[Reviewer's Note: this was supposed to have been posted last year, but apparently wound up in the "lost batch" of reviews. I just now realized this, after searching the review database for my review of this product, so I'm posting it again.]
Every holiday season, the various networks and cable channels start airing various Christmas-themed TV episodes, movies, and specials. Most are not that noteworthy, and pass into obscurity. But a few (A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life, the Peanuts special) stand out from the rest, and become classics. The adventure "Santa's Secret" is the gaming equivalent of one of these Christmas movies or specials, and from my experience it has the makings of becoming a classic.
"Santa's Secret" is an adventure for the Gatecrasher RPG. For those who don't know, Gatecrasher is a humorous, post-apocalyptic SF-fantasy RPG using the FUDGE game mechanics (The FUDGE mechanics alone are available for free download on the net). This has a number of advantages in the case of this adventure. First of all, FUDGE is simple enough that new players have little trouble grasping it. Second of all, the light-hearted nature of the setting means that the sillier elements of the adventure (Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Laser-nosed Reindeer) don't stand out too much. Third, the nature of Earth (as opposed to the other planets of the Solar System) in the Gatecrasher setting allows for both the general low-tech "generic-fantasy-RPG" feel, as well as the enclave of high-technology found at the north pole. Thus, the adventure fits into this setting better than a similar adventure would fit into most settings. However, this doesn't really matter for most players, who probably don't have Gatecrasher, as this adventure is meant to be a stand-alone, even containing all the necessary rules in the back.
The basic premise is rather clever, as all good Christmas specials should be. A young boy, attempting to be more rational about the whole Santa Claus thing than he probably should have been, came to the conclusion that Santa has a secret network of spies, hidden cameras, and such, and is constantly spying on children (for the purpose of determining naughtiness and niceness). This idea spread, and due to the unique nature of the setting, gave rise to Santa's "Evil Twin" who is, in many ways, the personification of the commercialization of Christmas (only giving toys to the rich kids, making toys in a series so that kids want to buy them all, and so on). This allows the adventure to put its own nasty twists on Christmas traditions. For instance, the Elves are now slaves, guarded by Orc guards, and the evil Santa (known as "Santa Claws") has robot reindeer (who are rather tough in a fight--my players learned to dread these creatures). The player characters, of course, must journey to the North Pole and rescue Santa. However, I noticed that there was no introductory scene in which this goal is spelled out explicitly. Each character is given reasons why he or she would want to rescue Santa, but there's no scene in which Mrs. Claus (or whoever) explicitly states that the PCs should go rescue Santa. Thus, I ended up writing an introductory scene set in a Generic Fantasy Bar and involving a band of Orcs, that served to both introduce the game system (in a civilized area where healing would be available should it be needed) and introduce the players to Mrs. Claus and explain the situation to them.
Once the adventure actually begins, things are a bit more clear-cut, although there's plenty of room for embellishment. If it weren't for the fact that I had a relatively short time to run the game in (the players were all family members, whom I'd flown home to visit) I could have easily added various side-quests or additional obstacles, turning the adventure from a movie into a holiday miniseries. In general, it follows the traditional trek through the wilderness, then enter stronghold, then overcome boss pattern common in fantasy games, but always with Christmas-oriented and/or humorous twists. While the adventure (deliberately) has all the cliches (from the Orcs in their time-honored role as cannon fodder, to the Naked Slave Girl(tm) held Princess-Leia-like in the evil Santa's stronghold), there are enough variations from the norm that they don't seem too overpowering, and indeed are oddly comforting, like knowing that the kid will scream "FUUUUUUUUUUDGE" in The Christmas Story, because you've seen it fifty times already. One nice thing about this adventure is that a lot of the obstacles the characters will face can explicitly be solved without violence. For instance, there's one rather powerful monster who's in a really nasty mood. However, compassionate players can actually cure what ails him, and he'll become an ally (of course, less-compassionate players are free to hack away at him, should they choose to do so).
As far as game mechanics go, they all fit on four and a half pages in the back. No rules for character creation are given, but there are five pre-generated characters that fit the traditional adventuring roles (with twists--such as having the fireball-chucking mage be a miniature dragon) who are powerful enough to succeed in the quest, but not overpowering. Of course, GMs who own Gatecrasher (as I do) are free to use any of the rules that they deem fit, and those proficient with FUDGE may...um...Fudge anything they want to. My players had little trouble grasping the simple, yet flexible FUDGE dice mechanics, and they quickly learned to grimace when they rolled a lot of -'s, and cheer at the 's. All the characters had their uses, with the possible exception of the Elven bard, whose skills were better suited for an urban environment, and who generally wound up just shooting arrows at bad guys.
As far as production values go, it's clearly a small-company creation. There's no art to speak of except for a few pieces of generic clip art (pictures of Santa Claus are easy to come by. Pictures of elves and werebears fighting orcs and robots at the north pole are not) and the maps. The maps, though, are reasonably good, in a style reminiscent of old dungeon modules (complete with a square grid and scale, even though the game doesn't really need them), and with a nifty, "Olde-World" font that doesn't seem out of place. The monster stats are in grey-shaded boxes, making them stand out and be easily located, which helped a lot during play. The overall layout is servicable, but nothing fancy.
Reading through the adventure is all well and good, but what really matters is how it works when it's actually played. I ran the adventure at my family Christmas party (where it probably would have done even better had it not been competing with my DVD of Princess Mononoke for the attention of any relatives with a more or less geekish streak). We used the pre-generated characters, rather than trying to create custom ones. I was pleased to see that not only did all my players instantly take a liking to a particular character (and, luckily enough, nobody picked the same character) but they had no trouble getting into character. Possibly, this is due to the distinctiveness of the characters. The werebear, the wyvern, and the angel were more interesting to the players than the elf and the dwarf, perhaps due to being less "generic." I was also pleased to see the players using their brains rather than their dice. They dealt with the Orcs that I threw into the beginning of the game by tricking them (although a fight did eventually break out, mainly because I wanted to introduce the combat system). This is especially good considering that my youngest player was 11, and another one was 14, and younger players are often the ones accused of being the most hack-and-slash oriented. The players also made good use of the character's abilities (which were described fairly well on the character sheets--for instance the Werebear's sheet not only mentioned that he's a Werebear, but also what effects that has in play). Most importantly, though, everyone had a lot of fun playing it, and indeed they want me to run something again next time I come to visit. This, I feel, is the big success, as it got some people (including a couple of kids--we're always trying to attract young people to the hobby) interested in roleplaying games, and used a system and setting that is very much not combat-centric (thus avoiding the bad habits that certain other RPGs can instill on new players).
All in all, Santa's Secret is a fine adventure to run at a family Christmas party, or any other gathering where a holiday-themed RPG would be appropriate. For only 5 bucks (plus cost of dice. The game uses percentile dice, which can be simulated, Sherpa-style, using a stopwatch, and FUDGE dice, which can be improvised) it can't be beat as a fun diversion for experienced gamers, or as a great introduction to roleplaying (perhaps to accompany a Christmas gift of a roleplaying game).
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