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Around 3:33 the Dwarf and Half-Ork would still be in play because of racial modifiers. The Dwarf gets a +1 to Con and the Half-Ork gets a -2 CHR. I don't recall that ever being a problem but I'm sure it did happen and was just worked out. Everyone I played with back in the day played with Method I. If that didn't work the DM's would typical allow a re-roll or something else to accommodate the players chosen class. Without house rules, character rarely lasted long in 1e. One level progression was slow, and it was unforgiving death wise. Even with house rules where it was closer to basic box rules for many aspects I recall one session resulting in a party wipe three times in a row in the first five encounters. Ending up bumping the party up a level and the spell casters two.
This has always been my favorite, courtesy of 2nd edition: Method VI Each abilty score starts at 8. Then roll 7d6. These dice can be added to your character's ability as you wish. You may put as many dice as you want on a score, but you cannot exceed 18. All the points from a die must go to the same score. If you cannot make an 18 by an exact count on the dice, you cannot have an 18 score.
OSR Noob: "Gary Gygax was hardcore!" Gary Gygax: *Let players roll 4d6 drop low for ability scores, reroll hit dice on 1s and start their characters at 3rd level. OSR Veteran: "Nah, he was pretty chill."
Pre ADnD and post, Gygax changed a lot. He also wrote a lot of , if not contradictory, then just things he outright didnt believe in it 😂 ADnD's a Mess, play BX or 0e lol
A description for Bob World Builder DM specific videos: "As this video is the exclusive precinct of the DM, you must view any non-DM player viewing it as something less than worthy of an honorable death."
Being able to play the character you want but who also has identifiable strengths and weaknesses has resulted in the healthiest games in my experience. Not playing the character you want and not having any poor or excellent scores tends to cause players to just not be interested in what's going on in the game. Generally, the 6 rolls of 4d6 has produced these healthy results at my games.
@Peters6221 true. In every character creation session we have ever attempted to roll for stats the DM ends up saying "ok f... it we're doing standard array" cause someone always rolls too high and another always gets the shortest straw. And in all honesty, playing a weak character next to your friend's op one is a major letdown. Having a low and a mediocre stat and some high/decent ones is enough. No class can do everything and the ASI you get leveling up to 20 are never enough to patch all the wholes in your character sheet, so characters will always lack in some department. Maybe, a charisma of 10 is not crippling but you'll almost never convince an NPC with high Insight with it. The 20 charisma sorcerer will always have a far better chance. It doesn't have to be a 7 to count as a weakness.
@Peters6221 On the pathfinder front, I honestly consider my "untrained skills" my weaknesses far more than where my attributes happen to go. Ultimately attributes feel vestigial however in every version of D&D from 3e and onwards, 5e tried to make them not with the version where you had no skills and two attribute profiencies but people didn't like that. Once you have X+Y it's the final output that matters and some part of that is going to feel secondary to character concepts. Skills are just a finer split than attributes.
A slight variation on the roll 4d6 kh3 assign as will, I have tried and like. Roll 4d6 kh3 between 6-8 times, but the highest AND lowest results must be assigned to a stat. I find it gives players that got a subpar starting set two additional chances for a higher main stat(s). While adding a bit of a risk for those 'fishing for an 18'. Or you could just require 8 4d6 rolls, making a character without at least one negative stat mod pretty rare.
The “roll 6 times for each score” Would probably be adapted to be “you roll this amount for each ability and choose the score from the results” In case someone would like a character that didn’t have an exceptional personality (charisma) but they rolled high any way.
No, he did not. that art was well before the SP, We did not really talk about the SP much, but he did encourage role play over hack and slash, and murder hobo was just OUT; in part as it made for better optics for the game Yes, I played with him
The set up for the Satanic Panic began in 1979. The DMG that was often pushed as an example of why we were in a moral crisis (due to casting circles and specifically the pentacle) was published in August 1979 and released at GenCon. We hit full on panic after Reagan's "evil empire" speech in the early 80s. Possible but unlikely.
It's nice to see people exploring the past game systems as opposed to only pushing the most current edition. People tend to treat the old games like they're old technology and are obsolete or something. No, they're just a different way to play the RPG.
@@BobWorldBuilder 1E still functions fine for my campaign. Is a record player old tech if it's still in use? No, clearly not. I might suggest that AD&D 1E is the gaming equivalent of a record player, with all the hiss, pop, & crackle of the rules adding to the game, rather than detracting from it. It's lo-fi.
I worry for those who believe a system needs to be continually supported and never out of print in order to be playable. This speaks of a slavish need for published material to game at all and a lack of imagination.
@@commandercaptain4664 As one of those DMs who insist on running games that are in print and supported; the reason for it is two-fold. 1. In print games can be purchased by new players so I don't need to loan or copy things 2. In print games generally have players that I don't need to hunt for. Games that are out of print create work. Work is the opposite of play. Games are things that are played. 2c.
Penalties and Bonuses for Race, found on page 14 of PHB, would make Dwarves available with those rolls 3:44, since Dwarves and Half-Orcs get +1 to their constitution. The half-orcs would still be unavailable with an 11 roll, needing a 13 minimum.
My favorite method is the tic-tac-toe: Draw a tic-tac-toe board. Label the 3 rows STR, DEX, CON. Label the 3 columns INT, WIS, CHA. Roll 3d6 nine times, placing each score in one of the nine spaces. You may only assign numbers to the ability they fall under row/column-wise, and no space may be used for multiple abilities. You'll always be able to build off primary and secondary stats as you see fit unless you roll absolute trash, but the other 4 are going to get pretty interesting.
I started playing in '78. The group I played with came up with a couple other methods. V. Choose which class and race you want to play. assign the minimums for each ability, then roll 3d6 once for each ability to see if you can better it. VI. Roll the normal 3d6 method but roll another d6 (you can adjust as necessary) 1,2 = roll 1d6 and add the total where you want 3,4 = roll 2d6 and add 5,6 = roll 3d6 and add modified, use 4d6 method but add only 1d6 bonus points.
Contrary to popular belief, many grognards of that time actually did that without shame. A few self proclaimed hardasses insist that this is cheating, but then again they also insist that raw stats do not matter compared to player skill. So, just pick what minimum you need.
The real crazy one was method 5, introduced later in Unearthed Arcana. Roll a bucket of dice for your main stat, keep 3, slightly fewer dice for the second, keep 3, and down to your dump stat where you just rolled 3d6. Insane.
@@BobWorldBuilder It was class-based; you first chose your class, and that told you how many dice to roll for each of your SEVEN stats (1e UA introduced the short-lived "comeliness" stat). For example, a barbarian (the class was also introduced in the book) would roll 9d6 drop 6 for constitution, while an assassin would roll 3d6 for comeliness. I seriously doubt they looked at the probability distributions arising from this method. Gave you good stats, though.
