The entire tribe sat around the feast. They’d managed to down a mammoth and this was cause for celebration. The shaman claims the downing of the beast coincides with the yearly Midwinter celebration Hogash. All the children have been making gifts for each other and the adults have been creating altars for their ancestors. Now the tribe is sat all around the fire pit, feasting on delicious meat. 

Ulv stands up. The entire tribe hushes and the shaman waves for Ulv to speak. 

“I wish to attempt the trials. I will lead this tribe.”

Suddenly the men of the tribe start beating the ground with their weapons and chanting.

The shaman stands up. “Dnuk has accepted the call to the trial. Truly this is a celebration!”

We being the preparations at dawn!”

Intro

Warrick’s Problem.

Main Topic: Tips on How to Make D&D Christmas Themed

Justin

• Add in a Random Celebration in the setting where your players are. 
• This will give the feeling of the holidays even if the celebration is set in the middle of a desert.
• Change the “skins” of NPC’s
• Your players don’t actually have to fight Santa Clause. They could fight a giant that looks like Santa Clause but has all the same stats as a giant. D&D is half narrative and half mechanics. Instead of homebrewing your own Santa, just take the mechanics of something else and say it looks like Santa.
• Give your Players a Gift
• Every player loves getting new loot. Have a random patron show up and gift the adventurers some sort of interesting item. If you don't want to break your game have them give some sort of consumable item that is interesting. If you don’t know what sort of consumable, just choose the form (potion, food or other time) and then pick your favorite ability and give it a one-time use.
• Change the weather.
• For most people, Christmas is synonymous with winter. Make it obvious that the weather is changing. Make it snow and give them consequences for the snow. Either have someone open up their home during a snowstorm (spread Christmas cheer) or have the characters have to avoid getting stuck in a blizzard. 
• Go all out with Christmas Homebrew Monsters

You can subscribe to people like GamingBrew from Episode 63. He for example has loads of themed monsters that are custom created for the right feeling and setting. Subscribing to him saves time because you don’t have to do anything other than plug and play.

Mentioned in this episode:

We Like You

Hey Bud… How’s it going? Just wanted to say… we like you. We’re think you’re pretty cool. We hope you like us too. If you do like us and what we’re doing, you can support us on our Patreon. Just $1 a month is enough. Just go to https://session0studios.com/patreon and show your support. But even if you don’t… we still like you. See ya around bud.

Patreon

Listen to Our New Podcast

As a listener of this show, you obviously love story. Now that you’ve learned how to craft your own story on this show, wouldn’t it be nice to have some inspiration? Or maybe just a moment of immersion and escape? Then come join us in our new Actual Play D&D 5e show, Pact and Boon. Enter the World of Calignos where our characters, Jolly, Wolfgang and Alon will meet each other in Hell. Enjoy our troublemaking and near-death experiences wherever great podcasts are heard. Just go to session0studios.com/pactnboon and start listening today.

Brought to you by Session 0 Studios

Visit session0studios.com for more information.

yeah the entire tribe sat around the feast they managed to down a mammoth and

this was caused for celebration and the shaman even claims that the downing of the

beast coincides with the yearly midwinter celebration ho gosh all the children have been making

gifts for each other and the adults have been creating altars for their ancestors now

the tribe is sat all around the fire pit feasting on a delicious meal in

a general state of joy and celebration of stands up the entire tribe hushes and

the shaman waves for ove to speak i wish to attempt the trials i will

lead this tribe suddenly the men of the tribe start beating the ground with their

weapons and chanting and the shaman stands up the nook has accepted the call to

the trial truly this is a celebration we begin the preparations at dawn welcome back

to you how to be a better d m i'm your host justin louis with

welcome back to how to be a better d m i'm your host today justin

lewis and we are here to help you create better stories for yourself and your

players as the d m sessions of dungeons and dragons

today we are talking about making your game christmas or holiday theme and before we

get into this a quick shout out as it were so you all know we've

been pushing for feedback so you can go to better dungeon master dot com slash

feedback and give us information on how we're doing as a show and problems you're

facing and someone put in a problem they're facing and i feel like i just

need to you know reach out and talk about this but i didn't ask for

emails or anything so the only way i know how to do this is over

the podcast so this goes out to warwick thank you for filling out the feedback

survey and this is what he wrote or she wrote i don't actually know if

they're male or female i'm seventeen and my friends and i decided to start playing

d and d this summer and i volunteered to be the d m i started

learning as much as i could i'm so glad to find this podcast and what

makes it better is that it's local to utah county i've created a world got

my players adventure started and i have an idea of where the adventure could go

but my players are no nearly high enough level for what i have in mind

i don't want to send my players on missions just to level them up if

it doesn't progress the story if you could somehow help with this issue that would

awesome and again thanks for sending that in warwick and if you guys want to

send in your problems just go to better dungeon master dot com slash feedback and

i'd be happy to talk about them the show but work i actually had a

similar situation with my current campaign so my wife is a rogue and i started

giving her pieces of basically she's a rogue and i started giving her ah my

wife is a rogue and i surprised her by having her find a chanted bow

magic item that turned out to be sentient all right and at the beginning i

found that yeah yeah turned out to be sentient and the big plan was to

have her and the rest of the players find other pieces of the sentient uh

weapon essentially and the weapon is called a taker and over time they found these

