A few weeks ago, I was complaining that there weren’t enough Christmas games. Or, rather, there aren’t enough Christmas games other than public domain jigsaw puzzle shovelware slop made for young children and me when I’m sad. There are also a lot of weird NSFW anime but even I’ve stayed away from that subgenre because, really, do I need to get sadder? Most people who’ve met me would say no!
So I decided to get sadder anyway and start a new run of Baldur’s Gate 3 as Santa Claus. I would love to say that I did this ironically, but I really do enjoy Christmas. So that was one of the first criteria: it actually had to be Santa Claus. Not just a guy that looked like Santa Claus. Not a ripped Santa Claus. Or, like, bad Santa dangerous! I’m an adult, okay? So I’m going be mature about the Santa Claus I’m designing in my cute little character generator on my adorable little gaming laptop. I wanted to create a character that looked like the real Santa Claus and would – in need of survival – fight like him if he woke up on a ship run by squid people.
Making Santa Is Harder Than I Thought
Somehow this was not as easy as I thought it would be. First of all: It is surprisingly hard to pull off the classic Thomas Nast-style Santa Claus. Especially because that version contrasts with a lot of the language in Clement Clarke Moore’s original A Visit From St. Nicholas Poem. And the real St. Nicholas? Man, he looked gaunt as hell while he was walking around ancient Turkey resurrecting children killed by serial killers. That’s not me doing a bit. Look up the legend of St. Nicholas! It’s wild! Anyway, so, sorry, it was hard to know what to go with.
My first thought was: He’s a jolly old elf. But elves can’t really have beards. Humans can, but then in this game they just look kind of like skinny dudes with beards. I’m not shooting for “grandpa’s Poker friends in Boca.” That’s not Santa. That’s not Santa at all.
I get that you can apply all the needed attributes to Santa by choosing either elves or humans or half-elves, etc, etc, and so on and so forth, but they didn’t look right to me in the character creator. Nor, surprisingly, did a dwarf take on Santa, who looked like an even more jacked Incredible Hulk. Too angry! But I still wanted kind of a stout Santa, a merry-looking guy with a body proportion similar to my own. Gnomes were too creepy. Everything, as always with gnomes, just felt wrong. Halfling it had to be. Santa is like Wolverine: He should be a little stocky.
I went with a warlock for a couple reasons – yes – partly because his default outfit was red and that felt like less work for me. High Charisma is useful. Folk hero who loves animals. Devil’s Sight so he can see you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake within a distance of 24 meters. It also allowed me to choose powers that gave me the ability to freeze people to death (winter theme) and strike them back with fire when they hit me – kind of a “coal in your stocking” type response to naughtiness. This is something I actually spent time on, and you were either going to learn about it this way or from reading an obituary that contained the phrases “surprising nobody” and “while he was playing Baldur’s Gate 3.”
Making Krampus Is Worse
At first, it kind of wasn’t working. It’s been a while since I started a new BG3 game and I forgot it’s about an hour and a half before you get any real freedom to explore. So – during that opening sequence – I got bored, saved my game, and had the brilliant idea to take a few steps back and make a Krampus character instead. I’m not usually a big Krampus person – he feels kind of tacked on as a holiday villain. You almost feel bad for Krampus.
But somehow, it made sense to me to start another new game as Krampus. This would be more fun because I could just tear stuff up rather than roleplaying good. I chose the Dark Urge, because, why not? That seems to make sense. And to keep it separate from the Santa Claus I’d built, I made Krampus a monk with green skin and red eyes because of Christmas. Either way, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone by finally doing a Dark Urge run where I was completely evil.
At least it seemed like a good idea. There’s a point early in the game where, as a Dark Urge character, you can do something pretty crazy awful to a major NPC. So I did that. And then I kept that body part in my pocket. And I was like, “Yeah, this is Krampus.” But, at the same time, when I’d met Astarion, even in our first conversation he made me feel like a loser for trying to go full Christmas goth. So I switched back to the Santa Claus save.
Santa Is The Best Way To Play Baldur’s Gate
And so here I am, playing as the Santa Claus of literature and movie fame. Astarion is both figuratively and literally my Christmas elf. We are partners. We are reverse pickpocketing people, leaving behind some extra gold or a loose mug or candlestick for their troubles. Mostly this is being done in drawers rather than on the people themselves. Nevertheless. We try to help children first. For some reason, Lae’zel is cooler about the whole situation than Shadowheart.
Honestly, it’s been really good so far. It’s more fun than it should be. Because I’m playing him the way I imagine Santa: very giving, very loving, maybe slightly naive at times. As I leveled him up, I gave him the basic spell Sleep because it seemed to go in-character with what he does for children. While attempting to sneak into a place, Santa put the guard to sleep. Then I had Astarion slit the guy’s throat. Everybody reacts to Santa Claus like he’s kind of stupid: which is what happens in Christmas movies! They always treat the hero like he’s an idiot for believing in joy or whatever. Then the hero is proven right about joy or whatever!
I’m almost definitely not going to finish this run before Christmas and then, who knows what comes after that? But I want to take on the Absolute with a cup of mulled wine and some peppermint cheer. I want Raphael to feel like he’s getting the better part of his underhanded deals – because he is. That’s just how giving Santa Claus is! I’ve already had to make a few questionable decisions as the big man, who is actually a little man. I get that some people have died because of my mistakes. That’s the burden I carry like a sack of toys. But, I can do that. As Santa, I’m going to show them that the real mind worm is the holiday spirit.
- Top Critic Rating:96/100
