Greetings gamers from all systems, places and timelines!
The holidays provide opportunities for many things. Like good food, visiting with friends, and running holiday-themed one-shot games. You know, the kind of games which have nothing to do with the plot of your campaign but are light hearted and fun as hell.
And while this session should be memorable, odds are your schedule was pretty tight before any of the holiday madness even began. To help you make your own holiday-themed game we have put together a list of eight of our plots of Christmases Past which were very successful and a ton of fun. Hopefully these will provide you with a starting point and inspiration for your own adventure or at the very least some amusement.
Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town, Unfortunately
Back in DM Thorin’s 4e campaign from many years ago, a powerful demon thought it would be amusing to destroy a town in a faraway kingdom while dressed like Santa. So, the real Santa used his magic to bring the party to this far away land and lend them powerful magic weapons and equipment to put a stop to this imposter’s evil holiday plot.
In the end, the party wasn’t able to defeat the demon but managed to expose him as a fraud. Unable to ruin Santa’s reputation the demon became frustrated with the game and left, vowing revenge against the party down the road.
You’re A Green One, Mr. Grinch
In DM Thorin’s Woodstock Wanderer’s campaign that we’ve discussed on many of the episodes, the group reached the new village of Whoville and discovered that a being known as the Grinch had stolen all of their holiday gifts. Being proper heroes, they went to the Grinch’s lair to politely ask him to return everything.
However, as fate would have it, the Grinch was an extremely unreasonable Ancient Green Dragon and the party was around 12th level. Needless to say, this fight was ugly and ended with the Grinch’s demise along with nearly every party member but one going down and the Cleric’s Staff of Healing exploding – having used all of the charges and rolling a Natural 1 for an extra Merry Christmas. So, technically, it was a win and Christmas was saved, but not one of our finest moments.
The Kraken That Stole Christmas
In my Journey to Ragnarok campaign, the session was set in the frigid lands of the Norse kingdoms where blizzards are as common as human fighters. Anyway, the group was wrapping up a victory celebration when Santa’s empty sleigh crashed into a nearby building. On inspection, they discovered that it was filled with gifts and a mysterious ornament. Apparently, the ornament was like a battery that could be filled with a strange magical energy.
This led them on a journey, across several key locations from earlier in the campaign, in Santa’s flying sleigh, delivering presents – which recharged the mysterious ornament – which they needed, because the person who kidnapped Santa was indeed a Kraken (Slarkrethel from my Storm King’s Thunder campaign)
It’s important to remember that the party is only 7th level, however, using the power of the mysterious ornament, it allowed them to bring the Heroes of Christmases Past who could deal with the evil aquatic kidnapper which allowed for a nice 20th level brawl to end the session!
The Nightmare Before Christmas
In DM Dave’s Curse of Strahd campaign, while wandering through a winter storm after being transported through the Megaliths, the party came across a mysterious Christmas-themed amusement park.
This adventure had a nice twist to it as it was a game with a map allowing the party to choose the locations they wanted to visit. These locations of interest included: The Sleigh Coaster, The Prison of Wicked Toys, and The Christmas Queen Tower. However, this place was only filled with holiday spirit on the outside as it was run by a powerful vampire who used the park to draw children to his playground to feed on them.
Bonus points: this Christmas game let DM Dave test drive a Vampire Lord against the party before heading to fight Strahd!
The Spirit of Festos
In our evolving, shared homebrew setting of The Further, DM Chris had a magical spirit search out the party in the city of Black Cliff in hopes of gathering their aid to revive the lost holiday known as Festos. However, the city soon fell under attack in various locations by deadly snowmen, deadly gingerbread men and knights made of living ice. The “final” battle took place in the city park against a winter storm elemental where the heroes were frozen solid and swept away to a lonely nearby mountain.
The spirit of Festos located a second group of adventurers and enlisted their aid in not only trying to restore the holiday but also rescue the first party. The group trudged up the mountain, battling the elements and holiday-related foes until they reached the castle of the mysterious Winter Warlock. There, they found that the first group was frozen in a giant block of ice and that their captor had no intention of parting with them. The Warlock turned out to be a powerful shapechanging ice elemental lord.
When vanquished, the Spirit of Fetos was empowered, allowing him to end the attacks on Black Cliff, free the captured party, and even give presents to the heroes.
Here Comes Santa Ilithid
DM Chris took the Christmas game into Lovecraft territory in a small session.
It was another holiday season like any other when a Mind Flayer who was wracked by guilt approached the party. He explained that he came from a Spelljammer ship which just touched down near a densely populated city – one which his brethren were intending to attack and destroy at sunrise. Ironically, he felt so guilty about this impending attack that he offered the group magical items as gifts to save the innocent locals from his uncultured peers.
This one will go down as the year we saved Christmas by invading a spaceship and taking down a giant talking brain!
Silent Night, Deadly Night
Back when we were playing the Marvel Super Heroes RPG, we had two separate teams of different power levels – one being the cosmic level team and the other more at the classic street level. The “Cosmic team,” however, discovered that they had been transported to a strange Christmas town which they couldn’t seem to escape from – only to discover that they were actually trapped inside of a magical snow globe.
Meanwhile, the “Street Team” was enjoying their low budget Christmas party when elves corrupted by dark magic crashed it. This led them to a journey to the North Pole where they confronted the man in the red suit who revealed himself to be none other than Mephisto, who quickly handed them their asses. However, the snow globe prison that the “Cosmic Team” was trapped in shattered, leading to bad Santa receiving a proper Season’s beating.
Final Thoughts
If down for some seriously corny fun, then you came to the right place. We would advise making this the kind of game where the difficulty is not through the roof but, hey, it’s the holidays, so make the rewards better than usual and as creative as possible.
Christmas-themed games, of which we’ve played several as you can see, are similar to our favorite holiday TV specials and movies… you don’t have to get too complicated – Rescue Santa, Save Christmas, Get Presents. You’d be amazed with the variety of stories you can get with that!
If you find yourself with needing last-minute gift ideas, make sure to check out our affiliate link at Fanroll Dice to get 10% off your entire order!
We want to thank all of you out there for sticking with 3 Wise DMs as we came back online earlier this year with DM Chris. It’s been great getting back into the swing of things and hearing from all of you and we’ll continue this as we head into 2024.
We’ll be settling down for our annual Long Winter’s Nap, so don’t be surprised that you don’t see an article or episode next week… we’ll be back strong in 2024!
And as the Jolly Old Elf said, “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!”