Howdy folks,
I have just a couple of questions for now, but will add more as time goes by.
1. Do you prefer zero to hero level based paradigm or competent to very competent points based system?
Depend on your game has a gradual increase in difficulty or a spike.
I think PST illustrate the gradual curve: the hostiles in morgue and Sigil is pretty much the same unless you go waaaaay out of your way to provoke more dangerous enemies. The skill checks also pretty much the same across the board in early game, unless you know enough to poke deeper to get harder checks
The spike would be fallout 1, 2 and new vegas. Your tutorial hostiles are easy, but if you dont follow the hints to advance, and skip out of the established path, enemies would be ready to buttfuck you. Hell, outside of tutorial, even enemies on the path would be dangerous enough.
So it's not much a matter of preference, but a matter of matching your game with the chargen.
2. What are your thoughts about using a point buy system that character creation points are broken up and spent as follows: Racial package, Background (Culture)+additional points for customization, and profession/class archetype+a few points to customize?
Too complicated. Fact is, you need to make sure the chargen is not that complicated, so when people inevitably reroll their characters, they dont have to "fuck, now I have to wrestle with that fucking chargen". Especially when it is to roll a level 1 character. Rolling high level chars like BG2 or NWN2 MOTB is another kettle of fish entirely.
What's wrong with Arcanum's method? It's still a lil bit too complicated to my taste, but it should be good enough for you.
Also, making 3 section in chargen is cheap and easy. Making sure game has enough feature to justify those sections is hard. Does the game has enough racial/background/profession checks to justify the initial timewaster?
DONT DONT DONT take Darklands as a model in this feature/ Darkland is too complicate and I gave it the middle finger immediately the few times I tried to play it, years apart.
It is an obscure game no one give it a shit for a good reason. The biggest is that it's a chore to start it.