After Action Report: Candela Obscura: Jerusalem - Have I changed my mind about Candela Obscura?

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@edwardkopp1116 7 ай бұрын

My first attempt at designing my own system decades ago ran beautifully, but only when I ran it. Of course I was able to make the concept emulate a role playing game, I had designed it and knew all the rules intimately. That's why a truly successful rpg is not about boosting ones ego or brand, it's about creating a system of rules that allows your concept to be run by other people without you being there. This is what I do professionally, only in the culinary profession. I have a rule system that lets you lay the game Hospitality. My job is to teach you the rules of the game and to ensure my system is "sailor proof" so that when I go to the next account/client it continues to run as if I were there. There is also a difference between a ROLE PLAYING game and a role playing GAME. These are different player bases, in essence LARPers vs TTRPG and though there is generous crossover among them (I was concurrently an RPGA Judge and the only sanctioned Sabbat LARP in Miami, FL). Because I'm a chef by profession I use lots of food and beverage analogies. In the mid-'90's I was General Manager of a west coast coffee chain that was trying to beat Starbucks into the market. The pre-opening training was incredibly thorough and went into detail about the history and we tasted coffees from all over the world. And we also sold flavored coffee. Why would be carrying all these amazing luxury beans from across the globe, roasted to perfection, only to add new flavors. Because only about 1 in 10 of your customers will become a connoisseur at most. Most people do not seem to really enjoy the coffee itself and the truth is that it requires both a trained and developed palate to appreciate the nuance of the earthiness of Sumatra beans vs the winey notes of Ethiopian beans (where coffee is claimed to be a native plant). Most people cannot differentiate between luxury and brand. Candela Obscura is obviously a brand and the system is obviously a vanity project to promote the brand outside of D&D. New Coke didn't work either. Again, most people fail to recognize that these are GAMES and games require rules and barriers to success to BE a game. Gamers, again in general, are not only attracted to a rules system but find comfort in knowing that the rules will solve all in game issues (unlike their real world experiences). To publish a game that isn't able to provide this is a disservice to gamers and the hobby as a whole. These are only my observations as someone who stepped away from the hobby just before 4th edition was released and I was already becoming disgusted by the "good fun/bad fun" narrative that has obviously metastasized in the last 15 years. I've spent the last 6 months learning the new system and catching up on industry news and once again, gamers predominantly lead the social trends in some of the most schizophrenic issues of our English speaking society (Canada, Australia, UK, US).

@nowayjosedaniel 7 ай бұрын

Fascinating. Thank you. Also much respect, Chef.

@Subcomandante73 7 ай бұрын

Having GM'd Monster of the Week for a group used to playing 5E we had a blast. It is a different mindset for the GM and the players, but it is a great way to create fun stories.

@trollsmyth 7 ай бұрын

I adore post-action reports! I'll admit it's partly because I generally lack the time and patience to sit through an actual play, but these things get to the heart how rules behave in the wild and that is a subject I find infinitely fascinating.

@liberalhyena9760 7 ай бұрын

I would definitely like to see more videos of this kind, both informative and companionable. Next time you should ask your man to bring you a glass of brandy. BTW, I’d be obliged if you would have a discreet word with that awful Raggi fellow. To judge by his latest upload, he appears to have taken the request for AARs entirely the wrong way.

@ebertwix5860 7 ай бұрын

Very interesting points for a gm's perspective of the game, I never anticipated that problem you mentioned about making complications for players in combat

@wingusryu8289 7 ай бұрын

Nice quote! I remember first hearing it back in the day watching Batman the animated series. I still remember it to this day. This game seems like a rule set for play acting through an rpg than a robust system. Vaesen is more interesting to me. I think this game is maybe split between those who love critical roll or not.

@henrikcollin4727 7 ай бұрын

Yes i would like to see more after game reports.. felt nice and relaxing actually..

