I need some help. My game has 10 stats and while they all have names at the moment, I am only really 100% happy with 3 of them and I actively dislike another 3. That said, I am 100% happy with the meanings of all 10, it's just the names that struggle to convey that meaning I have issue with. So, what I was hoping to do was post descriptions of the stats (without including the names I used, to remove biases), and have you kind folks on the forum tell me what you think they should be named. Use any criteria you like, honestly, from just what you think sounds good to whatever rpg naming conventions you prefer. I just want to crowd source a little what people think of and see what words might get people in the proper mindset to properly interpret actions and predict the correct stat. For some basic context on the game, which should be unnecessary given the stat descriptions here:

The game has no specific setting, but focuses on discovery and challenge to generate fun, both external and internal to your character. Imagine,stylistically, a mash up of OSR and pre-Chronicles World of Darkness sensibilities, where the primary challenges are player facing, but the character and their inner life is still deeply important to the process and can't just be discarded like a nameless pawn. Mechanically, I would say imagine if FATE and/or Technoir was twisted into a more traditional, character-immersive, non-storytelling focused game. I am told the mechanics are technically narrative, but the focus is on making things make sense and behave with verisimilitude.

My ten stats, called Talents, are divided into two categories: Attributes and Approaches. There are no skills or anything else of that nature that affects rolling. The expectation is that when someone undertakes a task, they roll dice equal to the two most appropriate stats and look for successes (6s). Generally, that will be one Attribute and one Approach, but I don't want to hardwire that, just in case something unusual comes up and two of a single category ends up the most appropriate. Attributes are meant to be more objective and related to your literal capabilities, while approaches are more about personality and archetypal actions. People need to understand these stats well so that they can correctly judge the correct stat for a given task, as there are intentionally no specific action or move lists to choose from. You simply describe actions and engage the system when needed.

Now, to clarify, people roll very rarely. You are only instructed to roll when an action is in doubt. If everyone can just agree on what would happen next (be it definitely success or definite failure), no roll is needed. Likewise, if there are no significant consequences to the action, no roll is necessary, either. If you want any additional information about the system, I'm happy to talk about it, but just know I do not have a written draft available--the game exists only in oral tradition at the moment, though it has been playtested and iterated on in that format for 2 years at this point.

Note: these are not the "official" stat descriptions that you'd find in a draft, they're just my informal attempts to get the points home. Now, without further ado:

Attribute 1: Agile, fast, and coordinated. This is the attribute for traversal, for any kind of whole body movement, like running, climbing, jumping, swimming, dodging, contortion, etc. If stamina were to be relevant, this is where it would go. It is the stat for gymnasts, cat burglars, and ninja warrior contestants.

Attribute 2: Physical strength, health, and resilience. This is for any task that either requires explosive physical force or involves resisting the same. In D&D terms, it's like combining Strength and Constitution, except for the stamina element, which belongs above. Most melee attacks and blocks should be this stat.

Attribute 3: Hand-eye-coordination, fine manipulation, and manual dexterity. This is the stat for surgeons, marksmen, pick pockets, pilots, and video game enthusiasts.

Attribute 4: This stat is about the quality of your thought, of your mental processing, and keeping your wits about you. But, I want to stress that it is not how smart you are or how much you know. Knowledge is handled separately as a binary, "do you know it or not" thing, while how smart you are mostly is determined by you, the player. This is a player challenge focused game, so you have to create your own clever plans and draw your own conclusions and figure out how stuff works by playing around with it. This stat is really for processing information that isn't provided directly to you/by you, for when describing every detail is impossible or when doing so would wreck the game's pacing with tedium. It definitely has a perception element, but is not solely that. You'd roll this to make a logical argument, say the exact right thing for the situation, place a trap, hack a network, spot someone sneaking around, find deliberately covered tracks, cast a complex hermetic-style spell, or exploit weaknesses in an opponent's stance. In particular, I want to avoid names that make it feel too "intelligencey." I don't want people to think they need to take it like a stat tax just because they want to play cleverly and make good decisions, which often happens to people in games like d&d where nobody wants to be dumb unless they specifically want to play that up, and 8 Intelligence barbarians (barely below average) get played like Patrick Star level smarts.

Attribute 5: This is your ability to get what you want, to exert your will on yourself or others. It is the force of your personality, but connecting it with D&D Charisma is not correct because it's not necessarily how likable you are and it has nothing to do with appearance. Plenty of attractive, likable people have trouble exerting their desires, and plenty of people who routinely dominate the room are very unlikable and ugly. You also use this to motivate and control yourself. Use this stat to make a pathos-driven argument, convince someone to trust you, stare someone down, shake off your own fear or control your other emotions, fast talk, fight off a possessing entity, or cast a spell by exerting your will over natural forces or entreating an otherworldly entity.

Approach 1: Raw, overwhelming, overt, direct action. Use this when the primary doubt about the action is "did you do it hard enough?" Or "Did you apply enough force?" Punch someone in the face, hold your position against a rushing crowd, shake off hypnotism, run or drive as fast as you can, smash something, cast a spell requiring raw power, such as a fireball, bark orders, or seduce someone with raw animal magnetism.

Approach 2: Everything related to trickery, deception, and underhanded tactics. Use this when the primary doubt is, "do they know the truth about what's happening here?" This is also used "defensively" to notice deceptions/tricks. Lie, sneak, hide, spread gossip without tracing it back to you, literally stab someone in the back, throw sand in their eyes, pick a pocket, misdirect attention, feint, spoof an IP address, almost every sort of social engineering, shake a tail, or spot an ambush before it happens.

Approach 3: Caring, understanding, teamwork, inspiration, and empathy. This is the stat for helping people, understanding them, forging connections, and manipulating emotions, including your own. This helps you jump in front of your allies, treat their wounds, both physical and psychological, make new friends, inspire people to action, alter their emotions (for good or ill...this stat sounds "nice" but it's not necessarily), understand the motivation behind someone's actions, or break someone's will.

Approach 4: Decisiveness, initiative, drive, and timing. Now, to be clear, I don't mean "who goes first in combat?" Initiative, I mean the actual meaning of the word. This is the stat to roll when the doubt is regarding whether or not you act at the correct moment, or even act at all, rather than hesitating. Roll it to leap away from an attack or explosive, to follow through on a task that would be unpleasant (crawl through a tight tunnel with way to turn around, eat something gross offered to you by alien hosts, or murder someone that's helpless), fly a ship through a tight canyon, shake off doubt or worry, counterattack, rush a machine gun nest, get the upper hand in a pistols at ten paces kind of duel, or make a daring motorcycle jump.

Approach 5: Precision, exactness, and technique. This is the stat for tasks that require technical skill to pull off, for things that reward patience and proper execution. Unloading an entire clip to suppress an area is probably Approach 1, but taking a single well aimed sniper shot is this stat. This approach answers doubts such as, "did you do it properly?". Roll this to put together a broken robot, stab someone in their armor's weakspot, dismantle a trap without triggering it, leap between small platforms, climb a challenging surface, or make a logical argument.

So, that's it. Please, give me your thoughts on what you think these stats should be called. Any feedback at all will help.