Fudge-like 2dX mechanic

[TheTris]

I'm very interested in theory discussions - If you want to start a new thread, I'll argue in it :-D

Here's a better comparison: Using a 1 to 10 scale, one player is a fairly experienced amateur chess player with mediocre intelligence (skill 4, attribute 0); another player just knows the basics and has very high intelligence (skill 1 attribute 3). If these two players were to meet, they'd be on equal footing? Not a chance. The experienced player would trounce the brainy guy every time--no contest.

Absolutely.  So in my system, the guy with skill 4 rolls 4D6, keeps the best 3, and adds nothing.  The guy with skill 1 rolls 1D6, keeps the best, and adds 3 for his intelligence - like you say, the experienced player wins every time.

Well, the moment of sitting down at the board and reading the rules counts as "training". A certain number of "Training Points" would be immediately earned by each and those points would be converted into Skill Levels such that the high intelligence guy winds up at a higher level (say level 3) than the lower guy (say level 1).

Although I can see this is valid to some extent, it would suggest that the intelligent guy should then definitely win his second game of chess against an equally intelligent guy as he starts at 3 and the other guy starts at 0, which I don't think is true.  It also doesn't cover (for example) high jumping.  Or shooting a gun.  Chess is actually a series of skill rolls, whereas these are single events, and I guarentee the strong agile guy will jump higher than me, and the guy with excellent hand eye coordination will shoot better than me, even though we are both skill 0 and have no chance for learning on the job.

Another example would be watching athletics.  You sometimes see a guy who hasn't got perfect technique, but still jumps further than guys with much tighter technique, because of natural ability.

Or Rowing - Matthew Pincent is a prodigious natural talent.  He has put the effort in and learnt the skill as well, but I could be just as adept as he is at the technique, and I would still lack the natural attributes to be an Olympic champion.

I do see the attribute affects learning argument, and I agree with it(although I think often intelligence is what affects skill acquisition.)  I think if you were being totally simulationist, you'd have to affect both roll totals AND skill learning rates by attributes.  So the intelligent guy does better at chess AND learns faster.  But to discard attributes competely?  I see so many examples in real life where this approach is not valid.