The six best Christmas-themed tabletop RPG adventures

Our gaming group often goes on pause during the holiday season to focus on family, but if we were meeting, we’d likely be playing some kind of Christmas or holiday-themed adventure. (We may even play “Journey to the North Pole,” an adventure we created and featured here last week.)

But your gaming group may like to play something a little more substantial. We combed available adventures for something to keep your RPGing holiday flavored

♦ First off, Santa needs stats. Get em here. D&D put together full 3.5 stats for Santa (or Nicholas the Gift Giver, as they called him), a multiclassed druid/wizard/rogue. He even has magic items and a sleigh team. It seems it would be decently adaptable to whatever D&D-style RPG you might play. To go along with those stats, they also made Nicholas the Gift-Giver’s Northern Palace adventure and its sequel, the Chest of Misfit Items.

♦ Wizards of the Coast released “Factory of Misfit Omega Tech,” a free adventure for Gamma World, the sci-fi setting based on D&D’s 4th edition. The idea is a sci-fi take on the Island of Misfit Toys.

♦ It’s not official, but Gabe from Penny Arcade wrote out his rather expansive D&D adaptation of “A Christmas Carol,” which he ran for his wife and friends a few years back. It has exciting adventure as well as the emotional payoff of the original story.

♦ If superheroes are your thing, you’ve probably played Mutants & Masterminds. Back in 2005, the RPG released a free adventure called “Crisis on Christmas.” Because superheroes never get the day off, not even on holidays.

♦ Pulp action is always fun, and Spirit of the Century is a blast. I mean, there’s a gorilla flying a biplane on the cover of the rulebook. The rules are designed to be easy to pick up, so you can grab those and then get the ENnie-nominated supplement Spirit of the Season to fight Doctor Scrooge and Jacques Frost with Secret Santa and his Reindeer Men. Where to we sign up?