When considering the development of Player Characters, I find myself ambivalent about many elements of development. I’ll just offer general thoughts here, despite dealing with three different systems. It may be best to look at all this through the context of Dangerous Adventures, my riff on B/X and AD&D. There’s a great deal here that originated when considering how to tweak those rules to better fit my preferences, plus the underlying considerations affect the Legendary Journeys system and likely the third system, too.
• I have no interest in designing a system that allows or supports the notion of character builds. The games I play aren’t all about characters as that approach makes things, and optimizing a character for the entirety of its lifecycle during chargen is definitely not allowing for much in the way of diagetic development.
• With that said, I do want to offer players a way to customize a character in some small way. This may be limited to how they kit the character out and little else, yet there should be a way to differentiate characters of a like class with just a glance.
• I’m planning for four tiers of PC development: lvls 1 – 3; lvls 4 – 6; lvls 7 – 9; and lvls 10 – 12. This is, of course, an organizational notion to help me when I’m considering how the PCs develop. They begin as notable figures on a local scenehaving established themselves as capable figures that others will call on for assistance. Then they begin to surround themselves with henchmen and cronies and expand their capabilities to be helpful. They then become notable allies to have on a grander scale, with wealthy and noble persons looking to them about important matters. They finally become movers & shakers unto themselves, as important in the political realm as in the arenas of the mythic wilderness and the mythic underground.
• I’m pondering whether or not to add another tier to that stack. I can vaguely see ways to make those higher levels interesting without the PCs simply being superheroes in fantasy suits. I’ll have to be able to spend much more time on that, though, and that’ll have to wait until I get the bulk of the system(s) in working drafts.
• I want PC development to be both vertical and horizontal. The numbers shouldn’t just get larger on abilities. There’s a lot of number bloat that I’ve taken measures to limit over the years that I’ll simply design out of these systems.The DA system uses hit points, in a manner much like its inspirations do. No PC in DA will have hp numbers near what high level PCs in those systems do, as DA PCs only roll for more hp for a handful of levels. The dice rolled also help limit how many hp can accumulate.
• I want PCs to develop new abilities that expand their capabilities as they grow, though not to the point where they get something new each level. Something for each tier, OK.
• I’m also looking at allowing for some abilities to be diminished over time and new abilities developed in their place. This may be the most significant part of customizing a character that I’ll use. As PCs grow, they can shed some bonuses to abilities possessed to add a new ability. (It may be this sort of development choice that differentiates how the player approaches high-level play, whether as a domain ruler or as a hero called on for further adventuring challenges.)
• As that last point mentioned, I’m trying to hash out the details of how a player can choose to either play a domain ruler at high levels or continue on as an adventurer, primarily. The assumption of the early fantasy system designers was that PCs would advance to become rulers and raise armies for the sort of wargames the RPGs descended from. That assumption hasn’t been valid for ages.
• For all the comments about higher levels, I’m not neglecting beginning PCs. The notion that all beginning PCs are some degree of frail is problematic. When compared to 0-lvl people, sure, the PCs have at least some slight edge. When compared to what they can confront when venturing forth, though, they can seem a bit puny. I think adding a bit more competence at the outset can only help; beginning hp are higher (adding 1st lvl hp to existing 0-lvl hp) and a bit more competence (such as fighters having a better to hit bonus at the outset). No “zero to hero” development — “competent to expert” is the goal.
• One way to look at my goals is this: I want to expand the “sweet spot” of character levels in play. Many folks find play with character levels 3 to 7 preferable because the PCs are strong enough to take on a wider array of challenges at the low end and not yet too complex or powerful to enjoy at the high end. If I can expand that to lvls 1 to 9 for many of those players, I’d be satisfied. PCs that aren’t viewed as frail as the outset and not overwhelming at the higher end would be a very good thing, I think.
Some of what I’ve mentioned in here is already sketched out. Some of it is still very much in my head. There are also some elements that I have planned that I’m leery of hard coding into rules (such as gaining titles and other diagetic rewards). I’ll probably have more thoughts to spill as I work through it all.