MGibster
Legend
Strictly speaking, I don't know if I have free character creation in every game I run. I usually start out by pitching a game concept. For example: I'd like to run a Trail of Cthulhu game set in the 1930s, and I need for all of your characters to have some connection to the NYPD. You could be a detective, a beat officer, a motorcycle cop, or maybe you're a reporter who covers the crime beat, a psychologist who consults with the department, an attorney with the DA, or maybe something else you think of. It is my expectation that players will create a character designed to fit the campaign. And for the most part this works out just fine.Free character creation isn't always easy on GMs either: how do you write a (good) campaign and plot hooks without knowing who are the stars of the show? Or: I was very happy with myself for killing off Fred's annoying-frickin'-bard, but I still have a session to run and he won't stop asking me questions about his starting spell book!
On rare occasions in the past, I've had players who just weren't interested in getting with the program and insisted on characters that just didn't fit into the parameters of the campaign as related to them by the GM. My go to example is probably always going to be the dude who insists on creating a werewolf character for our Vampire chronicle. I'm playing in a Night's Black Agents campaign right now, and the GM wanted to know what government agency (MI-6, Mossad, CIA, etc., etc.) each of our characters worked for prior to the campaign. One of the players absolutely refused to pick a specific agency for his character stating he was a private consultant who worked for many agencies over the years. It just added some needless complications for the poor GM.
I do find the idea of not making characters to be intriguing. That's pretty much how it works for one shot adventures, but I think a lot of people are married to the idea of making their own characters for regular campaigns. It could be a lot of fun to be handed a character and playing someone I probably wouldn't have chosen to play on my own.