@JackFetch-eb1gr 7 ай бұрын

Post-Action Reports are a great idea as it gives an idea of how the game plays for those people who might have the opportunity to watch the live stream

@Naruga 7 ай бұрын

If you are interested, Sword World 2.5 has an English translation and most of the books are translated now. It is a pretty fun game and slowly getting more and more interest outside Japan .

@juddgoswick2024 7 ай бұрын

My word, you share my love of odd references to onscure things in MPCs names! Capital, old bean!

@rlarkinson 7 ай бұрын

Props to you for trying to run it. This could be a lesson in playing this one to truly know what gaps in the game needed filling, thereby turning it into a more coherent and more palatable homebrew game potentially later on. I like these reports, you know what its like.. you don't really know what a game is like until you actually bite the bullet and play it. That experience is extremely valuable for all sorts of reasons.

@JB-wc9cr 7 ай бұрын

Like the after action reports, would like to see more of them. It seems light rules systems require a lot of mental effort on the part of the person running the game. Is it mostly the success and/but mechanic that makes it so? I have a copy of index card rpg and it uses a d20 and a hard/easy difficulty modifier of +3/-3. I haven’t played it yet but it seems like it would require a lot of determination by the dm as to what is classified as hard or easy, for a couple hours could be tiring maybe. The lack of granularity in light systems or the rpg singularity where all character are essentially the same leaves me feeling unsatisfied as a player. I like to make interesting characters that have some kind of distinct role mechanically as well as flaws… when I was younger power gamer all the way (have to admit my younger self would have loved 5e) now I want to make interesting characters and stories not ULTIMATE power

@bearnaff9387 7 ай бұрын

Light systems lack granularity, as you said. The presence of thought out exceptions and alterations to the base mechanic to account for different scenarios takes a lot of the mental load off of the GM when it comes to fielding bullshit actions from players without having the appearance of bias or unfairness. The gratuitously anti-light GURPS required a damn long time for me to get to the point of being able to go straight from ridiculous concept to filled sheet. I loved the balancinf act of using the various subsystems to craft the right set of mechanical exceptions and defects to create a function that performed as I wanted it to and would back my roleplaying goals with mechanical might. GURPS didn't ever seem to come up with a published set of meta-rules for designing compatible subsystems, but thorough review could usually net you enough of a guideline that if you needed something not in the rules it was not unreasonable to make shit up and expect it to work as a non-cheaty part of the game.

@AuthoritativeNewsNetwork 7 ай бұрын

The investigators: We've been activated!

@Ironcaster 7 ай бұрын

I wouldn't be surprised to discover your copy of the game slips between the bookshelves to collect dust.

@andrewwavell1930 7 ай бұрын

Yes, I would like to see more AARs. Another Edwardian setting is Casting the Runes, which uses the GUMSHOE system and is based on the ghost stories of M.R. James.

@docnecrotic 7 ай бұрын

Spider Jerusalem, perhaps? Also, these reports have been great.

@MushieNino 7 ай бұрын

After action reports are useful and helpful for me. I'm thankful for candelera obscura, mostly for leading me to the wretched RPG system and Wretched Dark/Epoch and so on (Via black lodge games recommendation).

@megasquidd 7 ай бұрын

I really enjoyed your report on this. I look forward to hearing your reports for more games in your backlog. Unrelated food for thought: I would like to hear your thoughts on why the dice pool system in World of Darkness works (if you indeed do think it works), but the dice pool system in the Year Zero Engine doesn’t.

@PostmortemVideo 7 ай бұрын

I can tell you now :) It's the chance of rolling a success on a dice.

@ZelphTheWebmancer 7 ай бұрын

@@PostmortemVideo Ok but have you actually put in a sheet to compare it? Sure, typically the Storyteller System will have better odds per dice to have a success compared to YZE but that doesn't make the dice pool of Storyteller better. WoD has three axis on how to know if you succeeded on an action: Number of dice rolled (sometimes you can add or subtract dice), target number for each dice (going from 2 to 10), and number of successes needed (going from 1 to several); meanwhile YZE engine has one: it is either adding/subtracting dice from the dice pool or needing between 1 or 3 successes (tho usually is 1). Even if you consider V5 dice rules there is still 2 axis: Number of dice (adding/subtracting) and number of successes needed. So even if per die you have less change on YZE, the % of success on a given dice pool won't be bad, specially when considering pushing a roll. Storyteller's dice pool is even messier if you consider the 20th and previous editions because of the 1 in the die subtracting successes, a rule so bad it was removed in V5 and in the Storytelling System.

