Winter Celebrations (That Aren’t Christmas!) in Tabletop Role-playing Games

TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to No Plot, Only Lore, a podcast about games and the tables we play them at. Your DMs tonight and every

night are Josh and Chris. You can find us on all podcast platforms or check us out at noplotonly.com.

If you like what you hear today, please rate and review the show and share it with everyone you've ever met. Welcome

back to Nploton Lore. This week brought to you by Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Something something I didn't actually have time to write an ad read. Kentucky Fried Chicken. I think I'm bleeding.

It's fingerlicking good. H what? Oh, sorry. I'm fine. Don't worry about it. Slightly bleeding.

Kentucky Fried Chicken, you say? No, no, no. What?

I didn't like set anything on fire. I did cut myself. That's fine. Okay. I feel like this requires some

context. Uh for the last like hour and a half, Josh and I have had a chat going

while he has been doing home electronics repair. Uh mostly by cutting open USB

cables and trying to find the ones that had the right wires.

Turns out none of them did because um the device I had that was using USB for power was doing it like performatively,

I guess. Um, it was designed to take 12 volts and then it was just kind of

relying on USB adapters to crank everything down uh, instead of, you know, just directly wiring that in. Um,

and it turns out every other like phone device wire that I had lying around the house is just wired differently.

Oh. And so he juryrigged a different power solution and it caused a big pop. And

now there's cuts all over his hands. And I have this weird feeling that we have learned nothing from this.

No. Now this isn't even the first time I've done something like this. Uh I So

when my friend Daryl was trying to sell his old house and move, uh he was like,

"Hey, um sorry. I I need to preface this by saying I am in no way, shape, or form

an electrician. I have not gone to school for any of this. I ju I uh worked

as a property manager for like a decade and um help my family with their rental properties right now. And so you kind of

wind up just sort of doing things. Um anyways, he's like, "Hey, can you

change all the light switches and plugs in my house to like new modern ones so that it looks better?" I'm like, "Yeah,

no problem. I can do that. It's only two wires. Um, and then I blew out the plug

in his living room three times in a row before realizing that I had a ground wire touching the box every time I

pushed it back in. I just I It took me a while to be like, "Oh, I

I got to screw that down a little bit." Um, so yeah, I'm not saying that we're accepting like

applications for another co-host for this show. You did ask me who I would want to host

the show when I die. Uh, which I did do that. Yeah. Yeah, that's not exactly a vote of

confidence. Anyway, I said KFC because one of my

favorite weird international uh traditions with Christmas is in Japan

KFC is the biggest deal on Christmas. Like to the point that you have to order your bucket months in

advance, sometimes like a year in advance if you want to secure a spot.

Yeah. The KFC has replaced like all other family food traditions for some

reason. There's no turkeys, there's no pumpkin pie, there is the kernel and

neon green colelaw. I think that it kind of boils down to

the same reason that like Santa Claus has such a strangle hold on North America, which is mostly Coca-Cola's fault.

That's true. They they more or less invented Santa Claus. I mean, as we know him today.

Yeah. Like that there was a St. Nicholas who had some vague connections to dropping gifts down chimneys and then

they just ran with that in some weirdass directions. And

that has become the Christmas tradition in North America. And I think it's kind

of the same thing in Japan where like Christmas itself is just a time to spend with your usually boyfriend or

girlfriend. Like it's a romantic holiday and then eat KFC.

That's I mean I'm I I am okay with both of those things on their own, but together at Christmas that seems weird.

I could have a greasy fun time with that. like that.

Ew. Ew. Oh, chicken grease just everywhere.

Just laughing herbs and spices all over me. Oh, it stings. Uh

anyways, so you brought that up and we're like, "Hey, what's other Christmas stuff that's international and weird

that could because I last year we spent a lot of time focusing on like converting North American Christmas

staples into RPG type stuff, right? Yeah. And this year I kind of wanted to

take a look at not necessarily like other Christmas traditions like that. That one I worked in mostly because I love the KFC tradition just kind of on

its own. But like I wanted to take a look at like some of the other winter traditions that are around the world and

just kind of like see how those could interact with RPG stuff in interesting ways. So like

keeping with the Japanese theme, we've got Omisulka, which is about cleaning

and clearing debts and eating long noodles, which I mean I love one of

those things. Wait, is it

clearing debts? You guessed it.

