Something that bothers me about RPGs today is the increasing number of stats.
Strength, Dexterity, Luck, Will, Charisma, Wisdom, Intelligence, Speech, Sneak, Initiative, Constitution... the list goes on.
Why are there so many?

I think back to one of my first RPG's: Pokemon Blue.  Sure it's not a table-top game, but it explains my point well.
It had 4 stats: Attack, Defense, Special, and Speed.  Simple, self-explanatory, and straight to the point.

Why is it necessary to have so many "fluff" stats in today's RPGs?
Is it just to make the game more complex than it needs to be?

Depends on what the game designer is trying to place emphasis on. There are plenty of games that don't use the "standard array" of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.

Take a look at OVA, for instance. Instead of having six ability scores for each character, you simply add the ones that are relevant to your character.

"RPG's today" is pretty broad thing to make this statment about.  There are a lot of RPG's that have many different setups with regards to stats/skills/abilities.  Here are some with relatively simple set ups.

Ron Edwards' Sorcerer has Stamina, Will, Lore, Cover and Humanity and no 'skills' as a seperate thing.  Everything is covered under those.

Ron Edwards' Trollbabe has Fighting, Magic and Social (but I'm not sure if those are the names used) and that's it.

Paul Czege's My Life with Master (MLwM) has Self-Loathing, Weariness and Love and no other skills/abilities.

Gregor Hutton's 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars has only Fighting Ablity and Non-Fighting Ability.

R. Talsorian's Castle Falkenstein had no "stats" per se, eveything is skills.  All skills you automatically have at poor unless you raise them up during chargen (I think, it's been a while since I looked at that.)

I think FATE (of whatever flavor) only has skills as well.

Now why have stats for all the things you mentioned?  I can think of many different reasons.  One, it's a way of describing a character.  Sure you can do it in words but numbers can help you form your mental picture too.  "Oh, my guy is only middlin' stong, but has great reflexes, is really good looking and has a magnetic personality."  All those thing can suggest ideas to players about how their characters look and act.

A lot of times I think that folks use a "stat" level of attributes in a game to help you narrow down what you character is going to be better at overall.  Good strength and reflexes are (in many systems) going to make it easier to have good ablities in physical skills.  If you have lots of physical skills, then characters can be different from each other in very nuanced ways. Stats can be kind of the top end of the funnel, if you like.  I think it might also mechanically reinforce a sort of internal consistancy about a character.

There is also quite a tradition of doing games this way.

Are you thinking about writing a game with a reduced number of stats?

Josh, I don't disagree with you, but I found that an odd statement to make. Games have traditionally had numerous stats, with a surge in number of stats or stat-like things taking place through designs in the 80's and 90's, while RPGs "today" have often had fewer. Could you give us an example of games from today that have what you consider to be a bloated number of stats? What stats are you considering using in your own design that led you to notice this issue and then to ask this question?

Yeah, it's been that way forever.  I know Gary Gygax made a fantasy game that had 18 stats.  It wasn't very popular (gee I wonder why).  It seems like stats are so prevalent for RPGs because not many people can conceive of other ways to describe or flesh out a character.

I personally looked to video games for inspiration.  There are quite a few modern video games out there that do not bother statting out characters, and yet immersion remains intact - I would go as far as to say that immersion is actually increased as a result, as a character is perceived as a character, not a bunch of min-maxed numbers on a sheet.

Non-stat games assume everyone is relatively equal in terms of physical or mental makeup, with the main difference between characters being their skill set.  This skill set can make the character appear smarter, more athletic, etc. without explicitly representing it.  In my opinion, this is why non-stat games work, and it can save calculation time in combat.

At the end of the day, I guess it's a matter of mere preference. But I wonder if designers ever plan some real use for all the traits, or if most traits are there just for informative purpose. You know, things like exactly how much weight one can lift.

In one of my projects, I had a survey on what types of tests were the most common in my players games, and then I used those categories as Attributes: Combat, Perception, Knowledge, Athletics, Occupation and Influence.

Nowadays, I'm tempted to use a variation of Dr.Who's rule for Initiative order: Think, Talk, Move, Do and Fight.

No one writes a system with the stated goal of "being more complex than it needs to be".  It really depends on what you're trying to state, accomplish, comment on, or allow with the game you're writing.

