Ten Candles, by Stephen Dewey, builds on the idea of using a physical and largely uncontrollable component as a central game mechanic. Where Dread uses a Jenga tower as a constant reminder of physical precarity, Ten Candles uses lit votive candles to represent the constant march (and cost) of time.

Like Dread, Ten Candles is a collaborative, zero prep storytelling game with a GM. Billed as a game of tragic horror, you go into this knowing that things are going to end badly. Endless night has fallen. The world is ending. Monsters are coming. Ten Candles is about hanging on just a little bit longer.

To support this idea, there is a unique character creation process. Characters consist of two traits (a vice and a virtue), a moment (which, if lived in a scene, gives the character hope, in the form of a bonus die) and a brink (a secret trait, used when all else is gone, that shows what a character is truly made of). Brinks aren’t created by you, but rather, by the player to your right. They take the form of a statement: “I have seen you…kill, freeze, despair, etc” and create a web of secret connection between the characters. You can burn all these (literally: they’re written on index cards) to alter die rolls.

The game proceeds through up to ten scenes, created collaboratively with each character defining a single truth about it. Conflicts are resolved by rolling the communal dice pool – a six means success, while ones are removed from the pool for the rest of the scene. A scene ends in one of two ways: when a player fails a conflict roll and must blow out a candle, or when one or more candles go out on their own. When the final candle goes out, the game is over.

The march of time in Ten Candles isn’t frantic, but it is inexorable. And fragile – an errant draft could doom everyone. Coupled with a solid set of character-based narrative tools, the game is adept at creating emotionally rich stories about desperation and sacrifice. Give it a try. Tis the season, after all.