The Unearthed Arcana book from 1985 has done pretty wild stat generation methods where you roll more or fewer dice for different stats based on the class. Like, a fighter rolls 9d6, keep the highest, for strength, and a flat 3d6 for intelligence.
@@BobWorldBuilder Come to the darkside - join the OSR! :) As a gamer who moved from D&D to AD&D1E the 4d6 drop lowest (Method 1) was definitely immediately gravitated to for rolling stats. As you concluded - better overall results without having Super characters, with the minimum amount of rolling.
The method I use involves a total of 9 dice rolls for the entire /party/, creates middle to above average characters regularly (almost never will you have a single digit stat), and the entire party will feel balanced in their own field. First give each player a 3 X 3 grid (Referred to as a Bingo Card) with STR, DEX, CON across each column and INT, WIS, CHA down each row. Now the DM (and only the DM, so there is no chance of a player having "Lucky Dice...yes I'm talking about you Kyle....) rolls 4d6, dropping the lowest. Every player then fills that number anywhere they want on their own Bingo Card. I do not make my players pick their race or class in advance of rolling, but usually suggest they have an idea in mind when they start filling it in. Once a number the placed (and cannot be removed), the DM rolls the second number and so on. Repeat this 9 times to fill in the entire card. With your card now full, you may transfer any number in a stats respective column or row to it's corresponding Stat, but each number may only be used once (so if you have a 17 in the STR/WIS stat, you may use that 17 for Strength or Wisdom, but not both.) I encourage my players to cross talk and help each other filling out their grids, turning the entire process into a fun team building style mini game perfect for a session zero.
in the 5e PHB, assigning ability scores is still the first in the list for making PCs. I honestly dont know too many people that actually make characters that way haha
I have been playing since 1977, I believe we started assigning scores about the time UA (the very 1st one) came out. However, my old gamers appear today to like the 4d6, sometimes rerolling the 1
@@shanemartin2215 Same here and it gives consistently "heroic" stats. But honestly, most of the games I've played over the past 40 some odd years we've rolled first and then came up with character concept. I guess most players have an idea of what they want to play but it's not usually discussed ahead of rolling.
A couple notes, just for the sake of being thorough: (1) Even if your Int 8 character had been Int 9 and so eligible to be an elven Magic User, he would not have been able to go up to 11th level, but only 9th. The maximum levels in the chart often have notes which tell you what minimal ability score would be needed for the highest possible level. (2) For minimum ability scores, you are allowed to take into account racial bonuses before checking eligibility. So, if you rolled an 11 Con, you could still be a dwarf, since dwarves get +1 to their Con scores, bringing you to the minimum of 12. (3) If your rolled score exceeds the maximum, you can still play that race, as long as you meet the minimums. You just have to lower the relevant score to the maximum value allowed. Anyway, fun video!
We always used 4d6 drop the lowest role & place as needed. My one DM even allowed for a 19 in a stat if you rolled 4 sixes - we always rolled at the table together when starting parties. Funnily enough, the 3d6 stat roll works better in 5e than in AD&D/OD&D as you are bound to get a couple of stats where you get a +1 modifier - you do have to ignore the 'in order' part of that rolling method, however. In AD&D you needed a minimum of 15 or 16 in your ability scores before your character had any kind of bonus. Led to a lot of "Honest, I rolled those stats n front of my dog!" I mean, in AD&D the best STR score you could get was 18/00 - and the number of times you ran into that stat score... ;-)
Awesome video and topic. Thank you for putting the sponsor at the end of the video and being quick about it rather than a 30 to 60 second advert in the video.
The phrase I use is, ”Heroes don’t miss when it counts.” I remind players during character creation. It’s fine to do with less but being heroic will be the exception.
I forget where she got it from, but a friend of mine introduced this method where you roll 3 stats using 4d6 drop the lowest, then you subtract one of those stats from 23, one of them from 25, and one of them from 27 to get your other 3 stats. It gives you choices and makes it so everyone has the same stat total!
That can give you some out-of-bounds results, so have to enforce the 3-18 range, but picking which rolls pair with which number would mitigate that. 25 - (3d4 + 5) is good for Basic's attribute bonus breakpoints. AD&D's breakpoints are skewed high by comparison -- being more like OD&D -- which is no doubt why Gary ditched 3d6 and suggested two scores of 15 minimum.
My uncle was my first DM. He was very forgiving because we started young (I was five). We did 4d6, drop lowest, eight times, reroll any result below 8, and keep the highest six to be placed in any order.
I feel like an important part of why we roll stats is missing from the discussion; it is offer more fun to play a character with a flaw than one with a strength. I am always excited when I roll a low number for my characters, because that is where a lot of roleplaying can arise. I recently played a Bard with 4 Charisma, and I had a great time.
I love this idea too! I have a player who is playing a rogue with a 7 DEX, and an 18 CON. He doesn't disarm traps, he just sets them off and takes a dart to the face for the party.
@@pupstarproduction15 I've often rolled low - put aside the concept I had in mind - and discovered a whole new character was just sitting there in the dice waiting to emerge. Often something I never would have chosen, but have a blast playing regardless.
It was nuts. If you had a 15 or higher in your class' primary attribute, you got a 10% bonus to earned experience points. High stats weren't just their own reward, they helped you level up faster. So much of your effectiveness of being a spellcaster was tied to your Intelligence or Wisdom, such that if it wasn't exceptional you basically sucked. And that's without getting into percentile strength, which made any fighter with less than 18 Strength almost pointless. Don't miss those days at all.
I played tons of AD&D 2e - similar to 1e in many years. The game was INCREDIBLY harsh compared to 5e. Save or Die spells; permanent negative levels; death at 0hp. Not only that but having high stats could give you XP bonuses of 10%. People who complain it is too hard to die in 5e should try 1e or 2e. And then stop complaining.
1E Unearthed Arcana added another method where you chose what kind of character you wanted to play first then rolled a number of D6 for each attribute based on class or race. For example, if you wanted a human fighter, you got to roll 9d6 for strength, 8 for constitution, 7 for dexterity, 6 for charisma, 5 for wisdom and only 3 for intelligence. Take the best, or only 3. Originally, this method was only supposed to be used for human characters but it was expanded to other races in Dragon magazine just a few months later.
The UA method also has the virtue of avoiding the dump stat problem by being purely random without player allocation, which always seemed to subvert the point of rolling stats in the first place.
I'm psyched to see you talking about the OSR! 5e is great, but this year I've been getting heavily into the old school and rules light indie stuff out there.
