Candela Obscura – GM’s Review
The history of RPGs starts with D&D, arguably it doesn’t but allow me to paint a picture, and stories of adventure fame and power. As the hobby evolved folk wanted different tales at their tables and other games emerged. The biggest of those was Call of Cthulhu, and with it investigation as a focus of Tabletop RPGs (TTRPG) was born.
There are some who would argue that investigation stories are ill served by the mechanisms and culture of play in any TTRPG. Over the years there have been attempts to ‘fix’ investigative games. Gumshoe and Brindlewood Bay are two examples of games that looked to provide a better framework for stories of sleuthing and deducing. Candela Obscura from publisher Darrington Press takes inspiration from Blades in the Dark, to make their own game of mystifcal investigation with mixed success.
A GM review means that I have experienced the game from the Game Masters chair but haven’t been on the player character side of the table. RPGs can feel different depending on the role you are adopting so I think it is useful to you, the reader, to know where my perspective is coming from.
Its worth taking a moment to consider the orginig os this game. Darrington Press is the publishing arm of the actual play behemoth that is Critical Role. After gaining fame through playing D&D, they are now rapidly branching out into producing games. The recent Daggerheart is being seens as a challenger to D&D, but it isn’t the first RPG that has tried to take that crown and failed.
I pitched Candela Obscura to my player’s as Victorian Ghostbusters and I think that elevator pitch is pretty accurate. The characters are all members of the Candela Obscura, an organisation that has set out to protect the people from supernatural goings on. The Flare seperates the real world from the magical, and incursions are the business of an organisation called Candela Obscura to investigate and stop (as this is also the name of the game I should point out that when using it as the title of the game it will be italicised).
The setting of the game is called the Fairelands and is an allegory for the turn of the 20th century. Electricity is becoming more widespread as the memory of a war involving it is still raw. Everywhere progress can be seen, but it is not always for the good of the people. The books is laid out well with evocative art of the various areas of the world you can explore, organisations you might deal with, and people you can encounter.
The city of Newfaire is the main focal point for the setting. It is described in vivid detail, ripe for exploration and investigation. The city is detailed district by district with lots of great hooks for the GM in the points of interest that are highlighted. Each area also comes with an example Assignment, the missions that the Candela Obscura sends you on. Below the city lies Oldfaire, the ruins of a previous civilisation that just begs to be investigated. There is even attention given to the world outside the city, making it feel like there is more to the game than just city investigations.
Various organisations you can interact with are spread throughout the book again with lots of good information that the GM can turn to an investigation. It does seem odd to me that a game so heavily influenced by Blades in the Dark doesn’t offer a way of tracking your relationships with these organisations.
The characters are all members of a Circle within the Candela Obscura. Each one of them are one of the populace who have experienced or are aware of the supernatural. They may be anything from a journalist to a stage magician. You choose a role taking on the mantle of a Slink (think rogue), Muscle, Face, Scholar, or Werid. The last one there is someone who embraces the magick that the Candela investigates.
All the role and class combos with their own character sheet, making getting started much faster. Each combo has its own set of abilities which vary in power and flavour and starting action ratings. These are called things like Move, Control, Survey etc. and cover the range of actions that a player might want to take with their character.
The core system is very close to Blades in the Dark. A pool of d6s based on the action rating that is most relevant. Higher is better, with a 6 being a straight success, 4-5 success with consequence, and 1-3 a failure (or perhaps a fail forward). You can spend a resource called Drive to add dice to the pool and there are rules for helping other people out and group tests. If you are unhappy with the result you can burn Resistances to re-roll the whole pool.
Some of your action ratings are also Gilded. When you roll a Gilded rating, one of the dice is of a different colour. If you choose that dice as your result you get a drive back. This gives a nice cycle of resources that players can embrace at the cost of less ideal narrative outcomes.
As well as characters the players get a sheet for their Circle. It gives an ability like the ones you get with your character, as well as some resources that help the group recover inbetween missions. It also tracks experience and the game handles this in an unusual way.
Rather than individuals gaining experience, the Circle does through a track called Illumination. When enough Illumination is gained everyone gets to level up at once. The resource is gained through carrying out the main objectives of the Candela Obsucra: securing mystical artifacts, facing down creatures, etc. It also comes from the players leaning into the strengths of their characters, and each class comes with their own story prompts to hit during an assignment.
These two aspects combines should see you levelling up every third assignment or so by my reckoning. This feels quite slow to me. Everyone likes a new toy on the regular and Candela Obscura holds back on that. I may be comparing this too closely to Blades in the Dark but I feel that can’t be helped. As characters and crew sheet level up seperately in Blades, it feels like you always have something just around the corner to aim for. For this kind of game, that lens itself to shorter campaigns, I feel character changes should come thick and fast if you are going to have them at all.
There is little in the way of mechanical support for investigations the game is focused on, outside of the thematic emphasis and direction of action ratings. That is not unusual, just something I like to remark upon as I would prefer more RPGs to mechanically support their premise as much as possible.
What you do get is how Candela Obscura sees investigations. Frankly it is strange and feels very rigid. It asks you to structure each assignment with a Hook that is almost like an opening scene before the investigation begins. It sets up what the investigators will see on their Arrival at the scene of the crime itself. It then moves on to Exploration, establishing some facts of the case, and then things begin to Escalate. More clues, more threat, maybe some twists. This trends towards the Climax of the case and a showdown with whatever, or whomever, is behind the mystery.
This sounds a bit linear but there is room to build something more branching within it. There are then four example assignments that seems to solidify this advice as more of a script.
I ran a couple of session of Candela Obscura before stopping and one of them was Stage Fright from the book. I ran it my own way rather than the structure given by the book. If I had followed the layout the designers wanted I would have felt quite restricted. A lot of the writing and advice here feels like the players are meant to go from point-to-point in a very linear fashion. While I am not as anti-railroading as some in the community, it feels odd for an investigative game to be so narrow. For instance in Stage Fright the exploration sections says ‘After travelling to Miles’ Office’. It assumes the players will go there. Now it is likley they will, but what if they don’t? There is no other path laid out here to find the information from that office.
In other example assignments the book says things like ‘The investigators speak with’ or ‘The investigators take the tip and….”. It feels very set like these things must happen, with not a lot of room for red herrings, player intuition and invention. It could be that this structure works for the way that Critical Role run games, but for an investigation focused game it feels wrong. I am not an expert in running this kind of game, but the way these are laid out set my GM senses tingling as just plain odd advice. Of course this can be overcome by the GM. Considering this might be many Critical Role fans contact with an investigative game, I found this restrticive structure short sighted.
Candela Obscura feels too close to its major influence Blades in the Dark to truly stand out. While the emphasis of the game is different, the mechanisms kept reminding me that I am not playing Blades in the Dark. Like watching a film remake that reminds you of the original to its detriment. I think if this is your first encounter with a more narrative foused system, Candela Obscura is not a bad place to start. I feel it will be quickly overshadowed and forgotten once you have expanded your palette, its light fading until it is snuffed out.
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