This is an idea I've been tossing around here and there: choosing a character's family and who was his/her mentor. I know how I would make this snippet (adding a pair of variables to the player's file, combined with the chargen quiz snippet posted here), and I have a general idea of the effects.
For example, when choosing what kind of family raised the character...
Nobles - 500 coins, but -1 to either str or con (randomly determined)
Craftsmen - 400 coins
Scholars - 300 coins, +1 to int or wis (random)
Commoners - 200 coins
Orphaned - 100 coins, but +25% to swimming/climbing/jumping (random)
Adventurers - 200 coins, +25% to a random adventuring-type skill (find/remove traps, kick, bash, hide, sneak, etc.)
Mentoring would determine how much skill a character starts with, and could even result in a character not needing to run to a guild in order to practice up those skills. These starting skills would be non-weapon skills, as I have a tutorial that allows players to pick whatever weapon suits their style and gives them a decent starting percentage.
Family member (uncle, grandfather, aunt, mother, etc.) - 20% to 4 skills
Lonesome hermit - 35% to 3 skills, -200 reputation (the hermit isn't exactly well-liked)
Guild - 15% to 5 skills, -25 coins (guild dues)
Self-taught - 10% to 3-4 skills, can practice anywhere
Elder/Respected Militia Captain - 25% to 3 skills, +200 reputation
As a side note, I don't have an alignment system (good/evil/neutral); instead there is one's reputation. I wanted it to be a PvE setting, in which you COULD try to be evil but life would get extremely difficult for you fairly quickly (after your reputation tanks enough, towns/villages would rather attack on sight than even let you have a chance to cause any trouble).
Another side note: there are not practice sessions like on stock mud. An old mud I played, Eternal Visions, had a very interesting system using learning points. While I don't care for how they implemented everything (skills are raised through use, which meant spamming a skill a lot to improve it and hoping that it goes up), I liked how it rewarded characters with high intelligence and wisdom (they got more learning points and, I think, it cost less to raise skills). A quick run-down of the Learning Point system: every time you gain XP, you gain LP as well (modified by your int and wis). Whenever you practice at a teacher, it costs x-number of LP, based on what the current skill level is. It starts out cheap and gets very expensive later on.
I wanted to get some thoughts on all of this; is this something any of you have tried out? If so, how did it work out and what pitfalls should I avoid? One thing I am worried about is people attempting to min/max, always choosing nobility and what-not to get the most starting money, the most skills, etc. These numbers are not something I would state so it would be easy to figure out, but given enough time...
I'm sorry if this is a little incoherent; I'm a little under the weather and there's quite a bit of noise around me.
