Happy Hogmanay!

Next sunrise will be in 2024.

Adventure Calendar 2023 31: The Dresden Files

Adventure Calendar 2023

31: The Dresden Files

The Dresden Files, huh? I could skip over it to Smallville or Star Wars, but no, the point is a challenge.

Although not much of a challenge as it’s an urban fantasy detective, basically Angel but with a wizard.

I know enough to know it has mostly sinister magic users. And more organised groups of vampires. And a talking skull. And did the animated dinosaur skeleton thing before the film of Night At The Museum though way after the book, and after Doctor Mordrid too, which is where I stole it for The Watch House.

And apparently its own Christmas story did the Santa as Odin thing.

But anyway, Dresden being a wizard detective who actually advertises being a wizard in the phone book is unusual in largely Earthly settings, unlike something like Grimjack in a more fantasitcal world. So...

The Claus Files

Most kids send letters to Santa ahead of Christmas asking for toys and promising to leave out mince pies. But sometimes a letter comes through off season, asking for a much more important request, aid with a supernatural danger. And that’s when Santa steps in to do battle with the Naughty.

Sounds Like Hell references 1.06

And so naturally time for slayers.

Kaylee Bryant as Monica Pereira

Maddie Hasson as Drew Campbell

Buffy on the BBC at 25

Today is my Buffy The Vampire Slayer 25th anniversary, as it stared here on BBC 2 at 8 p.m. after previously starting on Sky. The genre magazines like SFX had been championing it for a while with “no, really, it works!” articles. And obviously I thought it did.

Original BBC2 ad with cheery voiceover

Sadly unique Giles ad for The Witch

Congratulations Rick and Sue!

Adventure Calendar 2023 30: Doctor Who

Adventure Calendar 2023

30: Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space

Okay, I’ve definitely done plenty of Christmas Special ideas for Doctor Who, as noted here in the 2021 Adventure Calendar. Though I’ve never actually run them. The Ice Wolves were a threat in an episode run in... September or October maybe. But here we are...

The Greatest Gift

An alien presence in a Christmas market, promising anyone their dream come true. Which is fine until someone’s wish threatens someone else’s happiness, life, or existence.

Happy birthday Mum!

Russia as a World Of Darkness setting

A request for ideas for a Vampire: The Masquerade game set in Russia, which led me to discover Empire V, and quoting myself having thought about this before in the last thirty years:

(And it reminded me of the Moscow By Night LARP event video that looked like a LARP event anywhere in the world, Bloodlines Lacuna Coil song and all. I find that oddly comforting.)

Lore about Russia from previous editions features a lot of major-league monsters running amok but the official version’s easily overwritten. Baba Yaga as a fourth generation Nosferatu with vast magic powers and an army of supernatural beings opposed by Russia’s werewolves, after she took out the Brujah-led backers of vampire Communism. Also Rasputin as... pretty much every kind of monster.

(I would have made the Brujah council come in to shore up the Communists after the actually-people-led Revolution, and never be that big a deal as they kept backing different factions.)

A more low-key version where it has the same spread of supernatural troubles as settings like the USA would also work, with an emphasis on its current division and authoritarian control in mortal society.

(The KGB’s successors could have some pretty scary hunters, as well as plenty of corrupt do-nothing officials happy to take bribes.)

And it has its club scenes, underground music styles and other subcultures where vampires thrive...

Avoiding anything like the Chechnya section cut after the original printing of the V5 Camarilla book, but it’s fine to be snarky at your own table.

Russian vampire movie banned by the government

Empire V looks like a pretty regular YA post-Masquerade vampire movie with pretty young vampires and creepy old vampires, and a lot of CGI for things like using blood to access memories and meeting an ancient vampire, but apparently its anti-authoritarian stance was enough to get it pulled from Russian cinemas a week before release.

I discovered its existence looking up Russian vampire movies after a VTM Facebook request for advice on setting a game in Russia. A vampire movie banned by the government feels like a possible plot hook...

