A Harry Potter Atlas Game?

[DKrol]

Hello, friends.

After watching a couple of the Harry Potter movies on TV over the last couple of days. Since the Game of Thrones games are so popular on Atlas, would a Harry Potter game work? Maybe. The only way to find out is to try it.

There may be spoilers, as I include information from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Proceed with caution.

Here are a couple of ideas for scenarios that I've come up with, but I'd love to hear any other ideas you might have:

Global Wizarding War: The Wizarding World's version of the Second World War, we know very little about this massive war. Let's let the Atlas RP world figure it out. Dark Wizard Gellert Grindewald has slowly been building up support for his pure-blood supremacy message across Europe. For decades, he has avoided bringing his revolution to Britain out of fear of his friend, and powerful younger wizard, Albus Dumbledore. Leonard Spencer-Moon has just been elected Minister for Magic, and not at a moment too soon, as Grindewald's dark forces are lapping at the British shore.

Potential character: Gillert Grindewald, Albus Dumbledore, Leonard Spencer-Moon, Newt Scamander. Becuase so little is known about this war, a lot of the characters will be player-created.

The First Wizarding War: J.K. Rowling goes into great detail to bring us into the action of the Second Wizarding War. But the First? That's less clear. This game would begin in the late 1960s, just before Voldermort declared himself Dark Lord and began his rebellion against the Ministry of Magic. Political issues like Squib rights, pure-blood supremacy, and magical education are at boiling points. Society is rebelling against the old order, and that's got some people very angry.

Potential characters: Voldermort, Igor Karkaroff, Severus Snape (later), Rabastan Lestrange, Albus Dumbledore, Alastor Moody, Alice and Frank Longbottom, James and Lilly Potter (later), Various Ministers of Magic.

The Return of Dark Magic: This idea comes from the Cursed Child. It is now 2020. Hermoine Granger has been in office as Minister of Magic for a little over a year and it's not been easy sailing. Trolls, giants, werewolves, and other creatures that allied with Lord Voldermont are stirring. Even worse, Harry has begun to feel a burn in his scar. What does this mean?

Potential characters: Harry Potter, Hermoine Granger, Albus Potter, Scorpius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, Voldermort (Possibly), Various dark creature leaders)

What do you all think? Would you play any of these? Just a heads up, none of these will be occuring in the immediate future, as any of them would require quite a bit of research and planning on my part in order to find a format that works.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

It's an intriguing idea, to be sure; the Global Wizarding War seems a particularly appropriate setting, given the impending release of the second Fantastic Beasts film later this year. I'd be willing to advise/help with research, if I could be useful.

[DKrol]

I've added a poll to help quantify people's opinions.

[Huey Long is a Republican]

Not a fan of HP. Just saw why so many people like it. Very boring IMO. But that's my opinion and everyone is free to their own:

[NewYorkExpress]

All three of these would be wonderful to play.

Frankly, though, I'd love to see someone actually WIN as Voldemort.

[leonardothered]

The problem is there just aren't that many wizards in a conflict focused almost entirely in Britain and Ireland. It couldnt work like any of the other war games we've done and would be much more character oriented play, as there weren't even like 30 death eaters and roughly the same number I OOTP members. I'd still be interested but this falls a lot more in line with a traditional roleplay.

[leonardothered]

For example, there are 4 other boys in Harry's Dorm. For argument's sake, lets assume there are the same numbers of girl students in his year in Gryffindor, so 10, then you multiply that times 7 for each grade, then by four for the other houses, meaninf there are at most 280-400 students in school at Hogwarts and roughly 2000-3000 wizards in all of Britain.

[NewYorkExpress]

For example, there are 4 other boys in Harry's Dorm. For argument's sake, lets assume there are the same numbers of girl students in his year in Gryffindor, so 10, then you multiply that times 7 for each grade, then by four for the other houses, meaninf there are at most 280-400 students in school at Hogwarts and roughly 2000-3000 wizards in all of Britain.

The numbers could have been very different pre-Voldemort/Grindelwald. We just don't know.

[leonardothered]

I doubt it, certainly not pre voldemort based on how things went his second go round in regards to casualties. Grindelwald maybe, but given that Voldemort was even more feared and powerful I think not. It certainly wouldn't be any more than double. Grindelwald's era and us controlling various countries could be similar to past games

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

On the question of population, there are several relevant considerations to take into account:

(1) As leonardothered notes, we can account for at least five male students of Gryffindor House in the original Class of 1998; assuming relative equality across genders and Houses, that would suggest a full graduating class of approximately forty students and a school-wide population of 280. This calculation rests on the assumption that all male Gryffindore students of the same year were lodged in a single dorm. While this is the safest assumption, there is nothing in the text that directly confirms it; it is neither unreasonable or atextual to conclude the actual student population may have been significantly greater. I don't have hard evidence to support this alternative theory, but I think it's worth considering.

