User defined characters are cool... but in the end they always turn out as rather "flat" your always railroaded into making decisions because of the way the game is set up and when your character says something there is always that "I wouldnt say that" hell in games like borderlands the generalization of vault hunter, and the other characters telling me how I should "feel" about stuff kinda breaks the fourth wall... thing is character creation is great but its a two edged sword on the one hand you feel unique in game, your watching your own characters bust grow... but in the end they are a flat character that your desperately throwing personality at in the hopes it sticks. "Building" the protagonist as an existing character resolves the flat problem, but you run the risk of creating a "bad protagonist" that nobody or few people like... so yeah... risks in both still cant wait to see how this and your other game develop and what you decide... as for battle systems you could always KOTOR it (the old rpg... not mmo) or even include the legendary pause button for the real time battles so as to resolve the obvious issues of it not being turn bases
