Harry Potter and the Story of GUMSHOE, Part Five
It’s been far too long since I’ve broken down Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone as a GUMSHOE game, so I figured it was due. This installment is a little short, but I’m hoping to do them more often as bonus posts.
Let’s start off with a tally of the characters’ abilities we’ve identified in previous posts.
Investigative Abilities: Assess Honesty, Credit Rating, Curse-Scarred*, Notice, Oral History, Parseltongue*, Reassurance (spent 1 point)
* special Investigative ability
General Abilities: Athletics, Fleeing, decent Flying (especially for a first year), Stability, Wand Magic
Investigative Abilities: low Credit Rating, Intimidation (spent 1 point), Wizarding Society
General Abilities: Athletics, Fleeing, Stability, Wand Magic
General Abilities: Fleeing, Stability, Wand Magic
Later that day, Harry decides to visit Snape in the teacher’s lounge to get his book back. When he gets there, he finds Snape and Filch tending to Snape’s mangled, bloody leg. Harry and Ron surmise this means Snape tried to get past the three-headed dog on Halloween while everyone else was dealing with the troll. This sequence strikes me as Harry’s player spending a point of Notice to get more detail on the earlier core clue of Snape’s limp.
The rest of the chapter is dominated by the sport of Quidditch, which I won’t try to model. Likely I would just treat each match as a contest of Athletics. However, during the match, someone hexes Harry’s broom, nearly shaking him off. Hermione spots Snape casting some kind of spell Harry’s way (I’d say using Wand Magic as an investigative ability). She sneaks over (we’ll call the ability Sneaking) and disrupts Snape’s concentration with a Wand Magic test.
After Harry wins the Quidditch match by nearly swallowing the Snitch, Ron and Hermione tell him about Snape and the hex. Hagrid vigorously denies that Snape would do such a thing. In the process, he lets slip a few things:
Let’s start off with a tally of the characters’ abilities we’ve identified in previous posts.
Harry
Drive: “Saving People Thing”Investigative Abilities: Assess Honesty, Credit Rating, Curse-Scarred*, Notice, Oral History, Parseltongue*, Reassurance (spent 1 point)
* special Investigative ability
General Abilities: Athletics, Fleeing, decent Flying (especially for a first year), Stability, Wand Magic
Ron
Drive: FollowerInvestigative Abilities: low Credit Rating, Intimidation (spent 1 point), Wizarding Society
General Abilities: Athletics, Fleeing, Stability, Wand Magic
Hermione
Investigative Abilities: NoticeGeneral Abilities: Fleeing, Stability, Wand Magic
Chapter Eleven: Quidditch
While hanging around outside between classes, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are approached by a suspicious Snape, who takes Harry’s copy of Quidditch Through the Ages (because he’s a jerk). Harry immediately spots Snape limping (Notice), and the kids wonder what may have caused it.Later that day, Harry decides to visit Snape in the teacher’s lounge to get his book back. When he gets there, he finds Snape and Filch tending to Snape’s mangled, bloody leg. Harry and Ron surmise this means Snape tried to get past the three-headed dog on Halloween while everyone else was dealing with the troll. This sequence strikes me as Harry’s player spending a point of Notice to get more detail on the earlier core clue of Snape’s limp.
The rest of the chapter is dominated by the sport of Quidditch, which I won’t try to model. Likely I would just treat each match as a contest of Athletics. However, during the match, someone hexes Harry’s broom, nearly shaking him off. Hermione spots Snape casting some kind of spell Harry’s way (I’d say using Wand Magic as an investigative ability). She sneaks over (we’ll call the ability Sneaking) and disrupts Snape’s concentration with a Wand Magic test.
After Harry wins the Quidditch match by nearly swallowing the Snitch, Ron and Hermione tell him about Snape and the hex. Hagrid vigorously denies that Snape would do such a thing. In the process, he lets slip a few things:
- The three-headed dog's name is Fluffy, and Hagrid owns him.
- Whatever he's guarding involves both Professor Dumbledore and someone named Nicholas Flamel.
Hagrid lets a lot of these kinds of clues slip out in otherwise normal dialog. I'm inclined to say that Harry uses Oral History a lot and the GM just peppers Hagrid's speech with useful information.
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