Moving right along.. Attributes..

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So with all of these levels, we should start describing some things with them! Lets go with Attributes first. Attributes for us describe broad inherent features everyone has, and are used when you have no other trait to describe something. There are six:

Reasoning: Thinking ability; puzzle solving; intelligence; cleverness
Perception: Awareness of the environment; raw ability to notice things
Willpower: Strength of will; psychic/magical stamina; determination
Strength: Physical strength; lifting/carrying capacity; ability to deal damage
Agility: Physical dexterity; native talent for physical skills 
Health: Fitness; resistance to disease and injury; physical stamina 

You can see from the brief descriptions that they are describing the raw talent and very basic, somtimes instinctual abilities of a person. You may not be called on to use these traits very often, but knowing them and making sure that your other traits reflect and match up with these will help define your character. 

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I gave this section a lot of thought, especially considering the scarcity of words or even real game time importance of the numbers. Yes, you will sometimes roll against these levels, and they certainly will give you some advantages in combat settins especially, but these are by far the least exciting stats on the character sheet.

I decided to stick with F10's (Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition) listed attributes, and even used alot of the descriptions form that section here. I read over the rules alot and did not feel the need, based on my play and writing experiences, to reinvent the wheel. Playtesting and experience from folks like Ann and Stephen went into the design, I know better than to take that lightly. The goal of this work is not to come up with a brand new design, rather to take the existing material, and streamline the explanation of it for the fresh to rpg crowd. 

Having said all that, if playtest later on shows problems, or a vast underuse of certain attributes, I'm not above tweaking the rules then. Consider that a bridge to cross later. There are fairly valid arguments for not using attributes, since they aren't linked to skills anyway, and even I was a little tempted to shorten this list even further, pushing some of these traits off into the fault/gift territory. I think that new players especially, and players of other games will find some of these stats comforting, and we can tell them to look to their skills or Gifts for the social attributes (Charisma anyone?)

Next time, Skills. How would you feel if I left out chunks of text (like skill listings) that I'll just end up cutting and pasting from F10 directly, with page references to what I'll include (thank you open gaming licenses). Please let me know in the comments or on the forums.