For my homebrew campaign we do 3d6 4times (reroll 1s) and than you get a 15 and an 8 as you last two options. So it ends up looking something like this. 15 3d6 3d6 3d6 3d6 8 I found that for my homebrew campaigns which usually has 5-6 player parties, this really helps everyone have character strengths and weaknesses. Also makes leveling up more interesting when people are debating between Ability Score Improvements and taking a Feat. Love the videos, thank you for all the hard work in making really good DnD content, as a content creator for other hobbies, you are inspiring!
My friends and I walked from school to the book shop in town and picked this up when it first came out. So much changed in the way we played from then on. Thanks for taking me back. Method I: 14, 9, 14, 8, 12, 8 Method II: 17, 16, 13, 13, 13, 11 Method III: 16, 13, 12, 11, 11, 9 Method IV: 13, 12, 6, 14, 11, 16 I only rolled a single 18 during all of that and was one of the Method IV rolls: 9, 8, 7, 5, 7, 18.
When I was a kid we did 1d20 down the line lol. Also: There's a system I've been enjoying lately based on AD&D with a pretty interesting process. You roll 3d6 down the line, then choose one to raise to 14. On top of that, all ability modifiers are cut in half (rounded towards 0) from D&D's formula
I'm a fan of 4d6 drop lowest AND after you sum the 6 values, it has to be higher than 72. That means the average will be at least 12, which if you compared to a commoner, it's just +1 in every stats. That way, if you get a 18 but 2 4's you might still be able to roll another character, but getting 18 18 18 4 4 10 means you get to play a super strong character with a lot of flaws, which makes for great RP. Sometimes I lower that value to 66 or even 60, depending on how "weak" I want the characters to be compared to the average commoner.
That's very similar to my method as well! For the alst few years, my parties have done 4d6-lowest 6 times, but the sum must be between 72 and 84. Everyone is powerful, and no one is too much more powerful than anyone else
As someone who rolls notoriously well, this would end up with me rolling stats for way too long My most recent stat spread for a character had 80 total in 5 abilities, and the only reason I would have been able to keep those numbers with a cap of 84 is because the first number I rolled in that set was a 3 (via 4d6 drop the lowest). ... I then proceeded to place that 3 in Dex because, to quote me, "With where I'm going, I don't need to dodge!"
@@BobWorldBuilder I never tried to put a limit, but makes sense. I really don't mind my players being stronger than normal, usually I can balance things out pretty easily, but often my players leave some flaws and weaks in the characters, which makes for great stories.
Because I forgot, for the record, the best set of stats I ever rolled was 18 18 17 17 17 16, for a grand sum of 103. Said set is tied to a Redemption Paladin who will give up on their (ageless and practically-immortal) life if they fail to meet their own standards to redeem themself for their wrongs.
We started a new short Pathfinder 1-shot campaign, Rolled 4d6-lowest in order, and rolled hp. I rolled str 7, int 9, Wis 14, dex 18, con 14, chr 12. My Tengu Ranger has 4 hp and our Barbarian has 5hp.
Great video. I like having high-powered characters in my campaigns, since they are pretty much essential in order to have a high-power campaign. My method... Choose class and race (player's choice on order), then roll ability scores. I use Comeliness, so there are 7 instead of 6. -4d6, reroll all ones, and drop the lowest die. -Roll up 8 sets, drop the lowest number and arrange to taste. The Unearthed Arcana for first edition has another method you may wanna check out.
My friends and I always used the 4d6 drop the lowest and then allocate as you want method,that’s was a few years later when the books had the Jeff Easley covers .
I like point buy character creation, bc that makes starting stats a mini game in itself, rather than just using a random number generator. I managed, within the rules, to make a half elf character who started with 20 int in pathfinder. She had 18 normal-max plus... racial I think it was? And had 9 cha and 7 str, iirc, but she was also a witch-- as a class and as personality lmao. So eh. Only got a few sessions into that game due to irl issues, so no idea if she'd have survived very long, but yeah.
@@BobWorldBuilder depends on each individual. I dont lioe it much cause i like the luck and fun of rolling. Who knows you could get 3 16s. Wlso i usually find most point buy rediculously under powered. I want atleast 2 16s or one 16 and 3 14s. Less than that and you tend to feel under powered in the kind of game i like to play. I d9 4d6 drop the lowest reroll the 1s but dont reroll a 1 off the reroll
@@Septimus_ii 5e point buy is incredibly tame because you cant go outside 8 to 15 on any stat (racial modifiers notwithstanding). I winf real ability score minmaxing happens a lot less, and if it happens its much less egreqious of a problem than someone minmaxing on the side of class/multiclass and feat choices. And if youre worried a player is throwing out the character side for optimal stats, ask them to describe their character, see if they can justify their array. Due to how race modifiers work, you usually dont see anyone making an array with more than one 15 and more than one stat below 10.
Whenever I use point buy I decide which 3 stats are most important for that character and get those to the highest even number I can. I usually end up with 2 8s and about a 10 for the others.
I think 3d6 down the line makes sense in games like B/X where the jumps between ability score bonuses were larger. Also the game just straight up expected you to die so +/-1 here or there didn't make so much of a difference haha! Rolling 3d6 for something like 5E on the other hand is pretty brutal because with smaller steps between ASBs it increases the swing between a good score and a bad one. For example, scoring between 6 and 15 on 3d6 has about 90% probability. In B/X this represents a swing between -1 and +1. In 5E however this represents a swing between -2 and +2! Given that 5E kinda expects you to be heroic having a -2 can throw a pretty hefty spanner in the works!
I have always preferred 4d6 drop lowest, but I found a very interesting alternative from an article in Dracon Magazine #93: You assign min/max scores based on what the player wants to play with respects to race and class(es), then roll 3d6 for each ability: If they roll higher than the minimum, they get the higher score but if they roll lower than the minimum they get the minimum. So in your example of a Dwarf Assassin your minimums would be: 12-11-6-12-12-3 (in order of Str/Int/Wis/Dex/Con/Cha) and you'd roll 3d6 for each to see if you can get higher than the minimum.
Somewhere in another video I saw a commenter recommending rolling 2D6+6 for each stat. Minimum is 8, maximum es 18 and the average is 13. I LOVE this method and has become a staple option at my table ever since.
I personally find that I don't really come to the table with a specific character I want to play in mind, so for me 3d6 in order is great as it helps me to sort of discover my character (if possible I like rolling my character almost completely random for that reason). That doesn't mean that I think these other methods aren't great options for folks who do have a very defined idea of what they would like to play ahead of the game. So good on you for sharing them with the community!
Yeah I think that's a great approach to this game where ANYTHING can happen to your character, and most of the fun comes from random outcomes. It makes sense to do the same for your stats!
