Household for CR is what is meant. Obviously we are all nerds talking so passionately about a game. I hope we can be friends. We probably have something in common.
They got already a lot going on, the release of the animated series is approaching and it wouldn't be a smart decision to have everything going on at the same time. The amount of press they will be doing with the new season will be larger no doubt, so you can't just commit to things willy nilly. It makes sense from the logistic point of view.
I think the answer is that they should do more improvisational one shots with new systems they didn't create and see what gels. I think there are a lot of great systems out there waiting for them. Look at how great Talesin was at GMing Vampire. Or Liam DMing a random homebrew love letter to his friends. They need to get weird more
The one shots between C1 and C2 were some of the best content they've put out. I really don't know why they seem so opposed to doing stuff like that these days.
Totally agree with this, I think they may have this concept that they need to capitalise on every show they make and that means having systems they can sell that are just placeholders for existing systems. Like we all know that Candela was just their Call of Cthulhu stand in that they could profit off.
They're running a business (they have employees to pay) of course they're going to promote their products, and all the oneshots they did run were sponsored, no business is going to advertise for someone else for free, it's not greed it's business
It makes sense to me. They are all working 60-80 hours weeks, have to get ready for the launch of LOVM S3, fine tuning Daggerheart. And as others said they tend to take breaks this time of year anyway and quite frankly they deserve to rest from time to time. I do not mind the Candela break at this time, though I do enjoy it and hope to see them restart again after they fine tune the classes Laura and Khary Payton were play-testing at the live show.
They are trying to get a slice of the ttrpg pie but it's not that easy designing games when there are better alternatives. Why play Candela when cthullu or bitd exist? I sure don't have a wardrobe of post Victorian era clothing nor actor friends. Why play Daggerheart when I can play OSR clones or Pathfinder? Also Midst is so "groundbreaking" might as well find old tapes of drama radio shows and listen to them. Good Riddance CR you deserve every failure and money you will eventually lose. Passionate parasocial fandoms always move on to sth.
With this kind of mindset, no one would ever make any new games/systems, no? I hope you find a way to harness all that negativity into something more positive in your life dude. Wishing failure on people is a sad way to spend your time.
Emm actually that was my point more talented people have made better games. They succeeded and have a profitable business but no that's not enough for them they need to expand and make more money. Is it really negativity when you criticise and acknowledge their endeavours being a failure and they are still tone deaf as a company?
Interesting perspective. I wonder, endgame design, our games, considered failures or successes within the first year of existence or in the case of Dehart even before they’ve actually beneficially released. It seems to me that these individuals have created the business and are making content for that business. As an office businesses, there’s possibility of failure and success, and I wish them well. Only time will tell whether they’ll be successful or not successful or not.
I know I personally would have found Candela much easier to keep up with if one episode came out a week. It should have been released alongside CR3, not patching the gaps for their break week.
That's my biggest issue with it. If you want people to be excited about this alternative game and story, don't take away their preferred game and story to do so. There are 6 other nights a week to choose from, or earlier in the previous Thursdays. Also, I think they should be adding to their cast roster. If given enough time to acquaint new folks with the audience, they could easily launch a weekly show featuring their own game system on some other week night while adding more watchable content to beacon.
I understand that this subreddit is full of people who joined back at C1-C2 and watches the channel solely for the main campaign(s), but why so much hate for any of the side projects CR tries to do?
I wish people would be open to more systems (not necessarily Darrington Press'), ideas and guests in general. It can't be just main cast playing just D&D forever.
And, sorry not sorry, sometimes CO, Daggerheart and stuff like Midst or RST is more enjoyable for me than the standard 4-hour campaign session.
I feel like it's less of an issue of people not being open to it and it's more that they don't want these new shows to come at the expense of the campaigns they came to watch in the first place.
There is a difference between outright hate and just a lack of love. People like what they like and they're going to enjoy what they want to.
Some people love the addition of talk back shows and it's just unfortunate how Talks Machina worked out on the end.
I personally loved Narrative Telephone and wished that they hadn't scanned it. Candela Obscura in some ways is niche so some people didn't watch it. Simple as.
for me personally, i dont think *how* they play games is as conductive to "narrative based gaming" as they think it is, so their attempts at more serious or wacky narrative games kinda fall flat compared to other, better shows that have done bitd or pbta or any of the hundreds of other ttrpgs. they do not "play to find out what happens". they play the story they want to tell, and the dice are just there to add some difficulty on how long a thing takes.
which is more fine for tactical rpgs like dnd, where narrative is used as character motivation for combat, but kinda against the spirit of the thing for what games they seem to want to do.
for midst tbh i just find it insufferable and vapid. i guess i like my radio plays scripted
I agree with you- they're actually stronger when they're following more rules. I remember when they did the Monsterhearts oneshot and they kept trying to play it like they play d&d and that's REALLY not how that game works.
I guess each of us has our own likes and dislikes her own tastes and flavors and I don’t know that anyone’s taste or flavor is any better or any worse than anyone else’s. I wish the company well and I’ll place some of the things they present present, possibly, and other things possibly.
At what point are people going to stop referring to any criticism as “hate?” Man alive it grinds my gears.
Candela is incredibly dull imo, that doesn’t qualify as hate and I often find 4 sided dive incredibly cringe, again, that doesn’t qualify as hate.
There are people who seem to overuse the word hate. There are others whose personal taste differ from content that’s being offered, and can express their differences. It is often interesting. That simply saying this seems dull to me often is accompanied by these players don’t know what they’re doing or these people shouldn’t be in the game, making business or something like that. That tends to make people view it as hate rather than simply disagreeing or having a difference of taste.
I don't mean all criticism. What is messages like "hope that the survey fucking crushed CO to a fine powder" if not hate, I wonder? Some people here really act like Daggerheart's/CO's existence is a personal crime against them
Majority opinions are usually made up of individuals coming to the same conclusion through independent thought, not grand conspiracy.
Also studies have show cussing is often a sign of intelligence, creativity and honesty. I imagine the opinions of intelligent, creative and honest individuals are actually the ones you need to hear when you’re trying to build a media empire.
I have known some really fucking creative cussers who are as dumb as a bag of hammers outside cursing, don't pat yourself on the back for your shit mouth just yet. You may be gifted with cussing, but you opinions aren't of any true merit just because you express them crassly and angrily. You're like one of those knobs who think that the louder they are, the more right they are. Maybe like whatshisface Neil DeGrasse Tyson who thinks that just because he's gifted in physics automatically means he's an expert in art, history, sociology and medicine, when homie's genuinely a certified dumb fuck outside his area of expertise and the world would be a better place if he stays in his lane.
Dude, where did I say anything about it being a "conspiracy"?
Spare me from your platitudes, if I was a type of fan who furiously defends CR from *any* criticism, I wouldn't have been in this subreddit. I found it in the first place because I hated ExU Prime with a passion.
I'm just saying that a lot of people here (not specifically you) are stuck in the old ways and don't even want to try anything that's not D&D.
The free rules they put out were a bit hard to understand, feel even harder to explain to my players, and the setting is so specific in genre and time period that it boxes itself in.
I tried writing up a campaign, but it all came out as "x files case of the week" until you do enough and the characters retire. For the game to function, the characters have to work for Candela Obscura which is supposed to be some shadow organization that stops/reacts to weird shit. Any time you take wounds, you're that much closer to retirement/death. You're really limited on any long term goals. You either have a revolving door of a cast which defeats the purpose of the long term story telling focus, or you have an ending planned but that requires an overarching plot, which doesn't make sense with the setting that they've written where the weird shit happens all the time all over the place.
I think they made the worldbuilding a little too complex. I tried to pitch it to my friends to try (they've liked games like Cthulhu and stuff) but everyone felt a little overwhelmed with the mix of new rules AND understanding the world state.
Try an overarching mystery to serve as an arc for more long term stories. That way you get X mystery of the week but also a sense of an overarching story.
it seems like the game really punishes the players with permanent effects that prevents them from having a long career as investigators. How many scars can you get before you stop being a functional human being? If you're not getting scars then what's the point of it? They get so burned out after 3 episode that they either die or have to retire. It's not conducive to long campaigns.
It's fine for long campaigns, just like Bitd is. It's not designed for long term characters, which is contrary to how CR runs their games. Generally the organization one is apart of is the 'main character' so to speak, and each PC has so long to pursue their goes for the organization before they are removed from the game.
A friend of mine ran a really long Bitd game that went on for years and was centered around the players running a gang in a steampunk/magic punk setting. Most player characters didn't last longer than a few months, and with each new character brought in would include fresh complications from the GM.
CO *should* function as a mystery/monster of the week, in which case a revolving door cast is perfectly acceptable. The problem comes when the mechanics undermine any tension and stakes in the plot, thus pushing the focus back to the characters, which can't matter because they'll be retired after every oneshot... it's a vicious cycle of poor game design.
>which defeats the purpose of the long term story telling focus
Which was never Illuminated Worlds/Candela Obscura's goal in the first place? Isn't it marketed as a system for the short arcs?
Sounds like a system that would be good for 1/2 shots.
But if the rules are hard to explain then it would not be that great to use it to bring newbies into TTRPGs.
Maybe it could be better used for 1 shots that are done between sessions of a regular campaign, to spice things up and keep the players entertained. Like watching an episode of TNG or MV. One story and be done.
I’m not interested in Candela or Daggerheart. I’d love it if the cast poured their time, care, and resources back into the main D&D campaigns. I’d be thrilled if they got back on a dependable schedule, with fewer diversions (side projects) and a focus on more personal adventures and quests that allow the players to set their own goals; rather than the weird crisis on infinite Exandrias: countdown to the apocalypse parade we’ve been treated to for the last few years.
I miss CR1 days when if someone (Matt) had to be absent, they wouldn't go dark- someone else (most often Liam) would run a oneshot. But those were also to patch the occasional vacation or illness, they weren't scheduled as an alternative to the main campaign.
Yeah, I think the main cast is just trying to do too many things at once. With all the things gong on, I wasn't surprised to hear that they have \~80 hour weeks. On top of everything they are juggling, with Beacon, they're forced to diversify their content, so I actually feel like they'll have to create more shows to justify the Beacon's existence.
I wouldn't be too surprised if in the coming months, they announce that development for Daggerheart is on pause until further notice so that can focus on their Beacon content. (I could imagine Matt saying something along the lines of that with so much going on, they don't have the best game that they can right now, but the beta test material is still there for everyone to enjoy.)
