal vs non verbal. The verbal and even somatic components of spells aren't REQUIRED, they make the spell easier to do. Once you reach a certain amount of experience, practice and understanding you don't even need those components to work the magic. See Dumbledore.

>>50377246
As a general rule, anything Dumbledore or Voldemort alone are shown as capable of doing shouldn't be the baseline for PCs.

>>50377052
>"Castelobruxo"
Bad portuguese at that. You can't just agglutinate words in portuguese. It just isn't how it's done

>>50377246
Dumbledore and Voldemort are the greatest wizards of the age. They're epic level characters.

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This thread is bad and has only been made because of the recent flick but not as bad as one of the dullest franchise in the history of movie franchises. Each episode following the boy wizard and his pals from Hogwarts Academy as they fight assorted villains has been indistinguishable from the others. Aside from the gloomy imagery, the series’ only consistency has been its lack of excitement and ineffective use of special effects, all to make magic unmagical, to make action seem inert.

Perhaps the die was cast when Rowling vetoed the idea of Spielberg directing the series; she made sure the series would never be mistaken for a work of art that meant anything to anybody?just ridiculously profitable cross-promotion for her books. The Harry Potter series might be anti-Christian (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-James Bond series in its refusal of wonder, beauty and excitement. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to.

>a-at least the books were good though
"No!"
The writing is dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs."

I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing. Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

>>50377548
Okay, /lit/, we get it. Fun is bad. Can you leave now?

>>50377548
Is this really what passes for shitposting in /lit/? It's so obviously insincere that a child could recognize it.

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>>50377548
>that list
this best be bait

>>50377610
It's a pasta that is posted in every Potter thread, what do you think?

>>50376644
Acromantula and Nundu are at the bottom of the food chain there, and their wizards specialise in merging magic and technology in order to ban evade

>>50376311
Hot opinion bro

>>50377131
See >>50368527

>>50366380
>but wizards are a little short on alternate methods.

What's to stop a wizard from picking up a gun and going 'hey, these things are pretty good'? IIRC Rowling actually came out and said once that wizards die to guns like everyone else because all of their combat spells are based around stopping magic and not tiny chunks of metal going at ludicrous speed.

I think that's why I preferred Skulduggery Pleasant's approach to secret society of wizards living in today's world. They drive around in cars, watch TV, catch the bus, shop at Tescos, and shoot people. It all felt much more grounded and believable than Harry Potter, and that's saying something given that one of the protagonists is a reanimated skeleton.

It's a shame they went completely overboard with the edge in the later books though. I never actually finished the series because I got fed up of how DARK 'N' EDGY everything became towards the end.

>>50378378
Honestly, that's sort of expected when you build up your book as "wizards wouldn't be weird and kooky, they'd shoot each other with GUNS." That sort of story premise comes up all the time, and it's usually rooted in grimly deconstructing things rather than old stories in new twists.

>>50366757

Not how it works.

You have, say, 100 points and up to 50 points from disadvantages.

So, you pay for your IQ with points. If you really need to push it higher, you can take appropriate disadvantages for the character.

>>50370534
>If anything, his transhumanist perspective should make him weaker against Dementors, because they believe there can't be anything worse than death, while Dementors are (un)living proof that oh yes there can be.

That's actually something changed in the fanfic - because Yudkowsky is even more terrified of death than Voldemort, he couldn't let the ultimate evil force be anything as weak and meaningless to a rationalist as "Depression". So he made them into yet another killer monster.

>>50374734

Well, it's more of an extended fuck you to escapism and anyone who wishes for superpowers that would solve all their problems.

>>50378378
The idea that Muggles could just shoot wizards is nice. But wizards are much better than them at stealth, manipulation and logistics, they'd have to be pretty stupid to end up facing the barrel of a gun. Not to mention they could learn to shoot too.

>>50378688
Yeah, he could have picked a fictional universe that doesn't run completely counter to his own ideology (and a series of book he no shit hasn't ever read - all of his knowledge of it comes from the wikia) but I guess he's content to piggyback off Potter's popularity.

>>50378739
Yeah, it's basically Marche Was Right: the series.

>>50378476
Thing is though, the first books weren't edgy at all. The use of guns felt like a natural side effect of wizards being integrated into the modern world and were never really focused on over magic (apart from when the 'god killing kit' was introduced, which turned out to be a second handgun and a bomb).

Everyone used magic to fight with all the time and a gun was just another tool in the box, and the only character to heavily employ one throughout the books is the noir detective skeleton. Guns are actually pretty uncommon as the books take place in Ireland or England where guns are illegal to own, and wizards are no exception.

>>50378796
>he's content to piggyback off Potter's popularity.

Essentially this. He is a Man On A Quest. The Quest To Kill Death.

As such, parasitism of the most popular franchise targets as a way to spread the Righteous Word of Rationality (and therefore Friendly God AI making us all Immortal) is not only sensible, it's morally justified.

It's half of why so much of the ethics in the story are so elitist and conspiratorial. The masses need to be guided with a firm hand, kept ignorant so they do not endanger the Glorious Future with their own pathetic desires.

The other half of it is that he considers himself an auto-didact, and that never going to University and being part of establishment science made him smarter... though I must admit he's done a rousing job of setting up a cult of personality, so he's certainly not an idiot.

>>50378688
I'll never understand this aspect of transhumanism. Death's vital for the survival and advancement of a society - it might be terrible for the individual, but we need it as a species, so the individual has to suck it up.

You'd think transhumanists if anyone could understand why it's a good thing Medieval Europeans are no longer running the world...

>>50379431
They're terrified of death and instead of seeking refuge in spirituality or just reconciling with it they look for a technological way out.
It's interesting that people who so loudly embrace moving past human limits are also so strongly driven by the most primal of human fears.

>>50375787
Nah, but it's much easier to just post 40 bumps in different threads and bam! No more Pottershit on /tg/