How To Play: Candela Obscura (Critical Role's New RPG) 

It's a thing they burrowed from Masks and other Powered by the apocalypse games. They really leaned heavy on it which is great, becouse its one of the best systems out there. Excited for it.

As a review of the system put it, it's meant to show how trauma changes someone rather than systems that show how trauma shapes people.

@@karkajouautomaton4882 Exactly this. They're taking a more grounded depiction of trauma rather than the more usual depiction of it. As someone who has trauma, it definitely doesn't only take away, it shapes you into something different instead of something less.

@kemanorel3110 Thanks for clarifying. This system could be great!

I've been hoping they would do an extended CoC campaign, but I'll take this instead.

The premise really reminds me of a Delta Green. This is gunna be great

Saaaame when the released the first teaser with talisen as the face of the project i knew we had something amyzing coming up can't wait

This book is so condescending to its readers. You don’t need to tell us to not be a raciest or appropriate culture. Not even sure how that can happen with a made up culture. Can’t we just assume everyone is welcome at the table without having overt SJW reminders.

@@tristanc2271 ...did you comment on the wrong video?

Scars seem so interesting

was just gonna say this. so excited to see this system in action!

@@stevexracer4309 i mean pronouns arent really a mechanic its just part of how you want your character to be referred as lmao

@@stevexracer4309 not sure if the pronoun part would be considered a mechanic, I doubt it has an effect on the game, but yeah it’s nice that they included that 👍🏼 Though it’s CR, I would be surprised to see something not inclusive from them

@@stevexracer4309 I’m sorry, I don’t see your point here What does DnD have to do with this game?

Im not suprised since tal helped create it

Im super interested in how much the mechanics work with character. The scars changing your skills is a really cool concept

​@@buttmunchmcnugget328This reminds me of Outer Worlds where repeatedly suffering or benefiting from a status effect would give you "Flaws" that gave you a permanent debuff but ALSO gave you a perk point to further flesh out your character. As an example, being repeatedly hit by acid attacks could allow you to take a flaw of being acid-scarred, reducing your acid resistance BUT giving you a free perk point. Fascinating!

@@stevexracer4309 everyone has pronouns, Steve. And! It’s a paper! If it bothers you that much, leave it blank. Or, use some white out. It’s not that deep.

@@stevexracer4309 Steve, going through Steve's entire life using no pronouns is going to be difficult for Steve. Steve could alternatively just become more used to Steve seeing pronouns, it's not too difficult.

I was literally about to comment the same thing, it gives very blades in the dark vibes with a very unique twist to it! I wonder if there is a way to avoid perma death? I will have to take a read through the guide soon

Glad I want the only one who thought this, decontamination seems like some inspiration came from bitd

The game designer of Illuminated Worlds is Stras Acimovic, who also created the FitD game Scum & Villainy!

Yeah the guide says it's built with the Illuminated Worlds system. Sure wish the hundreds of commenters that keep saying it's inspired by (enter any illuminated worlds system here) wind up actually reading the guide. 😅

​@@huntress666 I don't think there are any other illuminated worlds games out there? there's plenty of forged in the dark games, though

Agreed.

They've just remixed and simplified the Character elements of Forged in the Dark, and scrapped the Party elements. It's bonkers how 1:1 it is.

Same here; I was reading the quickstart and while I appreciate some differences I could not help but think: "Isn't this just Blades in the dark with a different coat of paint?" Not that I mind, but I find it odd that they seem to "sell it" as something brand new. Anyways, looking forwards to seeing the gang play something other than D&D 5th again! :)

One of the game designers is also the designer of Forged in the Dark, if I am not mistaken

​@@umarthdc you're not mistaken. Stras Acimovic helped design forged in the dark

Is it going to be on RU-vid as well as twitch?

@@Name-ql7jf They've said that CO episodes will be released on YT two weeks after they stream on Twitch.

same creator that's why

@@IzzGoobyTime John Harper?

@@DoubleCritFail Stras Acimovic was one of the first testers and contributors for BitD and wrote the first main Forged hack, Scum&Villainy

@@IzzGoobyTime Nice!