(2) Not all wizarding children of the British Isles are educated at Hogwarts. We know that the Malfoys considered enrolling their son at Durmstrang, indicating that it is not unheard of for young wizards to go abroad to seek their education; and in Deathly Hallows, we receive confirmation that some wizarding children are educated at home. According to Lupin, "most" young wizards do attend Hogwarts, but that leaves room for a not-negligible population of home schooled wizards.

(3) Approximately 100,000 wizards from around the world attended the Quidditch World Cup in 1994, and we know from Neville that tickets were difficult to come by (in other words, the ticket holders were a distinct minority). According to Quidditch Through the Ages, the sport never really caught on in the Americas, so it's safe to assume that most of those 100,000 came from the eastern hemisphere.

(4) To Leonardo's point about casualties, what little evidence we have of the First Wizarding War suggests that Voldemort's forces were much larger, and the death toll much higher, than in the second conflict fought from 1995 - 1998. Again, we don't have hard evidence to support a particular number, but it's not unreasonable to assume that the earlier conflict may have had a significant effect on the larger wizarding population of Britain.

(5) Wizards, on average, live longer lives than Muggles. (Case in point: Dumbledore was born in the 1880s, and not only was he as spry as ever in June of 1996, but the witch who examined him for his NEWTs in 1899 was still alive.) There are multiple instances of wizards and witches living well over the age of 100 (Dumbledore, Griselda Marchbanks, Muriel Prewett, Bathilda Bagshot, etc), which naturally effects population.

If we assume anywhere from 40 to 80 students graduate from Hogwarts each year, that perhaps an additional 20 or 30 were educated outside of Britain or at home, and assume that they will live for approximately a century after graduation, that gives us a total population of upwards 10,000 wizards and witches living in Britain in the last decade of the 20th century—to say nothing of goblins and other non-human magical beings.

[DKrol]

Well, being realistic about a) the number of people who join these games and, b) the number of people who are active in these games, I'm not sure a limited population is necessarily a bad thing.

I have a 7 hours flight today. I'll think more about this then.

[leonardothered]

http://www.beyondhogwarts.com/harry-potter/articles/doing-the-math-how-many-kids-are-at-hogwarts.html

You're taking on HUGE liberties with figures such as those educated outside of Hogwarts, when we never see a single witch or wizard ever in the books who were home educated aside from the Gaunts.

Given that, there simply couldn't be more than 2500-5000 wizards in the UK at any one time, that's also taking into account their town's and complete lack of cities.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

You're taking on HUGE liberties with figures such as those educated outside of Hogwarts, when we never see a single witch or wizard ever in the books who were home educated aside from the Gaunts.

Well, fair enough. I do think your calculation is the most likely; I was merely exploring the possibility for a larger wizarding world that doesn't directly contradict the text (though admittedly not based on any textual evidence either).

[Sestak]

(If the movies are taken as canon), then there's no way the number is nearly as low as you claim. (And even if they aren't, you could still make the case)

1. The sheer number of wizards working at the Ministry (I think this speaks for itself)

2. The attendance numbers of the Quidditch World Cup. At the very least, there are 100K in that stadium. Britain makes up about 1% of the world population, so it is reasonable to assume wizards are in similar numbers. In this case, however, Britain is the host, meaning their proportion would likely be much larger. Finally, it's stated that World Cup tickets are expensive and mostly only the extremely rich can get their hands on them. Personally, I'd expect the wizarding population of Britain to be at least 100,000.

3. The schools issue:

So, hear me out. Was it ever actually said that Beauxbatons, Durmstrang, and Hogwarts were the only wizarding schools in Europe, or just the best wizarding schools? If it's the latter, then it opens up possibilities. If these are the "Ivy League" of Wizarding Europe, then it's very possible that there are many smaller, less prestigious schools dotting Europe and Britain.

[DKrol]

To bring in some information from Pottermore, which I consider cannon because it's from J.K., there are at least 9 major wizarding schools around the world, and the honest possibility of their being many more.

