Hi there! I’m running a Christmas one-shot for a few mates of mine. I’ve told them to make DnD characters because it’s the system they are familiar with (I play a greater variety of systems then they do and I’m determined to infect them with indie ttrpgs eventually). Even though it’s DnD, I was wondering if you knew any cool Christmas related systems I could read up on and maybe borrow a rule or two from and graft in to make the one shot a bit more interesting?
So far I’m thinking either a standard “the magic is fading” plot line or an office comedy, both based in Santas workshop. If you can’t think of anything don’t worry, I’m going to have a look through my library either way and see what I can find.
Hello friend! This one-shot idea sounds so cool! Let's see what we've got to work with.
Oh Holy… What Happened Last Night? By OopsAllSmurph.
Santa’s out of town until the night of Christmas Eve, but he left you all, a group of his most trusted North Pole townsfolk, in charge of the North Pole until he got back. You did what anyone would do with a magical city at their fingertips -- throw a MASSIVE rager. After a little too much eggnog, you’ve all woken up with 2 problems: A massive hangover, and a North Pole in disrepair.
You’ve got until midnight tonight, Christmas Eve, to put the North Pole back to the way it was (or hide it well enough nobody will noticed) so Santa can leave for his trip around the world without a hitch!
This a simple one-page game that might work well as inspiration for your office comedy idea, perhaps if your characters have to help all the inhabitants of the North Pole get cleaned up before Santa comes back. You can roll randomly for lost and broken items, and add extra obstacles like find all the stray reindeer, put kids’ names back on the toys, and pay the Grinch his protection money!
Elf in Your Self, by StarshineScribbles.
The Elf: Fear it. Run from it. No matter what you do, You can't escape it.
Every Christmas, the Elf arrives out of nowhere. Sitting on your shelf. Leering at you. Trying to make you behave. Trying to enforce compliance with some half-remembered dogma about Naughty and Nice lists. Also, it might be possessed by a demon…
The only way to return peace to your home is to destroy it before it takes control of your mind.
Elf In Your Self is a game about a dark version of everyone's favorite surveillance-based Christmas decoration.
Players will use a deck of cards to tell the story of their attempts to banish this evil force from their homes. But beware, one wrong move and you may become possessed by the Elf!
This feels like a game of collaborative go-fish but with a horror-movie twist. You are attempting to put together a ritual that will weaken the Elf in an attempt to get rid of it by the end of the game, but your players will become possessed by the Elf if they are forced to draw from more resources. I suppose you could use this as a mini-game inside a larger story about an Elf that has been causing havoc in Santa’s workshop, or perhaps use the idea of a big bad demon harassing a Christmas Town by possessing an innocent villager.
Christmas Goons, by hechlok.
The wizard Santiclous is looking for a mysterious artifact to light on the top of the Christmas tree - help him save the magic of Christmas!
Ruins, machines, lost gnomes, and Christmas presents await you. Let's get to it, Christmas Goons!
Christmas Goons is a short dungeon crawl that brings your characters through the ruins of a gnomish inventor’s home base. This adventure is designed for Tunnel Goons, but the dungeon map looks like it could be used for any game you like. There are details for each room, with suggested obstacles that you might be able to re-skin for the game of your choice. The adventure is also free!
Oh Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding, by Tim Obermueller.
Over seven nights, you are trying to defend your figgy pudding from increasingly hostile carolers. Good luck!
This is a tactical game of pudding defense, with increasing levels of difficulty as the carolers whittle away at your skills over seven nights. I could see this being some kind of possession or zombie storyline, with the carolers having a mindless fixation on the pudding, and your characters have to spend seven nights/rounds of combat fending them off with different tactics.
A Christmas Belonging, by dannymakesrpgs.
A Christmas Belonging gives you snow covered landscapes, quaint small towns, and the low stakes high drama experience of a made-for-TV Christmas movie. Recreate those cheerful stories of romance and family drama in this collaborative, zero-prep RPG.
This is a diceless game about someone who prioritizes work over family, coming from the big city into a small Christmas town, where they meet someone who changes their outlook on Christmas - and on life. Extremely trophy, extremely cheesy, and great for folks who love taking a genre and pushing it as far as it can go.
I’m not entirely sure how to incorporate this into a traditional D&D game, but perhaps it might be a subplot that goes on in the background; perhaps an adventurer who is here just for treasure meets a cute local who wants them to slow down and experience the meaningful magic of a local holiday. Perhaps this cute local’s magic ritual is exactly what is needed to solve the adventurer’s problem!
You Will Be Haunted by Three Spirits, by Meghan Cross.
You Will be Haunted by Three Spirits is a GMless game for three players about changing the heart of someone who desperately needs it. Each player will take on the role of a spirit as well as collaboratively taking on the role of the individual being haunted by the spirits.
It is roleplay heavy, GMless game that is played in three rounds as each of the spirits reaches out to the Haunted in an attempt to soften their heart and convince them to change their ways. All that is needed for play is this game text and a set of dice.
Players will each take on the role of one of the visiting spirits as well as collaboratively playing the role of the Haunted as they are visited by the spirits attempting to save their soul and change their heart.
This is probably my favourite holiday trope. It is probably the most heartfelt game on this list, and the least likely to travel into goofy territory. The biggest obstacle to using this game its that it requires three players only if you play as written - one to be the Past, one to be the Present, and on to be the Spirit of What Is To Come.
However, if you want to use it as inspiration, you might set up the party with the job of convincing their Haunted to change their ways so that the magic of Christmas is returned before it is too late. You could have some characters taking on the embodiment of different Spirits, while others work to bring about the miraculous events of the past, present and future. If you want to embody some of the magic and warmth of Christmas, this might be the game for you.
