So last night we played Ten Candles, a tragic horror RPG, with 3 MCs and 1 DJ. From my perspective, as a player, it was great. The ritual of the game really helped build the atmosphere and tension.

We started by each recording an audio message for posterity. An unconventional start, but I thought it helped cement who our characters were and what was important to us. The room was lit only with 10 candles. Whenever we faced adversity and failed, our dice pool would dwindle and a candle would be extinguished.

On occasion, it was possible to call on our character traits to get a reroll, or if we had a moment of hope, gain a bonus dice. But any respite was fleeting… the route to the scenario’s conclusion was a downward spiral of doom. Which is what we signed up for!

After our characters died a grisly, lonely death in the dark, we too were sat in the dark and our audio messages were played back. They seemed to have acquired an odd resonance… shaded with our knowledge of the fate that befell those poor souls.

I played ‘Dozer’ MacGarret, a selfish mechanic who got what was coming to him. R.I.P.

https://boardgamegeek.com/rpgitem/192129/ten-candles