[leonardothered]

(If the movies are taken as canon), then there's no way the number is nearly as low as you claim. (And even if they aren't, you could still make the case)

1. The sheer number of wizards working at the Ministry (I think this speaks for itself)

2. The attendance numbers of the Quidditch World Cup. At the very least, there are 100K in that stadium. Britain makes up about 1% of the world population, so it is reasonable to assume wizards are in similar numbers. In this case, however, Britain is the host, meaning their proportion would likely be much larger. Finally, it's stated that World Cup tickets are expensive and mostly only the extremely rich can get their hands on them. Personally, I'd expect the wizarding population of Britain to be at least 100,000.

3. The schools issue:

So, hear me out. Was it ever actually said that Beauxbatons, Durmstrang, and Hogwarts were the only wizarding schools in Europe, or just the best wizarding schools? If it's the latter, then it opens up possibilities. If these are the "Ivy League" of Wizarding Europe, then it's very possible that there are many smaller, less prestigious schools dotting Europe and Britain.

1. The movies aren't canon, so point moot... Either way, these numbers are based on extrapolating schools. JK said she imagined the population of Hogwarts to be 1000 students, but all book aka Canon evidence contradicts that. Whenever a person with magical talent appears in Britain, there's literally a magic book that writes their names down to Hogwarts which I think happens at birth, so everyone is slated for Hogwarts from the beginning. You could use JK's figure and still not break 10000 as another poster made the case for in regards to wizard population and factoring depop from wizarding war.

2. Absolutely no way is the wizarding population in Britain breaking 10,000. Plenty of people get tickets to the world cup, I mean Mundungus goes and he's a grubby little thief. I can say that yes the stadium seats 100000, but that the proportion of people there seems to be the opposite, that foreign wizards map up most of the campsites we see.

3. It's the only school in Britain theres any evidence for whatsoever, and not a single character in the series thus far had not been educated at the big three who we named, with the exception to the mentally ill. If there are only 5 people in Harry's house year or hell you could go ahead and double that, and you're still not even breaking 500 for Hogwarts population. The numbers just don't add up. I mean just look at the numbs of pureblood families, there are only 40 by the books era with many dying out or already gone.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

A wizarding population of ~100,000 for the British Isles alone is far beyond what can be accounted for in the text (and as Leonardo notes, the films are generally considered separate from the literary canon). For such to be even feasible, it would require either that (a) on average 1,000 students graduate from Hogwarts every year (meaning there are some 240 Gryffindors in Harry's year who go entirely unaccounted for across all seven books); or (b) that most wizarding children in Britain are educated elsewhere than Hogwarts (which directly contradicts what Lupin says in Deathly Hallows, not to mention that if Hogwarts were the crown jewel of some "wizards' Ivy League," one would hardly expect half-giants, werewolves, and lower-class families like the Weasleys to be admitted). On the contrary point, we know from Hagrid that wizards would have "died out" had they not married into non-magical families; that concern is much less reasonable if there are tens of thousands of wizards and witches living in Britain in the 1990s.

There's also the evidence of Mr. Olivander, who has been selling wands at least since the 1940s and yet who remembers "every wand [he] ever sold"—though he may be exaggerating somewhat, he demonstrates a startlingly accurate memory on multiple occasions, and it seems highly improbably that this would be possible if he sold hundreds of wands each year. While we are told other there are other wandmakers in Britain, they are sufficiently obscure that no character we meet is known to have purchased a wand from them—even the Weasleys, who are known to patronize second-hand shops and less-prestigious sellers as a matter of necessity, are unaware that these alternative wandmakers even exist when Olivander disappears in the opening chapters of Half Blood Prince.

I personally don't consider Pottermore to be canon, but even if one does accept everything J.K. Rowling has ever said or written about the wizarding world to be absolute gospel, there's nothing to suggest the British wizarding community is quite so large. Leonardo's estimate of two or three thousand wizards living in Britain is the most faithful calculation; at most, we're dealing with perhaps 10,000 witches and wizards in Britain, but certainly no more than that.

[Sestak]

My problem with that is this: if there are indeed only 9 wizard info schools in the world, and by Leonardo's estimate, they sustain a population of 2500-3000 each, there is no way that stadium could be filled with 100,000 wizards. Even if we were to assume that the average school wasfour times as large as Hogwarts, to fill the stadium, nearly the entire wizarding population would need to be there. And, as has been said before, tickets were not exactly cheap.

The only feasible way I could see would be that Britain has a specific reason its wizard density is lower than elsewhere (if it wasn't, then there would only be like 250K wizards worldwide, and I don't exactly think 40% of world wizards would have been there), causing them to only need the one major school while other countries do have minor schools. Perhaps due to some sort of persecution in the past that occurred in Britian and a few other countries only?)