@@zukodark For highly synergistic games like 5e I can understand wanting a character that is at least somewhat competent. Personally I don't play 5e though, so I don't have to keep those kinds of synergies in mind.
There was another version added in the 1st Edition Unearthed Arcana, where you pick your class first, then roll a number of dice for each stat, ranging from 9d6 down to 3d6 (dropping the lowest if applicable). UA also added Comeliness as an ability score, which is why going from 9 down to 3 gives you 7 different stats. Would be cool if you did an addendum for that version.
My personal favorite is roll however you chose (3d6/4d6DL/2d6+6/etc) 9 times to make a 3x3 grid. Chose two tik tak toe lines and those are your 6 stats. Makes it easier to get both high and low numbers to fit your concept!
Here's yet ANOTHER way to generate character starting abilities - @ Loved this video. I've shown it to several of my non-TH-cam-watching D&D friends and we all get a kick out of the, "Wha? No. Why does everyone keep saying that?" bit!
Yeah. I remember rolling those methods. LOL A method we tried in AD&D was pick a class, puck a race. Stats began at the minimums. Then roll 3d6 and assign points to the stats you wanted buffed. At least 3 points had to be put in your non requisite stat,(s). Pretty heroic characters.
Oh memories! After almost 2-years of the campaign lvl1-14 our party got lost in the Queen of the Demonweb Pits, ended in a sad vortex teleport to different planes - a TPK of a different sort including my cherished Lvl 13 fighter. Could have been nicer about it, but like your Tomb of Horrors story (friends did that in a different campaign) this was the hardcore D&D days.
Tomb of Horrors is a classic. Our party was close to 18th level when the Bloodstone series came out. To prep for it and get that last level, our DM had us solo Tomb of Horrors. We had characters powerful enough that it was mostly a case of navigating the pits and secret doors, and choosing right on the odd 50/50 parts. Wasn't the typical Tomb of Horrors experience, but still memorable.
Character generation was, rightly, a mini-game in its own right. The player should be able to make decisions, but the outcome should still be able to surprize. Many systems - old and new - take this idea to heart. For AD&D I think we used 4D6, but the player chose where to place it after it had rolled but before the next roll. Occasional you could end up with a level zero secondary skill profession character, which was often brief but fun. Characters were less "precious" than they seem to be now (?). One problem we saw with pure point-spending systems was that, with no or limited uncertainty, characters could become a clone army if players left their imaginations at home.
Geezer here..... Rolling stats can be a rush for some players. It's short lived at best replaced by "I got a bonus for this or that stat". All in all the bonus or penalty is all that matters in terms of play or mechanics. So I let players roll if they like. On rare occasions a player will get a rotten roller. It's roll 24d6... Yep toss a mountain, 24d6. Drop the lowest 6d, leaving a pool of 18d6. Now, organize them in groups of 3, each group generating a 3 to 18 value. Place them where ya like. It may seem generous but has worked very well for me. Game on.
@@nonya9120 I purchased 100 d6 of the smallest size I could find to give to my brother.. he is the guy that tosses dice across the table and you can never find them... Well now he has a hundred he will never find and barely be able to read anyway
@@paulcoy9060 Meh.. i have around 80 or so d6 of standard size and about 500 or so in the 5mm size (Battle System anyone?). My go to dice bag weighs about 3 lbs. We not gunna talk about my d10 collection....
Nice, I've been wanting to experiment with interesting ways of rolling stats. Here's one I just came up with: take the 6 stats and order them from 1-6. Then, for each one, roll 3d6 six times, and take the n-th best one, where n is whatever rank you gave that stat. so if I wanted Int>Dex>Con>Wis>Cha>Str (for example) I would roll 3d6 six times and pick the best one for INT, then roll 3d6 six times and pick the second-best one for Dex, ... roll 3d6 six times and pick the second-worst for Cha and finally roll 3d6 and take the worst roll for STR. That would give you a really extreme range from your best to worst stats, simultaneously letting you have the good stats you want but giving you significant limitations to compensate and role-play with
One that is becoming common these days is rolling 4d6 six times and then re-rolling all 1's. I've had a DM run character creation this way and my character ended up with no stat being lower than 10 (although I dropped one of the 10's to an 8 to increase my DEX to 18). Her stats ended up 16 / 20 / 18 / 8 / 10 / 14 after racial ability score improvements and feats.
My cousin had a fun way of rolling characters. It was a 2 step process. First, roll 4d6 (remove the lowest) and assign those to abilities in order. THEN, you have the option of buying a point in any ability, by spending two points in another one, and this could be done twice. So in the 4d6 example, it would be: STR 16, INT 9, WIS 16, DEX 11, CON 13, CHA 6 And if you wanted to lean into being a fighter, you could take 4 off of Wisdom and add 2 points to say, Constitution - STR: 16, INT 9, WIS 12 (-4), DEX 11, CON 15 (+2), CHA 6 There were some other restrictions, like I don't think you could take points from a score less than 10. So in the example above, you couldn't drop your Charisma to 4, or your Intelligence to 7, and you could only take from Dexterity once, since it would bring it to a 9.
Nice video. I saw a statistical analysis of these methods once with pretty bell curves. I think the strict method is good but only with more generous ability score modifiers than Ad&d gives. I'd go for 3d6 down the line, but the average must be over 10, and at least one score over 13. But in reality, 4d6 drop the lowest is just faster... That said, if everyone is on board for 3d6 down the line, and rolled HP, it makes for a really memorable game,.amd that's the point
I kind of went overboard in my current game. 6 + 1d6 for each stat in order, and then each player rolls 6d6 and can add those dice to any stats they want, even multiple dice. Also they could drop 2 of the dice to get a feat. My intention with this method was to make the players feel like paragons, or the best of the best, and i think it accomplished that, but I wouldn't do this method again without tweaking it. Players are having fun with their characters though, and i guess thats what matters.
I enjoyed this, thanks Bob World Builder. I started with AD&D, and would enjoy your take on more variances with 5e. One of these, which definitely takes away from PC's having to genuinely think about what they are doing and how they choose to get it done - is hit point recovery. I like the Hit Die concept in 5e, but sitting down for an hour and potentially fully heal from 10% health just allows ridiculous lack-of-thought actions. I DM this differently than AD&D and 5e.
@@BobWorldBuilder An alteration of 5e health recovery rules would be great in 6e, or as an alternate rule addition. Why ever go to an inn?-- recovery. Or find a farmhouse that would put the party up for a couple days? Just health recovery opens up role playing opportunities. But 1 HP/level a day recovery is too harsh.
