Getting caught doing something you shouldn’t causes problems. The problems that come from getting caught doing things you shouldn’t also cause problems. And so on. Maybe these problems don’t cause you any pain immediately but they will eventually. More importantly, they will build upon themselves.
Cascading problems occur when a Sneak gets a partial success/fails the sneak half of their action and the Observer gets a perfect success on an observation check.
The nature of the cascading problems is “the observer alerts more observers” by default but can be changed to suit the situation by the storyteller.
This is a bad idea for a couple reasons. Learned helplessness being one of them. Encouraging storytellers to not use their head when choosing the amount of dramatic tension is another. Consider removing. Problem