What is the RPG Ten Candles?
Ten Candles is a tabletop roleplaying game by Cavalry Games. In a one-shot of 2-4 hours, we light ten candles (yes, actual, physical candles!) which frame ten scenes of the game session. Each time a scene ends, a candle is extinguished. The stories of these one-shots take place in post-apocalyptic horror scenarios where the sun has disappeared from the sky, and “They” are hunting humans to extinction. The player characters are survivors (for now) who try to stay alive even though all the players are explicitly told that their characters will all have died by the end of the game.
How Ten Candles creates atmosphere
There are three main tricks through which Ten Candles creates an immersive atmosphere during a game. After describing these, we will look at how we might incorporate them into our D&D games. Beware that there are spoilers for the game Ten Candles in the rest of this article.
The candles
Each session of Ten Candles takes place over ten scenes. As player characters scramble for survival and fend off Them, the world and the story gets darker and darker, until everyone is dead. And so does the atmosphere at the gaming table. Every time a player fails a roll of the dice (a pool of d6s), a scene ends and the player must blow out a candle. As the story gets darker from scene to scene, so does the room. To get the maximum effect, the room should be as lightless as possible.
The successive extinguishing of candles is one of the cleverest tools for immersion I have ever witnessed in an RPG. It mimics what is happening in the story, and gives the players a physical impression of what it might be like for their characters to live in a world of creeping darkness.
“These things are true. The world is dark. And we are alive.”
When a new scene begins, after the previous one ended, and we extinguish a candle, the GM and the players take turns establishing truths for the next scene. Together, we describe how much time has passed, how the world has changed, and what the characters did in between scenes. One truth, however, is always spoken by the GM for every scene: “These things are true. The world is dark.” And until everyone is dead, the players always answer with the truth, “And we are alive.”
As the candles become fewer, and the room becomes darker, the truth, “the world is dark,” spoken in a sort of ritual, becomes more and more ominous as the game goes on. At the same time, as players become more and more immersed in the story, their ritual phrase, “and we are alive,” spoken in unison, creates a sense of desperate community in them.
The final recording
Another genius tool for atmosphere in Ten Candles is the recording of the characters’ last message to the world. Before the first scene begins, each player records a message, in character, for their character’s loved ones or for the world in general. This actually happens at the table. We hand a voice recorder from player to player, and everyone records the message. At the beginning of the game, this seems silly to players. But then they play the game. And the story draws them in, by the extinguishing candles, and speaking the ritual phrases. Then, after 2-4 hours every character has died, every candle has been extinguished, the room is dark. And then we play the recordings.
Rarely, in any RPG, have I experienced the goosebumps that this moment gave me in Ten Candles. The recording starts playing, there are cracks and white noise, and then the first (now dead) character speaks, “Hi mom, hi dad…”
How we can use these tools for D&D
These elements create an immersive experience for a “tragic horror” RPG like Ten Candles. But we can learn some broader lessons, and some specific ideas for our D&D games from Ten Candles.
Use the gaming environment to create atmosphere
A dark room, a few candles, and maybe one or two props, like fitting miniatures, can create a mysterious atmosphere for our D&D games. We can prepare the table to fit the genre and feeling of our D&D session. This doesn’t have to be as elaborate as Ten Candles does it, but it could. Next time we need a countdown for something in the game, why not light ten candles and blow them out one after the other as characters advance through the story?
Speaking in unison creates a sense of community
We can look for in-game opportunities where the characters speak in unison, and then have the players actually do the same. This works best if we have it occur multiple times because the first one or two times the players speak in unison there’s going to be laughs and giggles. What about a dungeon, in which secret doors are opened by the characters (and the players) announcing, “We have come to die.” As the characters delve deeper into the dungeon, their resources dwindle and survival becomes questionable, the phrase will take on a more and more serious note.
Using in-character recordings
The recording element of Ten Candles is perhaps its most unorthodox twist but also one of its most emotionally powerful. In D&D, we could do this as part of a roleplaying warmup. At the start of our next game, we might ask the players to record a campfire tale their characters share about their upbringing. Or we ask each player individually to record an in-character farewell message to the party and to their character’s loved ones. We can keep these recordings handy and pull them out when a character dies. In this way, we honor the character’s passing, and create an emotional moment in the aftermath of their death.
Conversely, we can record messages as the DM, and use them as effects in our game. Maybe the party gets a mysterious spoken message, conserved inside a crystal, which leads them towards the next arc of the campaign. Or a new villain announces their presence by broadcasting a sinister message from dark storm clouds.
Learning from other RPGs
We can always learn from other RPGs. Previously, we’ve looked at Fiasco and Icarus. Now Ten Candles can show us innovative ways of creating an immersive atmosphere. We can pick bits and parts which inspire us, and change them for our D&D game. Run and play other RPGs. There’s lots to learn from them.