My favourite method of statting characters as both DM and player has become array scores (method from the phb). The DM provides an array of 6 ability scores that the player gets to arrange in their wanted order, and then apply racial bonusses to it as well. I tend to modify the array from the phb to 8 8 11 12 16 17 as it gives two low and 2 high scores. meaning you will have a powerfull character that can do thing reliably, but also have shortcomings where you will need other players. It also makes sure that the powerbalance between players is kept, which is always a good thing in my opinion.
The method I thought up that I like: the wheel. Roll 7 times with choice of method (4d6, 2d6+6, etc), preserving order, possibly making a little 7 spoke wheel. Pick one number and one stat to associate, and then the rest fall accordingly to the order rolled and the stat order. Adjacency is preserved like the old roll-in-order, but you aren’t stuck with your first roll being strength. It doesn’t create optimized characters, but it’s good for somewhat immersive and organic characters. Great for scribbling in notebook margins and pondering character concepts. For table, ymmv. Since adjacently rolled numbers stay together, this means that there can be MAD characters which just don’t work. Paladins need high strength and charisma, so you need to roll two high scores adjacent. Monks need a sequence of high-high-dump-high after you delete a score. SAD characters are neat, though, since after putting the lucky 17 or 18 into mainstat, the rest are pretty random. Getting 12s in traditional dump stats can be interesting.
My go to method as a DM is known as devils advocate. It's the traditional 4d6 drop the lowest but the dm also rolls 4d6 drop the lowest behind his screen. Then for each roll the player may choose their roll or the secret roll the dm made. It has made for awesome characters, and a very fun experience when rolling said characters.
My fav method is one I invented, and it's kinda convoluted but I enjoy it: As a table, roll 10d6, rerolling all 6s. If the sum is less than 30, reroll low numbers to increase it (still rerolling 6s), likewise if it's above 38, reroll highs to bring it down. Once that's done, add 2 6s to the pool, then you can start assigning scores For each score, pick any 2 dice and add 4 to the score. Finally, you can reduce the number on any one die to increase the number on another die. This can be done up to twice. This gives a good balance of scores in the 6-16 range, ensures all players are balanced relative to each other, and leaves some agency with the players for a result that's not as random as 3d6 or as designed as point buy Min and max sums and such can all also be easily tweaked to get results in a different range
I usually DM, but recently started playing 5e and have been having a blast! All the other people are first time players and our DM had us roll an unusual way, but MAN did it yield good results. Roll 8 d6, keep six and this was two ability scores. So if you rolled 6, 6, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1, do you keep a 17 and then an 11, or because you have a strength modifier, go a 16 get bumped to 18 and a 12 which also gets a a=1, it makes you think about every score you take and even if you roll a really poor group you can still get one salvageable stat.
lol I started playing DnD with the Expert Box Set in 1978. I still have the dice. Even then we didn't use the 3d6 to gen characters. We decided on 4d6, re-rolling 1s, and then dropping the lowest die. It served well.
That is how I learned D&D in 78 and 79.... even after I got the players and monster manuals.... Some of my best characters had intelligence scores of 3-5... Of course they were Dragon Magazine's Berserker class... Of course having an natural 18 (92%) strength helped... and a high dex of 17... "Run Rampant" I miss you...
Ever since I started playing AD&D, in the 90s, we have always rolled 4D6, picked the top 3 dice then assigned to appropriate skills based on the desired character. Later on we started re-rolling the lowest die if a new character was created mid-campaign (usually needed very specific scores for a class or something).
In the Unearthed Arcana supplement to 1st edition, there is a 5th method for stats. It has you start by picking a class and then you roll a number of dice for each stat (keeping the highest 3) based on a table. So for example if you wanted to be an assassin, you would roll 6d6 for strength, 7d6 for intelligence, 4d6 for wisdom, 9d6 for dexterity, 8d6 for constitution, and 3d6 for charisma. It's a really weird method but it basically guarantees your character is good in the areas they need to be. Oh, and in classic 1e fashion, this method is only available if you are playing a human
All hail Mentzer, Editor Supreme and Fixer of Antiquated Systems! Acknowledge Moldvay at your peril! Make mine Method V: *3d6, then choose between rolled stats or standard array. Afterwards, -2 from one score = +1 to another score, then assign.* Some low scores make for interesting chances to fail forward, plus it makes it easier to design adventures that don't try to one-up PCs. Every other method is for coddled superheroes; you might as well roll 1d4 +14 0:06 Okay, I'm gonna need that spiked caltrop called a d6.
Another method which might have been from the AD&D Unearthed Arcana or 2e DMG was something along the lines of - Sort ability scores by importance for your class according to a table - Ability Score 1 (most important): 7d6 drop 4 lowest - Score 2: 6d6 drop 3 lowest; - 3: 5d6 drop 2 - 4: 4d6 drop 1 - 5: 4d6 drop 1 - 6: 3d6
I have always done 4D6 drop the lowest, going back to 2e. I did run a 5e campaign where the DM had us roll 1d20 for each stat. I had some really good rolls.
I use three methods, other than standard array, and let my players choose. 5d6, drop the lowest 2 (for more combat focused campaigns) 3d6, no mulligans (for RP heavy campaigns with low combat risk) 4d6, drop the highest (for campaign geared towards to creative problem solving) However, i have also used a system i came up with while drunk like a shore leave sailor. Roll 2d20, divide the points, no Ability score can be lower than 5. It actually worked pretty decently.
My table uses a slightly complicated homebrew mathod. We do 3d6 in order, with a pool of 6 re-rolls to be used as you like. If you choose to re-roll, you must take the new one, and once you move on to the next stat the previous one is final. But, you get to choose what order you roll the stats in prior to beginning your rolls, so that you still can prioritize your most important stats.
In theory I like the idea of the strict methods because sometimes fate can be cruel and sometimes that can be fun but in reality I want more control than that when I'm building a character. Choosing how I allocate my stats makes me feel like I am choosing how my character will feel during gameplay and that's important to me.
The ability method is best for those who don't know what they want to play and let the dice decide. Nothing wrong with that (just have the courage to stick with whatcha got).
7:33 I'd say 'scores rolled are according to' is grammatically correct. I've made characters with stats between 3d6 in order, to point buy, to 5d6 drop high and low, to 5d6 drop 2 lows. I played for over a year with a character made on 5d6 drop the lows that had a stat of 4.
In the groups I have belonged to, we use the following: 4d6 re-roll 1's, drop low, begin again if end result is 10 or less. Put numbers where you need them.
