What I always do with new people is I have them make new characters, taking an hour or so. Then, I take all their character sheets, arrange them in a neat little pile. After that, I suddenly start yelling at the top of my lungs "DIE! DIE! DIE!" all the while tearing up the sheets of paper. If I can foam at the mouth, even better. I eat the torn-up character sheets and spit it back at the players, all the while my limbs flailing and my torso bending at impossible angles. I do this for about another hour, then I calm down, the players roll up new characters, and we begin for real.
TS