Has the Candela Obscura Quickstart convinced me to run the game? And will it convince you? Should you take the time to check out this new roleplaying game from Critical Role and Darrington Press? Why is Candela Obscura a game afraid of its own shadow? ENnie Award-winning designer Justin Alexander dives into the controversy.
Video Review: Candela Obscura Quickstart
May 31st, 2023
2 Responses to “Video Review: Candela Obscura Quickstart”
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They are really all-in on the lefty politics, to the point I’m certain they’re going to limit their audience. For a game that’s supposed to be *horror*, as best I can tell there’s no way to kill a character — the worst that can happen is you can be incapacitated for a scene, and take a “scar”, which doesn’t actually harm you, you just get to swap a skill point from one action to another. Is it horror if you can’t actually get hurt?
And the sample adventure is so worried that you might not understand a very obvious horrors-of-capitalism allegory, they straight-up explain it.
If you’re going to make a game about Capitalism-Is-Bad, why not play Leverage instead of mucking about with “there are Things From Beyond, but Capitalism is the Real Horror”? In the sample adventure, they actually suggest that players might end up *rescuing* the Thing From Beyond because the capitalists have been so mean to it. I’m amazed.
Mark Twain supposedly said “If you would have your work last forever, and by forever I mean fifty years, it must neither overtly preach nor overtly teach, but it must covertly preach and covertly teach.” There is nothing covert here.
My reaction to the setting is that if I wanted to play in a “normal” near-modern world where supernatural stuff is lurking underneath the surface, I would rather play in any number of game systems that are set in an alternate version of Earth’s history. That way the “normal” world does indeed feel normal and familiar to the players and the encounters with the unknown, mysterious, and horrific really do jar to the players as well as the PCs. It also always makes life so much easier for the GM when you can just use real world history, maps, catalogs, etc., for inspiration and scenario maps, etc. (As your Eternal Lies and Left Hand of Mythos posts demonstrate.)
Maybe the setting is different enough in an interesting enough way from real-life 1900s New York or London to justify losing those advantages, but that was my gut reaction from your quick summary.