Cascade Effect 2.0 Playtest
A downloadable game
In Cascade Effect, players explore a near future collapsing under the weight of a changing climate by roleplaying characters who are just discovering that that world is much more complex than they ever thought. Not only are they about to embark on adventures into a world full of more secrets and dangers than they thought existed, but they’re starting to discover an entire world within themselves. Their mind is beginning to sense the first hints of an intangible parallel space. Their connection to this space is starting to manifest a second set of resources, resources that could be used to overcome the limits imposed by the physical body, mind, and world.
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Okay, downloaded your QuickStart but I gotta ask: What do the players do? Where's the scenario to get them going? How are people supposed to flesh out the background enough to make characters? Are you going to add premade characters at some point?
Don't get me wrong; I like what I see so far. Out of curiosity: How powerful do you see these characters getting? Action movie heroes? Low-level supers? High level supers?
Hey thanks for checking it out, I'm glad you found it interesting!
What do the players do? That's an important question I can see I'm not answering well in this doc, I'll have to update that. In short, players start as ordinary people, about to get pulled into supernatural action, combat, and adventure as they discover the existence of hidden space. Starting with helping their community, then moving on to uncovering supernatural conspiracies, and finally solving global threats.
The sample adventure scenario, tentatively titled "The Siege of New Orleans", is a work in progress and will be added to this doc when done. It'll include a few optional premade characters, and have the players attempting to save or escape a quarantined city as it falls apart around them, and ends with them getting involved with 1 if 5 factions that can guide their future adventures.
How are people supposed to flesh out the background enough to make characters?
Can you say a bit more on this? I'm not sure if you're asking about the setting or the character creation, but it sounds like an important point. I'd like to make sure I'm not missing something important here.
How powerful do you see these characters getting? The guiding principle here is "human scale" supers. They have powers, but the raw strength of them stays roughly human sized, so the ceiling is sort of around lifting a car, but definitely below flattening a building.
Thanks again for the good questions. Out of curiosity, how did you find this project?
I meant that what kind of authoritarian hellscape you present to the PCs dictates what characters you're likely to get. Is it a Clockwork Orange failed state, where the authorities are depending on panicking citizenry to cling to routine in order to prop up the government, while it becomes ever more self-serving? Is it a 1984 panopticon? Is it Brave New World, where the corporations are in control, and they entertain the masses with one hand while crushing counter-revolutions with the other?
Here's a thought: Before character creation, have the players come up with the dystopia-in-progress, so they have an idea on what the typical character is likely to go through in a day. Also, if they're more interested in doing the harder lands, have them plot out how the environment has made the landscape a challenge.
I'm just saying, the background for characters right now is incredibly fuzzy. Yes, things are bad, but how bad and in what way are kinda vague at the moment. that's why I was looking for more of a starting scenario.
Okay, human-scale.
If I may offer a suggestion: maybe the characters should be able to get increasingly super results by working in combination? "None of us is as strong as all of us", and all that? Just an idea.
And I fist found this on Drive-thru RPG. I had no way of contacting you directly, so I was quite happy to see you here on Itch.io. I like what I see so far regarding the abilities the PCs can unlock. The whole project so far has a very specific atmosphere to it. It reminds me of Arc Dream's Godlike, except updated for climate catastrophe.
for an idea of the scale and types of powers available, you can check out the rough draft of the list of them before it gets added to this doc.
http://cascade-effect.com/playtest/entanglements-2.5.3.pdf
There aren't any specific "teamwork" powers, but i can see a few places there are room for them.
Anyway, thanks for your interest here. There's also a (currently very quiet) subreddit, and the latest drafts are always available on http://cascade-effect.com