In my old west game the players roll percentile dice to obtain their scores in the following six attributes; Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intellect, Wisdom, Personality. Players roll 12x and pick the best 6 and assign them where they want. Each attribute is ranked in the following manner. 01-09 Feeble, 10-25 Poor, 26-74 Fair, 75-90, Good, 91-98 Great, 99-100 Amazing.

   The higher an attribute is ranked the more bonuses a character enjoys when using that attribute. Conversely, a low ranked attribute imposes penalties when used by a character.

   Attribute scores are also modified if the player chooses a non human character.

   I would like to offer a point buy method for players who prefer more control in creating their characters. Which of the following methods makes the most sense?

   1. Start all attributes ranked at Fair and have a point pool that the players can use to raise attributes higher. Also, adding points to that pool if a player chooses to lower the rank of an attribute.

   2. Start all attributes as above. But, use a smaller point pool and only let them spend points only to increase attributes favored by their race (non-human) and character class.

If those were the two options I had to pick from, I'd prefer option 1.

As to option two, do you think that would make things more "in character?" I think it sounds good but it prevents people from making strong elves or whatever other non-traditional characters they might want.

Also, as with any random character generation you might want to make a policy about low rolls, or maybe just make point buy the standard. I find that players love, love, love random character gen because they can keep good stats and if they roll low they can whine and bitch until I give in and give them at least average stats. You could say "just don't give in then" but that basically makes everyone come out unhappy and underpowered, and tat sort of thing is something I would do my best to avoid when writing a system.

How integral are attributes to the system as a whole?

If you consider a game system like the one that's been used by Palladium for the past 25 years or so, half of the stats are pretty redundant anyway...if you consider a lot of other systems, the 6 stats might be integral to everything because those are the only numbers you've got to play with.

Similarly, are the attributes actually measured by the percentile values, or the grammatical terms?

Just questioning because I have some ideas but I'd l;ike to get a better idea of where you're coming from.

V

  In the game the attributes are very much part of the system. They modify Chances to Hit, Damage, Skill Use, Class Abilities, Resistances, etc. 

  Attributes are measured in grammatical terms. The percentile score that a player assigns to an attribute determines how that attribute is ranked.

  I like the suggestion about a policy of letting players with bad rolls take average stats. Could avoid a lot of headaches for the G.M.

If the ranks of attributes are on a standard scale, -2, -1, +0, +1, +2 for instance, why not give a budget of total pluses?

EG, lets say there are 10 Attributes, and I want characters on average to have +.5, you could say they can total +5. This makes it easy to get some +2s, but the GM should approve the final spends anyhow. You can also allow character to take negative modifiers to gain more positive modifiers but again, I would limit the total negatives available, for instance to no more than -3.