Category: D&D at Work

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Writing an Awesome Christmas-Themed Adventure for Your RPG Table

Christmas elves playing dungeons and dragons

The festive season isn’t just for family gatherings, mince pies, and exchanging (hobby related) gifts—it’s also the perfect time to gather around the table for a one-shot adventure full of cheer, chaos, and maybe a little holiday magic. Writing a Christmas themed adventure lets you bring the spirit of the season to your game while giving your players something memorable and lighthearted to enjoy during December.

Here are some tips to craft a holiday adventure that feels like the festive season yet still delivers the excitement of a great RPG session.

Start with a Festive Hook

The heart of a Christmas-themed adventure is the hook that gets your players into the festive spirit. Think of familiar seasonal traditions and twist them into adventure prompts. For example:

  • Gift Gone Missing: A magical artifact meant to be gifted has been stolen—can the heroes recover it before sunrise?
  • Save the Festival: The annual Yuletide feast is under threat from a band of mischievous goblins.
  • Escort the Sleigh: A mysterious traveler with a sack of enchanted toys needs protection on a perilous journey across winter wilderness.

These hooks keep things simple and festive while setting up plenty of fun challenges. If you are looking for further inspiration there are plenty of Christmas movies to draw inspiration from.

  • Home Alone: defend the castle from nefarious, yet bumbling bandits.
  • Die Hard: save the hostages from the evil terrorists.
  • Christmas Chronicles: Help the odd red coated wizard retrieve his lost sleigh and flying steed.

Embrace the Tropes

Like any good one-shot you need to embrace the tropes of the setting. Christmas comes preloaded with heaps of imagery you can play with: twinkling lights, snowstorms, reindeer, candy canes, and towering evergreens. Incorporate these elements as set dressing, monsters, or puzzles:

  • Animated nutcracker soldiers guarding a snowy castle.
  • Gingerbread golems defending their sugar-frosted fortress.
  • A riddle hidden inside a Christmas cracker that must be solved to progress.

Go over the top with the whimsy—it’s a holiday game, after all.

Keep It Short and Sweet

The festive season is a busy time, so plan your adventure as a one-shot and make sure to stick to it. Aim for a session that can be wrapped up in a single evening, ideally with 3–4 encounters. You want something punchy, fun, and easy to fit between Christmas shopping and family visits.

A simple structure like the Five Room Dungeon works perfectly:

  1. Entrance/Hook: Snowbound village asking for help.
  2. Puzzle/Challenge: A frozen lake that must be crossed.
  3. Setback: Rival adventurers also chasing the prize.
  4. Climax: A showdown in the lair of the villain (Krampus, Frost Giant, or corrupted elf).
  5. Reward/Resolution: Saving the holiday festival, restoring joy to the community.

Balance Humor and Heart

Like all good movies of the season, Christmas-themed adventures work best when they mix humor (silly monsters, over-the-top challenges, festive puns) with heart (themes of giving, kindness, and togetherness). Let the table laugh at a candy cane sword fight, but also give them a chance to do something meaningful, like saving a child’s wish or rekindling hope in a struggling village.

Add a Festive Villain

No Christmas story is complete without a villain threatening the joy of the season. Some ideas could include:

  • Krampus or a Mischievous Demon: Punishing the naughty in cruel ways.
  • The Winter Witch: Freezing everything to stop the festival.
  • A Bitter Toymaker: Creating cursed gifts to spread misery.

Make sure your villain has clear motivations, but don’t be afraid to keep it campy and fun. This isn’t a game to be taken too seriously.

Other Games and Scenarios

If you don’t want to take the time to write your own adventure you could always try one of these adventures and games:

Final Thought on a Christmas Themed Adventure

A Christmas-themed adventure is less about perfect balance or dramatic stakes and more about sharing joy at the table. Everyone will be beginning to feel Christmassy and running a game like this will amplify that. Fill it with festive flourishes, encourage your players to lean into the silliness, and above all, make it something they’ll talk about fondly long after the decorations come down.

So this December, grab your dice, hang some fairy lights around the table, and take your adventurers on a journey full of snow, laughter, and holiday spirit. Who knows—you might even start a new tradition.