Adventure Calendar 2023 29: Hollow Earth Expedition

Adventure Calendar 2023

29: Hollow Earth Expedition

Or Not Quite Adventure! Second Edition. But the Hollow Earth setting introduces time distortions, so...

North Pole Expedition

A legendary figure, perhaps immortal, who can travel the entire world in a single night? The enemies of freedom seek this power! Can you stop them stealing his ability to distort time to his advantage?

Once Human

Once Human, a post-apocalypse MMO I had never heard of before, looks fairly standard zombies and monsters and survivors failing to work together to provide gunfights, but the note that everybody has been affected by the weird changing thing and the PCs have some superhuman abilities adds some interest, a weird apocalypse with a chance to fix it.

Lots of people with objects for heads adds a little extra surrealism too.

Adventure Calendar 2023 28: Adventure!

Adventure Calendar 2023

28: Adventure! Tales Of The Aeon Society

Another one I’ve presented festive plot hooks for before, because of course I have.

Dashing Through The Snow

The Æon Society’s traditional efforts to help a local charity through the winter are interrupted by the kidnapping of its founders as they collect toys for poor children, because of something valuable hidden in one of the donations by a relative of the donor. Can the adventurers save Christmas?

Yes I’m laying it on thick, what’s your point?

Ten Buffy hooks from This Is Why by Paramore

Happy birthday Hayley Williams!

This Is Why

This Is Why

This is why I don’t leave the house

It’s bad out there every time the slayer steps outside. But is it just happening because she steps outside?

The News

War

Turning on the news and... did they just report that vampire attack?

Running Out Of Time

There was traffic spiller my coffee crashed my car - otherwise, woulda been here on time

Throw on the duties of a monster hunter on top of an exam crunch and one of the gang could do with an extra couple of hours in the day... and then gets them.

C’est Comme Ça

Lucky for me I run on spite and sweet revenge

One of the gang gets bashed into the hospital and figures they should take life one day at a time. is this actually safer?

Big Man, Little Dignity

Know you could get away with anything so that’s exactly what you do

Someone whos sold his soul for personal power. Not a monster per se, but he sure needs to be stopped

You First

Turns out I’m livin’ in a horror film where I’m both the killer and the final girl

Someone out to steal the power of the slayer, from his perspective to do better things with it.

Figure 8

All for your sake, became the very thing that I hate

It’s a terrible relationship, but how do you tell a friend that?

Liar

Love is not an easy thing to admit

It’s a great relationship, but how do you tell a friend that?

Crave

Crave to do it again, all again

One of the gang has the best day ever... and relives it. And the rest of the gang notice, and have to figure out a way to stop without causing heartbreak or the destruction of space and time.

Thick Skull

Same lesson again? Come on, give it to me, give it to me

And then the spell snaps back, and now the slayer has the worst day ever, and as many chances to fix it...

Adventure Calendar 2023 27: All Flesh Must Be Eaten

Adventure Calendar 2023

27: All Flesh Must Be Eaten

I brought this on myself.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten is the Unisystem RPG of zombie apocalypses. And of course there are undead Santas and things like that - see Bruce Campbell starring in Black Friday.

And I could certainly fit in A Ghost Story For Christmas with a physical undead thing.

The Chain I Forged In Life

Long dark nights can make you reflect on what the year has brought for good or ill. And now something comes seeking revenge for some wrong - a revenge far past what is deserved. Can you stop something already dead?

But also to heck with that, pun!

All Leftovers Must Be Eaten

It’s two days after Christmas and time to venture out to get fresh milk and the like, but there are still leftovers to be finished off too. Who dare attempt this quest?

The Exorcist

The Exorcist was released in the US fifty years ago today. Which makes it a Boxing Day movie. This seems like a bizarre choice to me in terms of its mood despite its obvious intrinsic religious overtones.

Said to be among the scariest films ever, I avoided it until I was safely over the 18 certificate age (which was easy as it was unavailable legally on video here for some time) and it still feels strange seeing it on TV and it not being treated like a big deal with Mark Kermode documentary introductions, but it could never quite live up to its reputation - I wasn’t raised Catholic and I don’t have kids so I was off the ideal target - but I could absolutely appreciate the craft.

