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One of my playtest players says the problem with character customization is that he finds it hard to be involved with a one-shot character.
That statement requires a lot of unpacking to clarify.
Compare Pathfinder to literary genres. Some genres, such as Action Thriller and Mystery, are plot-driven. Other genres, such as Humor and Romance, are character-driven. In a plot-driven story, the motivations of the character is obvious: finish the mission, solve the mystery, save the kingdom--and the readers never need to ask whether the protagonist is the kind of person who ought to save the kingdom. Characterization can be shallow. Pathfinder is about action and defaults to a plot-driven story.
Pathfinder can be a character-driven story, but it requires more work. In a character-driven Pathfinder tale, the player has limited methods to display the character of his or her character. Actions are often still plot-driven: orcs raid, so fight the orcs. Dialog can reveal a lot about character, but the only abundant source of dialog is the PCs talking to themsevles. The Order of the Stick webcomic about a D&D adventuring party started with jokes about D&D mechanics, but soon, such as the 13th comic, it had to give the characters motivations to continue the humor. Most Order of the Stick comics are about the party talking to themselves and verbally disagreeing in their motives as they continue to more-or-less smoothly work together. Alas, players are not necessarily good at generating insightful dialog.
The most effective way to make Pathfinder character-driven is to treat why a character does something as important. And though the overall plot arc is fixed, the details are mutable. Does the party kill the guards, sneak past the guards, fool the guards, or befriend and recruit the guards on their way to stop the evil mastermind? For example, in Lords of Rust, 2nd module of Iron Gods, the plot was to learn the secrets of the Lords of Rust, a gang in Scrapwall, a former bandit camp turned into a shantytown. My party decided to enter Scrapwall incognito, pretending to be refugees hiding from the powerful Technic League, and interact with the Scrapwallers in day-to-day activities to learn their secrets. Thus, the story switched from action to realism, about life in a slum.
Character creation and advancement is another tool for displaying character of a character. Is the paladin a vessel of divine retribution, a stalwart of justice, or a protector of the weak? Can the player build a 1st-level paladin to make these differences in character affect the action? If a paladin takes divine retribution by making Retributive Strikes based solely on recent combat, if a paladin serves justice by subduing foes through Retributive Strikes because the foes' so-called evil was attacking the party, and if a paladin protects weaker party members not by blocking damage but by making Retributive Strikes after the damage, then the answer would be no.
Thus, we have three solid methods of making the characters drive the story of a Pathfinder campaign:
1) Dialog that emphasizes character reactions and motivations.
2) Choices in how to deal with plot-driven problems.
3) Choices in character build.
However,
1) Some players can't do dialog.
2) The Playtest chapters are too short to offer much variety in dealing with problems. And the PCs are thrown into them without choice. Hence, my playtest player's gripe about one-shot characters.
3) The effective character build choices are more like chosing an archetype (which totem does my barbarian select?) than characterization. And a lot of ineffective choices (power attack or sudden charge?) feel the same. The one-shot adventure leaves out advancement after the adventure.
So, some of the lack of customization is because this is a playtest rather than a campaign.