@@voland6846 And Band of Blades too.

This is the truth. Every RPG has the same basic mechanic. Roll a die or dice and get a certain number or higher. It is the expression of this mechanic that makes a game great and original. The expression of the mechanics in this game look great.

90% of the rules in this video was the same as in "Blades In The Dark". But that's really not a bad thing. It's such an incredible system - and it is also based on other systems. That's how stuff evolves. The additions were really creative too, and I'm sure there are more differences under the hood. It looks really awesome ❤

People just love to complain ! I wish we could just appreciate the art of creation without attempting to discredit it's brilliance!! This is amazing work

exactly what i thought. dnd is pretty bad with that because sometimes you just get terrible rolls in a pretty important moment of the story or for your character and theres nothing you can do about it. i like that with this system you have a lot more chances to prevent that

please go check out powered by the apocalypse and blades in the dark! this system is basically a reskin of bitd so if you like this and you like more story focused systems I think youll really enjoy pbta and bitd :)

@caramel7050 Agreed. Even with Inspiration, a player would have to know when to use it to offset bad rolls, as opposed to this intuitive balance being built in.

He does, on one of the last pages in the special thanks section. Kinda of tasteless that they didn't credit him a little more conspicuously with the other 20 people involved

Ignore the troll. You're a cool dad! Wish my dad did that with me.

Hell yeah, self expression shouldn't be gatekept. You're cool.

@@stevexracer4309 "n-name any successful people who paint their nails... B-but not in the largest industry with successful people!!! Not that one" Also btw there are multiple successful businessmen and athletes who paint their nails, especially outside the united states

Thats awesome! This troll is trying hard to be uncool, just ignore them👍

@@stevexracer4309 why do you give a shit so badly that someone else does something that has no effect on your life? Seems like a weird fetish.

You can't copyright rules and they're hacks at creating their own syatem.

@@lestervinghail5654 They literally changed some names, fliped one or two mechanics and called it thier own game. They even claim this game running on "illuminated worlds" - thier own system. Why could't just use FitD? It feels like robbery..

i knew i was getting a dungeon worlds vibe. thanks for placing it. Its in the PbtA family

they acknowledge it very openly in the quick guide.

​@@SocialNetwooky i dont think its bad to do a hack, but to be clear they only acknowledged it in the updated version today after a lot of people asking why they didn't credit john harper initially.

Very likely. I am a TTRPG noob, mostly going to watch this as a show, but it's also making me interested in the geneology/inspirations and the history of this type of game (? not sure it 'dice pool games' is too broad?). BITD and Vaesen have been specifically mentioned by Spenser. (I had vaguely heard of those but never tried them/read the rules/watched any APs)

​@@TimpanistMoth_AyKayEll My read on the influences/game genealogy: 2004: Vincent Baker releases Dogs in the Vineyard, and important and highly influential game. 2010: Vincent and Meg Baker release Apocalypse World. AW has an open license, and many designers make their own games using the Powered by the Apocalypse engine (PbtA). Monsterhearts and Avatar Legends are both PbtA games. 2015: John Harper releases Blades in the Dark. Arguably a PbtA game, but it's also more different from the source than the average PbtA release. Some (myself included) argue that it's a new generation - a new system family. Like AW before it, BitD has an open license allowing for designers to use its engine. These derived games are Forged in the Dark (FitD) 2017, 2018: Stras Acimovic & John Leboeuf-Little release Scum and Villainy, some of the best known FitD systems. Stras Acimovic is the designer of Illuminated Worlds, upon which Candela Obscura is built. From this initial look, Candela looks somewhat like a design shift back towards some of the PbtA-style mechanics, perhaps being lighter on rules than Blades. 2019, and 2021's Brindlewood Bay, and The Between; PbtA games by Jason Cordova should also get mentions as possible influences, given similarities in design and themes. 2017's Cthulhu Dark by Graham Walmsley is also worth a mention, as a fantastic rules-lite Cthonic investigation system.

@@MountainsOfSadness Thanks, that's a very interesting rundown!!

