CD10 RPG is a narratively focused, settings-agnostic RPG systems meant primarily for immersive, narratively focused games with a touch of rule of cool. CD10 attempts to emulate the feel of an 80's action movie, where the main character is just a human, but also the hero of the story. Imagine your character being John McClane of Die Hard and you get pretty close to the aim of the system. It is not suitable for epic, grand-scale, "save the universe" plots common to more traditional high-fantasy games, although with some fenagling, those campaigns are possible. But just don't try to make big, epic boss battles in this system. It's not made for it. It's designed primarily for equal-footing fighters duking it out, or fighting monsters that are of somewhat similar ability as the characters.

Compability

This package is only compatible with Foundry Version 9 and has only been surface tested in V10. It cannot be guaranteed to work as intended in V10 and will not be updated for V10. 

This module was the first written by the developers and is in too much of a mess to handle migrating users to a rewritten version. We urge you to stay on Foundry V9 if you intend to use CD10 to finish your campaigns. 

We are currently working on a completely re-written module that will be V10 compatible and will the version going forward. Stay tuned. This version will attempt to migrate V9 worlds, but we make no guarantees it will be fully functional. BACK UP YOUR WORLDS before updating!

Core Features

This system is the best one I’ve ever played bar none! It’s simple and intuitive and fluid! If you’re into Tabletop RPGs I highly recommend giving it a go! It’s a system where you as a GM have the freedom to be creative with your storytelling. Coming up with scenarios and npcs on the drop of a hat without it hindering the flow of the play in anyway! It’s a system where you as a player can explore your character freely. You can do whatever you want without being bogged down by classes, a hundred dice throws or complicated maths!

| Yarnette - The Woolmage

No base attributes

CD10 offers a character no base attributes (such as Strength, Charisma, Intelligence etc). Instead, the system uses a combination of trainable skills and acquired traits. The skills are where you will find most base attribute-esque things such as athleticism and socialisation, while traits describe everything from the character's physical presence, appearance to their loyalty and societal status. Traits are incredibly flexible and all play into the game, so your character's conviction, personality, fate and quirks all play a mechanical role in the game.

No hitpoints

CD10 eschews the traditional hit points in favor of a more fluid and vague system. Hitpoints are easy to work with and easy to understand, but provide too much of a game-feeling and hinders immersion. CD10 instead relies on Wounds to describe how injured a character is. Wounds are accumulated based on physical saves and inflict rising, long-term debilitation on a character. Barely any at first, but keep getting wounded and things stack up fast.

High-stakes

In CD10, a character is as likely to die in their first session as in their 100th. Over time, a character gains no resistance to injury, although they can definitely improve their skills as a fighter. Defense is largely in the hands of the character, directly using your combat skills to prevent damage through dodging, parrying or blocking. There is no static AC number. Your skills determine how good you are both at hitting and avoiding getting hit. Equipment plays a large role as well.

To cushion the high lethality of the system, every major character has access to Hero Points, which can be spent in a session to roll 2D10 instead of 1D10 on a check or save. This allows the players to cushion against brutal RNG, but still be wary about being too reckless, as Hero Points are limited, and are used as XP to increase skills. You don't want to throw them all away.

Level-less, horizontal progression

In CD10, your character does not gain levels as they improve. They accrue experience points based on events in the session and as rewards from the Keeper and other players. These experience points can either be spent (as mentioned above) as Hero Points or to increase skills. In order to improve a skill, the skill must have been used in session, and the character must have failed a check with it, simulating growth and learning from ones mistakes. This makes it hard to improve what you're already good at, encouraging branching out, rather than hyper-specialisation.

The entire system is based around this horizontal progression, where a character becomes more skilled at what they're good at, but also become more generally skilled in a range of abilities and skills, rather than gaining more powerful abilities to replace their old.

Foundry VTT Development Status

The Foundry VTT system of CD10 is based on CD10 Core (First edition). This version is mostly feature complete as of the pending CD10 V1.0 release on WorldAnvil. 

The system does not come with any content packs (such as items, skills, traits etc) at present. Because of the alpha-state of the system outside of Foundry, there's still too much in fluctuation to nail down any content packs.

Content packs will be created once the system is fully developed, using publically available statblocks from World Anvil.

System SRD

The CD10 Core system reference is available, for free, at Worldanvil. If you want to help support the development of this system, both in and outside of Foundry, please visit Ko-Fi and buy us a coffee! If you want, you can also support us monthly for something nice in return!

In case you have questions about the system itself, feel free to either contact me (Toblin) on the Foundry Discord, or better yet, join the CD10 Discord Server

Instructions

Before attempting to use this system, you should be familiar with how CD10 runs. The rules are available at the links above.

System Settings

The system comes with several settings for configuring your game. These settings affect how certain calculations happen, how the sheets look and how complex things like combat becomes. These settings are being continually expanded as the system develops.

• Barter

This defines whether items and equipment is listed with their relative Barter value (using the TradeGroups system) or if they're listed with pure coin value.

• Modernity

Whether or not to display modern stats, such as Rate of Fire and Magazine size.

Creating Skills and Traits

To create skills, traits and items on a character, simply create items in the game system, then drag and drop them on top of the character's sheet. They automatically show up in the proper sections. Skills, spells and traits are all adjusted by using the input box for skill level. 

Weapons, armor and equipment

Weapons and armor can be equipped from the inventory tab by clicking the "+" symbol, and unequipped by clicking the "-" symbol. You can also equip and unequip using the right-click context menu.

Injuries

Wounds are added by left-clicking on respective bar. Right clicking removes a pip. Debilitation is automatically calculated and displayed. (Note, this system still uses Shock, but as of the recent update from Beyond Reality, Shock mechanics were removed and their debilitation incorporated into Wounds. This will be reflected in future releases here on Foundry).

Skill checks

Single-click on the roll-icon (a D10 that shows up on Skill mouse-over) will perform a skill check with that skill, taking into account any debilitation, and post the results as a default roll message in chat.

Shift-click on the roll icon performs a hero point boosted skill check in the same manner, first checking to see there are experience points to spend and deducting one. If there isn't enough experience to make a hero-point check, an error shows instead.

If you want to make a trait check, simply left (or shift click for hero point) the trait's roll icon on the right, next to the value number.

To include traits in skill checks, simply left click the box to the left of the trait you want to include and it will automatically apply to the roll and then clear itself automatically. 

If you want to reverse the trait's value, right click it's box instead. 

Hero point-boosted checks work with traits as well.

Attacking and defending

To make attack checks, left click (or shift-click for heropoint) on the D10 next to the damage type of your weapon (on the weapon list in the Combat tab. It will appear as you mouse over ). An attack is automatically rolled. For ranged weapons, click the dice on the damage value of the selected ammunition.

To make physical saves, left click on the damage type (of the attack) on your armor card. A dialog opens to allow you to configure your save. Wounds and Shock is automatically handled and added to your character sheet.

Note to Keepers

CD10 is a Theatre of the Mind game, designed to be played without battle maps. In the future, more support for tokens and combat mechanics will be implemented into Foundry, but at the moment, there is no combat tracker and no targeting mechanic for automatic attack/defense rolls.

Handle each roll separately for now. This is likely to remain so in the future as well, due to the flexibility of CD10, allowing players (and NPCs!) to apply Hero Points to their checks at will and things can change that no automated system can account for.

When running combat in CD10 focus on the narrative and what each character involved is doing. Don't stare yourself blind on exact numbers! Focus on telling a compelling narrative, describe what happens, rather than relying solely on the numbers.