I'm writing a simple pick-up-and-go task-resolution-based system; it uses four stats, Strength, Speed, Perception, and Aptitude on a 1-8 scale.  Big Eyes, Small Mouth distilled things even further and had "Mind, Body, Soul".  These games were about finding the fun in play, not on a character sheet.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine is writing a system that is designed to capture as many of the nuances of combat and esoteric magic as possible; it has fully eighteen stats, uses pyramid numbers for modifiers; it's crunchy and exceedingly heavy on computation.  That said, he doesn't plan on releasing it at all!  He's going to plug some numbers into an Excel spreadsheet and use it when playing, and only operate with it in his circles of friends.  That doesn't mean it's wrong, just different.  That said, I wouldn't suggest it to J. Random RPG Player.

It's all about priorities, really; what you want out of an RPG and what you want your players to get out of it.

You guys all realize that skills are stats too, right?

Perhaps it is related to people's psychology. Playing RPGs is something that fulfills different psychological needings. Some people play for the joy of creating a story. Other ones like the feeling of being someone different with a different personality. Other ones want to feel how is being in a different age, even in a wholly different world. Some people need to feel special, powerful, to feel like a hero. Some people like the feeling of overcoming adversity in a controlled environment (you know, the problem of real life is that adversity doesn't use to be balanced). And other people like the feeling of being part of the special club of guys who read several 400-hundred pages rulebooks where you can find the specific spell for a semi-elf cleric with blue eyes who want to drain energy from a undead werewolf.

Roleplaying is a very small market with many different needings inside. In short, a birdcage. In most of theories about RPGs I always missed the relation between the game and the people who play. Probably because for most of people is difficult to conceive roleplaying in a different way they feel it and they model from their point of view.

For me, for example, it's mainly about creating a story and exploring a different world (scifi, fantastic or historic). I don't care that much about the detail in character's characteristics, skills, and so: the minimum necessary to create a story is enough. However, I love settings plenty of details about daily life. But I'm aware that there is people who don't care about setting, but want to know exactly which is their skill with a two-handed katana while riding a horse with crosswind, after 6 and half hours of sleep and carrying 57 pounds and 2 ounces. And they need to fill the character sheet with as much numbers as possible. Because it makes the characer more real for them.

Some years ago I used to think that this way of roleplaying was absurd and weird. Now (probably because I'm older) I think that if it makes some people happy (even if I don't understand it), well, it can't be bad.

Marshall wrote:
You guys all realize that skills are stats too, right?

Have you read any of Ron's periodic rants about "attributes OR skills, but not both"? I'm trying to find a good one in the archives.

His basic point is that it's a bad idea to have both, because then you've got two different things that determine Effectiveness in two different ways, and this creates all sorts of wonky exchanges and breakpoints in the currency.

Ar wrote:

Marshall wrote:
You guys all realize that skills are stats too, right?

As in an integer that represents a character's capacity, yes.  It's the context we're discussing, here: a separate set of integers (i.e. even more numbers and calculation acrobatics) that have questionable utility.

Josh,
  There is no one true way to approach this design decision.
  Here are some pros and cons I think of as they relate to you:
Many stats/skills:
Pros:
Players will be able to get a good handle on what their character can and can't do
It is easier to create rigorous procedures around the main activities of the RPG when there are stats and more stats allow for more interesting interactions (this is especially valuable to CRPG designs)
It creates more interactions that can distinguish and intrigue players

Cons
It creates a learning curve that may intimidate some players
It may stifle creativity that is not expressed well with numbers
It may prevent actions that are not statted out

Few Stats/Skills
Pros
Character can be described in words
Any actions that players can think of can be tried
Flatter learning curve
Players can make almost any character

Cons
It is harder to create procedures when you can't predict what actions the players will or won't try (especially for CRPGs)
It is harder to make characters if the player does not have a solid creative idea in mind for their character
Players can only hope that the stats they do possess are applicable to the action they want their character to attempt.
Distinguishing characteristics between characters may not be mechanically unique or have different mechanical impact.

This is just a quick summary, we can dig deeper if this line of thought interests you.

The correct set of stats is a blance of 2 considerations:

stats should exist to differentiate characters.  If you are trying to differentiate between dwarves and elves you might want manual dexterity to be separate from agility since Dwarves have good manual dexterity but poor agility.  If you are doing a horror game with soldiers and scientists you might just have a physical and a mental stat, although you might want to separate out intelligence which scientists have from courage with soldiers have.

stats should be useful to all.  If only one character has a use for the intellect stat it probably is not needed, or should be a feat/talent etc.  This is part of differentiating characters.  If the stat isn't used, then it doesn't differentiate them.