weapons and the point was to once they get enough weapons dream take peters as

a being and is essentially the big bad at the end the game right and

so they're at that point now my wife's character has been possessed by dream taker

and disappeared and dream taker is designed be the n l b l of the

campaign so now i have this issue of how do i get my players there

right and even before when they were finding the different pieces how do i get

my players through the campaign enough to find the different pieces but also have a

good story along wait and i find the best way to do this is to

bring in the different aspects of each person's back story so for example and this

is a spoiler sorry if you're in my campaign you should stop and right now

for example bore uh one of the characters is a lizard folk and it's actually

the character of the p c that i've introduced and they are searching for some

magic items that can help protect their tribe and i'm going to introduce a story

arch that takes them under the sea literally and if the group follows this it

will have nothing to do with take er but it will evolve the story forward

as well as give the players a chance to level up another one of my

players is looking for their old adventuring group with are actually stranded in the astral

ca that's another adventuring arc that should have nothing to do with dream taker but

will advance the players enough so that way when they do fight dream taker they

are up to it so what i would commend to you is find ways to

tie in story arcs from the individual character back stories and that way you don't

need to worry about the main plot all you need to do is either hint

that it is moving forward while they're doing other stuff or they don't know what's

going on

or they don't know what's going on while they are doing other stuff and that

way it kind of gives this sense of mystery like oh what his dream taker

up to we haven't seen him in a while anyway i hope this answers your

question work if it doesn't please reach out to me on instagram at how to

be a better d m and i'd be happy to talk more about it now

let's get to the rest of today's show which is how to make d n

d christmas theme i have five tips for you today it's probably going to be

a quicker one because naturally you should be spending time with family and friends because

this is the holidays but let's get into it so first one is add in

random cell libration in the setting where your players are so this kind of ties

back to the inshore that i had at the beginning of today's show but essentially

if your if your group is in a city just have a bunch of banners

set up and ribbons and and have your players discovered that wow this city is

celebrating something special that will give the impression or the feeling that this is a

time of celebration because naturally in the real world it is a time of celebration

and it'll give the feeling of the holidays even if you know even if you're

in the the desert you can still feel like they're celebrating something number two is

change the skins quote unquote of n p c's your players don't actually need to

fight santa claus they could fight a giant that just looks like santa claus and

has all the same stats of a giant dandy you see is half narrative and

half mechanics so instead of home brewing your own santa just take the mechanics of

something else and and say it looks like so that's one of the best things

about dandy is you can really use the mechanics of anything and just call it

anything else you can use the mechanics of a black dragon and say they're fighting

you know belch nickel or what not number three is give your players a gift

every player loves getting new lout so have a random paton show up and just

give the adventurers something interesting and if you don't want to break your game by

give them an all powerful item you can give them some sort of consumable item

that is still interesting and if you don't really know how to make a consumable

item all you do is just choose the form so whether it's a potion or

some food they eat or even you know a consuming trinket then you pick your

favorite ability or spell and then you attach it to that item as a one

time and this is very very useful because say someone wants to use fireball without

using a spell lot well give them kind of cinder from a fireplace and sprinkle

some fairy dust on and well they have a one time use fireball that does

not take a spell slot number four is change the weather for most people christmas

is synonymous with winter so make it obvious that the winter is coming make it

snow and also it's also fun to give them consequences for the snow so either

have them be stuck in a big blizzard and have some random person open up

their home and bring them in and and there you have kind of spreading the

christmas car moment or have the players trying to figure out how to avoid getting

stuck in the blid and that's still immerses your players in it because well it's

snowing outside for a lot of us so they'll feel they'll naturally feel that in

the game number five is go out go all out with christmas home brew monsters

naturally this step this this tip will take the most amount of time or you

can subscribe to people like gaming brew from episode sixty three of the podcast and

i'll put the link in the show notes he for example has loads of theme

monsters that you can get from him if you just subscribe to his patron these

are custom created and they have the right feeling you need for setting so like

christmas or even halloween subscribing to people like him saves time because you don't have

to do anything other than plug and play or you can spend the time to

home monsters and make sure that they do fit the setting and they do have

the right skills talents and abilities the issue there is you do have to play

test just to make sure they don't break your game so there haven't five tips

to help them your d n d to be more christmas or holiday theme i

know that this is kind of the end of the year and i want to

say a big thank you to everyone out there listening being a podcasthosts is interesting

because so often i'm doing this all alone you know i have my co host

tanner and we often bring guests but often ten and i both you know were

recording this on our computers and i just want to say thank you for everyone

who reaches out joins our one shots or fills out our feedback survey because it

it connects me to you and honestly that's what this time of year is about

so uh next next week we'll have another episode it's going to be about what

next year holds for the podcast um so if you're interest in that tune in

but if you're not spend some time with family and friends and spread the christmas

cheer around because tis the season when the saints can employ us as they say

and you know go out and try and make someone else's life better but like

i said we'll be here next week with another episode mostly about what's going on

next year in the world of how to be a better dam but until then

my friends marry christmas happy holidays and let's go ahead and roll initiative oh oh