As all of you know, Quidditch is a major part of the Harry Potter books and many of the RPG's out there. So tell me, how do you hold try-outs, work games, practices, etc?

The most efficient method is through a gamemaster type role. I've seen other methods, involving things like random number generators, chessboard style matches and staff votes on best posts, etc. However, I feel that many methods are very restrictive, and you should just appoint a GM to do quidditch.

I've actually been working on a roleplaying/gamemaster method using a dice roller. I'd like to write a customized dice roller just for Quidditch, but still trying to figure out how. When I get it together, I promise I'll post it here in the documentation section.

You could also just let the members Rp it.

The players still have to using their roleplay skills in a gamemaster method, but they attempt a move, and then the dice determines if it was successful. The problem with straight RP is determining who scores and who wins, and even some of the best RP'ers tend to Mary Sue so their team wins. Using a gamemaster/dice roller method ends up being much more fair.

Oh, okay. (smile) I did not know. I thought it was kind of like the GM got to totally determine the outcome.

Well, I'm sure there are some out there that would play it that way, but normally the GM has guidelines for how they rule on a move.

This is what I have so far for rulings (using an 8-sided dice):

1 Play fails dramatically - must will save to determine if injured
2 Play fails badly
3-4 Play fails narrowly
5-6 Play succeeds barely
7 Play succeeds
8 Play succeeds dramatically

The GM would make up a result, but it would be within what the dice rolled. A 'will save' is an extra roll that determines whether you get hurt or not.

What does it mean to "mary sue so that their team wins" :p

A "Mary Sue" is a term for a character that is perfect at everything, better than everyone else, and is the center of attention. In something like Quidditch, everyone wants to win so they all have to make the biggest and best plays, which ends up making a very unbalanced game.

You can't possibly coordinate 14 players without a GM. It is, without outside coordination of all parties involved, veritably impossible. There is just so much room for error with all the interpretations and beliefs on what is reasonable and what is/what should happen.

Like Roswenth mentioned, if you let players roleplay it out, there will always be disagreements towards who does what and how they did it. You're talking about something entirely imaginary, intangible, and competitive.

Having tried the "just let them RP it" and "let staff vote on it" methods, I have to say that both of those do not work at all. With the first, the reasoning has already been explained. With the second, it depends a lot on how much the staff members like the members of each team, inside and outside of RP. And that's not really a fair way to go about it.

Hmm, the idea of dice or a gamemaster might work though *keeps that in mind for future use*.

But how does the player know that the GM didn't fake the dice roll and assign numbers based on his or her like or dislike of the player?

Well, that can be a problem depending on the method you are using. There are some javascript dice rollers that can be used like BBCode, so the roll actually shows up in the post. I'd like to write one specifically for Quidditch.

Or you can use an email roller, which will email the results to whomever you want. If I was the GM, I'd send the rolls to both team captains.

Oh, fancy schmancy. (tongue) That's actually pretty neat. I think the BBCode one sound better because then everyone can see it. Plus I would imagine that it wouldn't take as long to relay the info to other people. On the other hand, people can keep rolling the die until they get it to tell them what they want to see.

Roswenth--that sounds really awesome. The whole dice idea. I've seen Quidditch done a million different ways. But your way sounds unique and something that seems like it would be a good idea.

That has been a problem with BBCode rollers. My way to get around it would be to make it accessible only in a private forum that the captains are members of, and make sure the 'edited by' function is turned on. That way you can see if the post has been changed.

I think the email roller still might be safer, though.


Aha~! I knew I saw it before: http://support.invisionfree.com/index.php?showtopic=165923
(Make sure you read down the first page-there's a fix towards the bottom of the first page)

For our site Even in Death, Raquel (I believe she's either 'Quel or Something Diabolical on this site) and I figured out a series of rules on how to play Quidditch. We've yet to actually put it into use, but this is what we determined would work. It utilizes dice sortof like how Roswenth described, except we don't have any fancy schmancy coding that puts the dice roll in the post for us. It goes in through regular old editing by the admins. ;)

Here was our idea. PLEASE do not take this for your own site unless you talk to us and get express permission.

That sounds interesting. Wouldn't it take awhile to do though?

What I have been thinking on doing is this--

The match is mapped out by the admins by dice or drawing out of a hat or whatever.

Then events are put up

The members rp the match out by the events they see.

Then the winner of the match is decided by the roleplays during the course of the match and the snitch, which would have to have some way to determine.

I haven't thought it all out. But that is the beginning of what I have been thinking about.