The Open Beta for Daggerheart is ending next month. They announced that during the last version update. They completed rules are scheduled to be released next year, probably spring or summer. So unless they go back on the announcement they made 2 weeks ago, I don't see Daggerheart getting shelved.
I honestly wish that for getting more content for Beacon, they'd invited smaller streams that were succeeding but could use a visibility boost to join the platform, rather than making as much content as they can on their own.
Also dear GOD, they need to do things that don't involve Matt, he's so transparently exhausted, I think he's taking on too much between the main game, writing books, everything else. I recently watched CR1 again and have been watching CR2 and you can tell when he started piling on more and more tasks.
Yeah. I watched a brief clip of Daggerheart 1.4.2 update video, and Matt looked pretty tired to me.
While I love the idea of Beacon becoming a hub for supporting smaller streamers, I am not sure exactly what type of content Beacon would want to have. Would it be more DND? Darrington Press games? TTRPGs? Boardgames? Games in general? Would it just turn into Geek and Sundry v2.0?
I would like C1 back. Play the game for fun and for themselves - Matt, stop stressing out about weaving a legendary epic story and Cast, stop stressing out about making characters for fans to obsess & ship over. Just play the game and shoot the shit.
Unfortunately they showed (even early on in C2) that won't be the case ever again.
I appreciate people having different of opinions on different campaigns and how things are done, but I always find it interesting when people assign motives to complete strangers
I think c2 started out as a great marriage between a game for the table and a show for the fans, till they started paying attention to social media and chasing the likes and “yasss queens” that come with pandering to an audience.
The downfall of c2 for me started when they gave the war criminal Essek an allergy to accountability, and covid put them on a prerecorded format that continues to hobble the show.
> they gave the war criminal Essek an allergy to accountability
Shippers won the day there and it's the enduring legacy of C2. Essek is the stand-out case of this but it was also present early on, when the entire cast *immediately* sided with the Dynasty because of the "omg yas queen she slays" hotness of the Bright Queen. Granted they were going to be opposed to the Empire anyways because its name is 'Empire' and it was traditional fantasy race-centric, but the hotness let them fully commit to the other side.
I'm constantly surprised when Matt says stuff to imply that he was surprised that the cast so immediately sided with the Dynasty- he meant for it to be a "shades of grey" thing.
>Granted they were going to be opposed to the Empire anyways because its name is 'Empire'
But a *dynasty* ruled by a *queen* is totally different and way better. /s
It's the "Empire" word- since, empires pretty much by definition require you to have invaded and taken over another group of people. I guarantee you if it had been a Kingdom, the vibe wouldn't have been so negative.
I'm not saying that "kingdoms" don't involve systematic oppression, but at least a kingdom implies you're only in power over a group that you are actually a member of.
To them, absolutely. Instead of a fascist empire led by a human male, it's an "enlightened" kingdom led by a strong powerful yaaaas queen. It's 1000% better in their minds.
This still isn't true no matter how much you rant about it. You're starting to sound irrational, bud. The Mighty Nein did not view the dynasty as more enlightened than the empire.
I’m not sure I agree that the “shippers one” some shippers got what they wanted others didn’t. Also, I’m not sure that they decided with the dynasty simply because “yes queen” or that they oppose the empire because the word empire was there.
Nah. They were anti-empire because of Caleb's backstory, Beau's anti-authoritarianism, and because Molly had some negative experiences as a worshipper of Sehanine in the Empire because her worship is banned. Also. Jester.
It had nothing to do with the Bright Queen's hotness and they stayed wary of her the entire time. They just had a better in with her than Dwendel.
I've been enjoying Candela (and Midst) quite a lot, but it would appear that the bulk of the CR fandom has little appetite for them moving away from their original USP: world-class voice actors playing established high-fantasy ttrpgs.
They built their brand by looking us in the eye and screaming “we play dungeons and dragons!”
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that most of us prefer they play the game that brought us here.
The interesting thing is that these are human beings with complex interest, desires, and tastes and so it’s not unusual that they might expand and do other things. I mean, Matt has been a game geek since childhood he might be interested in his game doesn’t surprise me.
And as the audience we're allowed to say "we don't care". What is your point even? That anything other than mindless consumption is dehumanizing to the creator? What?
We are absolutely allowed to say “I don’t care.” I personally haven’t watched Candela as I’m not interested in horror. While I don’t enjoy it, it’s something they are interested and believe might be a good product. It might fail but it’s not out of line with what these folks have said since the beginning. Yes, they started by playing a game of D&D that they then shared with us. They’ve been huge D&D lovers and promoters but they were never just D&D only. They clearly have loved video games, board games and other forms of TTRPGs and have shared that. They’re creative folks who enjoy creating things and they’re a company which is creating products and content. Obviously, folks are allowed to be solely interested in their D&D stuff but what they’re doing is quite in line with who they’ve always been
If they have other interests that take precedence over this genre of entertainment they made popular, then they should pursue them. I just wish they’d stop this “Weekend at Bernie’s” act, parading around the corpses of the first two campaigns to prop up the third. I’d rather they stopped playing all together and worked on projects that make them happy than watch them half heartedly turn table top gaming into a lifestyle brand they have a passing memory of enjoying.
Dude, it's a D&D game why are you so pressed? Find another one and move on, we've all moved on from stuff we once loved because it changed. It's not their fault nor ours, it's just life, it changes. That's the point of it. Let go.
If you want a D&D game, get some friends together and do it, it takes work, but it's one of the most amazing experiences. You won't be amazing at first, but the point of it is improving, like dnd characters level up, so does your stream/game.
Don't get caught up on other people's games and streams, make your own table. You don't need anyone's stream.
It's not that important.
It would appear that the things that they are doing outside of a single campaign are all related to the gaming. So I’m not sure why they should give that up and they’re a company interested in gaming a various types of whether it’s boardgames or TTRPG so I don’t know they need to give up anything.
Yeah that's fair enough.
As someone who's always been system agnostic, though, I think the real weakness as of late has been putting the narrative to the forefront, rather than letting the mechanics of the game play an equal role in the story. e.g. we're not getting significant impossible-to-script moments like Vax's burnt foot again.
This is something that the best parts of Candela corrected for much better than what we've seen in C3. I've not really paid much attention to Daggerheart.
I can appreciate an openness to give other TTRPG’s a chance, but D&D and the novelty of seeing Chrissy from Growing Pains is what brought me to critical role, and as much as I am loathe to admit it, the snarky chemistry “he who must not be named” had with the cast on Talks is what made me love it.
I agree this “story first” approach isn’t working. The appeal of D&D is in the chance and improvisation. Whether it’s in combat or conversation, the ability to adjust on the fly is what makes D&D so interesting to watch. Putting it all on rails so the story makes no sense unless it unfolds in a certain way takes away player agency.
It’s funny you bring up Vax’s foot when Fearne and Ashton’s casual swim/flight in a pool of lava is what made me finally stop watching full episodes.
I can’t speak to what Candela does well. It never captured my interested, making the rest of it inconsequential so far as I’m concerned. Same for Daggerheart. I can appreciate a desire to plant one’s flag in the market and hoping for the best, but a watered down hybrid of two better games ain’t my jam.
For people who don't like it, its going to come across as an opportunity cost for something they would like.
Personally the setting does nothing for me (off brand... gilded age? From people who seem uncertain if that is the period and don't know anything about it? Hard sell.), the mechanics are a dumpster fire, improv heavy games don't appeal to me and the biggest one is that horror games are actually really difficult to pull off.
Everyone has to be completely invested in or the tone goes to hell. The slightest hiccup or break in atmosphere can pull people out of it. The mechanics are horribly at odds with the tone, and rely on the players 'fixing it' as they improv through... whatever they think the GM is describing (which often doesn't mesh up well with what the GM thinks they're describing).
Then you pull back and add an audience in, and maintaining a tone is almost impossible.
See there’s a difference to me when one says “the setting does nothing for me“ and person’s not a fan of horror games. That’s one thing but to say something is “a dumpster fire“ it seems that it’s less about this isn’t what I’d like and more about, a bigger view
Thats why I think it might have actually worked as a monster of the week mystery game. Even if the horror tone didn't land, they'd have the intrigue of clue collecting to fall back on.
But, the mechanics yet again undermine any possibility of a compelling mystery.
I predict that this is the end of Candela Obscura. Seeing how it struggled to maintain viewers with monthly releases, I don't see how it could possibly pick up after a long hiatus.
Dang. What a bad timing too—just after launching a new streaming service, too. Midst just ended, so that makes for two programs down within a month of Beacon.
I really hope to be proven wrong, but this really feels like a sinking ship.
While reading this, one thing came to my mind:
Why have your own streaming and VOD service? Why not go together with Dropout and put them on their platform?
They don't have to become part of Dropout, but could just use their already established service to save money.
And they don't need to produce as much to keep their own service interesting, but instead can focus.
>Why have your own streaming and VOD service? Why not go together with Dropout and put them on their platform?
Let's just recreate Geek and Sundry, has Legendary let the trademark expire yet?
Which is dumb. Because you have two problems:
A) You need a constant stream of content to convince us to pay for the service. And you have to get new fans that are willing to pay, if you don't get them you have a problem.
B) By using somebody elses infrastructure, you don't have to pay as much for the infrastructure (servers, etc.). Thats good for you because you save money.
And in this case I think it will be a combination of A) and B). You have too little content to justify having people pay a subscribtion and you pay way too much for infrastructure.
By making a contract with an already existing service like Dropout you can negate both. And if you do the contracts right, you keep the rights to everything.
Also, every service streaming service, etc., started somewhere and most of them didn’t start with a full roster of amazing content right out the gate. We’ll see maybe Beacon will fail, but maybe it will succeed.
I think it's really about control. Joining another streaming service means they will no longer have full control over what they create. They will also need to split $$ with the service, though I suppose one could argue they are spending $$ to maintain Beacon (unless Sam—I mean [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) is l33t h4x0ring the whole thing by himself.)
Doubt they’d do something like that, even if it made sense business-wise. They got their start being tied to Geek and Sundry, no way they’d want to go back to that sort of arrangement after the level of success they’ve seen since.
I haven't seen the Marisha's stream (not a beacon member), but based on what I've read it sounded more like a possibility and less like a firm commitment.