Though not director William Friedkin shooting into the air and slapping actors to get startled reaction shots.

The never-matched founder of a horror subgenre, followed by mostly shaky sequels as well as so many knockoffs. Exorcist II is one of the legendary WTF sequels of all time. The brooding atmosphere and The Best Jump Scare in Exorcist III and the recent TV series being notable exceptions. The two different versions of the fourth/fifth film can make for a fascinating Film Studies course subject, but the new “ignore everything except the original” reboot by the people who did that for Halloween (for the second time in that case) is... alright.

It’s not really game-friendly, being emotionally rough even without involving a child and the exorcism actually coming in quite late and being pretty low-key on the side of good. Later takes on exorcism where it’s a regular thing and not nearly as gruelling could work.

Adventure Calendar 2023 26: Savage Worlds

Adventure Calendar 2023

26: Savage Worlds

Yes I could stop like an actual advent calendar, but come on...

Not that Savage Worlds gives me much to work with as a system, being a generic system that errs on the side of pulpy.

I do have the main books for one its most supported settings, East Texas University, because it’s a Buffy kind of thing with students fighting monsters.

(I also have the first edition of Necessary Evil and skipped the second as they spoiled the best twist in their fundraising campaign.)

But the title - and another of the settings being Flash Gordon - suggest...

The Savage Worlds

A crew of pulp hero types from Earth find themselves captured by soldiers of an alien empire where the ruling court is a den of murderous intrigue, people are exiled to uninhabited planets and many conflicts are solved by duels to the death! And they call us savage?

Not particularly festive, but perhaps the heroes can free a rightful leader and family? Amd the 1980 film has a definite hint of panto.

Christmas 2023

A very physical media Christmas:

Ten discs - Strange New Worlds S2 (four discs), Ghostwatch anniversary edition, Quantumania, Prey, M:I - DR1, Spider-Verse 2 extra and D&D HAT.

And two books - a Buffy novel and Doctor Who annual.

Thanks!

On TV:

Mog’s Christmas - lovely though the song was a bit much for its length.

Lot 249 - A very nice tribute to The Mummy and something else as well.

Toy Story 4 - that’s certainly a way to leave off after a perfectly good trilogy ending.

Doctor Who - see Whoblog.

The Hound Of The Baskervilles - how delightfully BBC Four.

Ghosts - I’m fine.

And also on a screen, Whatsapp appears to work. Hello Australia!

This joke may become a tradition.

And now, a message from the King. (The Return Of...)

Adventure Calendar 2023 25: Legend Of The Five Rings

Adventure Calendar 2023

25: Legend Of The Five Rings

Legend Of The Five Rings is an RPG (connected to a CCG) about a fantasy take on Samurai Japan and some of China.

Like Pendragon it has a Winter section where the Imperial court stays somewhere well heated and gets its intrigue on, and could easily involve seeking the perfect gift for someone important and other festive activities despite the different-twice-over religious base.

But for my purposes here, it lets me end on a pun. Which feels suitably Christmas special-y.

Legend Of The Five Gold Rings

A pulp adventure connecting the song of the Twelve Days of Christmas with St. Nicholas’s original gift of gold, and by extension with his miraculous works. Can they stop the villains finding and using it - or will it only work if you’re on the Nice list?

May optionally also involve a lot of birds.

Merry applicable!

Merry applicable! If not, have a good day if you can.

Butch Walker, Walking In A Winter Wonderland

It's Christmas And I F---ing Miss You

Charly Bliss can now perform thair lockdown not-exactly carol live. But even so, you can still fucking miss someone.

Adventure Calendar 2023 24: Kult

Adventure Calendar 2023

24: Kult

And for Christmas Eve... Kult, the RPG of Barker-esque maltheistic horror.

I swear I didn’t do this on purpose.

