I believe that would be JVC who decided that....

I have created characters, I go to play the game and it says no available characters. I've tried seeing if I need to select them somehow, but there doesn't appear to be a way to do that. I'm a little lost. Please help.

See attached - from the Manual

I just went and tried that and it didn't work. I have tried a few times and the @ symbol never shows up and it still says no characters available. Any other ideas?

Are you looking at the right town number? On the option screen where you create characters you hit a number key 1-5 to pick a town. New characters start at Sorpigal which is town 1. From memory I think I was confused too at the start since it says # go to town.. which had me thinking actually typing # not a number.

So create your characters, then on the option screen you press 1 to look at Sorpigals inn. You get the list of characters there (should be some starting ones plus any you made) and then select them with ctrl and the letter.