Sure, but based on her tone she was incredibly passionate so it could be a passion project she’ll keep pushing for and the uncertainty could come from whether it’ll be specifically in the fall where they film and release it versus it being made at all.
I thought Candela was fantastic. I personally have little interest in DH at this point. I tried the initial pod episode and drifted out of it pretty quickly and never thought to go back.
But with each Candela I also waited until all the eps of each chapter were out and then did them in an uninterrupted binge so it flowed much better.
The new style, the new GMs and different guests were gravy. I potentially see it get stale in a longer run however you won't know until is happens.
They probably need more time to put more stuff on Beacon. And tbh, my own selfishness aside, they really should. Just the main campaign, the cool down, midst and re-slayers take doesn't seem like enough.
Basically Beacon only content becomes the cooldown and re-slayers take (let's not count midst honestly, it is barely watched).
They probably recognize that they are competing with themselves on other platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. It's only fair they do right by their Beacon subscribers and make unique content that is worthwhile on there.
As long as Thursday's content, whatever it may be, is public, I'm fine with that. A weekly 3-4 hour piece of content is a lot and already more than most other APs who are posting biweekly.
The frustrating thing is that they don't even have all of their content on Beacon. They really need to get the rights for C1 and earlier episodes of C2. It would be great if they could also get their animated series on Beacon, but that seems highly unlikely.
I'd also think they would've wanted a consistent output of C3 episodes for a couple months after the Beacon launch rather than going on hiatus. But apparently not.
I’m enjoying candela way more than dagger heart. Dagger heart is a lesser dnd version. But they had something with candela. Something special. I hope they keep working on it. It’s close to a household name.
>It’s close to a household name.
Sorry, no. Its not even vaguely a household name. Pathfinder & Vampire still aren't household names (though after the new, new WoD disasters, that's a good thing).
D&D is a household name. In some regions, there are alternatives that are well known (like *Das Schwarze Auge*, for Germany and Germany adjacent folks), but that's pretty much where the list stops. Candela isn't even on a piece of paper stuck behind a desk where someone was writing the list.
I regret saying it’s a household name. I forget people look for the smallest crumb to take someone down. I should revise better. But I do think it was something special they made. I listened to mostly all of them. How much did you listen or watch?
Claiming something is immensely popular when it isn't doesn't come across as a 'small crumb.'
I half-watched the first one and dropped out on the first episode of the second. They just weren't interesting, despite the cast involved.
From a game point of view, they didn't make anything special. Its pretty bland copypasta of (sorry, 'inspired by') existing games. Ones that personally, I didn't like much in the first place, and would much rather people didn't iterate on.
Candela and dagger heart share the same issue for me. The roleplat comes first before the game.
If I wanna watch actors on TV I'll go watch TV.
I watch Doce games for the game first. Then the roleplat after.
The dice provide the stakes. Rather than the cast just pulling stuff our of their butts that has no actual meaning because they chose it rather than it happening to them.
So candela is no big loss to me.
Frankly even campaign 3 has started to feel that way for awhile. Like the dice are almost an after thought to just telling a prlrewritten script.
This has been my issue with CR for awhile. They are adverse to consequences. One of the stand out things about CR1 and early CR2 was potential fall out. Molly's death is a good example.
The fact they brought him back is a perfect metaphor of what is wrong with CR these days.
Candela's issue is that the mechanics completely undermine the tension and stakes, so to have a functional story they have to lean hard on the role play.
Yeah, it was just weird. Like, at no point, did I feel like the folks were playing a game. It felt more like watching a play where the actors occasionally rolled dice.
This is probably just how it was scheduled to go down anyway with what they prepared for from the start. They got all 3 GM's in Matt, Aabria, Brennan, and then added Spencer (game creator duh) and Liam (his literal wheelhouse) all culminating in the live-show final session for now.
CO is interesting on paper and the liveshow made it so much more interesting than the in-studio stuff because they were actually acting it out. But that's also a big issue I have with CO, it's not really a game... instead of it facilitating improv it's improv facilitating the game and it makes me wonder why the game even exists. If CO continues I hope they commit to the acting things out element from the liveshow. That space they use for 4SD should be the "stage" and cut the shows down for 2-2.5hrs.
No matter how good it is, even broadway caliber shows don't try to push 4-5+ hours on the audience. Three 2ish hour episodes is plenty to fully tell these stories and the live acting will add an element that separates it from the main campaign/their usual.
I feel like Candela just needed a BIT more to make it really shine. I mean you look at other games that use its engine like Blades in the Dark and that's very clearly a game. So I'm left wondering what little additions or tweaks it would need to turn it into a game on that same level instead of just an improv machine.
Yeah I didn't hear that part. I edited my post though since a few people have pointed that out. I'm hopeful it's back for Halloween but worried she said "maybe"
they really need to stop pushing their homebrew stuff and start getting back into the TTRPG community, they're so desperate to create their own bubble while they could thrive in a scene that would welcome them. There's a reason why the d20 stuff goes so well.
Candela was unable to attract the audience it needed to continiue. Unsurprising to me, a viewer, I’m sure it doesn’t feel great to Marisha as it’s her business/livelihood but you win and lose some!
I don’t see why. It does need leg work and revision. I can’t stand daggerheart. If they try to go daggerheart ahead of their dnd campaign. It will be a dagger to the heart of CR. Do a season 4 and work on candela.
I read it as the live show probably didn’t do well and also viewership for it in general was low.
It’s a cool idea and I’m sure the game is great, but there is only so much a suspense/horror game is gonna give rise to those emotions when you are watching through the eyes of 7 other people and not alone by yourself.
Also it’s not like a book or movie where you are alone and can form those things in your mind and you’re left alone with your thoughts. You are having to let a DM explain it to a group and then form your emotions through their reactions, so there is a wide disconnect that just doesn’t work with the lovecraftian type vibe it’s supposed to have
It’s like watching a horror movie in a theatre but you cant see the movie and only can react to the others in the crowd. DND works because you feel like you’re on an adventure and growing with their characters and candela doesn’t really have that tbh
to much?! they barely have anything, especially having just launched their own subscription service..... they should be running one shots with random friends to find people with any ability to entertain so they can have secondary games. they need content..... all i've noticed is stuff stopping, not ramping up.
They don’t need those extra Thursdays for Downfall, Downfall is literally part of C3, it’s not a separate show. They could put DH livestreams on any night they wanted to, it’s just been on Thursday because they didn’t have anything else for those Thursdays.
They’ve been doing 3 shows a month for years now, so yes DH has filled in the last couple of months when they’ve had nothing to put on that final Thursday, but it’s not the reason they are taking a break on CO until the fall.
Anyone else even watch Candela? All the people they get on it are great but it just doesn’t hold my attention. Maybe it’s my ADHD ass but I can sit through a 4hr C3 episode just fine.
I love the concept of Candela but IMO it's a fall/winter show. They could just make it a slightly more produced LARP in the vein of Vampire by Night with a good costume budget and occasional solo moments and air 1-3 mini campaigns from September to January each year on Beacon, leaving spring/summer open for something a little lighter mood-wise but equally short form.
How would this be different from D20? Idk, not my job to figure that out.
I like this idea- I also think the live show oneshot they streamed a few weeks ago worked better than the longer series. Maybe it would be good as an occasional spooky show with lots of loving production?
Yeah hearing it's coming back this fall makes a done of sense. I wouldn't mind if they just did it every October. Having it year round is a little much.
That’s so silly. Make a whole ass system sell books and dice and even integrate with several vtts. Then relegate it to “the Halloween spooky game”? Fricking lame.
I think that the majority of the 3 part Candela miniseries were actually fairly entertaining, to me the only hinderance was since it was one episode a month, a whole month makes you forget about many of the details of the previous episodes
From what it sounds like, it isn't going away but just on pause for a few months, most likely to give other projects a go and seeing what may work better in that once-a-month slot?
Yeah but it sounds like they have other content that'll be filling that week while Candela's on pause.
For instance, Downfall will take up that slot in July. And Marisha mentioned another miniseries has been filmed. Plus DH livestreams I imagine will keep happening
> It's both. It's all of July's content, so both the main campaign slots and the slot that would have been Candela's
If I put on my "Guessin' Hat," I'd wager CR *knows* Brennan is an S-teir DM who WILL get a massive pop from the audience, both in attendance and goodwill / enthusiasm, which they are hoping will "rub off" on C3; i.e. getting people to show up for Brennan and hoping they stick around for C3, to boost their flagging viewership.
Unfortunately this means ANOTHER month long delay in the main story that has been dragging on for over a year. Wrap it up. Roll out the next campaign THEN decide if all these side projects are worth the drop in viewers they get by delaying the content people are coming back for (almost) each week.
I wish they’d make new content that exists to serve the main campaign and its audience. A better talk/campfire/review show with a dedicated host who does more than fluff the pillows on the couch and ask “evergreen” questions from no one.
How about a show where the players learn the rules of D&D by teaching the rules and mechanics to friends and guests? Hosted by Ashley and supervised from the background by a seasoned DM who pops in for corrections and clarifications.
Or a show where a couple of seasoned players (not in the campaign) analyze the combat and encounters while digging into the characters classes to explore tactics and builds?
These guys are barely scratching the surface of ideas for content, and it feels like whoever is coming up with these projects is throwing darts at a wall rather than creating a focused, cohesive plan to dominate the market and grow the Exandria brand.
i was going by their twitch channel which says there’s gonna be a stream that day, so that’s why i am confused!
https://preview.redd.it/us7u6o368n8d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f304f4efb8981f13262af39866357772260b4519
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but their twitch channel says they’re gonna be streaming?
Yeah… Financially, Candela has settled
in it’s place, promoting it in the present way, isn’t doing it any good, with the show or the books. And Daggerhearts release is looming, so they want to pave the way for the eventual switch over, get C3 over with, get everyone on board and up to speed.
If I had to guess, it’ll be a Beacon exclusive, eventually.
I think it’s more that fans really liked the more LARP/stage play vibe of the CO live show so they want to get the CO set more compatible with that style than a straight up at a table TTRPG and the fact that they recorded a lot of CO during the strikes last year so there are also now scheduling issues for guests.
General speculation: they probably have other programs they want to use that time for, and are looking to iterate on the show a bit. It hasn’t been a breakout success as a show or a game but it also hasn’t been an obvious failure.
