ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies

ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies is a narrative-focused role-playing game in which the player takes on the role of Hershel Wilk, alias CASCADE, an operant recalled for a mysterious assignment five years after a failed mission. The game is set in a single city where the player investigates informants, adversaries, and a three-way struggle for cultural and ideological power, encountering a range of characters each with their own agendas and secrets.

Gameplay is built around skill checks that can be approached through subterfuge, violence, or deduction, allowing multiple ways to resolve encounters. A system called Conditioning lets players shape Hershel’s abilities and unlock new approaches by developing aspects of his identity and psychology. The game also tracks Pressures, including Fatigue, Anxiety, and Delirium, which represent the physical and psychological toll of fieldwork. Players can use Exertion to improve their chances on dice rolls at the risk of increasing these pressures.

Failure is a built-in part of the design, with dice rolls often not going in the player’s favour, requiring improvisation and acceptance of resulting consequences. The narrative incorporates themes of memory, trauma, and identity, with the city itself functioning as an element with its own secrets to uncover.