Hello @zogstrip, et al! Today, this feature is good, but with one tweak, it would be perfect!
tl;dr - There seems to be a theme in this thread:
Admins want to be able to fill a pool or list of branded avatars. ( ✓possible ) Admins also want to automatically, and randomly assign a “selectable avatar” to each new user. ( ✓possible ) In conjunction with the last two points, Admins want to allow users to upload their own custom profile picture or avatar if users do not want to use one of the default avatars from the “selectable avatars” pool/list. ( 
not possible, am I right? ) - basically allowing the “selectable avatars” to act the same way the “default avatars” setting currently works.
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Currently, there are some settings that seem to semantically conflict with one another:
- allow uploaded avatars ❑ Allow users to upload custom profile pictures.
- selectable avatars enabled ❑ Force users to choose an avatar from the list.
I want to be able to enable “selectable avatars” without forcing users to only use pics from this library. This is why I have the other option selected to “Allow users to upload custom profile pictures.” But that option doesn’t work when the “Force users to choose an avatar from the list.” option selected.
Practical Use Case
When new users join a community, they often do not customize their profile picture or avatar. I’ve developed several communities and evaluated hundreds of sample online communities and have found this to generally be consistent across communities. Getting someone to add a profile pic or avatar is a pretty significant step on the commitment curve. They usually do this after they’ve established their identity and trust with a new community, and plan on sticking around and participating more than just a user who creates an account so they can ask one question, and will probably never return.
So when new members participate in forums, and they all have the same generic profile images, it looks like the same person is responding. Or perhaps it feels like the members are not too engaged. Discourse addresses this on a small level, by changing the background color and the users first initial. But if each new person is auto (randomly) assigned a profile image from a preset pool of images, then when those folks post, the community looks much more friendly and welcoming, and filled with more engaged users.
Here's an example of a good community thread. Some registered members plus some members that never took the time to upload an avatar (illustrated by red arrow)
Here's an example of what we don't want... Everyone has the same avatar.
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I’m not sure about the best way to fix this in the admin settings ¯\ _ (ツ)_/¯
Suggested feature update
One suggestion would be to add another option beneath the “default avatars” option and call it “selectable avatars as default” (or something similar). Then have a description like:
❑ Assign a random avatar from the “selectable avatars” list as a default for new users, until user manually changes avatar."
Based on the logic of the current “default avatars” setting, if you added a setting like that suggestion 
︎ You could then change the frontend UI to be something like this…
Note: I added the section beneath the “Custom Picture” as if that were the list of “selectable avatars” uploaded by the admin. The avatar highlighted in grey would be the avatar the system selected. (if the “custom picture” option was toggled then the highlight would probably go away. Then when the “system assigned profile pic” is toggled, the associated avatar from the “selectable avatars library” would be highlighted.
By default, the top option (of the three) would be selected… but the user would still have the other options to use a gravatar or upload a custom picture. If they like the list of “selectable avatars” they could choose a different one that they prefer.
I’m sure there’s a better way to accomplish this than what I’m suggesting but hopefully, this illustrates what I with Discourse would allow with the “selectable avatars” and I think others are asking for this same type of functionality.
after closing the modal to actually save the list.
It’s still on my list.
