Game Bump: Cascade Failure

Hey all,

I'm honestly a little embarrassed that it's taken me this long to bump Cascade Failure. This is easily one of the most elegantly designed R.P.G.s I've ever played, and has facilitated some fantastic events at the gaming table. This comes from three basic things that streamline the design and make the entire game run more smoothly than many games with similar tone.

#1: Roll Under:
Cascade Failure uses a roll under system for attribute and skill checks. What this means is that, while you roll the classic O.G.L. array (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA), you then play with the goal of rolling a d20 and getting a result less than the score to succeed. So, if your score is a 16, you want a 16 or less. For a score of 8, you'll want an 8 or less. This means that bigger scores mean better abilities (which prevents the confusion of things like THAC0), and that rolling becomes substantially simplified for the players.

#2: Temporary and Permanent Damage:
Temporary damage is handled, as players might expect, through hit points. Permanent damage and death, however, are dealt in the form of attribute damage. This lets players feel a little bit tougher, while making potentially deadly fights more consequential. Once hp drops to 0, damage starts to reduce attributes. A dead party member is less narratively interesting (IMHO) than a maimed party member.

#3: Simplified Skills and Saves:
Skills and Saving Throws at level one are determined by your choice of race, class, and your ability scores. This makes an interesting challenge for power gamers while keeping character creation streamlined for plot players.

Combine all of this with a compelling setting, an intuitively overhauled alignment system, and a host of interesting races and classes to choose from at character creation, and you find a glorious system with a bit more crunch and direction than a rules-light, but drastically less granularity than many modern d20 systems.

The best part of all of this is that it's free on drive thru rpg. Honestly, I have no idea why this is free. I will say that the system has a few small areas where improvement is possible, but the core is strong enough to build on and what's already there is simple enough to facilitate easy house ruling without the same risk of game-breaking mistakes as you'll encounter in more complicated systems. Eventually, I'll plan to share a few of my own house-rules to the system (once I can dig them out of my R.P.G. shelf, it's been a while). Until then, you can find Cascade Failure here. Check it out. Happy gaming, all.