Chasing Perfection in Character Advancement

Have you ever played a level 20 character in Dungeons & Dragons? In a real campaign? Advanced all the way from level 1? Games rarely last as long as RPG books would like us to believe, even those that start mid-way up the power ladder. So why do we get so excited to see god-like powers at the end of the line?

D&D 5e's "Archdruid" is a perfect example of an ability that I believe was specifically designed to get players excited about the druid classpath, regardless of what its effects on the game might actually be.

From level 1-19, the Druid can only shapeshift (gaining temporary HP) twice per short rest. At level 20, Archdruids can all of a sudden use their shapeshift ability infinitely.

It doesn't matter if this specific ability is imbalanced in some way, underpowered compared to other level 20 abilities, or overpowered to the point of god-hood. The Archdruid hooks players by promising them seemingly limitless power, and giving them an ultimate goal to achieve.

Once you've achieved ultimate greatness what then does a game become? In some MMORPGs, it's said the game doesn't even start until you are at max level. This allows you to beat the end-game content that is actually the ultimate goal of the game. In other games, such as Borderlands, you can specialize and race towards one of a few ultimate abilities. Once unlocked, you generally proceed to blast through the rest of said game without too much effort (if you didn't, was it really an "ultimate" ability?). For MMORPGs, it can be an unpleasant grind to get up to max level. In Borderlands, as soon as Brick can punch a boss to death, there's really no challenge in continuing.

Let's skip the grind. Hostargo has always been about horizontal advancement; it's about gaining character complexity and game options, rather than simple number increases. I want the game to start with a bang and be a fun ride all the way through... but without any sort of power creep, how can I keep players interested in continuous advancement? At some point—which could be from the very beginning—they've already gained the powers that they were interested in. I need to be careful not to have "Brick Syndrome" and just give players all the best toys up front.

I was going to have a grid of options, where different special abilities and different party roles intersected to form a unique way of playing the game. This might still be a good start, but spreading out in the grid isn't enough to drive player interest; they could just as soon make a brand new character to explore those abilities. Instead, I need an advancement tree, or at the very least an array of more complex character abilities that will get players excited.

It's a fine line to walk between interesting advancement and power creep. The game should be satisfying both at the table and away from it, where players enjoy character building. Achievement can be a great thing, so long as it's not the last step that leads to boredom.