Some action games I've noticed have avoided this entirely. Even while incorporating some RPG and leveling ideas. DMC/Batman/God of War/Bayonetta/and fighting games. They all have upgrading and a lot of skills, but you're no zero from the beginning. You're basically the same character from start to finish.
Not sure I've run into that with an RPG.
Not BJJ related, but I know what you mean. My brother was brown for years, and only because he and our instructor were seperated. The minute they hooked up, he just gave him black.
It can be a very funky dynamic the difference between training twice a week versus 3 times a week can be quite large and the difference between 3 a week and 4 a week can be very small. Also the difference between brown and black is even more subtle and in BJJ in particular often has more to do with being actively involved in competition or teaching (technically Purple is qualified to teach but they want to put a boot in the the ass to brown's to be ambitious).
Without teaching they usually give a brown a black eventually, a guy I know just wanted to spar, he was brown for years and years, would skip all drilling and only showed up to spar. Eventually they just shrugged and gave him his black everyone knew he deserved it, but it just took longer. However he would also do tournaments which gives you credit in the BJJ world, but he just did em whenever he felt like it not as part of a competition team. Meh whatever that is such a subtle and even arbitrary difference that its not even useful for anything that is germaine to the thread. There are many Brown's who are essentially Blacks skill-wise but still stay a Brown for a year or more.
When you start someone off as a "first level fighter" this would be something like saying someone is roughly equivalent to a BJJ Blue Belt. Meaning you are competent and knowledgable. A responsible school would never allow someone to go out into the wide world without this sort of grounding. In a general sense it means you are competent in a decent but not necessarily huge range of moves and are well grounded in ALL basics. Basics (footwork, body structure etc) are the most important part of absolutely all forms of fighting. Such a person is usually dangerous with about 2-3 moves even against higher belts. Being well grounded in the basics and able to execute your favorite moves entails large amounts of drilling and sparring.
The whole idea of "zero to hero" in a class based game is completely retarded because of this dynamic. You simply can never be a class and be a zero. No order or school could ever exist without being known as completely worthless if they allowed people below this level to claim to be a real part of the school. Not only would it be recklessly irresponsible but it would make your school have a terrible reputation.
When you see a colored belt of a BJJ school with a good reputation you know that guy is someone who, no matter what, will give a person some trouble. You maybe don't expect a Blue to beat or Brown or Purple very often, but they still have to respect what the guy is going to do. My BJJ school didn't give me a colored belt until I got a silver medal in the Pan Am games at White Belt and I had already had 3 gold medals in local tournaments.
The whole story narrative of, for example, a Paladin from a Martial Religous order being a zero when it comes to fighting is so not just "unrealistic", its absolutely gobsmackingly stupid. Its on par with saying a person who has been a King for the past few years is living in a hovel in obscurity and suddenly becomes important. It just can't possibly make any sense. Its beyond "unrealistic" its completely illogical. Someone who shows up out of the blue and is the equivalent of a Teutonic Knight such that others of the order would not kick his ass until he was crippled for falsely claiming he deserved to be regarded as part of the order would be a highly highly dangerous individual even if it was still the case that Miyamoto Musashi school him. Even the newest and least experienced person of such an order would be a dangerous fighting man and such an order would never allow anyone to represent them who was not, in some cases they would literally kill you if you were in fact a "zero" and claimed to be of their "class".
Obviously this does not apply to the Tourist class in Nethack. Or games that use the "Oh you were awesome but you have amenesia and are now remembering how to be awesome". The amnesia thing is pretty tired and weak as story device. Its also pretty stupid for similar reasons when put into context of what it actually does though.
In a similar vein a Purple Belt is expected to have a working knowledge of most moves but perhaps only be an expert in his specialties. A Brown is expected to be an expert in a few more and a Black even more. But when you look at many RPGs being more advanced generally gives more "moves". In reality higher levels of skill almost always translate into better basics. This is probably unlikely to be modeled in games as giving more moves seems to be more pyschologically interesting or at least easier to sell. That is not always exactly true, for example, in ADOM something approaching this is meant to be captured in that skill system as you can master a skill early and then master more skills later on. In the end there is no such thing as a "Black Belt level move". In fact just about any move should be executable by a Blue Belt to a degree that it is dangerous if they specialize in it. Even a Black Belt can be forced to tap if they get stuck in the specialty submission of a Blue Belt, the difference is a Black Belt is generally so good and conversant at the basics that they don't get into a situation where that Blue Belt can actually get into a position where they can truly lockdown that move. I generally find the whole "level 18 skill" thing really dumb. But its not like "zero to hero" in a class based system where its literally illogical. Its just one of those things I don't sweat because I know many people need the carrot.
I think most people on some level realize the XP model which is mostly inherited from D&D is in many ways purely a gaming construct and in no way represents an accumulation of skill. Soldiers get better skills from drilling. Real fighting itself is extremely important but its for a different reason. Real fighting/competition refines your mentality about what works when, how you should approach things, and various other aspects of your fighting mentality(working through pain, being mentally tough etc.). It puts things to the test and is, IMO, absolutely necessary for being a truly "good" fighter. But its not what actually increases skill. That is practice. Perfect practice make perfect. This is unlikely to ever be captured by a game because, well, drilling is boring. I would much rather spar than drill. Sparring though is not the same as competition or real fights.
For the most part I am fine with the whole XP thing. Although sometimes I think it would be interesting if there were two tracks; a skill track and a veterancy track. Where veterancy was gained by killing things and skill was advanced in some other way. The problem is that in many RPGs there is not much other than killing to advance stuff. Although I guess veterancy could be killing and skill by like story advancement or whatever. But all in all for something like, say, an RPG you might as well just stick with XP by killing and getting too fancy or whatever really won't help anything.
We all know that many RPGs go through all sorts of tortured stupidity to make all this work. The number of "Oh by the way you got Amesnia" games in the RPG genre is pretty depressing (anywhere from Witcher to Eschalon) especially since its a complete cop out that is in no way adequate to be useful for the suspension of disbelief rather its tolerated because we know the systems need someway to start the character low so that people can get the progression carrots.
Fine I accept that XP (by killing/story or even the Oddity system in Underrail) is the simplest way to get a smooth linear advancement system even if it in no way even vaguely resembles how people actually acquire skills. Fine I accept that most people seem to have no understanding or care that "moves"/"feats" are not particularly linked to expertise and seem to like their carrots to be organized in a such a way that feats/moves are linked to levels in a regular and hierarchical manner. But the "zero to hero" thing is so illogically stupid in a class based game that it truly makes it impossible to have a game with such a premise that is actually a well imagined story. I could maybe see a skill based game working out if they had some sort of plausible reason for why you don't simply just immediately die at the first sign of real trouble. One of the only ones I can think of in which it works to some degree is Planescape:Torment but the central premise of the entire story deals with exactly this issue and is one of the reasons you can freely take levels of various classes. And I would submit to you that one of the reasons that PS:T is head and shoulders above many of these other offerings is directly because they had a premise and imagining that was not hamstrung from the beginning by things like this issue that completely errode foundational elements of your story. Its hard to build a good house with a poor foundation, the same is true of writing a good story.
