So after deciding to write a Tempeste RPG (which I’ve actually already done once, but trust me, the earlier version isn’t any good), I returned to deliberating over what to name base attributes. (If you missed my earlier post, I spent more time talking about the human soul than arriving at any conclusions). Thankfully, words come easily when mentally immersed in a world with a rich and complex aesthetic: discipline, finesse, grace, guts, nuance, passion, rapport, style, tenacity. Without even telling you about Tempeste, the words above begin to offer a sense of the world and the characters who inhabit it.
Initially, I thought I’d have a total of eight attributes, four that embody the four aspects of the soul (which, yes, will have its place in Tempeste) and four others for everything else. The four “soul attributes” were also to be called capacities and would relate to how much damage a character can take, e.g. physical damage, mental damage, etc. (to oversimplify)—but again and again, when I began thinking about what attributes would be used for what sorts of actions, I found that more than one attribute might be used for the same sort of action. In social contests, for example, should a character use Nerve or Anima? And what is Anima, anyway? I knew what it meant to me theoretically, but would it make sense to players?
So do I return to content, the humanoid and alien beings that inhabit the fictional world I want to create? Do I further delineate concepts of the soul as they pertain to the setting and such entities, so that key game mechanics emerge from those concepts? Perhaps, if I want to create a setting thick with history, plots, and secrets, I should consider—not only (or perhaps instead of) committing all such content to writing—creating game mechanics that facilitate running such a game? To take this a step further, I’ve considered how to go about the unfolding of plots and timelines, to instill in players a sense of urgency and anticipation, for events leading up to the impending apocalypse.