The original Gygax method is fun for one-shots. A group I was a part of went through the Tomb of Horrors in 5e, and that’s what we did for our first characters. I played a bard that was optimized for social play, not dungeon exploration, and I lasted longer than the other characters getting about halfway through lol
I started playing in 1980 and I had the original D&D books as well as the AD&D books, so yeah...I remember doing all of these things as..a thing. Still have them, btw. The original 3 D&D books came in a little white box btw (still have that too). They're like stapled pamphlets for the most part. Oh and I also have the D&D Expert edition, which was also a thing. :D
when i started playing in 1977, we rolled not only the characteristics but also their history. so much of it we custom made, and while we bought and used the books lots of gygax stuff we ignored. The challenge of playing what you rolled was part of the fun. all it took was some left field thinking. roll 4 and drop the worst was often used, but we had other methods. And yes, intelligence of 3 is a playable character, the player had also rolled 18 for strength, think mongo from blazing saddles, he patted a horse and knocked it unconscious. If you think that was bad, have a look at the roll up for traveller, you could go through the whole thing and the character could die on the last roll. start again.
I found this interesting way to roll ability scores. You roll 6d6, and label each d6 in some way (such as with letters). Your ability scores would be 12 + A - B, 12 + B - C, and so on. This leads to an ability score total of 72, with each score having a possible range of 7 to 17.
DM Guide: 'As this book is the _exclusive_ precinct of the DM, you must view any non-DM player posessing it as something less than worthy of an honourable death' Right, that settles it, I've got to get a copy of these 1st edition books. I was around for the period where more than once I read published advice on playing evil characters that amounted to 'Don't, without permission, and also reconsider why you wanted to in the first place' (rather than anything useful, like 'Remember your character is still a member of the adventuring party, and is ideally supposed to have reasons for being there; if they're going to be evil reasons, it may take extra work to get them to line up properly with everyone and everything else') But no - just throw in random sarcastic incitements to strife and annoyance at the gaming table, and trust that your audience are able to sort it out for themselves. That's _amazing_ and it's going on the 'this is worth your time and effort to source copies of' list right now.
I do something different in my games, but with the same motive. Because its VTT players rolls the script of "4d6 drop the lowest, arrange as you want" if they don't like the stats, they reroll ALL OF THEM as long as they want. Campaign's pretty rough, so that's a given.
Just my own method: each player gets 15d6 and 3 cards either between 5 and 8 or 4 and 7 (depending on what power level you want for the campaign). Each player then rolls one stat at a time, declaring what stat the result is before moving in to the next roll. A player can use any number of dice and/or cards they wish for a single stat, but any points above 17 are lost. It’s a fun little mini game that results in quite balanced characters, choose 5-8 cards for a slightly stronger group of pc’s, and 4-7 for a more average feeling group. Power level is very similar to roll 4d6 drop lowest, but characters almost always end up with at least one weakness, making it much better than that method imo. Also it’s more fun x)
4d6 drop the lowest seems like by far the best of those methods! It gives a nice spread of numbers that you can fit to a character concept without requiring too much rolling and recording results
Our group always liked using the base 10 method and then having points to use with increasing costs as you get higher up. Like most of the computer games use. That way you could be in control of the way your character turned out. I mean you are stuck with them for however many months or years you end up playing.
Another way that we would do it was use method of 4 d 6 but roll 6 sets. Then you would choose either down or across for your 6 stats. So it actually gave you 12 choices. We used this method for creating a group of mercenaries we hired. So if you hired say 5 or 6 you could choose the ones you wanted to hire from judging by their stats. It worked pretty well for us.
My faves: "Cheater's Dice: 3d6, but all 1's are counted as 6's. Arrange as desired. Minimum roll of 6, radically boosts the overall spread. Arrange as desired. 6+2d6: The minimum roll is 8, average roll of 13 (for some very "Gygaxian" stats!) Could be adjusted up or down easily. (5+2d6 or 7+2d6, etc.) But my all-time fave are point-buy systems because most players want to build to suit a concept.
I've been using a custom method for a long time as follows: Roll 3d6 six times, distribute to the 6 ability scores as desired. then distribute 6 points to the ability scores (maximum of 2 points on any one ability score, cannot be increased higher then 17), than apply racial modifiers. Use of this method usually results in almost any race class combination desired. However, since I play with experienced players, I often simply let them choose their ability scores with the understanding that a character is more fun if (s)he has strengths and weaknesses.
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Around 3:33 the Dwarf and Half-Ork would still be in play because of racial modifiers. The Dwarf gets a +1 to Con and the Half-Ork gets a -2 CHR. I don't recall that ever being a problem but I'm sure it did happen and was just worked out.
Everyone I played with back in the day played with Method I. If that didn't work the DM's would typical allow a re-roll or something else to accommodate the players chosen class. Without house rules, character rarely lasted long in 1e. One level progression was slow, and it was unforgiving death wise. Even with house rules where it was closer to basic box rules for many aspects I recall one session resulting in a party wipe three times in a row in the first five encounters. Ending up bumping the party up a level and the spell casters two.
Gary gygax: more dice=more fun so roll up 12 characters and pick one. Then again, it would leave you with 11 back-up characters 🤔
I too believe more dice are more fun, but sometimes I just want to get my stats!
To be fair, in AD&D those 11 back-ups were pretty necessary.
I've thought of doing something like that -- but only for three characters each (and still using best 3 of 4).
You'd need them if you played then. Characters that lived were special.
@@michaelfoye1135 “Your character is poisoned, (Dm rolls) and they’re dead.”
I just recently learned that 4d6 drop the lowest rearrange as desired had been around since AD&D...had not idea it had been around so long.
Same! lol
The more you know is half the battle... YO ROLL!
I’ve only known that existed I never knew there was another way. I’m glad I’ve been doing it that way
I started playing in 84 and that's how we usually did it.
@@BobWorldBuilder when was the buypoint method introduced?
7:35 Not a typo, just an older form of syntax (Gygax was overfond of archaic sentence structures).
This has always been my favorite, courtesy of 2nd edition:
Method VI
Each abilty score starts at 8. Then roll 7d6. These dice can be added to your character's ability as you wish. You may put as many dice as you want on a score, but you cannot exceed 18. All the points from a die must go to the same score. If you cannot make an 18 by an exact count on the dice, you cannot have an 18 score.
Very cool
Ooooh I like that
OSR Noob: "Gary Gygax was hardcore!"
Gary Gygax: *Let players roll 4d6 drop low for ability scores, reroll hit dice on 1s and start their characters at 3rd level.
OSR Veteran: "Nah, he was pretty chill."
Pre ADnD and post, Gygax changed a lot. He also wrote a lot of , if not contradictory, then just things he outright didnt believe in it 😂
ADnD's a Mess, play BX or 0e lol
A description for Bob World Builder DM specific videos: "As this video is the exclusive precinct of the DM, you must view any non-DM player viewing it as something less than worthy of an honorable death."
Haha maybe, idk if I really believe in spoilers because they usually just get me excited about the story :P
@@BobWorldBuilder I agree with you. Just in case you didn't get the reference. That's a Gary quote that's actually in the DMG for 1e.