And just like Yeah. The the the whole idea of like preparing your house for the new year and like it's got some

Shinto tradition attached to it for like bringing in the new gods of the new year. Um,

well, honestly, it it it gives me a flavor of like spring cleaning, except

like the Japanese are more efficient than us. They do it earlier and in the winter where it kind of makes

more sense. Yeah. Right. It's a big reset for the to start the year fresh.

Well, and you don't have like a whole lot of spring [ __ ] going on, right? Like if you if you clean up everything in the

middle of winter, then you have more time to enjoy spring. Yeah.

Um, and then you're not trying to clean while people are tracking in muddy boots all all the time. Yeah. Um, and then there's a couple of

notes here for like some of the Yo-kai that are common to that time. So like

the the snow women and snow spirits and various kinds of kami uh that come down.

And I thought it would be kind of neat to like look at that and try and figure out how we would utilize that in an RPG

setting. So like towns that ritually clean uh the spirit world itself,

right, was one of the the things that I wrote down. But how how would you utilize a a

tradition like that in a role playing game for for yourself? No, I think you actually just kind of um

briefly touched on it there. the idea that like we're going to reset for the new year, so you need to go put all of

the ghosts to rest. Every year, fresh ghosts. You know, people die all the time around here. If we didn't clean

them up once a year, there would be a problem. Uh,

that would be a really interesting like not necessarily like a death mythology,

but like a death ritual of just like if we don't do this, that's when ghouls

happen, right? If if we let the backlog of of spirits lurking around get too too deep,

then they start having to manifest elsewhere. And then you could even like maybe tie

that in with ideas of like the snow women who are just like beautiful women who like lure men off of the the paths

to freeze to death in some legends and in others they uh seem like normal women

for the most part, but as soon as you find out they're secret, they turn into a cloud of snow and disappear or whatever. The Japanese monsters are so

[ __ ] weird and I love them. Yeah, every one of them is a horrifying nightmare monstrosity. No, they sound like snow sirens like

Yeah, basically. Yeah, they've got like um some siren type things on there.

Although there there's also like a an underlying idea of like secretivism

where it's just like you're keeping this secret that you are a snowwoman. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's

that's the lure, right? They don't they're not like beautiful singers or something. They're just women. No, just

beautiful ladies in kimono standing in a snowbank distributing

no system of government. Um,

Dongj, which I am pronouncing terribly. I'm just going to say there's no way you're pronouncing that right.

Dongjong Dong um happens around the solstice.

Uhhuh. It is very much similar to things like uh Ule and like the uh longest

night type festivals. Um and the thing that I love about this one is that families get together to eat dumplings.

That's good enough reason for an entire holiday. Hey, it's dumpling day.

Get in here. Yeah. Just like the 21st of December every year is dumpling day and I'm down.

Like this is a holiday I think I'm going to start celebrating. I'm I'm trying to get someone to go out for dim sum on Saturday just to eat

dumplings. Have you ever done

Jewish Christmas? Oh, Chinese food on Christmas. Yes. Yeah, it's the best.

Yeah, it's awesome. Uh first of all, I vastly prefer like random mall Chinese

food to like turkey. Like I don't mind turkey, but like the best

Okay, turkeyy's fine. The best part of the meal is the side dishes. The turkey itself is just a vehicle for

cranberry sauce. Just give me an entire plate full of stuffing. Yeah. Yeah. Stuffing my mashed potatoes cuz

they are bangers and pumpkin pie. Okay. But the best Christmas dinner I

ever had was JP [ __ ] and his mom took me

out for hot pot. Oh yeah. In Edmonton. And it was [ __ ] great.

It was the best meal I had had in a very long time. It was like a hot pot buffet

where you just like rolled up, grabbed whatever you want, threw it in your broth, and it was an all you could eat type deal.

Oh, that sounds great. You know, honestly, we need to shout out JP like a lot more.

