We have: Strength, Physique, Constitution, Agility, Dexterity, Empathy, Intelligence, Psionics, Intuition, Bravery, Leadership, GTA, MechA, and ElecA. Each ranges from 1-20. Guess how they're rolled?

If you said "A D20" or "2D10" or anything like that.... you're WRONG!

You roll 1d100 and then cross index to find the 1-20 value. Even more fun, there are SIX columns, each covering 2-3 attributes which are semi-logically grouped. For example, rolling a 25 will give you a score of 9 in Physique, Strength, or Con, while that same 25 is a score of 10 for Agility and a score of 8 for Empathy! Oh, the chart goes to 105 for some of the abilities, and 115 for others, but only to 100 for the rest. Why over 100 for some? Beeecause...

Each class gets a pool of points to add to the rolls for some of the attributes! So we'd better pick a class... OK, Armsman. Let's go for a classic archetype here, the foot soldier of the future, ideally not a mercenary grunt but a professional, even elite, solder. As an Armsman, he has a pool of +40 to Physique, Strength, Constitution, Agility, Bravery, and Leadership. This +40 is not added to each roll; rather, I roll and then add some portion of it to the roll to get my final number. Here's the initial setup:

68: Physique 14
28: Strength 11
49: Con 13
27: Agility 10
80: Dexterity 14
61: Empathy 12
93: Intelligence 17
6: Psionics 2
60: Intuition 10
74: Bravery 15
52: Leadership 13
70: GTA 13
2: MechA 2
43: ElecA 11

Seeing this, I want to up Strength... let's see, 7 points to that will give me a 12, leaving me 33 points... Agility needs to go up, too... for a mere 1 point, I can raise it to 11, not great, but very cost-efficient, so 32 to go...my leadership can go to 14 for just 6 more points, so 26 left...it's worth noting, by the way, that none of these attributes are currently defined anywhere, so I'm sort of guessing at what I need... let's kick Physique up to 15, that costs me 8 points, 18 left... hell, make Strength 13, for another 15 points, 3 left..just enough to raise Bravery to 16.

So here's the final tally:

Physique 15

Strength 13

Con 13

Agility 12

Dexterity 14

Empathy 12

Intelligence 17

Psionics 2

Intuition 10

Bravery 16

Leadership 14

GTA 13

MechA 2

ElecA 11

So, evidently, I am pretty good with technology in general and with electronics, but I am a terminal butterfingers with mechanical devices. This isn't a bad roleplaying hook. My highest attribute is Intelligence, so, if I'd rolled BEFORE choosing a class, I would have picked a tech profession.

I have no idea what is gained, mechanically or balance wise, by this bass-ackwards system of stat rolling. It reeks of complexity for complexities sake. If the idea is to shift the 'mean' of various attributes, by making, say, a high Psionics rarer than a high Physique, this can be done more efficiently in many different ways: Straight 2d10 for Physique, 2d10-4 for Psionics, and give out points to raise attributes as needed. Games like Runequest were already doing this at the time, so it's not an innovation. Picking class and THEN rolling virtually guarantees broken or mismatched characters.

So, having rolled attributes, what do you think is next? If you said "Homeworld" you win. You also cheated, because, no way in hell would any sane gamer think that. And you know, it's late and I'm tired, so I'll finish this off another day. Let us declare Part I done!