Well we could do the morrowind approach. There was one option where the guy at the begining would just ask you A series of questions about how you would quest and do things and gave you stats for how you completed the questions. For example,
\"You see a fair maiden being robbed accross the street, do you:
A) Slay all of the men down with a single swipe of your sword? (Sword skill +)
B) Get your herbal medicines ready, and draw your wand? (herbalism +)
C) Silently sneak from the shadows and cut each one of the robber\'s throat? (Stealth +, Dagger +)
D) Shoot them down from long range? (Archery +)
or E) Ignore them and do your taxes

(accounting +)
Just a rough idea, kind of interesting and you can see through each of the questions pretty easily and pick what you want while still having the RP flair.