Check him out at Johnny Cockart Art. J AO H N I K O K Art. I have like three of

his pieces. I'm still I keep forgetting to get them framed, but they will be up in my new house as soon as I can get

them framed. But yeah, his art's phenomenal. He's great. He like I have known the I

don't know if you know this. I went to junior high with that guy accidentally. I did not know that. Yeah. So, we went

to the same weird tiny Christian school on like the fringes of Edmonton at back

when Ellersley Road was like the boonies. Um, we that's where we first met and then reconnected years later

because he was like adopted by a family at the church and that's where he grew up. Um,

but yeah, no, awesome dude. His art continues to improve and uh just find

new ways to inspire me. He does this like glitch pop style that he kind of invented.

Um, yeah, gorgeous work. I I haven't talked to JP in many many years, but uh always very

very kind and easy. I see him at every convention. So, okay. Well, tell him I said hi.

He he once paid me for pizza with art, so Oh, good. That sounds very much like JB.

Yeah. Uh, so anyway, the the the thing with this

holiday, like the reason that dumplings are a thing is apparently there was a nobleman who was going through town and noticed that like a bunch of people had

frostbite on their ears. Mhm. And as a like guard against frostbite,

he insisted that they all get dumplings. Incredible solution. What a forward

thinker. Love the man. I agree. Like well done, guy. You came up with the right answer, which is more

dumplings. Yeah, that solves most problems in life.

And I love the idea of there being a yearly festival that you could go to.

Okay, so like I'm I'm a big fan of like persistent buffs. I like the idea of like having buffs that last for a really

long time. Um, imagine doing like a yearly festival where you get like a plus one bonus to

any kind of like cold resistance because you ate the [ __ ] dumplings. Perfect.

Perfect. Right. And just like it it's got like such a beautiful little cultural

touchstone to it of just like this is a thing that you do every year. If you forget to do it or you miss it that

year, you eat dumplings on the wrong day, then you don't get your plus one bonus. Yeah. It's like a stupid little bonus,

but you should do it because you know you're at a distinct disadvantage otherwise. It's like you're not going to

die, but like it's worse. Your life is worse. I did also write the idea of frostbite

demons who steal body parts unless you give them offerings, which I think is just

just like you wake up with like a black missing piece of your body and like half

of your dumplings are gone. That's terrible.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't even know how I would like mechanically represent the missing body

parts other than like oh there's hit point loss or something there there was a chart I remember was

it back in fourth edition or something it was one of the ones it was specifically designed to like represent

like p persistent wounds um right so like I think you could like lose a

foot and your speed was like permanently reduced by five feet or something like that things like that um

if you lost an eye, you were at like a negative one to perception roles, stuff like that.

H um but yeah, there's there's plenty of tables out there like that.

That feels like a lot more work than I want to go through for a silly joke

about frostbite demons. Yeah. Yeah. Just like you you didn't eat the

dumplings on the wrong right day and so the frostbite demons came and stole your toes.

Yeah. Fair. Um, Korea has I'm going to murder this

pronunciation. Solo

solo. Solo. Well, cuz I can see what we call soul. Solo.

Solo. Damn it. Yeah. Continue.

It is a several day celebration where everybody is wearing hanbok and I am not

familiar with hanbok as a dress. I'm assuming that that's like robes.

That's that's the traditional Korean dress. Yeah. Also, uh turns out it's pronounced sea

lol. I don't know if anybody has noticed, but

neither Josh nor I speaks Korean. I I have like several Korean friends,

too, and I'm just It's not happening. We are posting this directly to them.

Stephen, I'm so sorry, Sarah. I'd like to apologize.

Uh, what I liked about this one is that ancestors are particularly close. So,

they come into your households. Yeah. They're like weirdly picky. They They

don't like mean you any harm because they are your ancestors. But, but they are critical of you because

they're your ancestors. Okay. Yes. So like great great grandpa is like

I did not survive several wars just for you to have a house this gross. You you can't get away from like the

judgmental Korean parent stereotype even in their death.

[Laughter] Um oh man. Yeah. Okay. Well I like the idea that like the

spirit like the spirits are back and just like you know I

I don't know if you'd want to do it as something like a like a uh

something goes horribly wrong when all the spirits are back and they might be stuck here and not be able to get back to heaven or like

uh the spirits are back and boy are they angry. I don't know.

