This is entertaining: I've been working on a rather unique 'first session' format which addresses character generation.
The supposition is that the characters are all of the same (general) age and from the same town: the session includes a number of childhood 'incidents' - short vignettes of things which the character did, or loved, or was forced to do, as a child; the players will mix-and-match from about 10 different minor things, including family background, favorite childhood game, chores assigned, interesting life events, etc; each life event includes anywhere from a paragraph to ten/fifteen minutes of brief interaction, and provides some number of attribute points and skill points, and a good explanation of why the character has those skills!
For example, your 'kid' loved climbing trees. Unsurprisingly, that's +2 Strength, +1 Dex, and +1 Wisdom (from a fall or two!); its also one rank of Climb and one rank of Tumble.
Interspersed with those 'decision points' are random descriptions of the world *as seen through a child's eyes* - morality, bard's tales, who's who in the village, history or geography lessons, etc.
The players have enough choice and control to build towards any character concept they want to, from fighter to ranger to druid to sorcerer or wizard... with some other professional skills, such as innkeeper, farmer, or blacksmith... They can build in as 'stable' or as 'tragic' a background as possible: literally, you could range from a well-heeled son of one of the higher-status families in the village to an orphan adopted by a single parent, from young-and-dumb to married-with-a-kid... and some of the choices include longer-term plot hooks, because of course some of the villagers have history which the village children are unaware of.
There's enough material there for one lengthy session, or a shorter session plus the top of a second session; my original idea was that at the end the characters will have a zero-level teenager; some events worth playing will occur, and if they want to advance on to first level, they are welcome to undertake an apprenticeship with a member of any of the core classes, learning from this person their feats, spells, allocating any remaining skill points, picking up that level-1 BAB or Weapon Proficiency, etc.
(Now, I'm toying with the idea of using with Dr_Spunj's character buy system, and letting the players develop that teenager towards a full first-level in that system.)
Net -
Benefits: explains party cohesion much better (childhood friends who stick with each other); gives world background, character background, and continuity; one method of preventing a massively unbalanced party composition.
Downside: takes a little longer, may not provide every player with each idea that they could have had towards a character background.