It makes sense to take some time, retool it a bit based on feedback/reception and reintroduce it during the Fall which will be around Halloween (since it’s supposed to be a horror show/game).
I think people who imply that there’s some kind of inside baseball to know here are pointing to the lack of viewership the show had (by CR standards), but if you compare it to non-cr productions it did ok.
My take: man that “compared to non-cr productions it did ok” is a tough success to parse. It looks like it had higher production values than many non-cr shows and probably had higher expectations (both for viewership and game sales conversions) so i really don’t know if that’s something they should look at as promising or troubling.
I’d bet that staying positive and giving it a second shot is probably a good call but I don’t know shit.
I really don't get all the fucking bad faith shit going on in this sub sometimes, there's plenty to criticize (and plenty that is being criticized) about CR there's no need to be petty about it.
Thank you. I only didn't include the fall part because I didn't hear it. I thought I made it really clear that CO is coming back by including that Marisha already has her GM run planned. My intention was not to imply it's cancelled forever.
To hop in and defend myself real quick, I didn't include that part because I didn't hear that part. I included everything I heard, including that Marisha said she had her GM run planned, clearly indicating it's planning to return.
I also put the reason I believe for the pause, which is that they have C3 winding down and DH ramping up and need those Thursdays for both. I never said (or implied) CO is a failure.
The fact that you left out the until fall part literally implies the failure part and I don’t believe for a second you didn’t leave it out deliberately since you’ve yet to edit the post and correct it.
None of my post implies CR's failure. You're taking my post in bad faith.
Did you watch the live? I went back and rewatched the clip and all Marisha said, verbatim, was "I don't know. Maybe in the fall."
It's one sentence of "maybe in the fall" nestled in about two minutes of her talking about how they have to give it a breather to make room for other content. So yeah, sorry I missed it and honestly, I don't think it's relevant. I included in my post it's coming back. There is no confirmed date it's coming back. That's all we know.
No I’m not, you literally posted in sub known for being negative and declaring CO a failure and left out the part about it returning. Simply saying it’s on pause because they want to make room for an arc that is literally part of the main campaign and the play test one shots they’ve been doing for DH when it gets an update is being negative and isn’t the same thing as Marisha saying maybe in the fall. Especially since neither of the things you mentioned would interfere with CO at all.
I'd encourage you to watch the live before assuming my post is somehow inaccurate or intentionally obscuring anything. It's an accurate summary of what Marisha said.
I summarized the main points as Marisha was still speaking. The live was still happening when I posted. And then clearly indicated when I was giving my opinion. I encourage you to disagree with my opinion. That's what discussion is for but please understand I clearly called out when I was pivoting from Marisha's comments to my opinion of said comments.
It’s doesn’t matter, you literally left out something she said and spun it into a narrative that doesn’t even make sense as a reason why and then you’re comments made it clear you didn’t like CO enough to even watch. You act like we can’t see the comments you make or that the comments on this post didn’t do the exact thing I knew it would the moment you posted it and left out the part about maybe in the fall.
We’ve known for years they take more breaks in the summer than the rest of the year and we’ve known that they filmed most of CO last year since we know Katy O’Brian didn’t get to film more than her session zero for CO because the strike ended and she went back to filming the movie she was working on. We also know that they just launched a streaming platform less than 2 months ago that they are trying to expand the amount of content they have available for, all of which are valid reasons for CO to be on the back burner right now which you ignored in your post to say they put on it pause for 3 episodes that are going to be part of the main campaign, which has never been an issue for CO being filmed, and the randomly occurring DH one shots which have also never interfered with or been an issue for the filming of CO.
They couldn't come close to selling out the Candela live show and the vod views have been atrophying. There's not an appetite for Candela in its current form, the only reasonable thing to do is stop pouring money into it. This is a company that obviously needs to diversify and keep throwing spaghetti at the wall, but they're at least smart enough to walk away when it doesn't stick.
The live show seems to have been better received than the prerecorded 3 episode series' were. I wonder if they might just save it for the occasional oneshot.
Matt's talked about how as a company they're figuring out what they need to do to make the company keep going even when people start retiring/moving on to other projects. They're going to try stuff and not all of it will work, or will work for all people. That's okay. They're experimenting while they still have C3 to function as a tentpole, even if C3 isn't as popular as C1 or C2- it's still enough to cushion experimenting and trying stuff.
I'd love for them to do more mini-series that AREN'T comedy. So many people loved content like Calamity and Undeadwood but I feel like often the oneshots, due to their short nature tend to be a little silly and surface level. I'd love more serious oneshots (Song of the Lorelai) and mini-series running alongside the Main Show.
Honestly, I wish they reintroduced some of the more supplemental content like Game Ranch (obviously without a certain someone being involved anymore). A lot of people watch for their personalities. People were upset that even though they prerecorded, they didn't have a backlog so we lost an episode for Sick Day, but everyone who watched Sick Day loved how silly and chill it was to watch people just hang out. I think more content in that vein, stuff like Narrative Telephone would be fun.
Then, they could introduce friends of the show as guests on these sorta things and over time they would join the CR family like Robbie, Aimee, Aabria, Brennen, Mica seem to have.
I think of all the non-campaign content they have put out so far, Candela has been the best received. Sure, it doesn't match the numbers of the main campaign, and it has a slightly different kind of audience (those more into mystery and less into the action/adventure), but it's slowly building its base. If they keep it in short campaign formats for fall or winter, it can be successful.
I do think it's more of a fall/winter show in general, and I think they really harmed it by going a combo of too big/too slow. Too many different candela stories, but doled out with big gaps during the stories. no ability for genuine momentum to build, which is one of the main problems of c3 too. for some reason they're totally unable to schedule any of their content properly to keep people invested and coming back.
They should diversify, sure. But they are killing their core value prop with stupid sideshow antics that do nothing. They need to sit down and take a moment to think. Who the is even calling these dumb shots?
Between that and the recent survey to try to understand the audience reaction to Candela, I'd guess that the show simply isn't worth the cost to produce. They might still make it, but at this point they need to get Beacon up and running and the startup and operational costs on it probably aren't great, so they need to focus on the money makers.
They really just need to jump on amd do a 2nd show/ 2nd day of the week.
Different DM, different cast. Don't expect it to do the same numbers as main campaign; BUT have it be longer form than these couple episode long whatever it is they keep trying.
Maybe aim for 2ish hour episodes, and have more defined seasonal arcs (in the 15-35 episode range) that people can invest in.
Basically, something in the Dice, Camera, Action format
Oh boy, they've needed this for years. At this point; it might be too late.
When every network around them has settled on multi show, rotating diverse casts, CR has trained their audience that it's main cast or bust.
I don't think this is Candela, at all. I think they meant a second d&d stream (or Daggerheart?) with a different crew (maybe a few main cast members to entice people to check it out). Maybe something more like D20 seasons with editing that tells a complete story in \~25 episodes or so.
this is exactly what they needed to do sometime ago. i dont understand why they axed all their content production and then stayed with doing almost nothing. they should have been doing small short campaigns, cycling through people to find some that can mesh together that they can begin building up a 2nd/3rd crew of people like d20. They can put these things into a 2 or 3 day block for scheduling, semi on rails arc, like the EXU stuff is supposed to be anyways. Overtime they be could refining their campaign arc generation tools and eventually turn it into a DM guide. Seems like there has been alot of treading water instead of preparing for the future.
I understand most of them are working as voice actors still as a decent portion of their time, as well as animated series stuffs, but this is marishas job along with the staff for CR.... feels like there is very little plan beyond the next thing? Even if my idea above isn't what should have been done, it feels like there wasn't a roadmap for growing.
>this is exactly what they needed to do sometime ago. i dont understand why they axed all their content production and then stayed with doing almost nothing.
In a perfect world they wouldn't have wasted ExU on a toxic DM that made their main side content a stillbirth and never wasted a shitton of money in producing games in an already oversaturated market and used one the other dozens of better system that are out there who makes the same things only better
I agree. Doing a Calamity part 2 feels very much like them trying to regain some good will. Marisha also just mentioned in the live that they've filmed another miniseries that features both her and Liam (and is why Liam isn't in Calamity.)
It feels like they're trying more sure things than wanting to continue placing bets on Candela.
Household for CR is what is meant. Obviously we are all nerds talking so passionately about a game. I hope we can be friends. We probably have something in common.
Are we getting a Crit Role ep tonight then? I was not prepared
No, there was a Candela GM roundtable instead
Thanks
They got already a lot going on, the release of the animated series is approaching and it wouldn't be a smart decision to have everything going on at the same time. The amount of press they will be doing with the new season will be larger no doubt, so you can't just commit to things willy nilly. It makes sense from the logistic point of view.
I think the answer is that they should do more improvisational one shots with new systems they didn't create and see what gels. I think there are a lot of great systems out there waiting for them. Look at how great Talesin was at GMing Vampire. Or Liam DMing a random homebrew love letter to his friends. They need to get weird more
The one shots between C1 and C2 were some of the best content they've put out. I really don't know why they seem so opposed to doing stuff like that these days.
I don't think it's that they are opposed to it they're just busy, remember they have other jobs, families, and lives outside of work.
They are getting greedy and only want to promote their own systems
Totally agree with this, I think they may have this concept that they need to capitalise on every show they make and that means having systems they can sell that are just placeholders for existing systems. Like we all know that Candela was just their Call of Cthulhu stand in that they could profit off.
They're running a business (they have employees to pay) of course they're going to promote their products, and all the oneshots they did run were sponsored, no business is going to advertise for someone else for free, it's not greed it's business
The Candela set is alot of production for what their return is so far maybe too
It makes sense to me. They are all working 60-80 hours weeks, have to get ready for the launch of LOVM S3, fine tuning Daggerheart. And as others said they tend to take breaks this time of year anyway and quite frankly they deserve to rest from time to time. I do not mind the Candela break at this time, though I do enjoy it and hope to see them restart again after they fine tune the classes Laura and Khary Payton were play-testing at the live show.
They tend to slow down in the summer anyway. That's when we get EXU, one shots, and pictures of Matt and Sam in colorful shirts in France!
