I remember playing Traveler way back (am I dating myself?), but they had a development system that was quite entertaining. You could end up being 40 before you started your adventuring, but characters did tend to be unique. I don’t recall the specifics, but I remember it was set up around the notion that one would begin tabula rasa, and your profession would kind of emerge from a set of experiences you had. But perhaps I’m getting it compeltely wrong (I just liked drawing starships, actually). At any rate, something of a skill based system without predefined roles might be very entertaining– perhaps the decision of whether someone would call you a wizard, or not, would depend very much on the perception of others, as it does in our own lives.

Best of luck, I’m looking forward to seeing what arises!