Has anyone tried this recruiting system?

[Douglas Muir 406]

The DM gives a sketch of the player characters with whatever level of detail is desired. It might be something as simple as "Human fighter, LG alignment. Younger child of an aristocratic family." Do this five times (or however many PCs you want). Then the DM asks potential players to write a character that fits this description.

Obvious drawbacks: people may not want to play any of the described characters. Some of the creative fun of coming up with new and wacky character designs is lost.

Possible advantages: you end up with a balanced group of PCs that's a reasonable fit for the adventure. You can bake hooks right into character creation instead of having to go all found-object with whatever people put in their backstories. You don't get Version #5 of the tiefling magus from that one Way of the Wicked campaign.

Thoughts?

Doug M.

[caster4life]

I have considered this but never tried it. I am wondering how well it would work. The closest thing I've done is suggesting to people that I want to see various team roles (e.g. battlefield control, healer, tank) filled and that those who hit one or two of those well are more likely to get accepted.

[Whack-a-Rogue]

I was in a campaign once where the GM provided a bunch of character portraits. We had to create someone who matched one of them, and it worked out pretty well.

[TheNine]

I sort of do it that way myself anyhow. Find a picture i find interesting then build off of that.