You get plenty of characters. You get the 4 new people who all work in the face room. You get all the Poser 4 people, including some dressed people, skeletons, etc., and all the prior people. There are bunches of freebies for Poser 4 and below. So you can learn all the basics of dressing, posing, lighting, etc., without spending more money. THEN when you know your way around the program and know what sorts of scenes you want to make, you can make informed purchases of the right additional characters. For example, suppose that you want to do anime or illustrate children's books... why buy Mike and Vicky when you really need AnimeDoll or Koshini? If you want to do pin-ups, you'll need idealized figures with oodles of underwear, and for historical recreations, you will want realism and the ability to get a lot of different looks for crowd scenes. Carolly