The Dungeon Master's Guide first mentions festivals in terms in relation to gods. Specifically in most D&D worlds people are polytheistic and festivals can be for various gods, often occurring at temples. (Mearls, 10). It makes sense too as many festivals and holidays in our own world have religious origins or at least aspects. In a practical sense too, a Game Master (G.M.)/ Dungeon Master (D.M.) can just say a celebration is happening at the temple of the God it's about.
If you use a calendar for a campaign, festivals can be a way to help track parts of the year. Older cultures would track the winter solstice, modern American culture tracks Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Institutions such as school will give time off for people specifically to allow them to engage in these holidays. I know from personal experience the same goes for Mardi Gras in Louisiana.
Some towns might celebrate a festival more than others as well, or it might just be a regional celebration. Do not be hesitant to draw off of real world celebrations or even copy them for your campaign. I know for my Abrana setting I made a rough outline of a festival like Carnival in Venice. I also knew that the people in the burghs outside the city celebrated the end of the harvest.
A major point about festivals are why people celebrate them. You do not have to give a detailed backstory on the history of a festival, but some insight into its nature will help give life to your setting. Let us make up a rough outline for a festival. To be fun about it we will base the festival around drinking; we will draw loosely from Oktoberfest and St. Patrick's Day.
If we want a religious aspect of it we can ascribe it to a God of Revelry like Dionysus, or have it be a celebration of an event in the past. The celebration can have reenactments, sermons, or subtle symbols. E.G. if the festival is honoring a past war won, then have drinks with the colors of the nation's flag and a mass mock battle for players to compete in for prizes.
That is another thing, leave options for your players to participate in the celebration if they want to. Some players like to carouse and others do not. One thing you could do for the hypothetical festival we are using, make the players do a drinking contest. The players place bets and roll constitution saving throws against each other and N.P.C.s. After each round increase the difficulty class. The winner gets all the items/ currency betted. You can even have the event be considered illegal in the particular town the party is in, so they then need to escape from a police raid after the contest. I am certain you will have players trying to steal from the bet pile before leaving.
The general idea is creating a theme for the players to interact with in some way. People are not going to want to hear about a fun festival; they want to see it. Also as stated, some players do not like to spend time in towns even if there is a festival occurring. That is the reason why you should not spend too much time outlining the backstory of a celebration. Highlighting certain key features is all you will need to set a scene, "You all arrive at the village and see bushels of wheat layered on numerous carts. In the center of the town peasants string lanterns up on cheap hemp rope. A cleric is standing in the center of town placing purple and yellow paint on their face with an expensive robe and scythe placed to the side. Children run around a maypole and the tavern is hurriedly rolling extra barrels out to tap."
If the party wants to ask people locals about the festival they can. The locals might not even know why they celebrate a festival, it is just tradition. Try asking people at random why we celebrate St. Patrick's day. Very few know the history, but many enjoy the celebration all the same.
That is all for this week, thanks for reading.
Work Cited
Mearls, Mike, James Crawford, et. al. Dungeon Master's Guide. U.S.A.: Wizard's of the Coast. LLC, December 2014. Print.
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