SPEAKER_01 0:00

So what kind of horror are we talking about here? Let's discuss some candelibles here. And there's the opening crack. Hey, how's it going, Phil? How are you doing? I'm doing great. Uh, it is time for another episode of Bards and Barrels. And tonight is part two of our Candela Obscura deep dive. Uh, hopefully everybody has gone and watched the video that we did last week where we kind of uh talked about like what is Candela, uh some of the basic differences between DD, things like that. Uh tonight we're gonna take a little bit of a deeper dive and get into some of the minutiae. Are you excited? I am excited. Uh I love the system, so I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah, I I am too. So let's let's go into like some first reactions. So the first time you read through the Candela book, what what was your reaction to it?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

I think the very first time I read through it, I got through like, I don't know, maybe the first three chapters, and like, okay, I need to go reread those three chapters again because it it's very different. Uh stylistically, it's a different kind of game. Uh the way you build characters is a little bit different too. So trying to kind of understand how to do that correctly, and okay, well, what is a drive? What is a resistance? You know, like how do these things and in my mind I kept I think trying to just compare them back to what I knew and was not always helpful, you know what I mean? Because they don't fit, they're not puzzle pieces, they're not the same thing. So once I kind of looked at it or stepped away from that lens a little bit and just kind of read it for what it is, um, it's an exciting, uh different type of TTRPG to play. Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

I I agree with a lot of that. I think the first time that I like read through it, and I didn't even read through it all in one shot, like I read the beginning, like the how to play. I it the mechanics in this game are actually super simple once you really know how to use them. But when you're coming from DD and you've played DD for a long time and you're used to like different types of rules and using different dice, just using D6s almost throws you for a loop because I'm like, I don't understand how you're measuring success, even though it's pretty straightforward and you're slapping me in the face with it. Like, I don't understand, like I want that D20 for some reason, and it threw me for quite a loop, and I don't I can't really put my finger on why. And I don't know if it's just because I'm was used to something else, but that was also the time where this was really the first other art, other TT RPG that I had. Sure. Since that time, I have gained Dagger Heart, Candela or Candel Obscure, of course, but uh Call of Cthulhu, and then several other ones like Tales from the Loop, stuff like that, and where I thumb through them and have a little bit better idea of what other systems are out there and how they're played. So I think it would be less intimidating almost now if I read it for the first time than it was the actual first time I read it.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

I think, too, looking at it, the first time you read through it, it's like, oh, you know, that's it. Like it's not a huge book as far as this is everything, right? Your player's guide is in here, your DM's guide is in here, there's not really a monster manual. You know, it's very different as far as that goes. But once you read through the entire thing, you you have all of the rules. You have read both the player side and the GM side, and so it's a very approachable kind of style to play. Um maybe not style, but very approachable book to consume, I guess I would say.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

And maybe that's part of why it threw me for a loop a little bit, because I expected there to be more to it, right? And you know, because it's like with a lot of these systems, uh DD in particular, like there's so many support books out there, not necessarily to like how to play the game, but even the how to like the core manuals, there's still three sizable books to really have a good hold on how to play the game. Now you can get away with the starter's guide, we all know that. Yeah, but it's not really like the true full experience until you like make your way through those three books in a lot of ways. Yeah, and so it's like having a book that's like half the size of one of those books, maybe a little bit more than that, but close enough that you're like, Whoa, this is it? Yeah, like that truly you're absolutely right on that.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

