Everybody has that fantasy heart breaker and I’m no different. I played around with YARC years ago and I think it’s to bring this back. In case you’re wondering, YARC stands for Yet Another Retroclone. Because we got enough right?

So why even do this? Well, there’s lots of retrocones that I like bits and pieces and there are bits and pieces that I don’t like. Plus since I started this whole thing, a lot more ideas have popped into my head. Most of this will be all player material. I want it to be pretty much compatible with what ever adventure or supplement that I happen to pick up.

This is going to be a slow process and there’s going to be a bunch of changes along the way I know that. Plus I’ve got so many other gaming projects that I’m working on. I really should get some of those done.

So I want to talk about Stats a little bit for this inaugural post. I think stats should be important and that dump stats can kill you. Of course, it’s pretty easy to think about Constitution and its effect on HP. And Wisdom and Dexterity help with a characters defenses (Saving Throws and AC). But why would a Fighter need Intelligence or Charisma? Those might not be their highest stats but they still should be important. I’ve done some games where I used Charisma as a measurement of Luck as well as personality. It worked well and with modifiers going to a random thing it made the characters fun and even more unique.

For Intelligence, well, I am thinking about a very simple skill system. I know. No SKILLS in old school games. Sigh. I just thinks it’s possible but don’t over do it. Don’t worry. I’ll rant about skills later.

So for overall here’s how I’m thinking about applying those ability score modifiers:

Strength: Damage with Weapons (not just melee)

Dexterity: AC, Initiative (more on this later), and To-Hit with weapons (not just ranged). That’s right Strength is just for damage but Dexterity is to hit and not get hit.

Constitution: Hit Points of course.

Intelligence: Something with skills but there’s some class specific tricks I have up my sleeve.

Wisdom: Resist Magic (Saving Throw)

Charisma: Randomly applied to something.

Ah yes. I know this is vague but this is the first post of many. So stay tuned and join my crazy ride as put this together. And wish me luck. I’m going to need it.