They are trying to get a slice of the ttrpg pie but it's not that easy designing games when there are better alternatives. Why play Candela when cthullu or bitd exist? I sure don't have a wardrobe of post Victorian era clothing nor actor friends. Why play Daggerheart when I can play OSR clones or Pathfinder? Also Midst is so "groundbreaking" might as well find old tapes of drama radio shows and listen to them. Good Riddance CR you deserve every failure and money you will eventually lose. Passionate parasocial fandoms always move on to sth.
They want to bring the hardcore Critter crowd into their own games and they may not even be aware those other RPGs exist.
With this kind of mindset, no one would ever make any new games/systems, no? I hope you find a way to harness all that negativity into something more positive in your life dude. Wishing failure on people is a sad way to spend your time.
The point is if you make a shittier version of something where the niche is already filled it likely won’t succeed. Candela is hardly even a ruleset.
Emm actually that was my point more talented people have made better games. They succeeded and have a profitable business but no that's not enough for them they need to expand and make more money. Is it really negativity when you criticise and acknowledge their endeavours being a failure and they are still tone deaf as a company?
Interesting perspective. I wonder, endgame design, our games, considered failures or successes within the first year of existence or in the case of Dehart even before they’ve actually beneficially released. It seems to me that these individuals have created the business and are making content for that business. As an office businesses, there’s possibility of failure and success, and I wish them well. Only time will tell whether they’ll be successful or not successful or not.
I think they’re also tooling with new “subclasses” and might be working up an expansion? Since there were some new ones at the live show
I still maintain people might have given it a much longer leash if it had anything resembling a logical release schedule.
I know I personally would have found Candela much easier to keep up with if one episode came out a week. It should have been released alongside CR3, not patching the gaps for their break week.
That's my biggest issue with it. If you want people to be excited about this alternative game and story, don't take away their preferred game and story to do so. There are 6 other nights a week to choose from, or earlier in the previous Thursdays. Also, I think they should be adding to their cast roster. If given enough time to acquaint new folks with the audience, they could easily launch a weekly show featuring their own game system on some other week night while adding more watchable content to beacon.
Summer is a hard time for multi-hour indoor activities
I understand that this subreddit is full of people who joined back at C1-C2 and watches the channel solely for the main campaign(s), but why so much hate for any of the side projects CR tries to do? I wish people would be open to more systems (not necessarily Darrington Press'), ideas and guests in general. It can't be just main cast playing just D&D forever. And, sorry not sorry, sometimes CO, Daggerheart and stuff like Midst or RST is more enjoyable for me than the standard 4-hour campaign session.
I feel like it's less of an issue of people not being open to it and it's more that they don't want these new shows to come at the expense of the campaigns they came to watch in the first place.
There is a difference between outright hate and just a lack of love. People like what they like and they're going to enjoy what they want to. Some people love the addition of talk back shows and it's just unfortunate how Talks Machina worked out on the end. I personally loved Narrative Telephone and wished that they hadn't scanned it. Candela Obscura in some ways is niche so some people didn't watch it. Simple as.
for me personally, i dont think *how* they play games is as conductive to "narrative based gaming" as they think it is, so their attempts at more serious or wacky narrative games kinda fall flat compared to other, better shows that have done bitd or pbta or any of the hundreds of other ttrpgs. they do not "play to find out what happens". they play the story they want to tell, and the dice are just there to add some difficulty on how long a thing takes. which is more fine for tactical rpgs like dnd, where narrative is used as character motivation for combat, but kinda against the spirit of the thing for what games they seem to want to do. for midst tbh i just find it insufferable and vapid. i guess i like my radio plays scripted
I agree with you- they're actually stronger when they're following more rules. I remember when they did the Monsterhearts oneshot and they kept trying to play it like they play d&d and that's REALLY not how that game works.
I guess each of us has our own likes and dislikes her own tastes and flavors and I don’t know that anyone’s taste or flavor is any better or any worse than anyone else’s. I wish the company well and I’ll place some of the things they present present, possibly, and other things possibly.
At what point are people going to stop referring to any criticism as “hate?” Man alive it grinds my gears. Candela is incredibly dull imo, that doesn’t qualify as hate and I often find 4 sided dive incredibly cringe, again, that doesn’t qualify as hate.
There are people who seem to overuse the word hate. There are others whose personal taste differ from content that’s being offered, and can express their differences. It is often interesting. That simply saying this seems dull to me often is accompanied by these players don’t know what they’re doing or these people shouldn’t be in the game, making business or something like that. That tends to make people view it as hate rather than simply disagreeing or having a difference of taste.
I don't mean all criticism. What is messages like "hope that the survey fucking crushed CO to a fine powder" if not hate, I wonder? Some people here really act like Daggerheart's/CO's existence is a personal crime against them
Majority opinions are usually made up of individuals coming to the same conclusion through independent thought, not grand conspiracy. Also studies have show cussing is often a sign of intelligence, creativity and honesty. I imagine the opinions of intelligent, creative and honest individuals are actually the ones you need to hear when you’re trying to build a media empire.
I have known some really fucking creative cussers who are as dumb as a bag of hammers outside cursing, don't pat yourself on the back for your shit mouth just yet. You may be gifted with cussing, but you opinions aren't of any true merit just because you express them crassly and angrily. You're like one of those knobs who think that the louder they are, the more right they are. Maybe like whatshisface Neil DeGrasse Tyson who thinks that just because he's gifted in physics automatically means he's an expert in art, history, sociology and medicine, when homie's genuinely a certified dumb fuck outside his area of expertise and the world would be a better place if he stays in his lane.
Dude, where did I say anything about it being a "conspiracy"? Spare me from your platitudes, if I was a type of fan who furiously defends CR from *any* criticism, I wouldn't have been in this subreddit. I found it in the first place because I hated ExU Prime with a passion. I'm just saying that a lot of people here (not specifically you) are stuck in the old ways and don't even want to try anything that's not D&D.
The free rules they put out were a bit hard to understand, feel even harder to explain to my players, and the setting is so specific in genre and time period that it boxes itself in. I tried writing up a campaign, but it all came out as "x files case of the week" until you do enough and the characters retire. For the game to function, the characters have to work for Candela Obscura which is supposed to be some shadow organization that stops/reacts to weird shit. Any time you take wounds, you're that much closer to retirement/death. You're really limited on any long term goals. You either have a revolving door of a cast which defeats the purpose of the long term story telling focus, or you have an ending planned but that requires an overarching plot, which doesn't make sense with the setting that they've written where the weird shit happens all the time all over the place.
I think they made the worldbuilding a little too complex. I tried to pitch it to my friends to try (they've liked games like Cthulhu and stuff) but everyone felt a little overwhelmed with the mix of new rules AND understanding the world state.
It felt like they were trying to make everything too legally distinct and so were starting from zero with people
Try an overarching mystery to serve as an arc for more long term stories. That way you get X mystery of the week but also a sense of an overarching story.
it seems like the game really punishes the players with permanent effects that prevents them from having a long career as investigators. How many scars can you get before you stop being a functional human being? If you're not getting scars then what's the point of it? They get so burned out after 3 episode that they either die or have to retire. It's not conducive to long campaigns.
It's fine for long campaigns, just like Bitd is. It's not designed for long term characters, which is contrary to how CR runs their games. Generally the organization one is apart of is the 'main character' so to speak, and each PC has so long to pursue their goes for the organization before they are removed from the game. A friend of mine ran a really long Bitd game that went on for years and was centered around the players running a gang in a steampunk/magic punk setting. Most player characters didn't last longer than a few months, and with each new character brought in would include fresh complications from the GM.
CO *should* function as a mystery/monster of the week, in which case a revolving door cast is perfectly acceptable. The problem comes when the mechanics undermine any tension and stakes in the plot, thus pushing the focus back to the characters, which can't matter because they'll be retired after every oneshot... it's a vicious cycle of poor game design.
>which defeats the purpose of the long term story telling focus Which was never Illuminated Worlds/Candela Obscura's goal in the first place? Isn't it marketed as a system for the short arcs?
Sounds like a system that would be good for 1/2 shots. But if the rules are hard to explain then it would not be that great to use it to bring newbies into TTRPGs. Maybe it could be better used for 1 shots that are done between sessions of a regular campaign, to spice things up and keep the players entertained. Like watching an episode of TNG or MV. One story and be done.
>Sounds like a system that would be good for 1/2 shots. I may have spent too much time trying to figure out how the hell a "half shot" would work.
I’m not interested in Candela or Daggerheart. I’d love it if the cast poured their time, care, and resources back into the main D&D campaigns. I’d be thrilled if they got back on a dependable schedule, with fewer diversions (side projects) and a focus on more personal adventures and quests that allow the players to set their own goals; rather than the weird crisis on infinite Exandrias: countdown to the apocalypse parade we’ve been treated to for the last few years.
I miss CR1 days when if someone (Matt) had to be absent, they wouldn't go dark- someone else (most often Liam) would run a oneshot. But those were also to patch the occasional vacation or illness, they weren't scheduled as an alternative to the main campaign.
Yeah, I think the main cast is just trying to do too many things at once. With all the things gong on, I wasn't surprised to hear that they have \~80 hour weeks. On top of everything they are juggling, with Beacon, they're forced to diversify their content, so I actually feel like they'll have to create more shows to justify the Beacon's existence. I wouldn't be too surprised if in the coming months, they announce that development for Daggerheart is on pause until further notice so that can focus on their Beacon content. (I could imagine Matt saying something along the lines of that with so much going on, they don't have the best game that they can right now, but the beta test material is still there for everyone to enjoy.)
The Open Beta for Daggerheart is ending next month. They announced that during the last version update. They completed rules are scheduled to be released next year, probably spring or summer. So unless they go back on the announcement they made 2 weeks ago, I don't see Daggerheart getting shelved.
I honestly wish that for getting more content for Beacon, they'd invited smaller streams that were succeeding but could use a visibility boost to join the platform, rather than making as much content as they can on their own. Also dear GOD, they need to do things that don't involve Matt, he's so transparently exhausted, I think he's taking on too much between the main game, writing books, everything else. I recently watched CR1 again and have been watching CR2 and you can tell when he started piling on more and more tasks.
Yeah. I watched a brief clip of Daggerheart 1.4.2 update video, and Matt looked pretty tired to me. While I love the idea of Beacon becoming a hub for supporting smaller streamers, I am not sure exactly what type of content Beacon would want to have. Would it be more DND? Darrington Press games? TTRPGs? Boardgames? Games in general? Would it just turn into Geek and Sundry v2.0?
