Fallout - SPECIAL @ Twenty Sided

Shamus Young's Twenty Sided blog (home of the recent three or four part Eschalon review) takes a look at Fallout's SPECIAL system:

The discussion on Eschalon’s character system was pretty interesting. Several people mentioned other game systems, some with numerous attributes that define your character, and some with very few. Opinions ranged from “you should only need mind / body / spirit” to “let’s track every possible aspect of your being using linked stats and floating-point numbers”.

Of all the (computer) RPG’s I’ve played over the years, my favorite character progression system is still the one found in the 1997 classic Fallout. Why I love this system [...]