@@Alan-ms3kp ...Did you watch the video?
Being able to play the character you want but who also has identifiable strengths and weaknesses has resulted in the healthiest games in my experience. Not playing the character you want and not having any poor or excellent scores tends to cause players to just not be interested in what's going on in the game. Generally, the 6 rolls of 4d6 has produced these healthy results at my games.
Yep, I love having a great stat and a terrible stat :)
@Peters6221 true. In every character creation session we have ever attempted to roll for stats the DM ends up saying "ok f... it we're doing standard array" cause someone always rolls too high and another always gets the shortest straw. And in all honesty, playing a weak character next to your friend's op one is a major letdown. Having a low and a mediocre stat and some high/decent ones is enough. No class can do everything and the ASI you get leveling up to 20 are never enough to patch all the wholes in your character sheet, so characters will always lack in some department. Maybe, a charisma of 10 is not crippling but you'll almost never convince an NPC with high Insight with it. The 20 charisma sorcerer will always have a far better chance. It doesn't have to be a 7 to count as a weakness.
@Peters6221 On the pathfinder front, I honestly consider my "untrained skills" my weaknesses far more than where my attributes happen to go.
Ultimately attributes feel vestigial however in every version of D&D from 3e and onwards, 5e tried to make them not with the version where you had no skills and two attribute profiencies but people didn't like that. Once you have X+Y it's the final output that matters and some part of that is going to feel secondary to character concepts.
Skills are just a finer split than attributes.
A slight variation on the roll 4d6 kh3 assign as will, I have tried and like.
Roll 4d6 kh3 between 6-8 times, but the highest AND lowest results must be assigned to a stat. I find it gives players that got a subpar starting set two additional chances for a higher main stat(s). While adding a bit of a risk for those 'fishing for an 18'. Or you could just require 8 4d6 rolls, making a character without at least one negative stat mod pretty rare.
I think Gygax knew the satanic panic and made the book to have that part to just diss people for being delusional
Bold move! Haha
The “roll 6 times for each score”
Would probably be adapted to be “you roll this amount for each ability and choose the score from the results”
In case someone would like a character that didn’t have an exceptional personality (charisma) but they rolled high any way.
This could maybe be changed to be “roll 3 times per ability and choose”
But the whole party would have to abide by this
All up to the DM
No, he did not. that art was well before the SP, We did not really talk about the SP much, but he did encourage role play over hack and slash, and murder hobo was just OUT; in part as it made for better optics for the game
Yes, I played with him
The set up for the Satanic Panic began in 1979. The DMG that was often pushed as an example of why we were in a moral crisis (due to casting circles and specifically the pentacle) was published in August 1979 and released at GenCon. We hit full on panic after Reagan's "evil empire" speech in the early 80s. Possible but unlikely.
It's nice to see people exploring the past game systems as opposed to only pushing the most current edition. People tend to treat the old games like they're old technology and are obsolete or something. No, they're just a different way to play the RPG.
Thanks! Yeah I guess I do kind of look at them as "old tech" but certainly not obsolete! Like you said, just a different way to play
@@BobWorldBuilder 1E still functions fine for my campaign. Is a record player old tech if it's still in use? No, clearly not. I might suggest that AD&D 1E is the gaming equivalent of a record player, with all the hiss, pop, & crackle of the rules adding to the game, rather than detracting from it. It's lo-fi.
I worry for those who believe a system needs to be continually supported and never out of print in order to be playable. This speaks of a slavish need for published material to game at all and a lack of imagination.
@@commandercaptain4664 As one of those DMs who insist on running games that are in print and supported; the reason for it is two-fold.
1. In print games can be purchased by new players so I don't need to loan or copy things
2. In print games generally have players that I don't need to hunt for.
Games that are out of print create work. Work is the opposite of play. Games are things that are played. 2c.
@@TheK5K yes. Yes it is. A record player is still old technology if it's still used it's just still in use.
Penalties and Bonuses for Race, found on page 14 of PHB, would make Dwarves available with those rolls 3:44, since Dwarves and Half-Orcs get +1 to their constitution. The half-orcs would still be unavailable with an 11 roll, needing a 13 minimum.
My favorite method is the tic-tac-toe:
Draw a tic-tac-toe board.
Label the 3 rows STR, DEX, CON.
Label the 3 columns INT, WIS, CHA.
Roll 3d6 nine times, placing each score in one of the nine spaces.
You may only assign numbers to the ability they fall under row/column-wise, and no space may be used for multiple abilities.
You'll always be able to build off primary and secondary stats as you see fit unless you roll absolute trash, but the other 4 are going to get pretty interesting.
I started playing in '78. The group I played with came up with a couple other methods.
V. Choose which class and race you want to play. assign the minimums for each ability, then roll 3d6 once for each ability to see if you can better it.
VI. Roll the normal 3d6 method but roll another d6
(you can adjust as necessary)
1,2 = roll 1d6 and add the total where you want
3,4 = roll 2d6 and add
5,6 = roll 3d6 and add
modified,
use 4d6 method but add only 1d6 bonus points.
As a rule, if you do not role the min score needed for the class you want, you just assign the min score
I guess that solves that!
Contrary to popular belief, many grognards of that time actually did that without shame. A few self proclaimed hardasses insist that this is cheating, but then again they also insist that raw stats do not matter compared to player skill. So, just pick what minimum you need.
@@DeadMeat991 For our group we just ignored the minimum, if you wanted to play a wizard with a INT of 3 go right ahead. Always made for fun games.
@@tasoth This could work too, depending on the game.
The real crazy one was method 5, introduced later in Unearthed Arcana. Roll a bucket of dice for your main stat, keep 3, slightly fewer dice for the second, keep 3, and down to your dump stat where you just rolled 3d6. Insane.
Haha wow, yeah I can see why that didn't stand the test of time
@@BobWorldBuilder It was class-based; you first chose your class, and that told you how many dice to roll for each of your SEVEN stats (1e UA introduced the short-lived "comeliness" stat). For example, a barbarian (the class was also introduced in the book) would roll 9d6 drop 6 for constitution, while an assassin would roll 3d6 for comeliness. I seriously doubt they looked at the probability distributions arising from this method. Gave you good stats, though.
Best method, baby. 🙂
The Unearthed Arcana book from 1985 has done pretty wild stat generation methods where you roll more or fewer dice for different stats based on the class. Like, a fighter rolls 9d6, keep the highest, for strength, and a flat 3d6 for intelligence.
My first AD&D game used this.
Nice little experiment! AD&D is always a fun historical curiousity to me.
