When I first started my dfrpg campaign after convincing some folks that it *had* to be better than the pathfinder game the GM had been admitting he no longer had time to run we were playing... I was worried about folks looking at the cool example templates & getting turned off by not being able to afford most of them, so I started at 7 refresh/30 skill points (I gave extra skill-points because I didn't want them to be afraid of allocating them) I set the skillcap at 5.
Even though people have long since allocated their skillpoints, I think everyone has done 4 as the top of their skill allocation or has the 5 in an almost never used skill.
even though we are playing with fairly high power/level characters, I've had people join and play without even having a character sheet with any skills/powers allocated for a bit & they fit in just fine with the more powerful group members in ways a level 0/1 character in most other systems could never hope to do with much higher level characters around
I think going forward in new games, I'll probably start out with much lower refresh levels. Maybe not even defined ones, just "what kinda character do you want"... oh a were-cougar?... and a half-troll thugthat's really strong? ok beast form/echoes" are yours & inhuman strength plus this here stunt we work out together yours"... "and you wanna be a wizard?... ok how about a wizard in training or a self taught wizard who doesn't know how much they don't know to it? lets whittle it down a bit together some"... "mister wizard you get 1 unspent refresh, troll/were- get [more], you all get x skillpoints(but maybe not the same amount, but not a glut) skillcap at 2"
the low skillcap lets me give that skillcap bump out once everyone kinda starts to gel together as a group.
The low & uneven refresh values means I can give it out more often without worrying about people with too much refresh while still letting everyone start out with what they think is cool & growing it slowly over time instead of suddenly having a huge selection of every power they think might be cool. if they really want [other power], they can work it in slowly to the character concept until they get the refresh they need for it. The uneven refresh doesn't really matter, I could start off new players at the same level the originals started off later in the campaign without worry about them being left feeling useless while I'm letting them more rapidly grow than the originals and feel like they are really growing their character nicely. I'd probably start them with around the same skillpoints/cap though as the cap seems to be the big deciding factor in how "powerful" a character's contribution can be when the dicerolls matter.
Aside from the above, the biggest change I'd make going from the start with a new group would be to define more of the world from the start, originally I was too worried about stomping on potential player ideas for the world & they were having trouble grasping the idea that the system was so freakishly fluid that they really could build the world with almost equal say while playing the game without breaking things. it took them a few games where I outright told them I went into it with a strong sense of a starting point, a general (or no) idea on the ending point, and maybe a couple bgits that I would like to slip into the middle bits, but they really did have the entire freaking world at their disposal & things were not set in stone. it took a few games to go from getting the occasional blank stare and "so do we know anyone who might know about..." and "can I use x to research & maybe find out about/who..." to "what kinda contacts roll would I need to make to know someone involved with [group/thing]... maybe his name is..., and he's kinda..." type things, but it was freaking beautiful once that started happening
I've been really happy with it so far though
Edit: another thing I'd probably do is... instead of just giving major milestones when appropriate is "you can have a major milestone by RAW or a major milestone with a stunt & skillpoint instead of the refresh point alone"
