A while back I talked about running a roleplaying game as an anthology, and struck upon the idea of doing it with Primetime Adventures. Rather than doing a series of five episodes, have the players create an archetypal character to serve as their “actor” who can appear as a different character in each episode. At this time of year, I’m thinking of doing it as a series of Christmas specials, each episode being a type of highly cliched special. The five types of specials I’m thinking about are:
The Heartfelt Family Reunion
A tearjerker, as family members who have been separated for some reasons struggle to come back together, overcome past secrets, resolve past differences, and have a wonderful Christmas together. The players can knock out the specifics of the setting, time period, reasons for separation, and so on.
The True Meaning of Christmas
In the ninety-billionth rehash of the Scrooge story, a nasty person has a rude awakening and learns what Christmas is really about. Knowing some of the players I might be able to get in on this, there’s potential for some very twisted variations on this tale.
The Stop-Motion Special
Ah, Rankin-Bass. There must be songs – I’m thinking, make up new works to existing Christmas carols, or turn other tunes into Christmas carols. There must be a plot that has absolutely nothing to do with any existing Christmas story or mythology, but there must be some sort of beloved Christmas-related character. Santa Claus has to show up as some point.
The Franchise Cartoon
Every cartoon seems to end up with a Christmas special. I want players to do the most unlikely one (A Samurai Jack Christmas, or maybe something with the Venture Brothers), or to even invent an animated show from scratch just to do a special.
The Santa Claus Adventure
Some forgotten story from Santa’s youth, or a tale that helps him remember what it means to be Santa Claus. Cheesy, melodramatic stuff. May have songs.
If you want to extend it to a 7-episode series, then consider these:
BONUS: The TV Series Episode
Take some real TV show, or even some past Primetime Adventures series, and do a Christmas episode. This could be a fun way to revisit an old Primetime Adventures game if you can get the same group of players together (or not — do one of those crappy “reunion” shows that recast a missing character or introduces new ones).
BONUS: The Horror Anthology Episode
Something along the lines of The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, or The Outer Limits. Take any sort of Christmas special story, give it a creepy spin and a twist ending. Santa Claus is an alien advanced scout. Flying reindeer eat human flesh. Soylent gingerbread men are people! They’re people! I always wanted to do a story with Krampus, and this might be it.
Oooohh, a Krampus story would be really cool!
Then, for the Santa Claus story, have you checked out S. John Ross’ “A Kringle in Time” (written for Risus, but I bet it could be adapted)?
Posted by cleireac | November 18, 2011, 1:29 pm