In preparation for this year's spate of holiday-themed one-shots, I have a question for the board. Is it better to rip off an existing, recognizable plot (e.g. Christmas Carol, The Grinch, Jingle All the Way), or do you prefer those games that just feature suitably thematic elements (festively decorated treants, ugly sweater cloakers, gingerbread golems)?
And if you happen to know of any good modules for the purpose, please shout 'em out! Finals has eaten my brain this year, and the ol' creative juices are decidedly not flowin'.
'Tis the season for Krampus and his good pal, Wendigo, to show up... Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow... that's about as festive as I get, honestly.
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I pride myself too much on my storytelling abilities to directly rip off anything. Elements from this, the theme or feel of that. But the story has to be at least mostly my own.
I have a Saint Nick-esque character in in of my more fantastical settings. An ancient fae being, the harbinger of winter and the new year. His coursers fly faster than time and his whip is made from the Northern Lights.
Not directly Christmas-y but still in that vein, I ran a few sessions that involved a master toy-maker wizard, living out his golden years in a castle made of candy. The guards? 9ft nut crackers. The master-at-arms? An iron golem than was made of several tight-fitting pieces that were really just smaller iron golem. The head cook was Sir Gloppenshire, or Gloppy for short. A molasses golem. His preferred method of dealing with intruders or rabble-rousers was to simply pick them up and shove them into the sticky morass of his torso until they had a chance to calm down or pass out.
Not a fan of "themed" games in that fashion. Tends to be so disruptively immersion breaking you'd be better off just playing a party game or a board game.
molasses golem. His preferred method of dealing with intruders or rabble-rousers was to simply pick them up and shove them into the sticky morass of his torso until they had a chance to calm down or pass out.
I don't suppose you've still got the stats lying around for this guy? He sounds hilarious.
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I don't suppose you've still got the stats lying around for this guy? He sounds hilarious.
Unfortunately not. He was an advanced clay golem with a few twists. He was Sticky (like Grab, but even when you attacked him) and had Swallow Whole (no damage, but really, really hard to get out) and...I believe he had a breath weapon, too. Sort of a web+slow+transmute rock to mud sort of feel?
Man, screw christmas. It isn’t even a real holiday (no really, look it up. It never was the day Jesus was born, and was only propagated as such to cover up the real Pagan holiday Yule that christmas is a rip off of).
I can understand the frustration, but regardless of it's origins, Christmas is celebrated by many. I don't think defining "real" holidays as "the first ones" is particularly useful.
There was an AD&D 2d one-shot I did waaaaay back when that was from
a cheaply published (basically one step higher than newsprint) "module" I found on the rack at that FLGS.
"Rescue Kris Kringle from the Klutches of Krazed Kurs"
It was a suitably decent story and one session "quest" filled with thematic arctic and construct monsters and other hijinks reaching the toymaker elves village and eventually Christmas Castle.
Exploring and countering magical defenses & defenders to eventually locate and rescue Mr. & Mrs. Claus, who were being held hostage by "The Black Santa," a twist-of-the-moustache-evil drow who demanded kids give him presents instead of him giving them gifts.
I really need to spend some time converting those memories to Pathfinder...
I usually theme halloween sessions and christmas depending on timing. Otherwise, we usually handout some freebies when our party's individual birthdays roll around. My last birthday I got some Numerian Liquid Metal my character got from a merchant who couldn't sell the stuff and didn't know how to use it.
We used it to reforge Raven's Head into a different weapon type. The funny part is, I never even used it for myself. I changed Raven's Head to a Earthbreaker so our Pharasman Warpriest could use it better.
lI don’t think you got the point I was making.
And you either didn't get or are ignoring mine.
As I and Sysryke both said, the validity of a holiday can't be measured by whether or not it came before others. That way lies madness; its a fallible argument.Now if you want to claim that Christmas is offensive because it represents an attempt by an organization to destroy a group to which you belong...I guess. I have a hard time viewing the modern Pagan in any sort of oppressed light. But maybe that's just because I've never seen, heard or read any evidence of such a thing.
I think any human organization will do something terrible if you give it enough time. And the Christian/Catholic Church has had a very long time indeed.
At any rate, it's clear thapedantic.rstood the actual intent of this thread and are just being pendantic. Yes, Frankenstein was the scientist not the monster. Yes, it's "effect", not "affect". Yes, Yule came before Christmas.
Not that the whole "Xmas Origins" discussion isn't interesting or worthwhile, but veers hard into real world religion and politics. Plus it's off topic.
Am I the only one who really doesn't like "holiday themed" adventures? Something about fighting gingerbread golems to save Kwanzaa bot and return the celebration of Life Day to the universe just feels... tacky.
Don't get me wrong, a holiday themed Paranoia game would be fantastic, but probably for all the wrong reasons.
PS: ginger bread golems just have stuck in my psyche, because I wasn't intending to reference the original post. And I hadn't read it recently, either.
I like to fit holidays into regular campaigns rather than have stand alone oneshots. I did Halloween once (Harvest festival, with games, prizes, candies, a demigod messing about, and pranks vs corrupt religious officials). Handed out some nice bonuses and a few artifacts used in the rest of the game.
Did a solstice event in another campaign, handed out cactus juice booze (with custom random effects both good and bad). And gave the players real mini scrolls with a single meta use deus ex machina ability, hand me the scroll and whatever you want to succeed succeeds, but in a ridiculous way.
I did try a oneshot train adventure, save the christmas train from sabotage (mites, gremlins, and some evil spellcasters). But players didn't have the most buyin for it, they much preferred other board games for such casual events.
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Am I the only one who really doesn't like "holiday themed" adventures?
Not at all. If you run much more relaxed, beer and pretzel type games, I can see how it would be entertaining or novel. But if you use this hobby to tell compelling stories and take the creative process of constructing a narrative underworld fairly seriously, I think any such themes would need to be handled with consummate subtlety and skill. Otherwise, like you said. You end up with something tacky.
The one that seems like an exception to me is All Hallow's Eve. You can run a pretty standard S&S one-shot/adventure/session with ghouls, ghosts, werewolves and vampires. It won't feel cheesey or tacky, but it will definitely smack of the season.
I suppose you could do something similar with...cold-themed monsters and motifs? But I don't think it would be specifically *Christmas*‐y. More just wintery. And the more elements you add to make it feel like Christmas, the more you approach the inorganic, theme-for-the-sake-of-theme feel.
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The two most fun my gaming group has had with holiday-themed one-shots were:
1. "Winter Holiday," an AD&D 2E adventure from Polyhedron Newszine. The PCs find themselves caught up in an adventure that leads to a dungeon where each encounter is a twisted version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" ("six geese melee-ing" was my group's favorite). I encouraged the players to make up silly characters for it, which got them in the mood very quickly.
2. "Winter Flame," an Adventurer's League [D&D 5E] scenario from a couple years ago. The PCs take part in various contests during a holiday festival in Chult, but then a monster attack disrupts the event. It's light-hearted fun, with only one real fight, in which some of the silly contest prizes might actually prove useful.
A few years back, I had an idea for a game that I call "The Naughty List," using Fate Accelerated. It's set in a modern world where all the classic holiday characters are real, as are a variety of other supernatural creatures, and the PCs have to solve mysteries when things go wrong. If I ever manage to get it off the ground, it would be a sort of loose ongoing campaign, with a pick-up session or two for a handful of friends and family around the holidays, when most of our other regularly scheduled games can't meet as easily.