I think that's what well that's why I had to go reread again, too. Is I'm just like, okay, like what did I miss? You know, like am I missing things? And it's like, no, right, like, really, that's it. You know, you could do this. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Uh, one of the things we talked about in in the episode last week was uh, well, and we we also will talk about it in part three when you're building characters, is like how you're not the hero. And and let's talk a little bit about like how a horror setting at the table feels different than DD or like other heroic fantasies, which which let's be real, they're they're based off of essentially Lord of the Rings. It's that type of fantasy, it's high fantasy, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Yeah, DD is very high fantasy based. So in a horror style of play like this, your characters aren't designed to be heroes, right? You're not sent in to save the day. In Candela Obscura, you work for a circle, right? Uh, you're paranormal investigators in essence, and they're sending you out into the world to investigate these things potentially coming through thinnings, right, or magical phenomena that have somehow seeped into the world or bled into the world, but this is based in the real world for the most part. If the fair lands, as they're kind of described, is you know, not specifically a place in the world, but they picture it like it is, or you could easily base this in the real world. You think about it in architecture that's like that. So your people that are living in this world that are sent to kind of help you're still trying to help protect people, but you're never gonna be you're never gonna be a level 20, hey, we're the heroes of the realm type of character. That isn't that is just not what this game is. Uh and it's it's designed not to be that way. It's not about just rushing out to fight off bad guys, you know. That's it's investigative. Uh, you have to uncover truths or uncover lies, right? There's a lot of corruption that exists in this game too. It's kind of built in as well. Um, so truly figuring that out feels different. Your goal as a character is different in this game.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

I think it feels you made a really good point. I think it feels more like a job in a way. Like, like there's lots of room for role-playing and and and doing a lot of fun things in there, but it feels like a job where it's like maintain the status quo. Like things are here that aren't supposed to be here, return us back to the status quo. You're not gonna be a hero. Actually, most people aren't even gonna know that this society exists. Uh, and I think that adds an interesting dynamic because you're doing this in anonymity in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

That's true. I guess I didn't even think about it that way, right? Like in DD, everybody knows the dragon is here. You know, in Candela, nobody knows about these things. They know something's wrong, yeah, but they may not know why. They might tell, you know, yeah, tall tales or fairy tales, right, or something about it, but uh, they don't know that these things are actually real and they're about to attack, right? It's very much a things go bump in the night.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Oh, yeah. And somebody's here to solve it. So and they'll never know who it is. Exactly. It just it'll go away one day and never really know why. Gosh, that's a that's a really that's a fun way to play. Like once you know that though, it changes how you play though, too. Because you you become almost not reserved in your role-playing, but res your character almost becomes reserved because you're not doing it to to buoy an ego or anything like that, maybe in your circle, but it's like you're not gonna get notoriety because you got rid of this thing that's been attacking people or anything like that. Right. Simply your your success or your I don't know what the word I'm thinking of is. It's like your your feelings around that success are based on the fact that people are okay. Yeah, essentially, which is a really weird way. Like you're not being elevated in any way in some in a lot of in in terms of that, right? You're not you're not gonna win a bunch of gold. Yeah, you know, that's very true. Um, this is something that we'll we'll get to down the road when we talk about playing, but but let's talk about how there's a lot less rolling in candela, and I think that that provides an opportunity to create a an atmosphere of tension because every role feels impactful and consequential. Not that they don't in other games, but more so in Candela Obscura.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

It's definitely by design, right? As a system, this is a narrative forward style of game. Um when I think about creating tension and thinking back to some of our even our DD playing, sometimes dice rolls disrupt flow. Yes. Do you know what I mean? So in this style of a game, I think that's a big proponent of that is you know, we are building towards something, we are amping up the pressure here, stakes are increasing as you maybe get closer to the end. Uh there may come a time when you need to roll, but it should be adding to that tension as well, it shouldn't be distracting. So we may get into a situation where dice have to be rolled, but that there are some consequences behind that dice roll, and it is gonna be driven by the narrative as to what happens and not necessarily, yeah, your role is gonna influence that. Did you did you do it? Did you not do it? Did you kind of do it? Sure, but it's still gonna be a storytelling component of the game, I guess. Dice rolling is storytelling, not I swung my sword, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

So so let's uh let's start going down the road of comparing to DD and some other systems, but let's let's keep going with the dice here, like compared to DD. So it's like Candela is a D6 based system. So it's like if you're used to playing Dungeons and Dragons and you you have the whole set of dice, you're not gonna have that here. You're gonna have uh a set of dice that are your drive, and then there's gilded dice that are a different color, but they're still all D6s, so it doesn't matter. So it's very interesting in that and different in that sense, which is quite interesting.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

