Attributing Correctly

At the moment my biggest conundrum in collaging an RPG is what Attributes should be represented in it.

All the D&D retroclones keep to the D&D array (henceforth referred to as the Standard Six) - Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma - and those are the ones I am most familiar with, as would probably be anyone who has played a computer game requiring you to allocate stat points. And had I not read quite so many different RPGs recently, I daresay I would have thought nothing of continuing the tradition.

But I have come across game authors proposing alternatives, ranging from a pared-down trio of attributes up to eight or so. Thus I am open to the possibility of a different attribute line up.

With the desire to provide less complexity to new players, I will put aside the possibility of splitting up some of the Standard Six.

Reducing the attributes, however, is tempting. 

My favourite tabletop miniatures game for the last few years has been Pulp Alley, which runs with six attributes of its own: Brawl, Shoot and Dodge for combat-related challenges, and Might, Finesse and Cunning for non-combat. Wanting to lean away from giving combat too much rule space, I will not give it its own attributes, but the latter three provide a good coverage of most of the potential challenges a party might face. Players could use those to create pretty well-rounded adventurers, or specialise in one to make an archetypal Fighter, Rogue or Wizard. I might change Cunning to Wits which I feel would broaden the scope of the attribute a bit more to include information recall, as well as complementing the other two to create a consistent shorthand: Mi, Fi and Wi.

I have toyed with the idea of adding a fourth attribute - not one that I would be able to easily tie in with that shorthand - for that other important aspect of RPGs: social interaction and challenges. Charisma would hopefully underline the importance of diplomacy to reduce the number of character deaths from unnecessarily violent encounters.

However, if I were to move away from the Standard Six, I would be quite keen to leave behind the occasions which I see in 5e whereby a character tells a not-very-good lie and aces their deception roll. Every once in a while is alright, but Charisma almost works as a skill in its own right with players tending to rely upon it and its roll bonus rather than playing the role. It could be used largely to determine how many followers a character might be able to manage, and give bonuses to random encounter reaction rolls, but I feel that it wouldn't be of all that much use in the dungeon (or general adventuring areas) compared to the others, and I would be encouraging people to avoid using it in social scenarios.

Then again, the OSR ethos is generally to resort to attribute checks only if you have to, so would that same encouragement apply to the other three?

All that said, the Standard Six would be more familiar to those who have played popular RPGs before, and would allow for a fairly straightforward conversion of other OSR material for quick use at the table. People would also feel that their characters were more distinct from each other, but is a reliance on one's stats to determine character really something I want to encourage?

Ideally I'd like to be able to tailor it to the group's needs, depending on their comfort and experience. If it were only a case of having two different character sheets, that would be fine. Alas, not really feasible, particularly since I want to link HD or an equivalent more closely to an attribute than is currently the case.

Ack, perhaps more discussions to bring to the Discord channel and G+ communities. They have been very helpful and understanding so far.