Thanks for the reply and compliments!
ATTRIBUTES. Funny, after seeing “Persona” on the document, I found “Charm” more, uh, “charming”. Not to mention, at five letters, it’s two letters shorter, making it fit better and visually (very closely) align with the four-letter words “Body”, “Mind”, and “Soul”, which matters in a game this compact and succinct where the text doubles as an aesthetic.
GENRE. I was initially viewing Wander as a thoroughly generic system unbeholden to any genre (larglely due to the presence of the skills "Technology" and "Science" which lead me to conclude that the game is for a nonmagical setting) and hence sought to broaden the concepts of each attribute, but based on what you’re saying, it sounds to me like you have traditional fantasy in mind, so that:
Muscle = Fighter
Agility = Rogue
Wits = Wizard
Charm = Cleric
IS THAT CORRECT?
MUSCLE. What do you think about changing “Muscle” to “Strength” in order to match the other immaterial descriptors? Or do you feel like “Muscle” is needed to convey a physical beefiness that translates to HP?
CHARACTER CREATION. My second thought about Wander (the first being “COOL!”) was that the attributes are out of balance due to Muscle and Agility determining HP while Wits and Charm determine nothing. there’s no apparent mechanical incentive to fill Wits or Charm at the time of character creation.
Is it a reasonable assumption that upon meeting Wander, players will plan to import an extraneous magic system that will justify filling Wits and/or Charm at conception? Knowing roleplayers . . . probably . . . but it’s unfair, I think, to foist it on them or even incentivize it by excluding inherent, immediately-tangible benefits to filling Wits or Charm from the start. And not all settings even contain supernatural elements. AND, again, the skills "Technology" and "Science" lead one to conclude that the game is for a nonmagical setting. So the GM/player is incentivized to import a magic system but also led away from a setting with magic by those two skills, catching the GM/player in a thematic contradiction (unless they plan to play Shadowrun.) I hope that all makes sense.
Perhaps the way to balance this out is you get to fill an XP or additional Skill box for each box filled in Wits and Charm. What do you think?
MAGIC. And/or Magic could be a skill somehow linked to Wits and/or Charm (which may open a can of worms), but theoretically, what do you think about magic as a skill?
HEALING. I chose 1 HP because I prefer slow healing. But 2 HP would theoretically yield 1 HP per day on average, so yeah I could see that.
HIT POINTS. I think allowing players to spend XP for HP jives with the narrative of growing stronger through experience, a ubiquitous RPG mechanic. It would all but require an HP cap though.
ELEGANCE. What are the “some improvements” that you’d “add now”?