Be Not Afraid

A horror or darker urban fantasy scenario, where an angel has been brought down before it can deliver a vital message. By demons? Or by humans who want its power, or fear what the message might be? And how can the characters save something whose power might destroy them, whose light could blind them?

Billie Eilish, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Billie Eilish, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, from Saturday Night Live.

Adventure Calendar 2023 23: Fading Suns

Adventure Calendar 2023

23: Fading Suns

Fading Suns is an SF/F game about a far future civilisation of Dune / Traveller size and baroque nobles and religions, dealing with the stars going out. (Which appears to be a mystery left to individual tables to deal with.)

Which feels like the kind of thing a Doctor Who Christmas special can address.

Star Of Wonder

A distant future, and humanity clusters around a handful of stars in a darkening universe. Can the travellers find a way to light a new sun?

Rogue Squadron: A Star Wars Story

Rogue Squadron: A Star Wars Story is pretty much what you’d expect - given how much Top Gun: Maverick felt like a Star Wars movie it feels quite a bit like that. Viola Davis is great as Admiral Kassan and Chris Pine is obviously having fun playing a villain and...

What? Oh. Stupid parallel universes.

Adventure Calendar 2023 22: Big Eyes, Small Mouth

Adventure Calendar 2023

22: Big Eyes, Small Mouth

Big Eyes, Small Mouth is an anime RPG. Anime is a medium and not a genre, so it’s really a generic RPG with a specific art style, with some example settings related to specific series, as well as having some licenced settings.

So, um...

The first anime I saw (rather than Japanese animation heavily converted for English-speaking audiences) was Akira, so...

The Light Of The World

A cyberpunk nightmare future, with talk on the streets of a saviour as the government cracks down on protest, while its scientists experiment with human potential in way that could be... miraculous?

Adventure Calendar 2023 21: The One Ring

Adventure Calendar 2023

21: The One Ring

The One Ring is another one I’ve done festive hooks for, drawing on Middle-earths Yule and the Father Christmas letters.

As we reach the shortest day...

Comes The Sun Again

On the shortest day, the sun itself seems far away in a grey sky. The few now living old enough to remember the trees that provided light before worry that the sun’s time has also come to an end. Can it be rekindled?

Midwinter

Low the tide, low the light

Comes the sun again

Thea Gilmore, Sol Invictus

Adventure Calendar 2023 20: Dread: The First Book Of Pandemonium

Adventure Calendar 2023

20: Dread: The First Book Of Pandemonium

Dread: The First Book Of Pandemonium continues this week’s theme of confusing title repetition as it’s not Dread, the horror RPG using Jenga.

But a modern horror game about hunting monsters for a mysterious backer sounds potentially interesting.

Though also not very festive.

Secret Santa’s Surprise

A monster hunter receives an anonymous gift in the post along with Christmas cards - a magic weapon.

Who had Shoegaze Revival on their 2023 bingo?

Wisp, Your Face.

Via Eli Enis at Stereogum.

Adventure Calendar 2023 19: Tribe 8

Adventure Calendar 2023

19: Tribe 8

Tribe 8 is a post-apocalypse setting with mystical inhuman invaders, seven human tribes following saintly beings to oppose them, and the PCs among the eponymous outcasts from the seven. (It may or may not be named after the lesbian punk band.)

So what does a festive post-apocalypse look like?

On Without End

The seasons have been warped by the cataclysm but the dark cold nights still come, and there are still those who provide warmth and comfort. A merchant caravan comes with important goods but also luxuries and a group of travelling players. Hopefully they won’t offend the elders... and they might need a ride to the next settlement...

Adventure Calendar 2023 18: HeroQuest

Adventure Calendar 2023

18: HeroQuest

HeroQuest was originally released as Hero Wars because the long planned name HeroQuest was taken by the Milton Bradley and Games Workshop beginner dungeon fantasy RPG / boardgame, then as HeroQuest during the gap between editions of the boardgame, and then the system as QuestWorlds with an SRD and without the original setting, having started as a more narrative game in the same world as Runequest. Let me know if I missed anything.

