Advanced Character Creation

[Asmodai]

I am okay with it, because I want to play my character, not run a dick measuring contest with the other players. The point is to play together, not against each other. If the people are nice about it, everyone will get a chance to shine - even a 300XP elder cannot be good at EVERYTHING. If they aren't nice about it, you should seriously look into the people you're playing with.

The system is slightly broken if you want to game it. The 200XP is such a borderline case that it's not a case that's likely to show up in normal character generation

As for when you get to increase your traits... that's down to the ST. The traits don't increase automagically and it's perfectly valid to request justification for increases. Heck, most of the games tell you flat out that it needs to be supported by the story and that the final call is the ST's. (it's in M20, as that's a PDF that I have at hand, I'm pretty sure it's been in all the books). Frankly the whole WOD system relies on the ST making the calls and keeping things sane. It's not D&D, and that has both pros and cons.

[heinrich]

Sure, it always comes down to the people you play with. And certainly there is a difference between a troupe game with 5 players and a LARP game with 40. The later also being more competitive, since each pack wants to shine above the next, while with a troupe of 5 players every one can take over a role within the pack that suits and doesn't overlap with the other characters. And obviously the ST can and should make an effort to give everyone an approximately equal part of play time.

But, games, even some game sessions, aren't that perfect.

And as an ST, I want to tell a story. I don't want to tell players that they should not go with strength one, because it doesn't make sense (and argue with them, when they found weird explanations). I don't want to forbid them increasing their ridiculous stats, that I didn't even want them to have, when they have the XP to do so, and there is no compelling reason not to do it (like I said, everyday life is a pretty solid reason to raise to an average level in any trait, and there are no times given in the rules to increase a trait (only learning gifts, iirc).
It's too exhausting. Instead of clashing with the players on how fast they think their characters can pick up a new skill, and I think, and arguing over the often ridiculous examples given for certain skill levels and how long it achieves to hold them. I mean, medicine 2 is premed or paramedic, which are actual job titles and require different amounts of time to hold in certain jurisdiction. While Law 2 is give as, someone who just passed the bar. Well, Frank Abagnale passed the Lousianna bar on the third try after eight weeks of study. Sure, today something like that wouldn't happen again, hopefully. But, if you tell a paramedic, that this werewolf is as skilled in game as he is in real life, because someone rolled 5 successes on an instruction + manipulations roll after a month of advising (not full-time, but at the STs discretion) the paramedic must start to wonder, if his instructors had bad dice pools.

The whole character trait system is really abstract, but that means people have very divergent ideas of how the in-game word works. If I'm ST, I can rule that my version is correct. Might not go well with all players, but that's not that big a problem. But try discuss the issues over the internet, like we do. Or argue with players at cons or if they want to join your LARP game...

Character creation and character advancement could both benefit from an overhaul.

[Nigredo]

seems to me like WtA advanced chargen is more troublesome than in other splats. Freebies look better than XP (as you can't buy backgrounds with XP) but then...Rites become a real problem. Buying that background at 5 with freebies still gives 5 lvls of Rites, which for a rank 2+ Theurge seems really underwhelming.