I have one that’s been going on for a while that is working quite well - I have 4 veteran players and 2 new players. The veteran players have well over 30 years of RPG experience and are really good players, meaning they can look at a system and understand what is good and what is bad, but they legitimize their talent/focus/skill choices by story and/or the type of character they’re trying to play. Here are some thoughts on it.
Experience: I’ve been giving experience out per session, but as the campaign is literally a campaign, i.e., we as a group want to play out the carousing phase, the players have been banking their experience points as I’ve offered sparse opportunities for them to spend their points. This is because as a rule I only allow experience point spends during character down time, something that makes sense to all of us - a character shouldn’t attain the talent “Deft Blade” without lots of time invested into learning sword-play from a tutor, for example.
Power Creep: This campaign is an interesting one for me to play. I’ve written many, many modules, tournament adventures, and one-offs in my day, but this is the first time I’ve let my players indirectly influence the story I wanted to write. What I did was make them create all their characters, but then send me their character sheets. I took a look at the characters and simply crafted multiple scenes whereby each scene was a reflection of the strengths of one or two members of the group, the idea being that a highly specialized character will shine in one scene focused on, say, combat, but their lack of breadth skill-wise will naturally cause them to struggle in the next scene which could be social, survival, etc. This creates a natural ebb and flow of “limelight” whereby all characters shine at one point or another, and are all important pieces of the puzzle. In fact, one of the most successful characters in the group is the “jack-of-all-trades” character that is adequately skilled in a lot of things at the expense of being great at one thing. This “writing to the character sheets” has taken the players from Atlantean Ruins in the Pictish Wilderness to the Western Sea and Tortage, to the southern coast of Argos and into the prison cells of Napolitos. Under new patronage they attended the erudite gatherings of the Argossean elite, senators and merchants alike, slew those who would conspire against their patron Senator, assumed control over a mercenary company after using intrigue and deception to play the company’s members against each other, used that company to fight off their patron’s rival mercenaries (Argosseans love their mercs), were beset by slavering ghouls on the borders of Zingara and Argos, and finally fell in with another company of mercenaries off to seek work in Koth where trouble brewed (Kothics love their internecine warfare). This was all done by just reading off their skills, really - Survival, Melee, Sailing, Social, Persuade, Command, Warfare, etc.