Yes, I grew up on 80s video games as a kid.
You need 3 stats:
lives, speed and oxygen.
Also power-ups.
You need 4 stats.
And magic.
You need 5 stats.
Can’t we use power-ups for magic?
We need 4 stats.
SLOP
Speed Lives Oxygen Power
Sorted.
Applying this to role-play game system, I would be tempted to use a scale of 1 to 5 which fit snugly with the D6-1 or alternatively, D6, where rolling six is a massive power up that gives you another dice to roll.
Fire = Action = Speed
Earth = Body = Lives
Air = Mind = Oxygen
Water = Emotion = Power
It may be imperfect but when you’ve only got four statistics to do everything with its not bad.
Oxygen is valuable if you live in space or go underwater. Or delve into a stinky cave where the wind never blows.
Staying true to the video game genre, power ups are not innate, they come from discovering them in the environment or nabbing them from other characters.
Your character starts with 1 Power point.
One PowerPoint is worth one D6.
As we are using oxygen for intelligence because it relates to mind in the hermetic tradition of alchemy, the first three stats; speed, lives, oxygen, define your characters abilities.
You get nine points to arrange around those three stats.
Each stat must have at least one because to have zero in any of the means you’re dead. Not unconscious; dead. You can have no more than five points per stat, the maximum under normal conditions.
So it is possible you can assign five points to one stat and two points to two of the other stats. 225. Or 234. Or 333. Try not to be boring.
To test any stat against yourself, roll 1D6 and get equal or less than the stat rate.
To compare any stat competitively against somebody else, roll 1D6 and add the relevant stat rate.