I think the book says you need like nine D6s, six of one color, and three of the other. I'm pretty sure is what it lists out, or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

So and if you play TT RPGs for a while, don't don't try to tell me you don't have nine d6s somewhere because I don't believe you for and if you don't go rob your like game closet, right? Because you're you you have them somewhere, I guarantee it. Uh, what's some other differences between candela and DD? So obviously, like the type, the amount that you roll is very different. And I want to go back to this for a second because I I want to make sure that people understand. I'm not saying that roles in DD are not consequential, because if you if you have a crit fail, something bad is going to happen to you, and it may affect the story, but it's just because you roll less in candela and it's more intentional about when you roll to like solve something that's going on. Like you made a decision to do something, we need to see like if there's consequences to succeeding or failing that action. So it's just more a little more intentional versus oh, you're looking at something, you're doing something. That's what I mean by that. So I just want to be very clear on that.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

I I think the introduction, right, or the idea of a mixed success is part of that in Candela, right? It's like, well, you didn't roll a great success, right? You didn't roll a six, but you rolled good enough that you can do this, but there are consequences, right? Totally and D is a hard, you know, A C, D, C, you know, yes, yeah, exactly, right? Uh you did it or you didn't. Um, so I think that is kind of part of that, like how the dice rolls influence that for sure. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

And then so, like looking at other systems, I we could go on for a long time talking about differences, but but just looking at other like similar systems to Candela, you have Call of Cthulhu, which is a D100-based system, which is also very different if you've ever played that. And I think somewhere down the line here, we'll probably do a series similar to this on Call of Cthulhu, of course. But but it's like that one's different in that you low you roll low as a success, high is a failure on a D100 scale. So there's a lot of room in between for those mixed successes. So I think the biggest difference right now that we're seeing between DD, which is where a lot of you out there probably are, to be completely honest with you, and then like a Call of Cthulhu Candela Obscura is that DD seems very black and white on your roles, whereas there's a lot of that mixed success opportunity for role, let's just call it role-playing opportunities in there because it's you make it what you want, but there's going to be consequences, like you said, or there's or there's other things that are going to happen as a result of that. And then you have games like Vessen. Do you want to talk a little bit about Vessen, Phil?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah, so um Vessen is probably one that I would consider most similar to probably um Candela Obscura. So it's a Nordic horror role-playing game um that Freelag Publishing put out, and it's got a lot of crossover uh as far as its investigative style. Um, there are in that book they're Vesen versus like magical phenomena, but you are still part of a team that's trying to help make sure these things don't you know destroy or harm other people. Um, so I think there's a lot of crossover between those two books. Uh, it does use a different um mechanic, it uses the adapted year zero engine mechanic. Um, and Candela's built on the Illuminated World system, but they're still both D6-based. Character creation is still even kind of similar. So there's a lot of crossover between those two. Um, and I I we've yet to play Veson, right? I've done quite a bit of reading through it, but um interested to kind of play it and see how similar it is to this. But they even mention, I think, or give a shout-out in the Candela book to Vessen, saying, you know, they hope that the creatures of the Nordic um mythology or whatever would be comfortable in the Fairlands. So things like that, right? Yeah, they could come through a thinning. So I do think there's a lot of um continuity between those two.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Uh one of the things that we we probably glanced over here in the in the the first episode of the video on YouTube was uh who Candela is for in a lot of ways. And I and one of the things that I think is worth noting is that you need to understand the boundaries. So really lean into those safety tools. Uh, on the show, we've talked in the past about how you can use um, there's like a sheet that's essentially a safety tool to use in a session zero where you where you survey your players to find out like what things are they comfortable with, what things are they not comfortable with, and that can range. Uh, the gambit can be quite large. If I remember that checklist, there's a lot of things on there, but it could be anything from like blood and gore to like um sexual things, like there, there's a whole list of things spiders, spiders, getting very granular on things just to avoid those things or keep them at a bare minimum just so that they don't ruin the experience for players. This is one that kind of leans into fears and things like that. So I think it's more important than ever in a game like this, and this would probably be applicable to Vesin and Call of Cthulhu too, to like make sure you understand where the boundaries are with your players.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Yeah, right. What is don't cross the line, right? And what is like, yes, this is okay, there's still a line here, so like maybe let's talk about it. You know, like is this a yellow instead of a red or you know, whatever um scenario? Because can we lean into that? And how far leaning into that is you know gone too far. So just you have to know who is at your table, and even if it's your regular group of players, right? You've been playing DD together for years. This is going to touch on themes and topics and things like that that you've never done in your DD campaign. So it's still worth having a session zero before you run one of these to sit down and level set with everyone, make sure they understand the themes that you anticipate bringing up in this game because you may unintentionally hit on something that hasn't come up in 10 years for your group. Sure. You know, because it's just a different, it's a different game, it's a different feeling.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