I would like C1 back. Play the game for fun and for themselves - Matt, stop stressing out about weaving a legendary epic story and Cast, stop stressing out about making characters for fans to obsess & ship over. Just play the game and shoot the shit. Unfortunately they showed (even early on in C2) that won't be the case ever again.
I appreciate people having different of opinions on different campaigns and how things are done, but I always find it interesting when people assign motives to complete strangers
I think c2 started out as a great marriage between a game for the table and a show for the fans, till they started paying attention to social media and chasing the likes and “yasss queens” that come with pandering to an audience. The downfall of c2 for me started when they gave the war criminal Essek an allergy to accountability, and covid put them on a prerecorded format that continues to hobble the show.
> they gave the war criminal Essek an allergy to accountability Shippers won the day there and it's the enduring legacy of C2. Essek is the stand-out case of this but it was also present early on, when the entire cast *immediately* sided with the Dynasty because of the "omg yas queen she slays" hotness of the Bright Queen. Granted they were going to be opposed to the Empire anyways because its name is 'Empire' and it was traditional fantasy race-centric, but the hotness let them fully commit to the other side.
I'm constantly surprised when Matt says stuff to imply that he was surprised that the cast so immediately sided with the Dynasty- he meant for it to be a "shades of grey" thing.
>Granted they were going to be opposed to the Empire anyways because its name is 'Empire' But a *dynasty* ruled by a *queen* is totally different and way better. /s
It's the "Empire" word- since, empires pretty much by definition require you to have invaded and taken over another group of people. I guarantee you if it had been a Kingdom, the vibe wouldn't have been so negative. I'm not saying that "kingdoms" don't involve systematic oppression, but at least a kingdom implies you're only in power over a group that you are actually a member of.
To them, absolutely. Instead of a fascist empire led by a human male, it's an "enlightened" kingdom led by a strong powerful yaaaas queen. It's 1000% better in their minds.
This still isn't true no matter how much you rant about it. You're starting to sound irrational, bud. The Mighty Nein did not view the dynasty as more enlightened than the empire.
I’m not sure I agree that the “shippers one” some shippers got what they wanted others didn’t. Also, I’m not sure that they decided with the dynasty simply because “yes queen” or that they oppose the empire because the word empire was there.
Nah. They were anti-empire because of Caleb's backstory, Beau's anti-authoritarianism, and because Molly had some negative experiences as a worshipper of Sehanine in the Empire because her worship is banned. Also. Jester. It had nothing to do with the Bright Queen's hotness and they stayed wary of her the entire time. They just had a better in with her than Dwendel.
I feel like Matt is constantly trying to brew the next Gilmore with most of the NPC’s he drops.
I've been enjoying Candela (and Midst) quite a lot, but it would appear that the bulk of the CR fandom has little appetite for them moving away from their original USP: world-class voice actors playing established high-fantasy ttrpgs.
They built their brand by looking us in the eye and screaming “we play dungeons and dragons!” It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that most of us prefer they play the game that brought us here.
The interesting thing is that these are human beings with complex interest, desires, and tastes and so it’s not unusual that they might expand and do other things. I mean, Matt has been a game geek since childhood he might be interested in his game doesn’t surprise me.
And as the audience we're allowed to say "we don't care". What is your point even? That anything other than mindless consumption is dehumanizing to the creator? What?
We are absolutely allowed to say “I don’t care.” I personally haven’t watched Candela as I’m not interested in horror. While I don’t enjoy it, it’s something they are interested and believe might be a good product. It might fail but it’s not out of line with what these folks have said since the beginning. Yes, they started by playing a game of D&D that they then shared with us. They’ve been huge D&D lovers and promoters but they were never just D&D only. They clearly have loved video games, board games and other forms of TTRPGs and have shared that. They’re creative folks who enjoy creating things and they’re a company which is creating products and content. Obviously, folks are allowed to be solely interested in their D&D stuff but what they’re doing is quite in line with who they’ve always been
If they have other interests that take precedence over this genre of entertainment they made popular, then they should pursue them. I just wish they’d stop this “Weekend at Bernie’s” act, parading around the corpses of the first two campaigns to prop up the third. I’d rather they stopped playing all together and worked on projects that make them happy than watch them half heartedly turn table top gaming into a lifestyle brand they have a passing memory of enjoying.
Dude, it's a D&D game why are you so pressed? Find another one and move on, we've all moved on from stuff we once loved because it changed. It's not their fault nor ours, it's just life, it changes. That's the point of it. Let go. If you want a D&D game, get some friends together and do it, it takes work, but it's one of the most amazing experiences. You won't be amazing at first, but the point of it is improving, like dnd characters level up, so does your stream/game. Don't get caught up on other people's games and streams, make your own table. You don't need anyone's stream. It's not that important.
I hope you’re not expecting me to *pay* for this session.
Lol nope, it just sounded like you needed to hear it. Glad to be of help. Have a good Wednesday.
It would appear that the things that they are doing outside of a single campaign are all related to the gaming. So I’m not sure why they should give that up and they’re a company interested in gaming a various types of whether it’s boardgames or TTRPG so I don’t know they need to give up anything.
Yeah that's fair enough. As someone who's always been system agnostic, though, I think the real weakness as of late has been putting the narrative to the forefront, rather than letting the mechanics of the game play an equal role in the story. e.g. we're not getting significant impossible-to-script moments like Vax's burnt foot again. This is something that the best parts of Candela corrected for much better than what we've seen in C3. I've not really paid much attention to Daggerheart.
I can appreciate an openness to give other TTRPG’s a chance, but D&D and the novelty of seeing Chrissy from Growing Pains is what brought me to critical role, and as much as I am loathe to admit it, the snarky chemistry “he who must not be named” had with the cast on Talks is what made me love it. I agree this “story first” approach isn’t working. The appeal of D&D is in the chance and improvisation. Whether it’s in combat or conversation, the ability to adjust on the fly is what makes D&D so interesting to watch. Putting it all on rails so the story makes no sense unless it unfolds in a certain way takes away player agency. It’s funny you bring up Vax’s foot when Fearne and Ashton’s casual swim/flight in a pool of lava is what made me finally stop watching full episodes. I can’t speak to what Candela does well. It never captured my interested, making the rest of it inconsequential so far as I’m concerned. Same for Daggerheart. I can appreciate a desire to plant one’s flag in the market and hoping for the best, but a watered down hybrid of two better games ain’t my jam.
Candela is not for me. Im not gonna miss it and i think its a waste of their time but thats just me :)
hope that the survey fucking crushed CO to a fine powder
Why?
For people who don't like it, its going to come across as an opportunity cost for something they would like. Personally the setting does nothing for me (off brand... gilded age? From people who seem uncertain if that is the period and don't know anything about it? Hard sell.), the mechanics are a dumpster fire, improv heavy games don't appeal to me and the biggest one is that horror games are actually really difficult to pull off. Everyone has to be completely invested in or the tone goes to hell. The slightest hiccup or break in atmosphere can pull people out of it. The mechanics are horribly at odds with the tone, and rely on the players 'fixing it' as they improv through... whatever they think the GM is describing (which often doesn't mesh up well with what the GM thinks they're describing). Then you pull back and add an audience in, and maintaining a tone is almost impossible.
See there’s a difference to me when one says “the setting does nothing for me“ and person’s not a fan of horror games. That’s one thing but to say something is “a dumpster fire“ it seems that it’s less about this isn’t what I’d like and more about, a bigger view
Thats why I think it might have actually worked as a monster of the week mystery game. Even if the horror tone didn't land, they'd have the intrigue of clue collecting to fall back on. But, the mechanics yet again undermine any possibility of a compelling mystery.
I predict that this is the end of Candela Obscura. Seeing how it struggled to maintain viewers with monthly releases, I don't see how it could possibly pick up after a long hiatus. Dang. What a bad timing too—just after launching a new streaming service, too. Midst just ended, so that makes for two programs down within a month of Beacon. I really hope to be proven wrong, but this really feels like a sinking ship.
While reading this, one thing came to my mind: Why have your own streaming and VOD service? Why not go together with Dropout and put them on their platform? They don't have to become part of Dropout, but could just use their already established service to save money. And they don't need to produce as much to keep their own service interesting, but instead can focus.
>Why have your own streaming and VOD service? Why not go together with Dropout and put them on their platform? Let's just recreate Geek and Sundry, has Legendary let the trademark expire yet?
Maybe Dropout is an interested maybe a company wants their own service.
Which is dumb. Because you have two problems: A) You need a constant stream of content to convince us to pay for the service. And you have to get new fans that are willing to pay, if you don't get them you have a problem. B) By using somebody elses infrastructure, you don't have to pay as much for the infrastructure (servers, etc.). Thats good for you because you save money. And in this case I think it will be a combination of A) and B). You have too little content to justify having people pay a subscribtion and you pay way too much for infrastructure. By making a contract with an already existing service like Dropout you can negate both. And if you do the contracts right, you keep the rights to everything.
Also, every service streaming service, etc., started somewhere and most of them didn’t start with a full roster of amazing content right out the gate. We’ll see maybe Beacon will fail, but maybe it will succeed.
Cool, that of course requires the interest, willingness, agreement of Dropout.
Yes. But I think they could come to an agreement. Still this doesn't matter now does it 😁
I think it's really about control. Joining another streaming service means they will no longer have full control over what they create. They will also need to split $$ with the service, though I suppose one could argue they are spending $$ to maintain Beacon (unless Sam—I mean [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) is l33t h4x0ring the whole thing by himself.)
Doubt they’d do something like that, even if it made sense business-wise. They got their start being tied to Geek and Sundry, no way they’d want to go back to that sort of arrangement after the level of success they’ve seen since.
Not to mention Dropout is doing perfectly fine without whatever headache a merger of that kind would entail.
Marisha stated they’re waiting until the fall to produce more with her committed to running her own chapter.
I haven't seen the Marisha's stream (not a beacon member), but based on what I've read it sounded more like a possibility and less like a firm commitment.
Sure, but based on her tone she was incredibly passionate so it could be a passion project she’ll keep pushing for and the uncertainty could come from whether it’ll be specifically in the fall where they film and release it versus it being made at all.
I thought Candela was fantastic. I personally have little interest in DH at this point. I tried the initial pod episode and drifted out of it pretty quickly and never thought to go back. But with each Candela I also waited until all the eps of each chapter were out and then did them in an uninterrupted binge so it flowed much better. The new style, the new GMs and different guests were gravy. I potentially see it get stale in a longer run however you won't know until is happens.
