Gaming the System

“Breaking into Professor Snape’s office in the middle of the night is a risky idea at the best of times, but fortunately for you three, there’s no need to do the heavy lifting yourselves.”

William Borden looked up from his notes, segregated from the rest of the table by an old-fashioned cardboard D&D game-master screen. A printout of the Hogwarts logo had been carefully glued over the relevant places. He offered his players a smile that was all teeth.

“Having opted to stake out the corridor leading to Professor Snape’s office on this particular night instead of allowing Harry to take a dip into the prefect’s bathroom with the golden egg, for reasons entirely rational at this point,” he put additional emphasis to underline his distaste for their persistent metagaming, “it is no surprise to see a particular name on the Marauder’s Map as the hour grows late.”

Harry Dresden took a swig off of his bottle of home-brewed ale and lowered his dog-eared copy of Goblet of Fire to the tabletop with a satisfying thump. “I think I’ll roll for stealth as we approach. Don’t want to risk dropping the map or stumbling into a suit of armor in my flabbergasted state.”

Will might have growled behind his smile. “Go ahead.”

Dresden took the polished little d20 in the center of the table in hand and gave it a shake before he rolled the die. It landed on 15.

“You manage to avoid tripping over yourself in your excitement while Bartemius Crouch Jr pulls out his wand ahead of you. Ron, Hermione, roll for follow up.” He looked over to Andi Macklin, who could have easily played as Fleur for this campaign given her natural… graces. Instead she had continued with Ron, and no one in the room could argue that she didn’t match the Weasley hair color regardless of which form she was in, wolf or woman.

She rolled 10, and next to her, Waldo Butters, who had played Hermione from the start of this campaign six months ago, rolled 12.

“Congratulations. The three of you manage to sneak closer to an unsuspecting Bartemius Crouch.” With no little disgust Will turned to his wife, trying and failing to hide her amusement behind a raised hand over her smirk. “Your turn, Barty,” he said. “Roll for analysis of the environment.” She scooped up the die and a beat later a dull 2 stared back.

“Oops?” was all that she offered.

The vein over Will’s forehead pulsed. “Apparently Barty Crouch is still suffering from his long years of mental and physical ailment and is unable to cast a single detection charm.”

“Should we take the chance to apprehend Crouch while his defenses are down?” Andi asked her partners as Dresden reached for the die.

“I say we go for it,” Dresden answered at once. “Worst case scenario, we cause enough ruckus to bring Snape out and Barty makes a run for it.”

“I don’t think that’s the worst case, Harry,” Butters added a moment later. While his friends might have forgotten about the disaster that had been the first task, he hadn’t. If not for those natural 20s two weeks ago, they would have all been expelled for their hand in so much destruction. And that wasn’t even accounting for the first three years that they had scraped by with so much luck more than skill with these sessions. “Worst case is that he captures you and brings you back to the Dark Lord now instead of during the third task.”

“I’m okay with that outcome,” Dresden said and took another sip of perfect ale. “We’ve already addressed the horcrux with Fawkes, and I’ve been planning out that meeting since first year. Blood of the enemy, blah blah, willingly given.”

“I’m right here,” Will muttered. No one paid him much mind other than his wife. “Right here.” Georgia patted him on the arm. “Harry, make a decision and roll,” he declared grimly.

“I’m going for it. Harry Potter stuns Crouch.” Dresden rolled the die. There was a moment before it settled down. 20. Will actually groaned and pressed his hands against his brow while Harry cheered. “Yes! STEW-puh-fye!” he enunciated with glee.

Will looked up and stared Harry straight into the eye. It was the look of a man who had gone into this campaign with pure intentions for a fun little occasional detour off of the canon plots gradually turned to ashes by players who refused to cooperate on a weekly basis. “Your stunning spell is so strong it kills the crippled Death Eater on Snape’s doorstep. His heart, weakened from years in Azkaban, goes into cardiac arrest. Congratulations. You’ve derailed the Dark Lord’s progression yet again.”

Dresden finished his bottle as Will simmered after that. Will would need more time to plan what happened from there. The night was done, and everyone around the table knew it.

“Good session, team. What’s that put our collective death count?” Dresden asked.

