[quote=@BrokenPromise]
It's an interesting concept. From the Gm's perspective, it helps weed out willy-nilly roleplayers. That is to say that one needs to want to participate in the RP badly enough that they are willing to face rejection. On the other hand, I like seeing my players come up with their own ideas with my guidelines being the only restriction. I've had good luck in that most of my players have been fairly creative. 

I don't think the system works for every RP, and it does limit the players to choosing only what the GM will allow them. I suppose you could make a light version of the system. You could divide the rolls by RPG classes or their rolls. But this creates other problems. When I recruit for my RP, I genuinely expect 20% of my players to leave just as things start, and another 20% in the months to follow. If I have plans for certain characters, I might not have them once things get going. 

I also don't feel it works for every player. I tend to get excited about the prospect of jumping into a world with a character I created. My story might not work if I was denied a particular archtype, and I would lose interest rather easily. But if someone is more interested in the idea of the RP than actually making a character for it, it's not an issue. 

It can work, but it does require a different approach. I don't think it would work for the type of RPs I like to run. 
[/quote]

I agree with this-I really do love seeing what people can come up with. I don't like the concept of facing flat-out "rejection" when joining an RP, though. If I know there's a 50% chance that I won't get the character (in instances where there are 2 people going for the same one), I find that it makes me [i]less[/i] likely to want to join.

[quote=@Rai]
For a GM this is a delight. You can create characters types and roles that need to be filled and simply let others work within a boundary to sell the character right and boom you've got a coherently directed story. But for the player you'd have to be down for seeing the story and characters the GM is making come to life without intruding beyond the subtle actions and turns the characters can make.

Maybe to bring a medium you could have the GM lay out roles that need to be filled and character archetypes and such. Have people apply with a brief summary of their idea of a character. You choose the one that you like the most as GM THEN you let them make a CS, and work with them on it also so you both are happy with it. As the story progresses as long as the players feel like they are making a change in how things progress then its fine to keep it rather narrow in progression. You want to get to point a to b and so forth with the in between being something everyone can agree on would be fun and work with the story. 
[/quote]

This seems like a sensible idea, although I will say that as a player, I've changed my mind about where I wanted to go with a character quite often during the character-creation process. So I dunno if it would be the absolute [i]best[/i] way, but I think it's definitely something worth considering!

[quote=@Hero]
I think pre-made roles are a way to guide the rp in the direction the GM wants. Not too big a fan of pre-maded characters unless maybe the GM has something very specific in mind, but it could be cool.
[/quote]

I've not had many problems with the concept of a pre-made character as a whole besides the "audition" system. I don't particularly mind it, and sometimes it just makes sense (ie when characters are based off of Greek gods/goddesses). It's also nice when the lore/world is rather complicated, because then you can sort of get a feel on what's allowed and what's not.

[quote=@Mara]
A GM does the hard work for me? Where do I sign up?

(context: I hate trying to come up with character concepts)
[/quote]

Assuming this is a rhetorical question, but...
[hider=shameless self promotion]https://urstyle.com/topic/1575908/my-undead-girlfriend-a-roleplay-open/1
[/hider]
;D

[quote=@Odin]
I've done this for the first time (well, half-done this) where I basically made players follow a certain theme for the team they'd be on in the IC. I can tell from the lessons I learned from that that this is something I will do in the future as well (and possible double down, pre-selecting themes I want to see and/or character types). 

One thing I worry about is that, with certain niché RP's, you might force people a certain way that they don't want to go in and thus diminish the already small playerbase. Could be (easily) offset by just having smaller invite-only RP's, but people don't seem to like those.
[/quote]

Ooh the idea of following a theme is pretty interesting! I also do sort of like the character-type idea as well, like (cliche example but bear with me) if it's a superhero RP you could do "leader: x people, technician: x people, etc etc". My only question is how you figured out which people would be in which team (and subsequently which theme they would get).


My overall opinion is that while I don't [i]mind[/i] pre-mades, I don't think the most common selection process on the other site ("auditioning") is that great. People put in [i]so much[/i] time and effort into a CS there-it's not just typing stuff up, people usually have to make associated "sets" or "collages" (b/c that's what the site is primarily for lol), which is [i]hella[/i] time consuming. So it's really really frustrating when you don't get the character you want, and none of the ones that are left interest you at all. Plus just waiting for the GMs to make a decision and wondering if writing everything up is worth it at all is just too much stress and frustration for me. I don't think that RP should be super duper stressful (it's something I do for fun, after all), but that system of character selection kinda...is.

(sidenote: I've also heard stories of GMs playing favorites and just giving their friends the roles, although this hasn't ever happened to me, thankfully)