Sure! There are different levels of freedom out there, and you can usually squeeze more out by knowing the system, and being willing to do more math. If you want real freedom to make a character function how you want, you could pick a universal system. i'm a huge fan of the HERO system (formerly Champions), which was made for superhero Roleplaying. It uses a method of reasoning from effects to let you decide how your character works, and then plug in the closest game-mechanics and define it how you want. This means that two characters could take something similar, such as a bolt of lightning, and make it very different (player A is a robot that can shoot a huge ugly yellow thunderbolt from his chest for a bunch of damage, and player B is a mad scientist with electric fingernails who can make a horror-movie-style purple forked lightning come out of them, sith-style), and both can work and possibly even fit in the same campaign. The downside to this system is that it is math intensive, and combat takes longer than I'd like. You also have GURPS (Generic Universal Roleplaying System) which is similar, but I've often found to be less math heavy. It also uses a d20, which is nice. You could also achieve this in Mutants and Masterminds. But... if you don't mind a slightly more limited freedom, there are a TON of options in Pathfinder. There are a bunch of classes, and for each class, a bunch of spells and feats and domains to choose from. Within reason, you can make any type of character that you have in mind, but often at the limits set by the GM (i know a lot that will say no to psionics, for example). Still, in pathfinder, I've played things like a completely insane dwarf drunken brawler, a half-elf tactician, a half-boiling-water-elemental berserker, a bull-themed minotaur shaman, a centaur sniper, a hedonistic self-absorbed and beauty-obsessed witch, and a half-vampire hybrid, among quite a few others. What I would do is join a game of 3.5 or pathfinder on roll20. explain that you're new. lots of people here are very helpful and many many GMs welcome new players into the hobby. Take time to discuss your options, and read over the concepts that interest you. Make friends, and you'll find that it won't be too long before discussions of other systems and other players' characters and games they're in come up in conversation. Then you can ask questions. That's how I found roll20, actually. I was playing in a campaign on Hero-central, and one of my companions was a little 85 year old lady in powered-armor similar to Iron-Man. Her player mentioned a pathfinder game over here, and I saw the tools, and was quite hooked. Here are many of the rulebooks for Pathfinder..
