Resolut10ns is a tabletop RPG with rules resolved by a pool of ten-sided dice (d10s). Above all, this system is based on the philosophy that a tabletop role-playing game is about creating and engaging in a story between friends, with the rules as a quick resolution of conflict.
I spent much of my childhood yearningly flipping through tabletop RPG rulebooks with great fascination, coming up with my own worlds and stories. I spent even longer learning how to run such games for myself, and bonding with friends over the stories we would go on to craft. However as time went on, I would find dissatisfaction with how most system's mechanics were so married to their settings, leaving little room to adapt said rules to a setting of the player's choice. Few games considered themselves universal systems, and those that did were too bloated by their rules to keep the focus on story rather than number crunching. From this, and following the development of a 140+ page rule overhaul for the Wizards of the Coast tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, the conception for a game of my own design would begin.
The craving for a universal tabletop system with this philosophy of story over rules was shared by a good friend of mine, and with our combined efforts, from 2017 to the present we would become coauthors to our own setting-independent tabletop game now known as Resolut10ns. Over the course of its development, there have been over 14 major iterations of its core rulebook alone, each readdressing the game's mechanics in response to a variety of test groups. Through this thorough testing, reviewing, and polishing, its rules have grown into something we are both proud of and have absolute confidence in its ability to accomplish the ideals of our target design philosophy.
At its core, the rules of Resolut10ns are entirely modular. The game's set of 5 rulebooks are all encompassing, over a cumulative 370+ pages thus far, with rules to resolve nearly any scenario. With familiarity, even the inclusion of all these rules comes with quick resolutions and constant attention to the story and its characters. However, the rules that lay the foundations of Resolut10n's gameplay provide an intuitive freedom that may apply to an equal number of scenarios, with even greater simplicity, at the cost of a reduction of mechanical depth that many groups find desireable.
As referenced in the name Resolut10ns, the game is played with a pool of ten-sided dice (d10s). Every character in a given session has a number of skills, each leveling from 0 to 50. For every 10 levels in a skill, you earn a d10 to roll when attempting actions related to that skill, gradually increasing your odds of success in performing said action. This roll is tested against a value decided by the Narrator, Resolut10n 's
take on the game master/arbiter role, depending on the difficulty of that task. If this roll is being contested by another actor in the game, then the two rolls are compared to determine a winner. Additionally these skill checks act as a player's progression, earning XP (experience points) in that skill regardless of success or failure. This skill mechanic sits at the core of every other rule, efficiently tying everything together, and if desired an entire campaign could be enjoyed using almost exclusively this rule.
With this d10 skill check mechanic as the beating heart of our rules, a plethora of analysis and adjustments have been made in the formulas we use our skill check difficulties to provide an optimal success rate per scenario, and thus an optimal experience for our players. The image above includes the formula to determine the success probability in account of our Critical Dice system, where d10s that result in a 10 allow the player to roll an additional dice. The # column on each table (per d10 count) indicates the target number of successes for an average challenge rating of 6 or higher, and the % indicates the probability of success. Some skill checks may require a number of successes, especially at higher difficulties or with well-progressed characters. From this, even in complex scenarios, we have remained precise enough to tone our design towards a default success rate of 60% on a fair challenge, with odds shrinking and growing in respect to how comparably challenging the task is for a given character. With our design, making an exception of challenges that would be simply unbelievable, even an unskilled character stands a low chance at rising against the odds to create moments of high tension and even higher thrill.
There are three pillars that provide the context to every part of Resolut10n's systems: Ubiquitous, lightweight, and story-first design.
The game's ubiquity is found in its default support for 6 distinct ages of time, expansions to stretch beyond reality, and an adaptable foundation to support settings of any genre of story. Including Prehistoric, Bronze, Medieval, Industrial, Machine, and Modern ages; each age defines a different set of skills, specializations, and equipment accessible to its characters. The rule's modularity and efficiency empowers the support for these stretches of time with ease, supplying a formula that players may easily follow to create settings of their own imagination. And for those who prefer to jump straight into the action, Resolut10ns supplies several setting books with expansive worlds already prepared for exploration.
While it is a priority for rules to remain lightweight, system depth is not something that passes our minds. A balance is struck in two sections of this pillar: First, systems must be interesting and rewarding enough to breed creativity and fun, but must be lightweight enough to keep the action moving. Second, the efficiency of systems is prioritized over their quantity in order to cover all common occurences among a variety of games without falling into overdesigning and rule bloat. The game's modularity empowers players to pick and choose what crosses the line for their group, however we aim to strike this balance even for groups that choose to use all of the provided rules. A majority of our test groups prefer to drop few to no systems yet report smoother gameplay than competing tabletop RPGs.
For many, the universal applicability of our rules is worthless without the ability to also support a variety of playstyles as well. The trend of combat-focused roleplaying games is by no means something to despise, and the ability to find variety and identity in combat is a necessary part of any RPG with combat. However with Resolut10n 's design philosophy,
we felt that under the endless labels of a character's race, class, subclass, hero level, etc, the actual identity of the character becomes buried and weightless. We took a different approach, with character creation options such as a detailed alignment wheel, skill allocation, and specializations; providing players the tools to create colorful and dynamic characters that develop through their journey. The nature of our approach to design employs characters to express themselves through their actions, as we provide rules for handling character knowledge, negotiation, stealth, adventuring, carousing, and more; in as great of
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After over six years of development, the game's rules have finally reached a stage near completion, with only a polish here or there to remain. Much content remains in development to provide expansions at launch, tools to support the Narrators who wish for more direction in coordinating a campaign in our system, and settings for our players to explore. In pursuit of having our vision remain our own, we aim to self-publish the project and build our community bit by bit. For indepdenent developers, self-funding to achieve the proper standards of presentation, and dedicating time to organizing our rules into a proper designed book rather than in digital documents, is a tedious effort. Though we take our measured steps, we have begun the process of contracting artists to breathe life into our books of rules, and in time we shall see it ready for distribution.
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