Found this Jennifer Kretchmer video that helped already.
My only real advice is to lean into the ceremony of the game. Really sell the repeated phrases and make each time you burn something or put a candle out have a little reverence too it. Not to be so serious you make it weird, but this game works very well for tapping into a certain feeling you don’t find elsewhere.
Keep in mind that dice rolls don’t necessarily determine success, just who has control of the narrative.
Encourage your players to make it dramatic when they do take control.
Don’t worry too much if sillier moments happen and give everyone a good chuckle, honestly those moment really make the darkness hit that much harder.
Looks like I’m little late for this one. How’d your game go, OP? For anyone else, I’ve played in a couple games and GMed a few as well. Here’s what I’ve learned:
- As Leokadia said, learning into the ceremony is important. It’s all too easy for players to break the tension with jokes, and the ceremony helps maintain that feeling of solemness.
- Whenever a candle goes out, feel free to fast forward to the next scene where something dramatic will happen. I didn’t do this, and just kept going into the next moment. After the fact, I felt like things would have been more interesting if I had kept things moving.
- it’s easy to forget, but remember that everything is dark. Your players will need to figure out how to see where they are going. If you need a quick way to ramp up tension, you can threaten their light source. Don’t do this too often though.
- Take a bathroom break before play begins. It sucks when you have to pause the game at a tense moment, and then you may be faced with the fact that a light or two went out in your absence
Hi! my game went well thanks! some good feedback and overall how things went.
Module I created a module based on the Mork Borg setting, You are in a cabin in the middle of the woods, 10 days ago one of the God Basilisks said:
This is true the world is dark, at that point all natural sources of light extinguished, 5 days later they came, they started killing the people living close by and you are the last survivors, you are half a day away from the closest town and a couple of days away from the City Capital, you know the city capital may have a way to safeguard your party, so your mission is to get there as soon as possible.
I had already played with 2 of the players a small Mork Borg two session game so they already knew what to expect in terms of the world. The third player game the feedback that they would have liked more context for the world, and we concluded that it was harder to know creative ways to solve things on a fantasy setting when it’s your first time playing something similar. (It was also their first time playing a TTRPG).
The biggest feedback was that the objective wasn’t clear, they knew they kind of had to get to the main city but didn’t know why.
The mood of the game was good but I think I presented the “others” a little bit late, could have hinted them more frequently at the beginning. Also at some point one of the players said the truth that they found a baby basilisks in the woods and it somehow turned the adventure in to a let’s take Baby Yoda Basilisk to the Capital city and the mood was completely lost, but everyone had fun including me so it went well.
I’m excited to play again, already have an Idea to run a 10 Candles session as kicking off for a D&D campaign for Wild Beyond the Witch light. The general idea is that the story that happens while playing 10 Candles is a Legend that the hags tell the players at the carnaval when they are kids and it’s the distraction that they use to steal their things.
Sorry for the long message! but I think that’s all :)
Glad everyone had fun! I think you are right about introducing “Them” a bit sooner. If their current location is clearly unsafe, then the city would start looking like a better option.
I think the fantasy setting gives you some added challenges as well. Most of the scenarios the genre comes with are modern-ish setting, and I think that helps set the stakes for players without having to mention it. A window breaking nearby is scary because you know what it would be like if it happened to you and you know the fear of stepping on glass, but describing a whole village burning down in Mörk Borg is less scary because it’s so far removed from daily life. For your story, you just need to do some extra legwork to make the threats more personal.
I can’t help with Baby Yoda Basilisks though. :)
Thanks, definitely learned that about fantasy’s will see how it goes next time.
Nobody was prepared for baby Yoda basilisk
I’m still to run my first game so no advice here, just wish you good game) This place here is a lil bit empty
A little less empty now
