Operation: S.A.N.T.A.

Event Description:

Commander John Blitzen and his team of Reindeer comman-does are the best of the best. Fawned over by the public, his team has never failed a mission. Coming home from a Stag party, the team has discovered that their fat red boss has been kidnapped. Now the team must infiltrate the Castle Gnomicon, overthrow G.N.O.M.E. and rescue their holly jolly leader.

Santa’s Notes:

Version 1 of the character sheets and rules, and boy does it show. I whipped up the character sheet template in all of about 5 minutes in Pages.  I’m pleased with how much of the original rules design still is used today, including the toughness system and several of the special abilities.

The evil organization G.N.O.M.E. was based off of the  faction “The Gnomes of Zurich” from Steve Jackson’s Illuminati, which is a real-life slang term for Swiss Bankers.  Of course, in Operation Santa land, they are literal Gnomes, though Castle Gnomicon was described as being in the Swiss Alps. It wasn’t until 2012 that I finally came up with the phrase that G.N.O.M.E. was an acronym for: “GNostic Order of Mercenary Elves”.

Character Sheets:

Notable Quotes:

“It’s like chess – You gotta yell ‘Grenade to Prancer-8.” JS

“I rolled a 3.”
“Better than me.”
“Yeah, but I’m throwing grenades.” JM & JM

“No, it’s all right. Go ahead. To be honest, it’s probably better if you kill me now before I can take revenge.” C

“I’m wearing a pink tutu filled with blades. There’s not a lot of ____ manhood here.”
“There’s _____ manhood under the tutu.”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty short tutu.” JS & CF

“Some people have the innate ability to cower in the corner heroically” RT

“Just whittle away all the parts that don’t look like a corpse.” JM

“One thing me and my Glock know – it’s better to give than to receive. Especially when it comes to gut wounds.” C

“Is anybody gonna help with the gnogre over here and his supercommando buddy?”
“You distract them with your highly pulverizable flesh while we take out Rudolph.” RT & __