Well, one of the the options that I have here is like a winter ghost market. Uh,

so like every year the ancestors come back and they're able to trade things from the spirit realm to the physical

and back because like the the veil is thin or whatever.

Yeah. And like things from the material world would have different value to the

spirits. So like my my conceptualization of this would be like things that have a

lot of like emotional weight to them, right? If you've invested emotional weight in them, those are the items that

are going to be worth the most. So like gold is going to get you nothing, right? They don't care. They what what

are they going to spend it on? But like your childhood blankie that you have had in your backpack your entire

goddamn life, you could buy a mansion for that. Yeah. or or or like things that the

ancestors haven't been around to experience that they'd want to like, hey, here's the photo journal of our

trip to Disneyland with the kids this summer. Like, and then you could combo them, too,

where it's like, here is my grandfather's stopwatch, which my great great-grandfather wants because

stopwatches weren't invented then, right? Right under. Yeah.

Yeah. There's I I I want to sorry I need to step back for a second. Is your idea with these

like things that happen for like one or two sessions like to sort of coincide with like hey this is just like a

holiday thing that's happening right now or are you saying like try to set like a whole small campaign in them?

I think you could do either, right? Like depending on the type of tradition that

we're looking at, right? Like this one is going to be several days, right? So, there are a lot of opportunities to

interact with the spirit world and have like a spirit world campaign. Things are happening in the spirit world. You've

got like trade that's happening. You've got um like ancestral stuff going on. So, you could do a lot of interesting

things with like fate or like things that your great-grandparents set in motion. And now that this like ritual

time has happened, they're able to communicate that to you and have expectations about how you're going to

enact that, right? Like there there's so much room in ritual and room in superstition and

room in these like observances. Yeah. For world building on a bigger scale.

But also like you can just keep it micro. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like what I wanted to

sort of like impart is is the idea that like you could use this to sort of um

play with the like the concept of time in like cuz so a problem that I've often

run into especially like even in the last campaign we were playing was that like you do stuff and it takes a while

to do like IRL and then you think about how much time was actually spent in game and you're like oh we've only been on

this adventure for like a week, right? And so if it's one of those things where like you're trying to do a larger

campaign, thinking like, hey, so let's let's just use your like spirit market example for a minute. You know,

in a month like the spirits are going to be close and you can make deals like this. Well, what if that's your

opportunity to right now go and do some like soouththing, adventuring, dungeon

exploring, whatever, to find some of these valuable memoryfilled items to

then trade for information with the spirit realm, like pertinent to the the particular, you know, BBEG you're

chasing or whatever it happens to be. and and sort of set that like anchor in

the future for your party because I I often find like they sit you sit down,

you go into a dungeon and you're like we were there for 3 days and then it's like well then what happens and then we run across the entire continent where you

just sort of like fade to black for a week and it's like well now you're in this other place and then everything happens in the course of 20 minutes and

then you have like one conversation and it's like well I guess we go to bed and wake up and run across the continent to the next dungeon and like feel Like I

doing the math on the time we spent traveling and the time we actually spent like

doing things in my last campaign. The whole adventure

was completed like inside of two months. And that included running all the way back and forth across like Neverwinter.

Like and the only time we did things was when we got to specific points where it

was like, yeah, we we cleared out this fort in an hour and a half, you know, and then we left. Like

it's it's I feel like there's Okay, so I think there's a couple of things at play there. One is that I feel like published

adventures are very like point by point. Yeah. Right. So you have a point of interest

and then you have travel. But travel at most is going to get like a wandering monster role.

Right. If you're still rolling with those rules. But like the travel itself you just kind of gloss over.

Yeah. Right. Where depending on who it is you're playing with. Um myself I try to

make it the travel portion of a thing as important as the events that you are

reaching because those are opportunities to have conversations with your colleagues. That's opportunities for

exploration. That's opportunities for world building. Like there's so much stuff that you can fit into travel that

I don't think they have the opportunity to put into a published campaign as much.