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Designing RPG Scenarios for Team Training That Actually Work

A group of D&D characters carrying a log as a team

Roleplaying games can be powerful tools for leadership development and team training—but they only work when they’re designed with intention. Over the past few years, I’ve been refining a custom ruleset called Play to Lead, which puts teamwork, communication, and pressure-tested leadership at the heart of the experience.

One of the most effective ways to use Play to Lead in a team training setting is through short, focused scenarios designed for under an hour of play. These sessions are tight, dramatic, and deliberately removed from the day-to-day office environment.

Here’s how to design a scenario that delivers impact—and leaves your team talking long after the dice are packed away.

Core Design Principles

When writing a team training RPG scenario, it pays to keep these core design elements in mind:

1. Keep It Short and Punchy

  • Total play time: under 1 hour
  • Structure: Maximum of three encounters, but plan for two core ones. The third is there only if the players are making good time.
  • Leave 10–15 minutes for a debrief at the end to unpack learning

2. Make It Dangerous

There must be risk—real failure (with potentially fictional character harm) on the table. If the players feel safe, they won’t act decisively or rely on one another. The best learning comes when people feel the stakes. Other types of risk can also work, perhaps a valley might flood taking the town with it, or an endangered species go extinct.

3. Encourage Real Teamwork

Design challenges that cannot be solved alone. Players should have overlapping roles, limited resources, and opportunities to lead, follow, and communicate under pressure. Give the players the tools, bit in a way where they must work together. For example, getting the spaceship under control requires players solving problems on the bridge and the engine room at the same time. Both locations interact and only together can the players get to the planet safely.

4. Include Time Pressure

Introduce a ticking clock. Whether it’s literal (“the bomb goes off in 10 minutes”) or narrative (“the bridge collapses in three turns”), urgency forces action and creates drama. Having the clock represented visually also keeps that sense of urgency very much alive.

5. Build Around a Theme

Each scenario should have a clear soft-skill theme. All the problems and challenges should be built around it. These could include:

  • Teamwork under pressure
  • Negotiation and influence
  • Making tough ethical decisions
  • Navigating difficult conversations

6. Use Familiar Tropes

Whatever you do, don’t set it in an office. Choose an accessible genre with clear stakes and vivid roles. Beg, borrow and steal from popular culture. Familiar settings help participants jump in quickly and focus on the challenge, not the setting.

Some obvious examples include:

  • Zombie apocalypse (28 Days later)
  • Pulp adventure (Indiana Jones)
  • High fantasy dungeon crawl (Lord of the Rings)
  • Sci-fi space mission (Apollo 13)
  • Spy thriller with double-crosses (James Bond)
Using popular films for inspiration helps players get into the game faster.

Team Training Scenario Examples

Here are two fun Play to Lead scenarios built around these principles:

1. “Outbreak at Sector 9”

Genre: Sci-fi survival
Theme: Teamwork and resource prioritisation
Setup: A distress signal lures your small team of engineers and security officers to an abandoned space station. Something’s gone wrong—and the infected are still inside.
Encounters:

  • Navigate a power outage while restoring access to life support
  • Decide who gets the only dose of antidote when an ally is bitten
  • Escape before the AI initiates a total lockdown
    Time Pressure: 45 minutes before total station shutdown
    Teamwork Element: Only through clear role delegation and resource sharing can the team survive. The Engineer has to fix life support, while the Medic has the antidote and only the Captain has a key to the AI core.

2. “The Temple of Twin Flames”

Genre: Pulp fantasy adventure
Theme: Negotiation and difficult conversations
Setup: You are rival adventurers forced to work together to recover an artifact before a cult completes a dark ritual. But not everyone wants the same outcome…
Encounters:

  • Cross a booby-trapped bridge with limited equipment
  • Parley with a cursed guardian who tests your morals
  • Decide whether to destroy the artifact or use it
    Time Pressure: Eclipse occurs in 60 minutes—sealing the artifact’s fate
    Teamwork Element: Conflicting goals mean teamwork isn’t just logistical—it’s emotional and strategic. Each player has a secret agenda for the artifact. Can they come to an agreement to enable them to escape. Or will their disagreement see them stuck in the collapsing temple forever?