“Including half of Durmstrang this year, or just named characters?” Georgia asked as she peered over the screen at her husband’s notes. “In either case, more than enough to question Harry Potter’s alignment again next session.”

“I’ll take it.” Dresden showed absolutely no shame as he collected his paperback and stood. "Same time next week?"

Fin.

 

I see what you've done here.

This was a jumble for me. I think the biggest tip I've ever been given in concerns to dialogue is to break it up a bit. It flows better. Instead I've got a big mash of scene and setting all in one neat bite, but its not really all that neat.

Plot and Pacing: 4/5
I mean honestly. Your pacing wasn't all that bad? There wasn't much plot to speak over other than this being a DnD session. I felt like this was super limited and super meta. Especially with how it turned out. There is none Dresden's wit. His support characters are 1 dimensional and they are really only here to move the story along. I give you such a high rating mostly for pacing. Because this could have just went on forever. Thanks for keeping it so short.

Characters: 2/5
This wasn't Dresden. I'm almost offended that it was like a Reads the Books/Meta mashup. Like I said above your characters are pretty one dimensional and doesn't match their canon voices. There is nothing here that makes me like them, nor makes me want to continue to read about them playing DnD.

Prompt Use: 4/5
You used the prompt. This is pretty much a gimmie. It was also interesting that you made it into a gaming session. Its not something I would have considered had I wrote for the prompt myself.

Other: 2/5
There are a lot of things that I don't like about this. Its short. I don't like the use of the Dresden cast. There is no action, there is no wit other than your own personal wit for how you utilized the prompt. The characters feel flat and not worth engaging. I guess if I was to comment about grammar, it was at least solid and I wasn't confused on anything. Formatting would be something you could work on in the future. In a forum format, or FFN or web-serial time format, formatting is key. It helps direct the reader subconsciously and it could use some work here. That's a bit of a nitpick, but I'm telling you everything I felt about your offering.

Overall, I was largely impressed by your use of the prompt but that wasn't enough to keep me invested.

 

Plot & Pacing: 2/5
Characters: 3/5
Prompt Use: 2/5
Other: 3/5

There's really not a lot here to judge off of. Technical writing is decent, idea use is interesting at first, but lacks any impact after the first reading which is why I gave this a 2 instead of a 3. Characters of DF seem to be in character and can't really complaint about how the HP characters are portrayed given they're being controlled. That said, the scene was way too bloated and character heavy. You needed a few more thousand words (maybe writing out an actual one-shot or a snippet of a campaign with a narrative thread) in order to make this work with the number of characters you had. There also wasn't a lot of reason to care about whether they succeeded or not, there's no investment.

Total: 10/20

 

Oooh, Dresden crossover.

“Having opted to stake out the corridor leading to Professor Snape’s office on this particular night instead of allowing Harry to take a dip into the prefect’s bathroom with the golden egg, for reasons entirely rational at this point,” he put additional emphasis to underline his distaste for their persistent metagaming, “it is no surprise to see a particular name on the Marauder’s Map as the hour grows late.”

Hahahaha.... HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA. Yeah, I can see this from a bunch of players.

I love this. It's like... one of those 'quests' or whatever I see people writing, only Will is having to do a lot of it on the spot with a bunch of players who refuse to follow the script in the books and insist on using knowledge they have (but their characters don't) to their advantage.

If you ever decide to continue this I'd love to see Will really throw a wrench into things. Because you did not go to Prefect's bathroom to listen to the egg, Moaning Myrtle is no longer enamored with Harry and does not show him how to get to the Merpeople's village during the second task. In addition she latches onto Draco Malfoy instead and helps him smuggle Death Eaters into the school in a way that the books do not even begin to hint at.

And lol@Dresden of all people asking about the collective death count. I recall in canon he played a Barbarian/Warrior or whatever, trying out something completely different to his life... maybe he's doing the same thing here? He sure as shit can't kill anyone with magic in his own story.

Good job - this is great. And exactly the sort of thing I think it's fun to see in ~1500 words. The prompt use was... erm, mediocre? But you did use it and it did made sense and have somewhat of a role in the plot, so no actual complaints there. Well done.

 

...shit, that wasn't 250 words, it was just under it. FINE. I'll adjust the minimum required word count to 200 in the other freaking thread. >.>