Saturday, December 14, 2024

Roleplaying in a Winter Wonderland

Every December, I try to get some holiday-themed roleplaying game adventures to the tables. With everyone focused on work, family, shopping, and travel plans at this most hectic time of the year, this is often extremely difficult to coordinate, but as I write this, I have already run two games for my group and next week we are looking at getting a third one in before the end of the year!

Additionally, over the past few years, I have written some holiday-themed One-Sheet adventures for use with the 2018 Origins Award-nominated (I believe I'm contractually obligated to mention that) Savage World of Flash Gordon Roleplaying Game, all of which have been hosted on the Pinnacle Entertainment Group site and are available for FREE. Next week, my fourth and FINAL(!) One-Sheet for Flash will drop, and if you haven't grabbed the first three yet, visit the site today to collect 'em all:

Back to this year's run of games.

Last week, I playtested the latest aforementioned One-Sheet with the group in order to ensure it all worked so I could get it into PEG's hands in time for a mid-month release. Titled A Star! A Star!, this short adventure launches the heroes into space and then drags them back down to a frozen corner of the planet Mongo where they must do battle with Imperial forces and challenge a beast of legend before they can secure a most valuable treasure.


The playtest went very well and everyone was amused when I revealed the final boss in all its glory (no spoilers)!

This week, I finally got another Pinnacle release to the table in the form of One Foggy Krampus Eve, a scenario penned by Erica Balsley back in 2022. I had prepped this adventure to run in 2023, but things got in the way and it just sat on the shelf until a few days ago.

For this adventure, I went all out and prepped maps, character pawns, and custom tent card character sheets. I even tracked down a set of Santa Claus playing cards for the Action Deck, pulled out a transparent red and green dice set, and used vintage red wooden poker chips for Bennies, thus theming the entire event.

Without spoiling anything, One Foggy Krampus Eve has the players taking on the roles of kids captured by the one-and-only Krampus and taken off to the North Pole where they must defeat that dreaded horned beastie and his minions and rescue Santa Claus.

If you can, I recommend having Tchaikovsky's 'The Nutcracker Suite' on standby for certain scenes. It added to the fun!

As mentioned above, next week, there are plans in place to gather one more time before the end of 2024, this time to experience Silent Night, Hungry Night, a Deadlands One-Sheet written by Shane Hensley himself! I'll be playing, not running, and I'm really looking forward to facing a few frightful fiends out on the frost-laden frontier! 

How festive! ðŸŽ„

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Roleplaying in a Winter Wonderland

Every December, I try to get some holiday-themed roleplaying game adventures to the tables. With everyone focused on work, family, shopping,...