Anyway, it nudges at and tweaks the Hero’s Journey as (overly) systematised by Joseph Campbell, go on a quest and return changed by all you’ve experienced with some common specific steps.

It also leans heavily on the storytelling game side of RPGs, Robin D. Laws having previously created Pantheon among other things, so maybe that can be our idea?

The Best Place By The Fire Was Kept For The Storyteller

Years, possibly decades or centuries after the time of the player characters, a storyteller spins a not entirely accurate version of one of their adventures. It could be played out in a different system like a storytelling game, with the players affecting it to help or hinder the PCs as it cuts back to what really happened. Is the story changing the world?

The Lord Of The Rings on screen

Today marks twenty years since the premiere of The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King. One vision leading so many to visualise one of the stories that really matter. The lighting of the beacons. Sam carrying Frodo. “My friends... you bow to no one.” They get me every time.

Adventure Calendar 2023 17: Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Adventure Calendar 2023

17: Buffy The Vampire Slayer

And now the one I’ve done. And written up ideas for. More than once. As well as statting up Santa Claus.

Having come up with quite a few ideas about the mythologies around Christmas, to go a different way:

Secret Santa Identity

The slayer or other character living at home and keeping their monster-fighting activities secret discovers that some extended family are coming to visit for the holidays, which will put a crimp on their going out and slaying. You can go full-on door-slamming farce with the attempts to hide the superheroics. Worse still, none of them turn out to be monsters so you can’t just kill them like Inca Mummy Girl.

Vampire: The Requiem second edition at 10

Vampire: The Requiem second edition came out (as Blood And Smoke: The Strix Chronicle) on this day in 2013.

Never Let Go

The Keep

The Keep, Michael Mann’s heavily cut and disowned adaptation of F. Paul Wilson’s 1981 novel, was released on this day in 1983. Taking and running with the idea of Nazis having to fight a monster just about as bad, it features a heroic immortal among its protagonists before Highlander made that a thing and is the other sort of vampire movie from the 1980s with a Tangerine Dream soundtrack besides Near Dark. Even without all this it would be pretty odd.

Never released here on disc, at least nowadays you can get it streaming.

Also oddly, Mayfair Games produced a boardgame (with a single villain versus multiple heroes mechanic later seen in the likes of Fury of Dracula) and an AD&D adventure for it. The advenure was co-written by future World Of Darkness writer Daniel Greenberg, so could we add this to the list of influences for the ancient mythic origins of the Kindred and the Tzimisces in particular in Vampire: The Masquerade?

Adventure Calendar 2023 16: Starblazer Adventures

Adventure Calendar 2023

16: Starblazer Adventures

Starblazer Adventures is a FATE-based game drawn from a 1970s-90s comics anthology of standalone SF stories from Scottish newspaper and comic publisher DC Thomson.

(Not to be confused with Star Blazers, the 1980s US adaptation of anime series Space Battleship Yamato.)

As I recall there were a lot of space opera issues that would fit Star Wars or Star Trek with minor tweaking and a few where you would just have to rub the thin paint off the serial numbers, though as discussed here by one of its writers it expanded in genre coverage as it went along.

So the game is likewise a toolkit for action-y speculative fiction games.

The Blazing Star

A vessel of unknown origin looms over Earth, and a small team of astronauts and experts board it to find if this is a message of peace or a portent of doom...

Dialogue for... probably something Buffyish

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“But I was smiling?”

“Yeah, and that’s how you’d look if you saw a ghost.”

History in Games, Games in History

Jon Hodgson and Malcolm Craig discuss historical bases and research for RPGs and other kinds of fiction, among other things.

Adventure Calendar 2023 15: Angel

Adventure Calendar 2023

15: Angel

This may be a little more my speed...

Angel was the focus of the one Christmas episode of Buffy, and I doubt I could top that. But helping the helpless and hunting demons on lonely streets means he’s also saved a few potential saviours and been the father of a Miracle Child of his own, as well as being in position to help on long winter nights.

