Rampant Games - Choice in Character Development

A guest post at Tales of the Rampant Coyote from Colter Cookson argues the advantage of greater choice in character development systems:

Fourth, character development decisions give people a reason to replay the game by providing a way to vary the experience. A party of two fighters, a mage, and a priest will require slightly different tactics than a party with two wizards, one fighter, and one priest and much different tactics than a party with three wizards and a cleric, so players can revisit the game without feeling like they’ve seen everything before. For money-conscious players, this increases the game’s value. For every player, it can provide an opportunity to see how much their skills have improved by pitting them against challenges they once found difficult but now find easy. Players might also discover secrets they missed the first time, notice the nuances and foreshadowing in the game’s dialogue, or otherwise more fully appreciate the developer’s work.