Right. Well, no. Like, so the point I was getting at was sort of like you can like let's say you know this market is

coming in a month and you know where like four items are, but looking at the

map where they are, you you could get to like like this item will take about a week to acquire

between getting there, doing the thing, coming back. This item will take a week to acquire. This item is going to take

like two weeks, but there's a far it's going to be like

easier to find stuff like that. So you can start like putting in those sort of choices where it's like, okay, your budget is 30 days.

How are you going to spend those days trying to accomplish these goals, right? um and sort of make like remind people

like the the a thing I see happen all the time is that and and this is like

exacerbated by combat but parties forget that like the world is moving around them

and things don't just come to an absolute standstill while they deliberate like that's something I try

to like put into more games these days is like yeah you sat there trying to talk to this bartender for 20 minutes

rolling failing your roles and the you half glance this hooded figure slip out

the back door that was there like and now he's gone like yep you you missed

him well and like I think on on a bigger scale right like the the idea of the

world continuing around you being marked by holidays is huge

right because like I have the ADHDs and time means nothing

to me for the vast majority of my life. Like I very rarely have a clear concept

of like how many days I have to like before a thing. Yeah. Unless I actually like sit down and do

the math about it. Yeah. So because your brain says there is now and not now and that's it.

Yeah. And not now doesn't matter. Um but holidays give me some anchoring,

right? So, like I I don't celebrate Christmas, but the fact that Christmas is coming and the fact that we have

defrosted Mariah Carey and like that those songs are now playing in the mall

when I go shopping, is a cue to me that the world is still turning. Yeah. Right. That things are still going on

even if I'm not directly involved with them. And I have an opportunity to engage with those because I know that

they're happening. And I think that's also true for characters in your D and D worlds where

like we we have these events and unfortunately I don't think that a lot of thought is necessarily put into

regular holidays in role playing games. Like I know that um Forgotten Realms has

a lot like they do have a lot of holidays that are laid out. I don't know how many people are

actually utilizing those on a regular basis. Almost none. I I can tell you right now there's almost none. Like, yeah, it's

like when you look at the index of a book and there's a bunch of tables of things that could happen and you're

like, "Wow, look at all these alternative gods." Anyways, ill matter. And just like go right back to like the

same six gods that have existed forever. Yeah. Until they put one of those

festivals into a printed adventure, no one is going to pay attention to it, you know? Like they're just not. There's

It's stupid. really lost opportunity cuz like holidays are great world building.

Like a holiday provides a really great anchor to what your world values.

Yeah. Right. Even just with the the ones that we've been looking at so far, most of the winter holidays are about

some form of rebirth. The end of the like shortening days, the longer

nights and the beginning of short like longer days and warmer days and things

coming back. The sun is returning, you know, the the snow is melting, stuff like that.

Yeah. So, like a moon goddess ain't going to be about that.

That there are going to be cultural points that you can reach based

on the types of things that people celebrate and how they choose to celebrate them. Yeah. Um, and you can learn.

I mean, she might she might be all about like a lunar new year, you know, like that's the the restarting of her cycle.

Oh, for sure. And like even if we just go back to like the the KFC

example that we had at this like the the top of the episode. Yeah. The fact that Japan celebrates Christmas

with a fast food option that is different from the fast food option in

Canada. Right. Right. Like ours is mostly Coca-Cola, theirs is mostly Pepsi. Sorry, it's mostly KFC.

Yeah. the like differences in the way that that

holiday is expressed become huge off of that one small difference.

Yeah. Right. Also the like very complicated history of Christianity in Japan. But

like the the the celebration of the like secular

holiday of Christmas Yeah. is very different based on the the cultural context that came out of that.

