I often tell my players that they're welcome to do this. They don't need to know their character inside out before they start, and they can make up details as they go. Those details then become part of their story and history going forward.

It gives the players more flexibility and creates opportunities for them to actively to connect with the story.

--

: Job offer to take down a corporations new research project

Character 1: "We're taking this job. I lost my brother to that companies bullshit"

Character 2: "What? I didn't even know you had a brother"

Character 1: "I don't like to talk about it much. He was a corper, tried to walk the straight and narrow, and they still fucked him over. This shit is personal for me. We're taking the job"

--

That was a scene that played out in one of my Shadowrun games. Until that moment, not even the player knew his character had a brother. The back story wasn't going to win any awards for originality, and ultimately, it was just a bit of ad-lib the player came up with on the spot to give them a personal connection, yet it changed the whole feel of the mission, and shaped that characters interactions with the company in question going forward in that campaign.

To me, that's the power of creating characters on the fly. Players can always choose to make things personal or relevant to their characters

I've seen this approach be done a couple of time, it also works quite well in game like Vampire where you can start as human.

That said, I like to spend time on a session zero including long discussion about the kind of story we want to play, the kind of character we want to play, and finally the character creation itself

but making characters is fun!

It's an interesting approach, though I noted that it does seem to remove a bit of agency from the players, so it seems that maybe it would be better suited to one-shots than longer games? If you're asking the geologist to report in I guess that means you've decided there must be a geologist in the party.

I am definitely a fan of leaving blanks in characters to be worked out in play though. It makes for characters that feel much more part of the world and the story than anything that comes with the baggage of a detailed backstory that has to be shoehorned in.

I tend to run long term games in crunchy systems that require a fair amount of build time to make a good characters, so I don't think this would work well at my table as-is. But there are some really neat ideas in this process I might find useful!

I already start my games with a similar "here's the first scene" prompt: during Session Zero I'll tell the players what the opening scene will be, and I ask them to tell me why their characters showed up to that situation. Just like in your "make it up live" technique, it works really great to make sure you get characters who actually fit in with the game.

I like the approach you take to asking (sometimes leading) questions about the character concept, and I may keep those in mind for the next time I start a new game. Usually my group does very independent character generation, but that back-and-forth at the concept stage could be really useful.

I'm also fond of those mini-scenes with a few of the characters in the past, though that's harder to fit in my high investment types of games. Though I did once convince half my Shadowrun group to include my character somewhere in their backstories, so it can be done!

I find this a bit amusing, since its already a mechanic in a few PbtA games - Masks for example explicitly asks how the team got together, for the PCs to create certain related NPCs, and relationship questions before the first session - but also that the 'seed' mechanic is a thing a GM friend of mine has told me about, and that I've seen others comment and use.

You talk with the players and figure out a specific detail about them - do they have a favorite color, a specific 'useless' skill or attribute, a missing sibling or item, etc. and find a way to bring that up during the session. Even if its a completely random ocurrence, it'll bring the focus to that player and they'll feel rewarded that you included a specificity about their character in the session.

As a random thing to do in every game, however, I'm a bit wary, since like others said it would take the agency away from players in creating personal characters. It may work better in One Shots or GM-less games.

I've been thinking about doing this in Mythras. My initial idea to introduce the game, assuming that the players are antsy to fight something, is to toss them right in a coliseum because all you need is your primary stats and a "combat style". They can grab what weapons they want, that's their combat style, go earn your reduced jail sentence. Once you're out we can talk about what you're doing for work.

That's pretty intense. I like to think i've got a pretty similar attitude towards backstory and characterization, but I like to at least know what the character can do before hopping in