So I thought up a wild D and D adventure, and I'm wondering what everyone's thoughts on it would be.   Basically the adventure begins normally, in a town or tavern.    Sometime in the begining, there is a flash of light and the players loose their memories.    At this point I would hand out new character sheets with several sections left blank.   The characters would spend the bulk of the adventure learning about their "new" characters and filling in their sheets.    At the end, after defeating the villian, another flash of light and everything goes back to normal.   I know that a new character isn't exactly loosing their memory, but I'm using that as a vehicle to simulate the memory loss.   I think it could be fun.   What do you guys think?

IMO, i love character creation and being forced into someone else's pre-made would bother me greatly.

Agree that creating a character is a huge part of the enjoyment for just about everyone I've played with. But with that said, I would have no problem playing your hook for a one-shot single session adventure. Just make sure to give them clues about their characters, or be generous with the guesswork to figure out the character. Would suck to be in combat, and then try to cast a spell, but can't and are told "Well, that's your action for round 1, but at least you know you can't cast now..."

Yeah I was totally thinking of this as a one shot.   Perhaps even a module inserted into an adventure.    Thanks for the advice on guesswork and not sacrificing actions.   I'm going to go ahead and start working out this idea.    

One way to slightly speed along the discovery is through insight checks. They get one on themselves and one on another party member each day. (Or each time a key event happens)

"Swinging your sword feels familiar...roll an insight check into your own abilities."

"I rolled a 10."

"Although you don't know the full extent of your power, you feel that this was your weapon of choice in the past."

Or..."I rolled over a 15/20." (whatever you set the DC at)

"Your familiarity with this blade is undeniable... you can attack twice, and can do ________." (Class feature, like battlemaster maneuver, smite, sneak attack, etc)

I could see this working as a One-Off session thing where they this 'light' happens, and the character's memories are transferred to another body when they all awaken. They then experience some lore or history from the past in these other characters body's, which may pertain to the greater campaign at large. They may go from a wizard to a fighter, a druid to a sorcerer, etc, and not be comfortable in their current skin for the session, but at the end they should have learned some interesting tidbits that help in their adventure, and allow them back into the character they created originally as nobody wants to be forced into premades unless that is discussed in a session 0.

I know this post is old, but incase your still working on this idea still. I am creating something similar with Amnesia. The way I am going about it is more the mystery route, and add in humor. I premade my groups' characters; however, they were involved in creating it. I made wheels of races, classes, and names and have them spin it; viola there's their character. I did this early development, so by the time I finished creating my campaign they have forgotten what they spun. I actually pretested this idea on my husband and he actually liked discovering who is character was and what people were involved in his life. It's a big fun mystery game! I let the players have their equipment and learn to use it. I leave tidbit clues of what their class could possibly be like with your campaign. The sorcerer was lucky enough to have their spell book on them and discover who they may be! Also another idea, every night the players sleep make them roll a chance to dream a memory. In my opinion if you set the campaign up where they fully created their characters and slapped amnesia on them, I would be heavily frustrated and focused on the fact I have yet to remember this one cool move or pretend I totally don't remember this key person in my life.

I think it's a fun idea and you should keep working on it or explore further. If your still running in circles on how to go about it, I would straight up ask my group on how they feel on the idea. My group is a go with the flow, willing to try an idea at least once.  

I see this idea circulating around the internet a lot as an idea that would be crazy fun, but to me it always sounded just like dnd with extra steps. Seen here: https://images.app.goo.gl/diw9cS7v4cGv1Wmf6 the example of "omg I'm DRAGONBORN???" sounds kinda funny for maybe a new player who isn't really familiar with dnd species and now finds themself as a big dragon man,  but in practice, if you're not someone to whom the concept of playing as a dragonborn is not the most ridiculous and outlandish thing,  then it plays out more like: Player *does not know they're dragonborn*, DM: "well dragonborn are rare in these parts...", Player: *knows they are dragonborn*.

It's really just you're just taking something from the player and then just handing it back.

You can't roleplay a character if you don't know who they are. That's literally all a player can do to contribute to a game and its story.

Some "cool DM" ideas just kind of fall apart when you consider how they'd work from the perspective of anyone else at the table.