@MountainsOfSadness Maybe they should ctrl c+v all that and just acknowledge you for the compilation!

More than a bit. There's a lot of John Harper here. Which is a good thing in my opinion.

​@@vladgdc Oh cool! I haven't done a thorough read of BitD so wasn't sure how similar they are. I think the only thing missing here are the Progress Clocks?

@@sinbycosvi9 They clearly made it their own and distanced it enough to not be Forge in the Dark (games based on hacking Blades) but it does look influenced by Blades. I'm not sure how similar or not the action roll is as I haven't yet read Candela's rules

@@vladgdc I think the lead designer for Illuminated Worlds also created Forge in the Dark so makes sense why they're similar. I'm excited to see this one in action!

@@vladgdc yeah I need to see it in action and read the rulebook. Seems at first glance to be a Forged in the Dark variant. Hopefully it’s different enough to warrant it being billed as a stand alone thing.

5e has had competition for literally its entire existence. D&D has never been the only game around.

As Joey Soul said, Dnd has had plenty of competition. Namely Pathfinder but many others as well. Based on the d6 system and the overall theme, this seems to be more in competition with Call of Cthulu and maybe Shadowrun.

This is not the system to compete with D&D, it's for different kinds of games. But I believe they are working on another one that would.

Those are....two completely different types of games that fit completely different niches. It won't be competing with 5e. It might compete with Blades in the Dark or Call of Cthulhu. But what you said is basically, "Oh awesome, spaghetti! Good, we've been needing some competition for dogs."

​@Pro Zythos they said before that they are working on a d6 based as well as a d20 based system.

On the legal side, you can't protect rule systems, only lore and such, and even that must be new enough and long enough to be considered intellectual property. That's why the move of WotC was actually major legal bullshit. It would be nice to give credit were credit is due tho.

FWIW, the creator of BITD has tweeted about it in an approving way.

@@TimpanistMoth_AyKayEll yeah, I doubt anything bad is going to happen. Most of these things are open source anyway. But these days, everyone seems upsetti-spaghetti about anything they can remotely be.

It is just too bad that they don't make mention of where this rule set is actually coming from.

He does, he just doesn't usually let them leave

I'm surprised they managed to find the place. Isn't it supposed to be in some higher dimension guarded by a fallen old one?

Yes, this. I’m interested in seeing how accessible they are. Because not a lot of people have printers at home as well. I wonder if there will be options for like the D&D character sheets where you can get a folder for like 10$ and it comes with a lot of character sheets and other materials. I feel like that would be a cool option with limited run folders too. Also, I have a nice printer myself and nice paper and all, but I still prefer the official character sheets because the paper and ink just feels so much better to me lol. And as much as I like services like DND Beyond, I really feel like this game will be such much better played out with a simple pencil and paper compared to a pdf on a tablet.

I wanted to ask this. I only know the “Blades in the Dark” system through “the Adventure Zone: Steeple Chase” and noticed similarities. But it’s nice to know it’s similar but better fleshed out.

For me it's definetly Blades, but you should check Vaesen for reference, Candela Obscura feels more like it than CoC

Honestly, as a gay woman, I felt the cringe dig into my soul when he said the character sheet had a “Pronouns” section…

@@stevexracer4309 as many as I can

yeah, it feels wierd they didn't even aknowledge it they are basically identical

I see two mechanical differences 1. Gilded dice basically gives you exp? It feels gimmicky to have a dice pool system where one of your dice is a special one 2. Harm and Stress seems to be merged into one. Otherwise the system seems almost identical

I was legit just asked my husband what system Sumb and Villany were based on ... lol I'm happy that they are moving in this direction, but ... come on ... this is basically the same system with a few things missing.

@@codemccall Scum and Villainy was created by the same guy who created this system so it's not surprising he pulled heavy inspiration from the system he designed Scum and Villainy for.

Honestly, as long as we keep using dice, every new system is going to look like some existing system or another. It seems like anything new is just building systems like magnetic poetry on the fridge.

He's also created Alice is Missing and Icarus, two of the best games out there