It's that time of year again. Time for the annual update to my Christmas movie RPG A Christmas Belonging. And this year it's a big one! First, and most importantly, I commissioned art for each of the 11 character roles you can play! They really bring the game to life, and capture the spirit of diversity that I want the game to embody (and that actual Christmas movies often lack). I found elmiron randomly on tumblr, and she turned out to be the best person I could imagine to work with! You can see more of her work at https://www.tumblr.com/elmiron-vanilla

Last month I took the game to Metatopia, a game design convention in Morristown, NJ. I got a lot of good feedback and ideas, and met some enthusiastic players. With their advice, I completely revamped town creation to be quicker, easier, and more connected to the story you create. Pretty much all the text has been reworked to provide more guidance and inspiration. New sections include advice for roleplaying romance, a guide for setting and playing out scenes, and a list of common Christmas movie tropes for the uninitiated.

I've probably put far more work than is necessary into this game, but I want it to be the best game that it can. It's not some parody, or a D&D adventure with a lazy coat of holiday paint on it as a cash in. It's a type of game that I wanted to play, but didn't really exist when I started making it. It's something that you can play with your family who may not really get RPGs, but at least get Christmas movies. It's an attempt to make a better version of a type of media that very often falls short in who and what it portrays. And I'm proud of it. And I'm happy to say I think I'm (mostly, pretty much) finished with it. It's finally what I want it to be.

I hope you play it. I hope you enjoy it. And I hope you share it with somebody else.

(P.S. - You can take out all the Christmas-y stuff and play this game at any time of year)