Harry Potter and the Natural 20
Overview
These are my notes from Harry Potter and the Natural 20, a Harry Potter + Dungeons and Dragons crossover fanfic.
The Gamer Mindset
My hypothesis is that Milo Amastacia-Liadon, the protagonist, a D&D character who suddenly finds himself in the Harry Potter world, is the epitome of all the traits that Jane McGonigal found in gamers.
He works ceaselessly and enjoys doing so (blissful productivity). He jumps at the chance to go on an adventure and believes he can overcome any challenge (urgent optimism). He builds strong alliances with his “raiding party” of Harry, Ron, and Hermione (social fabric?). And, finally, he’s on an epic mission to save the wizarding worlds from evil forces, both the Harry Potter world and his own Myra (“City of Light! City of Magic!”).
Not just that, he’s also a masterful consequentialist. He only does those things that maximize his expected utility (or rather his XP). This is what single-minded focus looks like. This is what rationality looks like.
So, if you want to learn about working at the peak of your potential, thinking consequentially, and behaving strategically, Milo is your man.
Strategic Thinking: Know your Options
“All Milo had left was Silent Image, Feather Fall, Grease, and some cantrips.”
Once you have the concrete options, you can compare them against each other and decide.
Practical Consequentialism
He is a practical consequentialist, not just a theoretical one like me.
Look to maximize your utility function! Don’t do anything else.
“Milo only bothered to go to the Great Hall for dinner (as opposed to munching on Everlasting Rations in his dorm) because he’d noticed a correlation between mealtimes there and having important conversations.”
“I see,” Milo said. “that seems… terribly mundane, actually. Surely I didn’t get pulled out of compressed time for that?”
“She said she wanted to talk to me alone for a while,” Milo shrugged. “So I just assumed she had some critical information she has to pass along, or possibly a magic item. For all I know, she’ll give me a quest.”
Urgent Optimism: Look forward to encounters!
Milo was the only Gryffindor smiling when they entered Snape’s dungeon. Dungeon. It had been far too long since Milo had been in a proper dungeon, now all they needed was a troll or two to complete his day.
Milo didn’t know what, specifically, was going to go down in the dungeon. But he knew someone was going to start a fight, and he knew who was going to finish it.
Look at that! Look at the enthusiasm with which he approaches his work! As opposed to us, who dread it.
Have faith that your work can be super-enjoyable. I’ve been acting like I need all these distractions, like YouTube videos or blogs or tasty junk food. Like I need a break from the tedious hard work I’m doing. But no. Your work can be fun too!
Have a singular utility function and change up things to keep yourself motivated. Have different kinds of quests. You can solve problems that need to be solved, read some awesome book (and make summaries), practice and build up your skill, make and review flashcards, write essays, and so on.
Life is (or can be) awesome! I’ve been acting like it’s a drag.
Corollary: Have shorter, sweeter quests.
I’ve been setting tasks that take hours and hours. Instead set up short 20-minute tasks (when it comes to deep work).
“One follower of Voldy is much like another,” Milo shrugged. “I don’t know, and, frankly, don’t care if you have some sort of internal naming scheme or hierarchy. You’re all just XP waiting to be collected, when it comes down to it.”
Attitude: Look at everything as XP waiting to be collected.
Fun Failure
Next time, he thought, make sure there’s a Potion of Cure Light Wounds in your Belt of Hidden Pouches.
Look for lessons from every encounter.
Satisfying Work: Always have a quest!
Have a well-defined goal, feedback mechanism, and clear instructions.
Milo loves to work hard.
“Why don’t you go make some more magic doodads or something?” Hermione asked testily.
“Can’t,” Milo said. “You can only work on a Magic Item up to eight hours a day.”
“Where on Earth did you find eight hours already today? We only got out of class an hour ago!”
He’s at it from the moment he wakes up. That’s called single-minded focus.
Another peculiarity in these people was the inordinate amount of down time they required. Milo had to spend eight hours sleeping and an hour memorizing spells, but that left fifteen hours a day to put to use attending class, fighting monsters, and crafting items off-screen. … Even Hermione seemed shocked by the amount of time he spent reading and working. In just one week, Milo managed to custom-tailor his fifth-hand Hogwarts uniform (untrained, but with +2 for masterwork tools (which Milo also made himself) and +4 from his Intelligence) until it rivalled Draco’s in quality, read more books than any of his classmates (save Hermione) could in a year, and carve holy symbols of Pelor, Heironeous, St. Cuthbert, and Boccob into key locations around Gryffindor Tower.
– Chapter 8, HPN20
He’s using every spare hour and working hard enough to shock even Hermione.
The vast majority of Hogwarts’ students went home over the holidays, and for those who remained, the two week break was a time to lie around in their respective Common Rooms, playing Exploding Snap and (for the less danger-inclined) wizarding chess. Not so for Milo, who spent day and night working on Christmas presents, researching spells, and ‘resting,’ (really, planning and setting traps for the arrival of the dreaded Santa Claws) each in exactly 8 hour increments per day.
Think in terms of Causal Models
Milo always uses the rules of the D&D world to predict who will win in any situation. I need to do something similar for the real world and use the laws of economics, etc. to predict outcomes.
At the start of a combat, all characters involved have to make an Initiative roll with a bonus based off of their Dexterity and a few other things. This determines the order in which combatants act - people who rolled higher on Initiative, due to luck or by virtue of possessing quick reflexes, act before those who rolled lower. This makes Nerveskitter (a 1st level spell which grants +5 to Initiative rolls) an extremely unusual spell, as it must be cast while rolling Initiative, or, in other words, after a character is aware that there is trouble but before his muscles have had time to respond to his commands. For someone such as you or I, this is patently impossible. A Wizard, however, is somehow capable of both speaking the verbal components and waving his hands about in a complicated gesture to cast the spell before he is physically capable of doing either.
“Nerveskitter,” Milo cast, speaking every syllable simultaneously and in harmony, in blatant violation of the laws of common sense.
Munchkinry
Due to surprisingly lax rules on the matter, he’d simply taken to repeatedly renewing as-yet unread books by owl communication rather than appear in person.
– Chapter 43
Real-Life Instances of this Gamer Mindset
Programmers are unlike many types of workers in that the best ones actually prefer to work hard. This doesn’t seem to be the case in most types of work. When I worked in fast food, we didn’t prefer the busy times. And when I used to mow lawns, I definitely didn’t prefer it when the grass was long after a week of rain.
Programmers, though, like it better when they write more code. Or more precisely, when they release more code. Programmers like to make a difference. Good ones, anyway.
Notes
The ideas of urgent optimism, satisfying work, etc. are from Jane McGonigal’s book Reality is Broken and her TED talk “Gaming can make a better world”.
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