If The Fates Allow

Our band of heroes barely notice the nights getting longer except for the increased in vampire attacks, until one night they find themselves alone in a frozen world. Who or what has cast a spell on the city, trapping it in Christmas Eve? The emphasis on isolation should also give them pause...

Adventure Calendar 2023 14: Primetime Adventures

Adventure Calendar 2023

14: Primetime Adventures

Primetime Adventures is actually 15, but 14 is the box set version of Mouse Guard.

Primetime Adventures is the RPG of creating TV series, going full narrative construction rather than many licenced RPGs being a mix of narrative with simulation of the world, even beyond genre deconstructions like They Came From... The players all have a hand in scene framing, and its defining mechanic is that the PCs in the ensemble cast have spotlight episodes built in as their Screen Presence varies over a season.

My first thought is to look at holiday episodes for show-based RPGs (I’ve done that aplenty) and my second is to remind you all of the time I swiped the Eerie Indiana finale for The Watch House and had some of the PCs discover they were in a TV show.

But to go a different way, have the PCs interacting with normal media in their setting. Famous enough PCs could get Print The Legend happening to them, but at lower levels of notoriety can they get on the local news, or avoid it as the case may be?

What shows do they watch, which writers do they follow and so on? Is there a local TV station, a movie studio, radio, theatre, publisher, particularly good tribal storyteller?

This depends how close to the real world we are, naturally - the animated Batman grew up on The Gray Ghost instead of the Shadow or, well, Batman. (IIRC one of the Silver Age heroes read the equivalent Golden Ages comics in-character?)

The Christmas Special

The PCs somehow end up involved with a festive broadcast. Superheroes making an appearance, more low-key characters helping out with a fundraiser. They get to look around a studio and see some of the production process. But is somebody going to cause trouble...?

Adventure Calendar 2023 13: Paranoia

Adventure Calendar 2023

13: Paranoia

Trust the Computer. The Computer knows if you’ve been bad or good.

The post-apocalyptic vault gone wrong Alpha Complex in Paranoia isn’t a very religious place (although the First Church of Christ Computer Programmer is one of the more tolerated of the classic secret societies) and may not have holidays anyway.

And the colour-coded citizens would be very confused by (a) multicoloured lights on Christmas trees and (b) Christmas trees and (c) trees.

The Tabletop Girl considered this in a mini-adventure called How The Communists Stole Classified, covering an attempt to get the whole holiday season going illegally.

So for something a little narrower, given how distorted and strange many festive traditions are, adding some festive cheer to Alpha Complex would be as easy as... having Black Friday for a month in countries without Thanksgiving, to pick an example purely at random.

Infrared Friday

The day when surplus luxury items up to Yellow level are made available to Infrared citizens, colour coating removed to prevent confusion and termination, and somehow supply never quite meets demand for at least one thing. Can you acquire this cycle’s must-have without losing all your clones? (Spoiler: probably not.)

The Black List 2023

The 2023 Black List of screenplays not currently in production. The A.V. Club looks at some highlights including the one about the disastrous Spider-Man musical. 2023 in particular seems like it would be a good year to buy some of these.

Although one of them is already a classic episode of Leverage. And it’s probably a Mike Flanagan series late for a dark comedy version of The Masque Of The Red Death. One of them sounds a bit like Talk To Me and indeed Flatliners, but both of those worked so why not? And I have my suspicions about what the one called Blood Rush about a gang overlord who may not be human might be about. But I’d certainly go see Please Come Back, about a couple who raise the dead for a living.

Adventure Calendar 2023 12: Warhammer

Adventure Calendar 2023

12: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

I’ve done Warhammer midwinter and all already. But is mangling of history, myth and other fantasy stories means it wouldn’t be hard to do again.

A Mondstille Carol

A horrible old rich person claims that his house is haunted by spirits reminding him of his wrongdoing. What’s really going on? May involve regular spirits, a curse cast by surviving victims, Shallya trying to save a soul, Daemons of Law, business rivals Scooby-Dooing the whole thing, heroic con artists...

