Download Critical Role’s New RPG Quickstart

The QuickStart rules for Critical Role’s upcoming game, Candela Obscura, powered by their new Illuminated Worlds system, is available as a free download in advance of the livestream of the game which starts this week.

Candela Obscura – Darrington Press

darringtonpress.com

Candela Obscura (bestowed the hashtag #CandelaObscura) is a new tabletop roleplaying game that places you in the roles of investigators working for an esoteric order. In this game of gothic horror, individuals of varied talents are brought together under the organization Candela Obscura. You’ll pursue strange occurrences and encounter dangerous magicks, fighting back against a mysterious source of corruption and bleed. Candela Obscura is the first to use the Illuminated Worlds System, a newly designed system that uses 6-sided dice and lends itself to narrative, arc-driven play.

 

[Aldarc]

I find this whole shift interesting.
Chaosium has been in the business of system/stories since the 70's, I daresay they are the OG of existential/cosmic/Lovecraftian horror TTRPG. So what's the point of CO? I get the sense that CR is shifting (smartly for their own branding) away from D&D; just don't see the point of this new game when others in the market have been at it longer (and better). I guess to each her own.

OG in a genre is not the only way to play a genre.

 

[SteveC]

I find this whole shift interesting.
Chaosium has been in the business of system/stories since the 70's, I daresay they are the OG of existential/cosmic/Lovecraftian horror TTRPG. So what's the point of CO? I get the sense that CR is shifting (smartly for their own branding) away from D&D; just don't see the point of this new game when others in the market have been at it longer (and better). I guess to each her own.

I think that's an easy answer: not everyone likes the CoC rules. I first played it back in 1981 I think (the year it launched) and it has aged. Blades in the Dark is very much the hot system at the moment, and I think a lot of people are interested in it. Mind you, I don't know what to make of Critical Role's take on it yet, but it is definitely designed with today's play styles in mind.

I'd argue there's more room in the world of horror RPGs because there aren't exactly a ton of them that people are aware of.

 

[Queer Venger]

Because they get to make the money from sales of the game they're promoting/playing on the stream instead of handing money to other people.

Ahh, got it, of course!!!

 

[Queer Venger]

OG in a genre is not the only way to play a genre.

ah yes, good point, even though COC has been doing it for nearly 50 years successfully we should let other games share!!

 

[Queer Venger]

I think that's an easy answer: not everyone likes the CoC rules. I first played it back in 1981 I think (the year it launched) and it has aged. Blades in the Dark is very much the hot system at the moment, and I think a lot of people are interested in it. Mind you, I don't know what to make of Critical Role's take on it yet, but it is definitely designed with today's play styles in mind.

I'd argue there's more room in the world of horror RPGs because there aren't exactly a ton of them that people are aware of.

Yes, Ive heard good things from Blades. Im currently playing COC so maybe Im just old. lol

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes, Ive heard good things from Blades. Im currently playing COC so maybe Im just old. lol

I would play CoC over BitD anyway, but that just because I don't like narrative-focused games.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

On this issue, I think I align with @TwoSix.

From John Harper's point of view, it seems that this new CR game will promote sales of BitD, so he'll probably enjoy that!

And from the point of view of RPGing culture, I don't feel that this project will "set back" the development and uptake of "story now"-type RPGs. Some players who haven't yet encountered them may discover them as a result of it; but as TwoSix says, I think many RPGers really don't want "story now". They want a type of "security" or "certainty" (the scare quotes are not to mock these notions, but rather because I'm looking for the right word that will sit in the same space as TwoSix's "comfort") that GM-authored RPGing provides.

The upshot that seems likely to me is that, just as a lot of DW play (including play discussed on these boards) seems to be basically trad or neo-trad, so in the future more and more BitD play (fostered by Candela Obscura) will by trad or neo-trad. (Eg flashbacks will come to serve a similar sort of purpose to the role played by clues in GUMSHOE.)

I won't be rushing out to try and join in those games (!), but that's just my preferences.

Yeah I have struggled with where narrative authority lies in my own game. I think I like the GM to set scenes and “play” the NPCs and all that, and provide a lot of adjudication, but the players have resources that let them simply say, “I called my cop friend before we left town, there should be a black suv parked on the next block with medical supplies and the keys in the fender” sometimes. Maybe the spent a favor and that’s that, maybe they called upon a contact who will want to talk to them soon, meaning they have to spend downtime making sure that relationship isn’t strained, maybe they have a patron and the cop friend works for that patron, so all it cost is part of their allowance of “favors” from the patron, and a higher chance that the patron comes asking for thier help with something soon.

There are also flashbacks set up by spending downtime preparing for something, or using a “Backup Plan” trait, and more moment to moment limited resources to just push a result higher without gaining complications.

The balance is a tightrope, though.

 

[Aldarc]

I would play CoC over BitD anyway, but that just because I don't like narrative-focused games.

We know.

 

[pemerton]

I think that's an easy answer: not everyone likes the CoC rules.

We could probably push a bit harder than that: CoC barely has rules, beyond "the GM says what happens next" and "in saying what happens next, the GM does their best to weave in the likely upshot of whatever skill/ability checks the GM asks the players to make".

ah yes, good point, even though COC has been doing it for nearly 50 years successfully we should let other games share!!

Well, not everyone wants to play the game I described just above.

In recent years, when I've wanted to do horror RPGing I've used Cthulhu Dark, which I think is a 100x better as a RPG than CoC.