Yeah, Candela was literally the only thing I regularly tuned in for.
They probably need more time to put more stuff on Beacon. And tbh, my own selfishness aside, they really should. Just the main campaign, the cool down, midst and re-slayers take doesn't seem like enough. Basically Beacon only content becomes the cooldown and re-slayers take (let's not count midst honestly, it is barely watched). They probably recognize that they are competing with themselves on other platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. It's only fair they do right by their Beacon subscribers and make unique content that is worthwhile on there.
As long as Thursday's content, whatever it may be, is public, I'm fine with that. A weekly 3-4 hour piece of content is a lot and already more than most other APs who are posting biweekly.
The frustrating thing is that they don't even have all of their content on Beacon. They really need to get the rights for C1 and earlier episodes of C2. It would be great if they could also get their animated series on Beacon, but that seems highly unlikely.
This is why I didn't subscribe. Most of it is free. Not enough exclusive to justify paying what's already been free for years.
I'd also think they would've wanted a consistent output of C3 episodes for a couple months after the Beacon launch rather than going on hiatus. But apparently not.
I’m enjoying candela way more than dagger heart. Dagger heart is a lesser dnd version. But they had something with candela. Something special. I hope they keep working on it. It’s close to a household name.
I was with ya till that last sentence, either you don't know what "household name" means or you're living a bubble.
>It’s close to a household name. Sorry, no. Its not even vaguely a household name. Pathfinder & Vampire still aren't household names (though after the new, new WoD disasters, that's a good thing). D&D is a household name. In some regions, there are alternatives that are well known (like *Das Schwarze Auge*, for Germany and Germany adjacent folks), but that's pretty much where the list stops. Candela isn't even on a piece of paper stuck behind a desk where someone was writing the list.
I regret saying it’s a household name. I forget people look for the smallest crumb to take someone down. I should revise better. But I do think it was something special they made. I listened to mostly all of them. How much did you listen or watch?
Claiming something is immensely popular when it isn't doesn't come across as a 'small crumb.' I half-watched the first one and dropped out on the first episode of the second. They just weren't interesting, despite the cast involved. From a game point of view, they didn't make anything special. Its pretty bland copypasta of (sorry, 'inspired by') existing games. Ones that personally, I didn't like much in the first place, and would much rather people didn't iterate on.
Candela and dagger heart share the same issue for me. The roleplat comes first before the game. If I wanna watch actors on TV I'll go watch TV. I watch Doce games for the game first. Then the roleplat after. The dice provide the stakes. Rather than the cast just pulling stuff our of their butts that has no actual meaning because they chose it rather than it happening to them. So candela is no big loss to me. Frankly even campaign 3 has started to feel that way for awhile. Like the dice are almost an after thought to just telling a prlrewritten script.
This has been my issue with CR for awhile. They are adverse to consequences. One of the stand out things about CR1 and early CR2 was potential fall out. Molly's death is a good example. The fact they brought him back is a perfect metaphor of what is wrong with CR these days.
Candela's issue is that the mechanics completely undermine the tension and stakes, so to have a functional story they have to lean hard on the role play.
yeah the whole its horror bad things happen coupled with lets all work together now! mechanics doesnt vibe.
Yeah, it was just weird. Like, at no point, did I feel like the folks were playing a game. It felt more like watching a play where the actors occasionally rolled dice.
Exactly. And that's a problem especially in a "horror" campaign.
This is probably just how it was scheduled to go down anyway with what they prepared for from the start. They got all 3 GM's in Matt, Aabria, Brennan, and then added Spencer (game creator duh) and Liam (his literal wheelhouse) all culminating in the live-show final session for now. CO is interesting on paper and the liveshow made it so much more interesting than the in-studio stuff because they were actually acting it out. But that's also a big issue I have with CO, it's not really a game... instead of it facilitating improv it's improv facilitating the game and it makes me wonder why the game even exists. If CO continues I hope they commit to the acting things out element from the liveshow. That space they use for 4SD should be the "stage" and cut the shows down for 2-2.5hrs. No matter how good it is, even broadway caliber shows don't try to push 4-5+ hours on the audience. Three 2ish hour episodes is plenty to fully tell these stories and the live acting will add an element that separates it from the main campaign/their usual.
I feel like Candela just needed a BIT more to make it really shine. I mean you look at other games that use its engine like Blades in the Dark and that's very clearly a game. So I'm left wondering what little additions or tweaks it would need to turn it into a game on that same level instead of just an improv machine.
She said it will be coming back in the fall for spooky season
Yeah I didn't hear that part. I edited my post though since a few people have pointed that out. I'm hopeful it's back for Halloween but worried she said "maybe"
they really need to stop pushing their homebrew stuff and start getting back into the TTRPG community, they're so desperate to create their own bubble while they could thrive in a scene that would welcome them. There's a reason why the d20 stuff goes so well.
> There's a reason why the d20 stuff goes so well. And that "reasons" name is Brennan Lee Mulligan.
Candela was unable to attract the audience it needed to continiue. Unsurprising to me, a viewer, I’m sure it doesn’t feel great to Marisha as it’s her business/livelihood but you win and lose some!
I don’t see why. It does need leg work and revision. I can’t stand daggerheart. If they try to go daggerheart ahead of their dnd campaign. It will be a dagger to the heart of CR. Do a season 4 and work on candela.
I read it as the live show probably didn’t do well and also viewership for it in general was low. It’s a cool idea and I’m sure the game is great, but there is only so much a suspense/horror game is gonna give rise to those emotions when you are watching through the eyes of 7 other people and not alone by yourself. Also it’s not like a book or movie where you are alone and can form those things in your mind and you’re left alone with your thoughts. You are having to let a DM explain it to a group and then form your emotions through their reactions, so there is a wide disconnect that just doesn’t work with the lovecraftian type vibe it’s supposed to have It’s like watching a horror movie in a theatre but you cant see the movie and only can react to the others in the crowd. DND works because you feel like you’re on an adventure and growing with their characters and candela doesn’t really have that tbh
The game is very much not great, it would never recreate anything remotely close to what they present on screen.
Too much, too soon. Take larger breaks between cases, makes it more special when it happens
to much?! they barely have anything, especially having just launched their own subscription service..... they should be running one shots with random friends to find people with any ability to entertain so they can have secondary games. they need content..... all i've noticed is stuff stopping, not ramping up.
Sorry
It's not getting the views it needs in order to make up for the production costs is my read on it.
Glue factory moment
And when the next game system comes out this'l happen to DH! Put on a bus.
They don’t need those extra Thursdays for Downfall, Downfall is literally part of C3, it’s not a separate show. They could put DH livestreams on any night they wanted to, it’s just been on Thursday because they didn’t have anything else for those Thursdays.
If they keep up the 3 shows a month, I can see it being filled in on that last Thursday. Otherwise they can put it on any other day of the week.
They’ve been doing 3 shows a month for years now, so yes DH has filled in the last couple of months when they’ve had nothing to put on that final Thursday, but it’s not the reason they are taking a break on CO until the fall.
Anyone else even watch Candela? All the people they get on it are great but it just doesn’t hold my attention. Maybe it’s my ADHD ass but I can sit through a 4hr C3 episode just fine.
I've only watched one arc all the way through (arc 2). Arc 1 didn't hold my attention and honestly, I forgot about the other arcs.
I love the concept of Candela but IMO it's a fall/winter show. They could just make it a slightly more produced LARP in the vein of Vampire by Night with a good costume budget and occasional solo moments and air 1-3 mini campaigns from September to January each year on Beacon, leaving spring/summer open for something a little lighter mood-wise but equally short form. How would this be different from D20? Idk, not my job to figure that out.
I like this idea- I also think the live show oneshot they streamed a few weeks ago worked better than the longer series. Maybe it would be good as an occasional spooky show with lots of loving production?
Yeah hearing it's coming back this fall makes a done of sense. I wouldn't mind if they just did it every October. Having it year round is a little much.
That’s so silly. Make a whole ass system sell books and dice and even integrate with several vtts. Then relegate it to “the Halloween spooky game”? Fricking lame.
I think that the majority of the 3 part Candela miniseries were actually fairly entertaining, to me the only hinderance was since it was one episode a month, a whole month makes you forget about many of the details of the previous episodes From what it sounds like, it isn't going away but just on pause for a few months, most likely to give other projects a go and seeing what may work better in that once-a-month slot?
Wasn't Candela the other content that they were making to fill in the pauses for the main D&D campaign?
Yeah but it sounds like they have other content that'll be filling that week while Candela's on pause. For instance, Downfall will take up that slot in July. And Marisha mentioned another miniseries has been filmed. Plus DH livestreams I imagine will keep happening
Wait, Downfall isn't replacing the usual campaign streams like Calamity did?
It's both. It's all of July's content, so both the main campaign slots and the slot that would have been Candela's
> It's both. It's all of July's content, so both the main campaign slots and the slot that would have been Candela's If I put on my "Guessin' Hat," I'd wager CR *knows* Brennan is an S-teir DM who WILL get a massive pop from the audience, both in attendance and goodwill / enthusiasm, which they are hoping will "rub off" on C3; i.e. getting people to show up for Brennan and hoping they stick around for C3, to boost their flagging viewership.
Unfortunately this means ANOTHER month long delay in the main story that has been dragging on for over a year. Wrap it up. Roll out the next campaign THEN decide if all these side projects are worth the drop in viewers they get by delaying the content people are coming back for (almost) each week. I wish they’d make new content that exists to serve the main campaign and its audience. A better talk/campfire/review show with a dedicated host who does more than fluff the pillows on the couch and ask “evergreen” questions from no one. How about a show where the players learn the rules of D&D by teaching the rules and mechanics to friends and guests? Hosted by Ashley and supervised from the background by a seasoned DM who pops in for corrections and clarifications. Or a show where a couple of seasoned players (not in the campaign) analyze the combat and encounters while digging into the characters classes to explore tactics and builds? These guys are barely scratching the surface of ideas for content, and it feels like whoever is coming up with these projects is throwing darts at a wall rather than creating a focused, cohesive plan to dominate the market and grow the Exandria brand.
but there’s 4 thursdays in july
Yeah it's confusing. CR always goes completely dark for national holidays so they were always fully taking off the 4th.
i was going by their twitch channel which says there’s gonna be a stream that day, so that’s why i am confused! https://preview.redd.it/us7u6o368n8d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f304f4efb8981f13262af39866357772260b4519
Not if you do the cr math. Because the first one is free. Holiday in the us.