And I think that brings up two really good points. Is one when we've talked about this before and using it in DD, typically it's to let the DM know because the DM is the primary story driver, right? And when everybody's kind of reacting to the DM, it as long as they know, they can kind of direct people one way or another, right? In Candela, since it's so heavily leaning toward role-playing and stuff like that, this is an instance where it's good for everybody at the table to know, Phil, you're not a big fan of spiders. So if this is a hard line no thing, everybody should know that. So we don't bring it up. Because in in Candela, the GM is certainly helping guide the story, but they're going to be more reactive to the players too. So let's make sure that a player doesn't bring us up and take us in a direction we don't want to go. Yeah, absolutely. And then I think you you mentioned you touched on it briefly, was like 10 sessions in, you know, three years down the road, if you're still doing assignments or something like that, because maybe you only play once a month or something like that, be willing to reassess, like to come back around and say, okay, we've been doing some things that are everybody's been okay with them to this point, but let's reassess briefly here and make sure is everybody's still okay the direction we're headed and what we're doing, and and be okay with that. Because I think as long as you are, then it's gonna be okay. But it's like use that as a point to consistently check in with your players and make sure everybody's on the same page.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

I think even like assignment by assignment, potentially, right? Like letting players know, okay, these are going to be the themes, yes. Perhaps like of this assignment, just to have a quick safety check with everyone, right? Of like because it's easy. I mean, we can adapt things, right? If there's one item on there or atmospherically they're you know not comfortable with something, uh, make the modification before you are in the thick of it and it's a little hard to back out, and other players start feeding into it, and you know, it's not a difficult thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

So, what are your I think this is this is getting pretty close to the end of this episode. So, what what are your just like any general thoughts that that you think would be worth not not necessarily because we know where we're heading with this? So, from here, if you listen to episode one of the podcasts, you know that like this is the end of talking about like our intro, and we're gonna be talking about character building, we're gonna be talking about um playing the game as a GM, playing the game as a player character, and then and then at the end of course we're gonna do our final thoughts. So, Phil, like what is just your your general feeling on Candela right now? Having read through it, like what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Um, my initial, I'll go back to kind of initial thoughts after reading again, just a little bit in more depth now. Um, because I don't want to give you what my thoughts would be that I'll give you at the end of all this. Sure, yeah, yeah. Um, I think after I first read the book, I was excited and anxious to try it because it is so different than what we do in a typical kind of DD campaign. So um I think a big proponent of that too was trying to explain how it's different to the rest of my group, right? Because it is a different play style, um, and figuring out if it worked for all of us, you know. Like, is everyone on board with this type of a you know, feeling uh this type of a setting? Um, so those two excitement. Um, and I don't remember what the other word I said was, but that one word. It's fine, don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

You know, okay. Well, I think that's gonna do it for this episode of Bards and Barrels. You can listen to any of the past episodes of the show anywhere podcasts can be found. Be to go sure to go like and subscribe to the channel on YouTube so you don't miss any of the Candela series. Uh, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, threads, TikTok, all kinds of places at Bards and Barrels. We'll see you soon.