Adventure Calendar 2023 11: Monsters And Other Childish Things

Adventure Calendar 2023

11: Monsters And Other Childish Things

Monsters And Other Childish Things is about children with connections to terrible monsters, which may or may not be done lightly, by default closer to the spooky humour reboot of Stanley And His Monster than something serious like A Monster Calls, I think.

For Christmas, that suggests Gremlins maybe?

I’ve Got Krampus In My Basement

A kid-friendly horror comedy setup where a kid finds a monstrous thing in need of help around the festive season. May involve a rampage across town during a holiday parade.

Adventure Calendar 2023 10: Talislanta

Adventure Calendar 2023

10: Talislanta

The only thing I know about Talislanta is that it has no elves.

I presume from context that it’s therefore a fantasy RPG.

And that the pointy-eared humanoids on the covers of several editions must not be elves, I guess.

No Elves

Santa needs your help! All the elves are missing!

Adventure Calendar 2023 9: Mutants & Masterminds

Adventure Calendar 2023

9: Mutants & Masterminds

Having already mentioned the Mutants & Masterminds adventure Crisis On Christmas here both this year and in a general summary of superhero RPG holiday specials, it being one of the big generic superhero RPGs suggests using this slot for a look at the genre. Perhaps from the outside?

What about superhero type action breaking into other genres as part of the seasonal increase in strangeness? Toys and costumes and the like becoming real?

Or the reverse, getting pulled into a comic story? Possibly one about the PCs that gets some important details wrong, as happened to Batman.

Or down-to-earth modern adventurers dealing with someone acting like a Real life Superhero, with or without powers? I’ve jokingly threatened that in Buffy games a few times.

The Holiday Special

A new superhero series is really taking off, maybe a comic by a local creative team or a TV series shot in the city or just a big hit around these parts. And then a masked thief steals the original art / kidnaps the star / makes off with the big store’s shipment of toys for the character. Can real heroes find the real villain responsible?

Battlestar Galactica (2003) at 20

Battlestar Galactica (2003) was a radical reimagining of the then twenty-five-year-old Star Wars But Episodic More Like Star Trek TV series that became a much bigger success in its own right - a big dark drama interspersed with space battles instead of a family show. Polygon wonders if we could do this now in the time of legacy sequels.

Though I feel it fumbled the ending, it was a Hell of a ride along the way. Kind of want to fire up the opening miniseries again.

The Cylons were created by Man.

Or I could radically reimagine something...

Adventure Calendar 2023 8: Mouse Guard

Adventure Calendar 2023

8: Mouse Guard

Not having played Mouse Guard or read the comics, this is going by the impressions that it looks cuter than it reads, and if I were going to have wee mice having adventures, especially at Christmas, it would probably be cute.

So for a game with a suitable Weird Level, like a lot of not-so-dark urban fantasy:

Not A Creature Was Stirring

The characters receive a request for help in a quest from a family of not-quite-talking mice. Are they prepared to go with this?

(And researching this, I discovered that The Muppet Christmas Carol Mouse Family went on to star in a 1995 TV adaptation of Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree with Robert Downey Jr.)

Benjamin Zephaniah

Goodnight and thank you.

Adventure Calendar 2023 7: Over The Edge

Adventure Calendar 2023

7: Over The Edge

The surrealist-inspired urban fantasy RPG Over The Edge is set in an island where traditions are actively built and rebuilt, mythological beings might show up at the bar, so...

Wanted: The Second Coming

The Wanted posters all over Al Amarja are probably some kind of PR stunt or something, right? How would you actually put out a bounty on the Second Coming, and why?

Adventure Calendar 2023 6: Feng Shui

Adventure Calendar 2023

6: Feng Shui

There’s plenty of action set against the Christmas season as an ironic backdrop, but Hong Kong action fantasy adventure suggests Lunar New Year as a setting point instead, though I don’t know enough about that to be comfortable making authoritative suggestions.

Feng Shui also has a conflict affecting junctures in time to sway them towards various factions, but that would be another “changing what Christmas is” plot.