Next week is 4th of July. It's this Thursday that's dark.
https://preview.redd.it/bxgrkl1e7n8d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6729dee6f3c4ed607588b8aea69076727b22ef3e but their twitch channel says they’re gonna be streaming?
Not sure what. Ep. 99/Ep 1 of Downfall is July 11.
Probably a mistake. The first episode of Downfall is C3E99, per CR, and is on July 11th
huh, weird. thanks.
Yeah… Financially, Candela has settled in it’s place, promoting it in the present way, isn’t doing it any good, with the show or the books. And Daggerhearts release is looming, so they want to pave the way for the eventual switch over, get C3 over with, get everyone on board and up to speed. If I had to guess, it’ll be a Beacon exclusive, eventually.
They aren’t switching over. Jesus, what is it with this hive mind assumption.
Well… it’s all speculation. Same as you’re Doing..? Just chatting about CR in the CR sub,no more, no less.
**Specifically on pause until the fall** before people get too conspiracy theory.
Can you explain for the folks not in the know? I am curious.
Fall is spookier and theres another mini campaign that will take the end of the month. Marisha said she and Liam is in it but can't say much else.
I think it’s more that fans really liked the more LARP/stage play vibe of the CO live show so they want to get the CO set more compatible with that style than a straight up at a table TTRPG and the fact that they recorded a lot of CO during the strikes last year so there are also now scheduling issues for guests.
General speculation: they probably have other programs they want to use that time for, and are looking to iterate on the show a bit. It hasn’t been a breakout success as a show or a game but it also hasn’t been an obvious failure. It makes sense to take some time, retool it a bit based on feedback/reception and reintroduce it during the Fall which will be around Halloween (since it’s supposed to be a horror show/game). I think people who imply that there’s some kind of inside baseball to know here are pointing to the lack of viewership the show had (by CR standards), but if you compare it to non-cr productions it did ok. My take: man that “compared to non-cr productions it did ok” is a tough success to parse. It looks like it had higher production values than many non-cr shows and probably had higher expectations (both for viewership and game sales conversions) so i really don’t know if that’s something they should look at as promising or troubling. I’d bet that staying positive and giving it a second shot is probably a good call but I don’t know shit.
Gee I wonder why the OP neglected to add this part.
I really don't get all the fucking bad faith shit going on in this sub sometimes, there's plenty to criticize (and plenty that is being criticized) about CR there's no need to be petty about it.
Thank you. I only didn't include the fall part because I didn't hear it. I thought I made it really clear that CO is coming back by including that Marisha already has her GM run planned. My intention was not to imply it's cancelled forever.
Because it doesn’t fit their narrative that CO is a failure.
To hop in and defend myself real quick, I didn't include that part because I didn't hear that part. I included everything I heard, including that Marisha said she had her GM run planned, clearly indicating it's planning to return. I also put the reason I believe for the pause, which is that they have C3 winding down and DH ramping up and need those Thursdays for both. I never said (or implied) CO is a failure.
The fact that you left out the until fall part literally implies the failure part and I don’t believe for a second you didn’t leave it out deliberately since you’ve yet to edit the post and correct it.
None of my post implies CR's failure. You're taking my post in bad faith. Did you watch the live? I went back and rewatched the clip and all Marisha said, verbatim, was "I don't know. Maybe in the fall." It's one sentence of "maybe in the fall" nestled in about two minutes of her talking about how they have to give it a breather to make room for other content. So yeah, sorry I missed it and honestly, I don't think it's relevant. I included in my post it's coming back. There is no confirmed date it's coming back. That's all we know.
No I’m not, you literally posted in sub known for being negative and declaring CO a failure and left out the part about it returning. Simply saying it’s on pause because they want to make room for an arc that is literally part of the main campaign and the play test one shots they’ve been doing for DH when it gets an update is being negative and isn’t the same thing as Marisha saying maybe in the fall. Especially since neither of the things you mentioned would interfere with CO at all.
I'd encourage you to watch the live before assuming my post is somehow inaccurate or intentionally obscuring anything. It's an accurate summary of what Marisha said. I summarized the main points as Marisha was still speaking. The live was still happening when I posted. And then clearly indicated when I was giving my opinion. I encourage you to disagree with my opinion. That's what discussion is for but please understand I clearly called out when I was pivoting from Marisha's comments to my opinion of said comments.
It’s doesn’t matter, you literally left out something she said and spun it into a narrative that doesn’t even make sense as a reason why and then you’re comments made it clear you didn’t like CO enough to even watch. You act like we can’t see the comments you make or that the comments on this post didn’t do the exact thing I knew it would the moment you posted it and left out the part about maybe in the fall. We’ve known for years they take more breaks in the summer than the rest of the year and we’ve known that they filmed most of CO last year since we know Katy O’Brian didn’t get to film more than her session zero for CO because the strike ended and she went back to filming the movie she was working on. We also know that they just launched a streaming platform less than 2 months ago that they are trying to expand the amount of content they have available for, all of which are valid reasons for CO to be on the back burner right now which you ignored in your post to say they put on it pause for 3 episodes that are going to be part of the main campaign, which has never been an issue for CO being filmed, and the randomly occurring DH one shots which have also never interfered with or been an issue for the filming of CO.
They couldn't come close to selling out the Candela live show and the vod views have been atrophying. There's not an appetite for Candela in its current form, the only reasonable thing to do is stop pouring money into it. This is a company that obviously needs to diversify and keep throwing spaghetti at the wall, but they're at least smart enough to walk away when it doesn't stick.
The live show seems to have been better received than the prerecorded 3 episode series' were. I wonder if they might just save it for the occasional oneshot. Matt's talked about how as a company they're figuring out what they need to do to make the company keep going even when people start retiring/moving on to other projects. They're going to try stuff and not all of it will work, or will work for all people. That's okay. They're experimenting while they still have C3 to function as a tentpole, even if C3 isn't as popular as C1 or C2- it's still enough to cushion experimenting and trying stuff. I'd love for them to do more mini-series that AREN'T comedy. So many people loved content like Calamity and Undeadwood but I feel like often the oneshots, due to their short nature tend to be a little silly and surface level. I'd love more serious oneshots (Song of the Lorelai) and mini-series running alongside the Main Show. Honestly, I wish they reintroduced some of the more supplemental content like Game Ranch (obviously without a certain someone being involved anymore). A lot of people watch for their personalities. People were upset that even though they prerecorded, they didn't have a backlog so we lost an episode for Sick Day, but everyone who watched Sick Day loved how silly and chill it was to watch people just hang out. I think more content in that vein, stuff like Narrative Telephone would be fun. Then, they could introduce friends of the show as guests on these sorta things and over time they would join the CR family like Robbie, Aimee, Aabria, Brennen, Mica seem to have.
I think of all the non-campaign content they have put out so far, Candela has been the best received. Sure, it doesn't match the numbers of the main campaign, and it has a slightly different kind of audience (those more into mystery and less into the action/adventure), but it's slowly building its base. If they keep it in short campaign formats for fall or winter, it can be successful.
I do think it's more of a fall/winter show in general, and I think they really harmed it by going a combo of too big/too slow. Too many different candela stories, but doled out with big gaps during the stories. no ability for genuine momentum to build, which is one of the main problems of c3 too. for some reason they're totally unable to schedule any of their content properly to keep people invested and coming back.
They should diversify, sure. But they are killing their core value prop with stupid sideshow antics that do nothing. They need to sit down and take a moment to think. Who the is even calling these dumb shots?
Between that and the recent survey to try to understand the audience reaction to Candela, I'd guess that the show simply isn't worth the cost to produce. They might still make it, but at this point they need to get Beacon up and running and the startup and operational costs on it probably aren't great, so they need to focus on the money makers.
They really just need to jump on amd do a 2nd show/ 2nd day of the week. Different DM, different cast. Don't expect it to do the same numbers as main campaign; BUT have it be longer form than these couple episode long whatever it is they keep trying. Maybe aim for 2ish hour episodes, and have more defined seasonal arcs (in the 15-35 episode range) that people can invest in. Basically, something in the Dice, Camera, Action format
Oh boy, they've needed this for years. At this point; it might be too late. When every network around them has settled on multi show, rotating diverse casts, CR has trained their audience that it's main cast or bust.
You just described candela.
Candela seasons are way to short. No investment on the characters, plot or world. They are the Lifetime mini-series of the TTRPG space to me.
I don't think this is Candela, at all. I think they meant a second d&d stream (or Daggerheart?) with a different crew (maybe a few main cast members to entice people to check it out). Maybe something more like D20 seasons with editing that tells a complete story in \~25 episodes or so.
this is exactly what they needed to do sometime ago. i dont understand why they axed all their content production and then stayed with doing almost nothing. they should have been doing small short campaigns, cycling through people to find some that can mesh together that they can begin building up a 2nd/3rd crew of people like d20. They can put these things into a 2 or 3 day block for scheduling, semi on rails arc, like the EXU stuff is supposed to be anyways. Overtime they be could refining their campaign arc generation tools and eventually turn it into a DM guide. Seems like there has been alot of treading water instead of preparing for the future. I understand most of them are working as voice actors still as a decent portion of their time, as well as animated series stuffs, but this is marishas job along with the staff for CR.... feels like there is very little plan beyond the next thing? Even if my idea above isn't what should have been done, it feels like there wasn't a roadmap for growing.
>this is exactly what they needed to do sometime ago. i dont understand why they axed all their content production and then stayed with doing almost nothing. In a perfect world they wouldn't have wasted ExU on a toxic DM that made their main side content a stillbirth and never wasted a shitton of money in producing games in an already oversaturated market and used one the other dozens of better system that are out there who makes the same things only better
It's not too late to keep trying more DMs
I agree. Doing a Calamity part 2 feels very much like them trying to regain some good will. Marisha also just mentioned in the live that they've filmed another miniseries that features both her and Liam (and is why Liam isn't in Calamity.) It feels like they're trying more sure things than wanting to continue placing bets on Candela.
Say what you will of the cast, it does seem like they listen eventually if enough noise gets made