How to list a small group of people with short descriptions?

Either John's or bib's answer would work in this case, although I'd prefer a bullet list just for clarity. Also, you can combine the two:

The A-team consists of four members:

• John "Hannibal" Smith, their charismatic leader and master of disguise;
• Howling Mad Murdock, an insane pilot that can fly pretty much anything that has wings;
• B. A. Baracus, a mechanical genius and the team's muscle;
• Templeton "Face" Peck, the team's con man and scrounger, able to get his hands on just about anything they need.

In HTML, this would be a good use case for a definition list:

<dl>
  <dt>John "Hannibal" Smith</dt>
  <dd>Their charismatic leader and master of disguise.</dd>
  <dt>Howling Mad Murdock</dt>
  <dd>An insane pilot that can fly pretty much anything that has wings.</dd>
  <dt>B. A. Baracus</dt>
  <dd>A mechanical genius and the team's muscle.</dd>
  <dt>Templeton "Face" Peck</dt>
  <dd>The team's con man and scrounger, able to get his hands on just about anything they need.</dd>
</dl>