Maybe an ass-kicking take on A Christmas Carol instead, since ghosts are among the playable options.

Chains

A spirit sent to do good has been trapped by enemy forces who seek to prevent its mission of hope and redemption. Can you rescue it before midnight?

Mayfair Witches

The second Anne Rice Immortal Universe adaptation Mayfair Witches sneaks onto BBC Two. Like Interview With The Vampire it has a big pilot and then double bills. Unlike Interview With The Vampire I have no idea how it compares to the books and there’s no previous film either. (I believe they’re on the I Also Write Naughty Things side of Rice’s work.)

Adventure Calendar 2023 5: Call of Cthulhu

Adventure Calendar 2023

5: Call of Cthulhu

I could let Gar Hanrahan take this one for me.

I also remember a mythos story (in G.M. magazine, I think) about the overly humanoid Dreamlands god Nodens as Santa. And for Krampus we have Shub-Niggurath who is the worst of all pagan holdovers put together.

Do Not Open

A distant relative sends you a creepy old book around the festive season.

The Static Sea

The Static Sea, an immersive game involving a stay on a lighthouse island in the Bristol Channel. Sounds more like an escape room you can’t escape from for days than a LARP, but.

Adventure Calendar 2023 4: Unknown Armies

Adventure Calendar 2023

4: Unknown Armies

A game about forcing change by sheer will and through altering traditions...

We Wish You

Can the spirit of a season be redirected? Did the cola bottle version win out?

Adventure Calendar 2023 3: Pendragon

Adventure Calendar 2023

3: King Arthur Pendragon

I’ve done this one already because one of the biggest Arthurian stories kicks off at the Christmas court.

But Arthurian trappings can show up in other games in other times and places. I had someone taking a bullet for the sleeping Arthur in Hollow Earth Expedition and borrowed the Knights Of Pendragon idea to play a returned Sir Gawain in ICONS. See also Tim Powers planning a series about Arthur returning in various times of crisis.

In Time Of Greatest Need

A great threat to the nation, and a band of heroes rise from their slumber. And they have to deal with the festive shopping in order to prevent an apocalypse on Christmas morning.

Adventure Calendar 2023 2: Spirit...

Adventure Calendar 2023

2: Sp*r*t *f Th* C*nt*ry

I will spare you my views on this game. But anyway, the spirit of Christmas works as a plot again.

Midnight Of The Century

The darkest night in a hundred years, midwinter with the moon at its furthest, is the night for something terrible to rise.

Adventure Calendar 2023 1: Nobilis

Adventure Calendar 2023

1: Nobilis

I could do this one properly, as Nobilis abilities would suit something like The Spirit Of Christmas and it being threatened. The three ghosts could be Nobles, or a Noble. So could Ignorance and Want. See Hogfather for a suitable threat to the idea itself and the hope it represents, as well as the Mutants & Masterminds adventure Crisis On Christmas where it’s already gone and needs to be restored.

And there’s already a Nobilis / Glitch adventure for this.

Jolly Old Saint Nick

December begins and the Noble of the Returning Sun is missing. A changeable sort who has assumed and shed traditions for centuries, but the sun has to rise...

Adventure Calendar 2023

Adventure Calendar 2023

0: RPG Titles

Of all the Star Wars characters to make into Santa...

For my fifth time doing festive adventure ideas daily (click December 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 in my blog archive) and having done two years of looking at traditions, a year of hooks for specific games and a year based on song titles, this year...

To follow the often random theming of advent calendar illustrations I considered the National Toy Hall Of Fame, but since the default option for any category is 25 I went with Best RPG Core Rulebooks at the RPGnet Index.

Not necessarily agreeing with the RPGnet popular vote which was busiest a few years ago! (Most Rated provides a more realistic cross section of popular games but doesn’t throw out as many curveballs.) Just using this as a random source of titles to inspire ideas for any RPG, unless I actually have an idea for the game in question.

FURIOSA trailer

YES.

Empire says more, noting May 24th.

December

And among other things, World AIDS Day.