ZERO PARADES: Director’s Cut

ZERO PARADES: Director’s Cut is a role-playing game in which the player controls Hershel Wilk, an operant with the alias CASCADE. Five years earlier he led his team into an abyss and has been troubled by that failure since. He is recalled for a new assignment that may let him redeem himself. The story takes place across a city containing hidden secrets, informants and adversaries, and centres on a three-way struggle for cultural and ideological power.

Progress depends on passing skill checks, which can reveal the motivations of the characters Hershel meets. Problems can be approached through subterfuge, violence or deduction, and the player’s choices carry their own consequences. Through a system called Conditioning, aspects of Hershel’s identity become abilities that open new paths, and the player can alter the rules of the game itself. A system called Pressures represents the physical and psychological strain of working in-theatre. Exertion improves dice rolls at a risk, while Fatigue, Anxiety and Delirium must be managed or they cause long-term repercussions.

The cast includes international bankers, foreign techno-fascists, psychic doppelgängers, a paranoid TV presenter and a man with a box for a heart, among dozens of others, each with their own agendas, beliefs and secrets. Failure is expected to occur more often than success, so the player has to improvise when dice rolls go badly and deal with the results.