Do you know of anything like AoC but that feels less contrived? I often spend the most time understanding the problem requirements because they are so arbitrary - like the worst kind of boardgame! Maybe I should go pick up some OSS tickets...

Being contrived, with puns or other weirdness is kinda on par for this kind of problems. Almost every programming competition I've ever been to have those kind of jokes.

Just a random example: https://open.kattis.com/problems/magicallights

But the Kattis website is great. The program runs on their server without you getting to know the input (you just get right/wrong back), so a bit different. But also then gives you memory and time constraints which you for the more difficult problems must find your way out of.

Take a look at Everybody Codes. It occurs in November instead of December, so this year is wrapping up. Like AoC, it is story based but maybe you'll find the problem extraction more to your liking.

https://everybody.codes/events