[NewYorkExpress]

My problem with that is this: if there are indeed only 9 wizard info schools in the world, and by Leonardo's estimate, they sustain a population of 2500-3000 each, there is no way that stadium could be filled with 100,000 wizards. Even if we were to assume that the average school wasfour times as large as Hogwarts, to fill the stadium, nearly the entire wizarding population would need to be there. And, as has been said before, tickets were not exactly cheap.

The only feasible way I could see would be that Britain has a specific reason its wizard density is lower than elsewhere (if it wasn't, then there would only be like 250K wizards worldwide, and I don't exactly think 40% of world wizards would have been there), causing them to only need the one major school while other countries do have minor schools. Perhaps due to some sort of persecution in the past that occurred in Britian and a few other countries only?)

Or JK Rowling just sucked at math.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

My problem with that is this: if there are indeed only 9 wizard info schools in the world, and by Leonardo's estimate, they sustain a population of 2500-3000 each, there is no way that stadium could be filled with 100,000 wizards. Even if we were to assume that the average school wasfour times as large as Hogwarts, to fill the stadium, nearly the entire wizarding population would need to be there. And, as has been said before, tickets were not exactly cheap.

That's a fair point. From a logistical perspective, a population of ≥3,000 for the whole of the British Isles seems low to me, too—though admittedly, that is the calculation with the strongest foundation in textual evidence. On the other hand, we can't simply ignore established canon (or if we do, it would render this entire exercise exceedingly pointless), and there are two unambiguous lines from Deathly Hallows that place an upward bound on the wizarding population: Lupin tells us that almost every witch and wizard in Britain was educated at Hogwarts; and when planning the evacuation of the underage students just before the Battle of Hogwarts, Professor McGonnagall observes that "we are talking about hundreds of students" (emphasis added). If we assume a wizarding population of ~100,000, given what we know about life expectancies in the wizarding world (it is not uncommon for witches and wizards to live to be well over 100, but remarkable for Nicolas Flamel to live for more than six centuries), we are forced to conclude that Hogwarts has a student body of ~7,000 students—which contradicts McGonnagall's statement that the castle is home to 'only' hundreds. Perhaps we can allow that, in the heat of the moment, her math was slightly off—but it seems unlikely she would be off by more than 6,000.

In the real world, Britain accounts for slightly more than 0.8% of the total global population; if we assume that the same is true for the wizarding world, then a population of ~10,000 wizards in Britain (the highest estimate I think can be reasonably reconciled with the text) would translate to a global wizarding population of 1.250 million. That would leave the ~100,000 world cup ticket holders a reasonable minority of 8%, while allowing for a student population at Hogwarts of slightly less than six hundred.

(All points aside, I'm very much enjoying the excuse to peruse my weathered copies of Potter again—not that I need one. I don't think we can ever answer to this question definitively, but it is entertaining to speculate.)

[leonardothered]

Hogwarts is implied to not be a very big school; on the contrary, I think it is probably one of the smallest of the major schools. Japan and America would be larger, along with Beaux and Durmstrang; the largest school is in Africa which I believe is quoted as 4 times larger...

I think close to 3000 after several wars is reasonable. The birth rate went down during Voldy's reign for sure. I think this class is probably one of the smallest in recent memory... I mean Sirius, Lupin, James, and Wormtail are all in the same year and it is implied there are more males in their year imo.

[leonardothered]

Whatever era or figures we go with, I'll be participating. I such as we control a single character or country, there's not much room in between imo

[Sestak]

For starting figures I say we take a couple of liberties.

1. Harry's Class of 1998 is 60% smaller than the average Hogwarts class, which would then have 100 students. This is not entirely out of sync with Rowling's "about a thousand" comment, as there would be about 700 students on average.

2. Given this number and the lifespan of wizards, I believe this could account for up to 6000-8000 wizards in Britain.

3. Between Voldemort, Grindelwald, and being ruled by a Christian government during the Middle Ages, we can say that wizards make up less of Britain than they do of the world; thus, British wizards make up less than 0.8% of the world wizarding community.

These aren't perfect, but I think they serve as a good starting point for our game.

[DKrol]

Right, ok. I'm going to shelve this idea for the time being. Though promising, there are too many outstanding questions and too little interest to go forward at this time.

[Enduro]

I'm interested in seeing this happen, and I'm happy to see other fantasy series than ASOIAF getting attention on this board.