@PostmortemVideo 7 ай бұрын

@@ZelphTheWebmancer Ah, well then, you're going to have to specify which version of Storyteller you mean.

@ZelphTheWebmancer 7 ай бұрын

@@PostmortemVideo Either version works to show that the comparison should be made on the basis on how likely you are to succeed on a task, instead of just the dice.

@אהרוןאלמוג-צ2ב 7 ай бұрын

i like this kind of game report. it's also very useful, since it gives concrete strenghts and weaknesses. thank you for the video

@lemonZzzzs 7 ай бұрын

It would be nice to see more after-action reports. Your perspective on these systems is interesting. I have some of the similar issues with the systems like this. It feels like they're designed with an assumption that anyone playing would be well versed in various RP systems and, thus, easily supplement what's written as needed. But at that point, why even bother with having their skeleton of a rule set? If I want to do that kind of work, I'd whip up my own pba derivative. Also, this rule set being skewed more towards collaborative storytelling than towards game elements makes it struggle to work in my RP circle. If we set out to collaboratively write a story, we do exactly that. Why have mechanics, if it's a creative writing project more than a game? Although it is also possible that I missed something.

@Smittumi 7 ай бұрын

Love this after action report. I like hearing about the decision points and clutch rolls. I like systems where you don't change the difficulty, and instead change the potential outcomes. They can be hard with but also push creativity (if that's what you're in the mood for, for that session). But I hate the setting as I've understood it from reviews. Yak. It seems like they wanted a society steeped in class difference and "manners", but without all the actual class suppression, misogyny, racism and violence that goes with it (especially in an Edwardian setting, I mean come on!). A lib fantasy. Like that Bridgerton TV show.

@kit_marlowe 7 ай бұрын

In order to avoid a sense of arbitrariness, storytelling games (and a lot of rules-lite systems) demand trust between players and GMs that (usually) has to be built organically over time as those at the table become familiar with each others’ foibles, play styles, hang-ups etc. Once this is established, both sides of the screen are freed from that disconcertingly weightless sense that the game is buoyed up only by gossamer-thin strands of agreement rather than any objective rule that decides particular matters. However, I completely accept that I’m probably in a minority in valuing and enjoying that style of play and I wouldn’t be so foolish as to start from the assumption that GMs and players can just pick up a rules set and start playing in that manner. More objectively, Candela Obscura undermines itself by being neither flesh nor fowl. On one hand it promotes ‘storytelling’ (which a cruel commentator might also label ‘theatre kids’) play, while retaining enough crunch to cut against that same grain and - worse - the sort of ‘no, but’ mechanics that can be exhausting for GMs and players to enact.

@bearnaff9387 7 ай бұрын

After-action reports are a great thing when the Grimstream game is old, out-of-print, of historical value, lesser-known, controversial, or uses an unusual mechanic. People would benefit from getting to better know you as a GM, player, and designer by seeing what you draw attention to in post-game reviews.

@mattshaw8542 7 ай бұрын

Good report. I've definitely experienced similar situations where the group had fun but almost despite the rules instead of because of them. Never feels as satisfying as when the group and the rules work well together. I'm baffled that this game has no difficulty mechanics, the game it's based on does, they're a big part of the game from what I have heard, so why they would strip them out and replace them with nothing is probably the biggest mystery here.

@firetouched5629 7 ай бұрын

I haven't played Candela Obscura myself. Every review so far has had the same tenor. It's not good and there are simply better products. These opinions here are enough for me to keep my hands off the book/PDF. Very provocative intro. I love it. :D What is that sign at 05:32?