Debrief: The Most Important Encounter

Always leave time for debriefing—this is where the real learning happens. Ask players:

  • What went well?
  • Where did communication break down?
  • What decision was hardest, and why?
  • What would you do differently in real life?

You’ll be surprised how naturally players draw lessons from the scenario and link them back to work.

Final Thoughts on Team Training

Roleplaying scenarios don’t need to be long or complex to make an impact. With the Play to Lead ruleset and a focused scenario design, you can run powerful 1-hour sessions that bring out the best in your team—and help them grow through play.

If you’re designing your own sessions, start with a theme, wrap it in an exciting genre, and make sure the stakes are high. Just don’t forget to debrief—because that’s where fantasy becomes leadership development.

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Dealing with a Lone Wolf Player in D&D and Business

We all know that in both Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and the workplace, teamwork is essential for success. However, every group occasionally encounters a lone wolf—an individual who prefers to act independently rather than collaborate with the team. While independence can be a valuable trait in certain situations, a lone wolf’s behavior can be detrimental when it disrupts group cohesion, communication, and shared objectives. If left unchecked, a lone wolf can cause irreparable damage to a business or group.

What Is a Lone Wolf and Why Is It Detrimental?

A lone wolf is a player or employee who operates primarily on their own, often avoiding teamwork, disregarding group plans, and making decisions without consulting others. In D&D, this could be a character sneaking off to loot treasure without the party, or a player who constantly ignores group discussions in favor of their own agenda. In business, a lone wolf might be an employee who works in isolation, hoards information, doesn’t follow process or fails to engage in team projects.

Often individually a lone wolf can be successful. For example make great sales, or make a great in game fighter. However, their unwillingness to collaborate can cause significant issues, including:

  • Lack of synergy: The group is forced to work around the individual rather than integrating them into team efforts.
  • Poor communication: Important details are missed because the lone wolf operates separately.
  • Reduced trust: Team members may feel frustrated or disconnected when the individual ignores their input.
  • Lower efficiency: The group wastes time resolving conflicts instead of focusing on their shared goals.

Strategies for Dealing with a Lone Wolf in D&D

As a Dungeon Master, your goal is to balance individual player agency with team cohesion. Here are some ways to handle a lone wolf player effectively:

  1. Understand Their Motivation – Talk to the player to understand why they prefer to work alone. Are they roleplaying a specific character concept, or do they simply dislike group decision-making?
  2. Encourage Group Decision-Making – Implement moments where cooperation is necessary, such as puzzles, multi-step combat strategies, or social encounters requiring group input.
  3. Use Narrative Consequences – If the lone wolf consistently acts against the party’s interests, have the world react accordingly. NPCs may become untrusting, or the character may face in-game consequences for their isolationist behavior.
  4. Set Clear Expectations – Before the game, establish that D&D is a cooperative experience and that all players should engage with the group’s decisions.

Strategies for Dealing with a Lone Wolf in Business

Managing a lone wolf employee requires a balance of respecting their independence while ensuring they contribute to the team’s success. Here’s how leaders can address this behavior:

  1. Identify the Root Cause – Is the employee avoiding teamwork due to a lack of trust, unclear expectations, or personal preference? Understanding their reasoning helps tailor your approach.
  2. Encourage Open Communication – Lone wolves may not realize how their actions impact the team. Provide regular feedback and encourage dialogue to align them with team goals.
  3. Assign Team-Oriented Tasks – Give them projects that require collaboration, emphasizing shared success over individual achievement.
  4. Create Accountability – Ensure that responsibilities are clearly defined and that the lone wolf must provide updates and integrate their work with the team’s efforts.

Final Thoughts

While implementing the strategies above should bring a lone wolf around to integrating more with the team, there will be instances where they will refuse to do so. If this is the case and their behavior is having a detrimental impact on the team then you should seriously consider asking them to leave the gaming group. Or, in the case of a workplace begin enacting performance management. However, DMs and leaders alike can turn a lone wolf into a valuable team player. Whether in fantasy or the workplace, the best adventures—and successes—are built on cooperation.