>>96430363
>Older characters have more skills and abilities, but worse attributes.
Think of it as this:
>older characters have the skill and know-how, but they lack the vigor they had in youth to make good use of it
>younger characters have the strength, but lack the knowledge how to use it to best effect
Making it into something of a teacher-student, or master-apprentice arrangement could open the way for something interesting.
Helps if you can figure out a rough outline of what a PC can realistically achieve at the end of the campaign, and use that as the potential for growth.
Older chars are close to it, but shouldn't grow beyond it. Younger ones are far from it, but are expected to get there over the course of campaign.
You can also somewhat balance things by limiting how much xp you give the older characters, since they've likely already peaked at some point, and now it's all diminishing returns.
Not even elves are immune to becoming dogmatic and reluctant to change their ways when racking up years of life.
Thus slower growth for the old, and perhaps faster growth for the young, should they receive training or education of any kind from the veterans.
Young characters lack the wisdom and skill, but also have no laundry list of friends, enemies, frienemies, old flames still around, debts incurred or favors owed.
In that regard they're free to do as they please, whereas older characters may have a public image or a legend to uphold, obligations, contracts, and what have you.
They make doing things, especially ones that may have to do with legal system, or certain organizations, feel like wading through molasses.
Point is, you can balance things somewhat, if you really put your mind to it.
