System Basics - Stats & Skills

After much hand- and brain-wringing, I've decided to go with just 3 primary Stats: Body, Mind, Spirit with ranges of 1-18 for starting player characters. These numbers can be modified depending on the genre and setting being played, but for most purposes, they give an adequate range. Average is around 8-10, but starting "Standard" characters will have about 18 points to spread between those three Stats. Each Stat is used depending on whether the character is doing something physical (Body), mental (Mind) or mystical (Spirit -- psionics etc are included in this category).

Task resolution is based on the difficulty of the action, which determine the number of six-sided dice rolled (up to 6). Success occurs when the cumulative result rolled is less than the Stat amount. For an average character, this means that it gets progressively more difficult to pass any of the harder difficulty levels. For an "Average" task (3 dice), the range of results is 3-18, meaning that an Average for a Stat falls in at around the Average for this.

That's where Skills come in. Skills enhance the chances of a character doing anything, and the Skill Rating for a Skill is added directly to the Stat being used. For example, if a character had a BODY of 8 and MARTIAL ARTS Skill of 5, that would give a total of 13 to be used for task resolution. The Stat being used may change depending upon what's being done. For example, with the Martial Art skill:

BODY: Performing the actual move.
MIND: Analysing and understanding the move.
SPIRIT: Used for "special" moves, such as death strikes, qi attacks, focus attack etc.

A variation of Skills are Powers, that act just like Skills in the system, where they require a successful resolution to be activated. Powers usually use a particular Stat as their base, rather than being using one depending upon what's being done. These Powers are used to handle spells, psionics and special abilities.