If you happened to be designing a life path system for DnD 5e, with say 300 steps, then you might determine the following.
The average ability score is 12.24 using roll-4-drop-lowest. Picking an ancestry usually gives you an overall +3, or a +0.5 per ability, for 12.74 total.
If each character has six steps on their life path to determine their background, then each step must give them about +3.75 ability score.
There are about 25 meaningfully different tool proficiencies, so if every other life path step offers a tool proficiency, each tool will be represented 6 times in a set of 300 steps.
Similarly, there are 18 skills, so by having life path steps typically offer choices between several different skill proficiencies, each skill can be represented at least 15 times in a set of 300 steps.
Common languages can be represented ~12 times and unusual languages ~8 times in 300 steps.
A character starting their life path should be at least teenaged, and a character starting play should be an adult, so six life steps should each confer at least 1 year of age on average (adjusted for ancestries with different lifespans and ages of majority).
Finally, something you might notice while writing 300 meaningful situations a character could find themselves in on their way to level 1 is that the 5e SRD list of tool proficiencies is quite incomplete. You would probably want to add at least miner's equipment, and you would be tempted to add tools for needlework, more specific metalworking crafts, and animal processing like butchery, chandlery, and soapmaking. You would certainly add more features relating to service roles!
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