Alright, I know the topic's been kind of dead for a bit but I just read through it and feel like this might be a good place to propose an idea that might satisfy a lot of the 'problems' I've read. Thalaric's summary post that pointed out the circular nature of the argument and pretty much killed all progressive discussion is a really good place to start.
Historically, it goes like this: (A) "There should be restrictions on training", (B) "No there shouldn't because of such and such real life example" (A) "Actually, real life doesn't work like that" (C who agrees with B) "But This Isn't Real Life". This circular logic has dictated the pace of the discussion for the last three pages.
So here's the core of the issue: In addition to not being an accurate model, maxing many unrelated abilities *limits gameplay*.
Here's how and why:
The top of character progression is a character with all abilities maxed
Thus, sense of accomplishment is skewed towards that character progression
Thus, anyone who intends to keep playing will have the same goals and motivation
Thus, in-game characters are extremely similar, meaning they act the same, have [many|all] occupations, and their stats don't denote relative meaning
Thus, characters don't need anyone else since they are equally skilled in everything as all others of their pp/tria level (no niches)
To be fair, I'd like to draw a line here between "stats" and "abilities", and assume that Thalaric was referring to the former, whereas stats are the numeric values assigned to skill ranks; your strength, your blacksmithing, your crystal way skill are measured by stats. Abilities are actions your character is capable of performing; in its current form, Planeshift really only offers magic spells as its abilities - maybe (hopefully) these will also include specific types of melee strikes or defensive manuevers, even magically-enhanced attacks. Anyway, a distinction should be made here.
It should also be pointed out that, while we as PCs ARE Yliakum, our characters were set into the place not while it was being created, but long after it already had an established society. It's already been suggested that a player must choose ONE Way via a certain quest, and while not actually established as a game mechanic just yet, it hints that once your character chooses and pursues a certain Way, that's it. No other Circle will train you. You're cut off from all but the most basic understanding of that magic. Yliakum's society, as it is built now, is competitive, but cooperative and community-minded. It would be extremely difficult for a character to have any close relationship with a person or group without other people figuring out pretty quickly, so sneaking in and pretending to be part of two different Circles would quickly be discovered.
What's wrong with this system? Yes, you can still max the stats and skills for other Ways, but as for being truly adept at it, obtaining its abilities, no - not because you're not ABLE, but because the SOCIAL LORE of Yliakum prevents it. Here we have a seamless lore-driven restriction that still allows for character progression. All citizens of Yliakum are required by law to receive weapons training, so it's not a hard thought to swallow that someone could be adept at combat and magic, or any combination thereof.
Could we carry this into crafting? Perhaps there's crafters guilds, one for armor, one for weapons, one for alchemy, an artist's guild, whatever, the list can go on. Everyone can learn the basics and max the skills and stats and continue to produce not just basic, but good and useful items, but perhaps only weapons guildmembers could enchant a sword, given the secret knowledge of the guild. Or, another good idea, items can only be enchanted by using a special wand, which only responds to the person it is bound to by some sort of spell. Master weaponcrafters will have a weaponcrafter's wand bound to them in some ritual or some such that only they can use to perform enchantments. You could go so far as to assign specific enchantments different Way alignments, so that only enchanters that follow certain Ways can perform certain enchantments. Or not.
Anyway, my point here is that if we limit abilities, we don't have to limit stats, and we can avoid that "Thus, in-game characters are extremely similar, meaning they act the same, have [many|all] occupations, and their stats don't denote relative meaning" part.
We can also avoid the RP vs. not-RP arguement by making the system a logical part of the setting and completely overriding it, making it both a game mechanic AND an immersive reflection of the game world. This is actually how many other MUDs do it.
Point is:
By implementing a REAL, lore-driven restriction on character abilities in the Ways, and giving more definition to the Ways and how they work in game-mechanic combat, we can build PCs that are equally powerful and important, and can fulfill different roles in a larger setting without overly limiting their capabilities or hindering their stat and skill building. This can probably be carried over to gathering, crafting, melee combat techniques, you name it.