@rynowatcher 7 ай бұрын

Candela Obscura has the same issue as a lot of derivative osr or pbta games: it assumes you are experienced with the system and does not tell you how to actually play. Fair criticisms all for a reading of the rules as they appear in the CO book. However, there are solutions not having difficulties ramp up. It uses the same system as Savage Worlds or Shadow of the Demon Lord. A success is standard lyrics defined by a die value and you add penalties in order to express difficulty; in forged in the Dark games, this means you take dice away, down to roll 2 dice, take the lower. Ie, you want to punch the giant tick? OK, roll with two penalty (2 less dice)... oh, shoot it instead? It is a big target, so add a dice to the pool. The game does a terrible job of expressing this, but if you have played Blades in the Dark... The lack of regularity in the system is a problem. Again, BitD had useful tables for setting stakes, so you could differentiate a boss hitting with a gun you from a Mook punching you. It gave you context CO os lacking. In D&D terms this is how much damage, by level the monster or trap does; ie, deadly, easy, or hard. The Clocks (which CO does not say enough about) are your hp, so the giant tick might require 3 successes to beat but the lesser spawn only take 1 success to beat and the lesser ones inflict 1 scar as a consiquence but the giant tick inflicts 2 for a consiquence and 1 mental scar in addition for a failure. It translates a milk toast horror setting into the BitD game system, so I kind of look at it as converting Call of Cthulhu to d20. Nothing new or special about it, but it is new to people that have never gone outside the BitD sphere.

@troffle 7 ай бұрын

1) > run the bloody game; so I did. And people actually showed up to play, which I was mildly impressed by Not often, but occasionally I enjoy saying "I told you". ... I told you. (Apologies for the edit which occurred during the very kind react... which only shows up in my notifications and not actually here, what the) 2) > Aren't you proud of me? mygod Have we been activated? It is now TWENTY-SEVEN SUMMERS since we last made a reference to a semi-obscure British comedy! 3) > not to puff up my own ego but was that because of me or was it because of the system and the setting? Nominate your most despised system and most hated setting. So, Grimstreams in a month or so...? Although, I suppose there's one other question that needs to be considered: don't get me wrong, your opinion on the system and the play is most important. However, what did the players think?

@foreshame7370 7 ай бұрын

I'll second the call for more AFRs. I don't really have the constitution for Live Plays. After all the fuss surrounding Candela Obscura I cracked I bought the PDF myself shortly after it came out. And then actually read it by god. Foolish boy. I don't really consider it a real RPG so much as a framework for semi-pre-scripted improvisational theatre, so in that regard I suppose they designed exactly what they required for their channel. I thought if the rules were gibberish I might at least be able to lift the setting for something else, but it's so...ungrounded... in anything approaching a real world sense of history, anthropology or ethnography that it's almost unless too. My players are too clever for this shit. It feels like the Alex Proyas movie 'Dark City', you keep feeling this can't REALLY be how the world works, this is all some elaborate glamour to keep the populace controlled and pliable and retarded. But then there is no "What's REALLY going on" GM section. It's as superficial as it appears. Still, some of the art isn't totally awful, I guess I'll drop "The Fairelands" into Dr. Grordbort's Scientific Adventure Violence as some some of fucked up artists colony on Mars or Venus.

@PuppaSmirk 7 ай бұрын

Good to hear your point of view on the game after playhing it. I've not having seen your previous opinions on Powered by the Apocalypse games, so a link to where you've covered it before would be nice, you might have summarised it in your review here but I missed it if you did. Have you gotten other PbtA derrived games to the table or is this the first? I'd definately like to hear more after action reports, often I feel that reviews of RPG's come after just reading the book and I don't feel that's an accurate reflection of how it plays at the table.

@PostmortemVideo 7 ай бұрын

postmortemstudios.wordpress.com/2019/12/14/rpg-apocalypse-world-again/ You can find my review of Candela Obscura on this same channel, from before the AP.