Character Creation question from a GM POV (Spoilers)

[Andre Roy]

I've started to read this AP in preparation to running it and I have a few question for character creation.

Ideally, I would like to have a "Tabula Rasa" approach where each player gets a character sheet with a Race & Physical description only. While I have the detailed character sheet with me (either 1st level only or every level until full memory recovery). This would allow to get full benefit of the Amnesia factor, but I need the full trust from the players.

The alternative I'm considering, is have every player create 3 separate characters (either 1st level only or until full return of memory) with these requirements:
1) All 3 character shares the same Race, Gender & Physical description;
2) I provide the equipment.

It gives a bit of uncertainty as who they are at first but at the same time they play a character they created so the player can feel it is his/here.

Has anyone tried either of these approch? How well did it turned out?

Any other approaches that were used that were either successful or disastrous that might be good for me to keep in mind ?

[YogoZuno]

Bear in mind, memories aren't fully returned until the characters are level 10. Also, it's not explicitly stated anywhere in the AP, but...there is no guarantee that the characters will end up being the same as their pre-amnesia selves. In fact, quite the opposite, they are almost guaranteed to be different.

While what you propose might be an interesting experience, there really is no need to take the agency away from your players.

[Andre Roy]

Yeah I saw that, and it would not necessarily means that the character were this high the first time around either.

And I understand not taking the Player's Agencies away (works for convention games, but not necessarily for a long term campaign). Regardless of the option taken, I'd sit down with them to go over the AP unique beginning and to have a feel of that they would like to play.

This way, even with option 1, I could more easily provide a character they enjoy playing (no sense giving a spellcaster to someone not interested in dealing with a lot of bookkeeping) and everyone would still have fun despite the unusual start.

[Tasfarel]

The style of your players or how they like to play their characters is not bound to their backstorys at all.

The memory loss can also be handled as a kind of "reset to default".

For an example. In book two "The Trushmoore terror" there is an event with an revenant which was killed by one of the party members. The characters where not (all) nice guys in their past and probably did some nasty things. There is also the possibility that they even had another "class" back then. Because there are some rly nasty enemys it´s not even garanteed that everyone is still on his "starting charakter" at that point the memorys will return to them

The important prep, in my opinion, is that your player are okay with their lack of backstorry in the first place and that they trust you to handle this correctly.

Remember that at point X, your players can either come up with a backstorry for themself, or you can provide it to them.

While your players are exploring the mysteries in this AP they get some good hints, what they could have done in their past. This can help them to build a fantastic backstorry or change their existing one when the time has come