And so you could have the exact same holiday to ill matter in two different places celebrated in completely

different ways, which gives you such great insight into how those peoples interact with that information and

interact with their world. Well, and and even if you think about like um gods

that are more specific to like certain races and stuff like that, um like uh

like Moridan um if if you want to Okay, let's compare

what Moran's got going on to like you mentioned here like uh indigenous North American nations had like

uh there's one here was like uh story time essentially like

winter is story time, but a lot of that comes from like, well, the weather has

now forced us indoors for a while, right? Well, dwarves are kind of always indoors. So, what what does their

holiday cycle revolve around, right? Like, a lot of the the

touchstones for major holidays in almost every ethnic tradition have to do with

the changing of the seasons. What do holidays look like for a race that could

go years without noticing a change of season, right? Like,

yeah, their halls are deep, you know, they they might not come out to the outside

world for a decade or more. So, what does their passage of time, what what is

that indicated by? So when the dwarf comes out for the first time, if he sees his shadow, I

knew you're in. [Laughter]

No, it's it's a good question. I think that like understanding what the culture

is and how that culture runs, I think there would probably be

like more focus on the way that stone reacts to

weather. Right? Like the the changing of the seasons doesn't just happen on a surface

level. The the ground itself also cools and that has an effect deeper down as

well. And the way that like the the sedimentary rock happens, the changes to the way that like noise carries

underground, right? Like there there's a lot of things that you could notice and and focus on. I'm not a geologist, so I

don't know what all of those would be, but it would be kind of a fun thing to try and like Well, that's that's what I'm saying,

though, is that like the things you're talking about mostly have to do with like perafrost. And frankly, once you're

below 10 ft, that [ __ ] doesn't matter. Yeah, that's so like the dwarves are definitely more

than 10 feet down. you know, they have the the heat of their their forges and their hearths and the earth itself that

kind of keeps it always warm in a lot of places. Um,

but like time also functions differently for longived races like them. Like if

you look at like let's say like like uh Tolken elves who are like literally

immortal what what does a holiday mean for them when centuries are a blink of an eye for

them you know uh yeah not a lot of Christmases in

No but that's just it like what what is important enough for them to do regularly and why do they do it

regularly and what is the indicator that this time is coming Right. So,

yeah, I mean maybe Yeah, maybe they do have a an extended

cycle of holidays, but those holidays are much larger and much more important,

but their reason behind them might be even more mundane. like yeah they have this celebration once a century but it's

super important to remind people that a century has passed so that they don't just sort of like go crazy thinking

about infinity you know um well and even if they like yeah like that that reminder of time but

also just like passages of ages right and like the the accumulation of

knowledge and I'm sure there are a lot of things that

happen on like 10, 20, 100 year cycles that you wouldn't necessarily notice

unless you did live that long. Well, what one thing I've thought about

before is that like elves like elves who want to interact with the

world around them and the mortal races around them probably have to have a lot

more like prompts in their lives or reminders that they need to like make a

decision or do something. like they can't literally take forever to think about it because like some like first of

all there's certain things that are just like urgent like this has to be dealt with tomorrow or this week or this month

but also like you can't just sit there and ponder a problem for years because the people involved might die you know

like stuff like that you need to watch free um like the the first episode starts with

like a a big celebration that is happening because of a

uh like a big bad evil guy got wrecked. Okay. And

they're talking about like her missing something important and she's like, "I'll just catch it on the next one."

And the guys laugh and they're like, "The next one's in 50 years." And she's like, "Cool, I'll see you in 50 years, I guess."

Like just absolute dead pan cuz for her that's like a year.

It's a whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Yeah. It's literally not even significant. And like they're like, "I won't make it to that one. Like I'm 50 already." like,

well, she comes back and like all of her friends are old now. Yeah. Yeah.

It's it's exactly that thing of like she she didn't have the like urgent

reminders on her phone letting her know that time is passing. And uh because of

that, a lot of time passed all at once. Well, it's it's like the thing from um

Invincible where like Omnimat's like you're like a pet to me. Like Yeah.

You're gonna die. I'll see you later. Well, and I mean I wonder also like the

scale of an elven celebration being different. Like can you imagine

when an elf turns a thousand what that party's going to look like, right? And also maybe a thousand's not

that big of a deal. Well, no. I'm just imagining like a thousand being the equivalent of an

elf's birthday. I guess. Yeah. And it's not a birthday, it's a birth

year. Yeah. And they get cranked for that entire

year. Cuz [ __ ] it, we ball. Yeah, cuz Hey. Oh no, I wasted a year.

Big deal. We have a whole bunch more of these and I think we should probably do some more next week. Yeah,

I think we can bring it up in part two.

Hey, thanks for making it all the way through this episode of Noplotonly Lore.

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