Would you change the six basic OSR/D&D ability scores? What would you change?

TSR tried that with Comeliness and didnt stick, and tried again with Skills & Powers and didnt stick.

They seem to have hit it right on the first go. You can do with less, but then you lose some function. And adding more tends to just get redundant or needless.

Well they've been changing the Ability scores from way back of course. Traveller had Endurance instead of Constitution, which deftly incorporated willpower score into the physical measure. They also brought in Education instead of Wisdom and Social Standing instead of Charisma (sort of at least, as they weren't exact matches).

I've never been sure that Wisdom has been that accurate a word for the purpose in D&D. Awareness may have been better.

You could also go with more alliteration too:

Strength
Speed
Skill
Stamina
Smarts
Spirit

....for example.

I would use Wisdom/Wis as a score that you could change out for different genre's or styles, and keep all the rest the same. For example in a Thieves World (or maybe even a dungeon delving) campaign I'd swap it out for Luck. In a Samurai game Ki, in a Sci-Fi game PSI, ect.

I like the Hero System's Presence instead of Charisma. That kind of eliminates the questions on whether the intimidating barbarian or orc chieftain has a low social score or high one.

Wisdom has kind of morphed into a combo of willpower and perception. I can see it being split in games where that's the case.

Quote from: RPGPundit;962473Would you change the six basic OSR/D&D ability scores? What would you change?

Yes.
I'd make them Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Size, Appearance and Perception.
Intelligence is a player's attribute, and if you're in one class forever, wizard power is something that doesn't need to be on every character sheet.

I remember a while ago reading a giant list of RPG attributes organized by the RPG that used them alphabetically. There must have been hundreds of games listed there. I cannot find it now though, nor anything similar. Insert sad face.

I only use 4: Might, Reflexes, Mind and Presence.

For OD&D? I would just ditch the ability scores altogether. Half of them are just there for XP bonuses.

Yes and No.  

No in the sense of the changes I'd like to make would be too pervasive to be so much a change as a new game.  The six scores change alone might still be clinging to the "D&D" mantle, but by the time the ramifications of the change made it throughout the system, it would be only "D&D-ish".  

Yes, in the sense that if I'm doing a D&D hack just for me, sure, why not?.   I think I'd prefer a D&D-ish game that used Might, Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma, Agility, and Perception.  The first four are prime requisites for various classes.  The last two are general purpose, that any character would be happy to have.  Constitution functions roll into Might.  Dex/Agility split probably obvious.  Charisma loses some (but not all) of its social aspects, but gains the "divine" parts of the dropped Wisdom.  Perception has its obvious applications, but also handles some of the social aspects.  Intelligence picks up a little of the mental aspects that used to be in Wisdom to round it out.

All that said, I'm 50/50 whether "intelligence" in this scheme would keep that label or use "Wisdom" instead.  I think I'd prefer Wisdom in the long run, both for separating the idea of "player intelligence" from the character aspect, and also because I like the idea of wizards being "wise men" more than bookish.  I'd have to playtest that one to know which way I'd fall, since I suspect it would be confusing to some people.  Furthermore, I'm well aware that "Perception" is a contentious topic.  I think I prefer it as attribute instead of skill, separate game rule, etc.  It seems to be too fundamental to the course of play (broadly) to be anything but an attribute.  From an emulation perspective, it's something that defines a character, but does not improve much over time.  Sounds like an attribute to me.  But I'm also well aware that a lot of people don't see it that way.

For the kind of game I generally run, those six attributes would also have the happy side effect of being fairly balanced in importance.

Quote from: cranebump;962534I only use 4: Might, Reflexes, Mind and Presence.

What system are those from?

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;962546What system are those from?

None of the D&D systems. I'd fold STR and CON into MIGHT, INT and WIS into MIND.

If I were using traditional stats, then, I guess it would be STR, DEX, WIS and CHA.

Quote from: RPGPundit;962473Would you change the six basic OSR/D&D ability scores? What would you change?

If this is because we're trying to make a better fantasy game, I'll change them to ST, DX, and IQ and call it The Fantasy Trip.

Quote from: AsenRG;962527Yes.
I'd make them Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Size, Appearance and Perception.
Intelligence is a player's attribute, and if you're in one class forever, wizard power is something that doesn't need to be on every character sheet.

Quote from: Cave Bear;962541For OD&D? I would just ditch the ability scores altogether. Half of them are just there for XP bonuses.

That brings to mind an interesting idea. What if the OD&D stats were Dex, Con, Cha, and XP-Bonus? I mean, we really don't need to know the magic user's strength or wisdom, or the fighting man's wisdom or intelligence*, or cleric's strength or intelligence, so why have them?

*yes, yes, # of languages. I'm ignoring that for now, just like I'm ignoring thieves, elves, Greyhawk stat-use expansion, etc.

I've considered adapting Fate Accelerated inspired approaches, though I ended up using them for something else. Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis and Cha all represent quantifiable numbers. Approaches are more dynamic representing vectors instead of quantities. The ones I often use are Charming, Clever, Forceful, Quick, Tough, and Willful (or Resolute or Determined). I initially used these in place of Affiliations in a Marvel Heroic hack, where I also used skills from Firefly which are verbs. So you could make a statement of declaration something like "I [Approach]ly [Skill] the [Target/Objective] with [Weapon/Device/Spell/Power/Thing]." So it's not so much what you have, as how you apply it.

Aside from that I've tried less and more ability scores and renaming them and when it comes to D&D/OSR I prefer to stick with the classics.