Thanks! Yeah I really like exploring how the game originally worked
@@BobWorldBuilder Come to the darkside - join the OSR! :) As a gamer who moved from D&D to AD&D1E the 4d6 drop lowest (Method 1) was definitely immediately gravitated to for rolling stats. As you concluded - better overall results without having Super characters, with the minimum amount of rolling.
The method I use involves a total of 9 dice rolls for the entire /party/, creates middle to above average characters regularly (almost never will you have a single digit stat), and the entire party will feel balanced in their own field.
First give each player a 3 X 3 grid (Referred to as a Bingo Card) with STR, DEX, CON across each column and INT, WIS, CHA down each row. Now the DM (and only the DM, so there is no chance of a player having "Lucky Dice...yes I'm talking about you Kyle....) rolls 4d6, dropping the lowest. Every player then fills that number anywhere they want on their own Bingo Card. I do not make my players pick their race or class in advance of rolling, but usually suggest they have an idea in mind when they start filling it in. Once a number the placed (and cannot be removed), the DM rolls the second number and so on. Repeat this 9 times to fill in the entire card.
With your card now full, you may transfer any number in a stats respective column or row to it's corresponding Stat, but each number may only be used once (so if you have a 17 in the STR/WIS stat, you may use that 17 for Strength or Wisdom, but not both.)
I encourage my players to cross talk and help each other filling out their grids, turning the entire process into a fun team building style mini game perfect for a session zero.
in the 5e PHB, assigning ability scores is still the first in the list for making PCs. I honestly dont know too many people that actually make characters that way haha
Very few I'm sure lol
I have been playing since 1977, I believe we started assigning scores about the time UA (the very 1st one) came out.
However, my old gamers appear today to like the 4d6, sometimes rerolling the 1
@@IamsTokiWartooth That's how I do it as DM. 4d6 reroll the 1.
@@shanemartin2215 Same here and it gives consistently "heroic" stats. But honestly, most of the games I've played over the past 40 some odd years we've rolled first and then came up with character concept. I guess most players have an idea of what they want to play but it's not usually discussed ahead of rolling.
Maybe it's because I started later, but I always went class>race>stats. I'm the type of guy who likes concepts.
A couple notes, just for the sake of being thorough: (1) Even if your Int 8 character had been Int 9 and so eligible to be an elven Magic User, he would not have been able to go up to 11th level, but only 9th. The maximum levels in the chart often have notes which tell you what minimal ability score would be needed for the highest possible level. (2) For minimum ability scores, you are allowed to take into account racial bonuses before checking eligibility. So, if you rolled an 11 Con, you could still be a dwarf, since dwarves get +1 to their Con scores, bringing you to the minimum of 12. (3) If your rolled score exceeds the maximum, you can still play that race, as long as you meet the minimums. You just have to lower the relevant score to the maximum value allowed. Anyway, fun video!
We always used 4d6 drop the lowest role & place as needed. My one DM even allowed for a 19 in a stat if you rolled 4 sixes - we always rolled at the table together when starting parties.
Funnily enough, the 3d6 stat roll works better in 5e than in AD&D/OD&D as you are bound to get a couple of stats where you get a +1 modifier - you do have to ignore the 'in order' part of that rolling method, however. In AD&D you needed a minimum of 15 or 16 in your ability scores before your character had any kind of bonus. Led to a lot of "Honest, I rolled those stats n front of my dog!"
I mean, in AD&D the best STR score you could get was 18/00 - and the number of times you ran into that stat score... ;-)
Awesome video and topic. Thank you for putting the sponsor at the end of the video and being quick about it rather than a 30 to 60 second advert in the video.
This was an awesome video! Loved the historical dice dive mixed with showing the practicality of rolling the dif styles.
Glad you enjoyed it!
The phrase I use is, ”Heroes don’t miss when it counts.” I remind players during character creation. It’s fine to do with less but being heroic will be the exception.
I forget where she got it from, but a friend of mine introduced this method where you roll 3 stats using 4d6 drop the lowest, then you subtract one of those stats from 23, one of them from 25, and one of them from 27 to get your other 3 stats. It gives you choices and makes it so everyone has the same stat total!
Cool! Yeah the Dungeon Coach has a method similar to that. I really like how there's rolling involved but everyone can still have the same total
Gonna roll 4 1's and be the Int 3 Str 24 barbarian of legend at level 1! [honestly seems like a fun method.]
That can give you some out-of-bounds results, so have to enforce the 3-18 range, but picking which rolls pair with which number would mitigate that. 25 - (3d4 + 5) is good for Basic's attribute bonus breakpoints. AD&D's breakpoints are skewed high by comparison -- being more like OD&D -- which is no doubt why Gary ditched 3d6 and suggested two scores of 15 minimum.
I am reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy right now. Back to the video :)
My uncle was my first DM. He was very forgiving because we started young (I was five). We did 4d6, drop lowest, eight times, reroll any result below 8, and keep the highest six to be placed in any order.
I've been using method 1 for a few months before I saw this video and it's pretty balanced
Yeah I think method 1 has become the most popular way to roll today
I feel like an important part of why we roll stats is missing from the discussion; it is offer more fun to play a character with a flaw than one with a strength. I am always excited when I roll a low number for my characters, because that is where a lot of roleplaying can arise. I recently played a Bard with 4 Charisma, and I had a great time.
I love this idea too! I have a player who is playing a rogue with a 7 DEX, and an 18 CON. He doesn't disarm traps, he just sets them off and takes a dart to the face for the party.
It's really interesting method and from what I heard the early edition was more hard than today so you needed the high stats
Yeah I think that’s the case- needing high stats, but characters didn’t usually have them haha
@@BobWorldBuilder i would say having week stats really do for good creative thinking.
@@pupstarproduction15 I've often rolled low - put aside the concept I had in mind - and discovered a whole new character was just sitting there in the dice waiting to emerge. Often something I never would have chosen, but have a blast playing regardless.
It was nuts. If you had a 15 or higher in your class' primary attribute, you got a 10% bonus to earned experience points. High stats weren't just their own reward, they helped you level up faster. So much of your effectiveness of being a spellcaster was tied to your Intelligence or Wisdom, such that if it wasn't exceptional you basically sucked. And that's without getting into percentile strength, which made any fighter with less than 18 Strength almost pointless. Don't miss those days at all.
I played tons of AD&D 2e - similar to 1e in many years. The game was INCREDIBLY harsh compared to 5e. Save or Die spells; permanent negative levels; death at 0hp. Not only that but having high stats could give you XP bonuses of 10%.
People who complain it is too hard to die in 5e should try 1e or 2e. And then stop complaining.
1E Unearthed Arcana added another method where you chose what kind of character you wanted to play first then rolled a number of D6 for each attribute based on class or race. For example, if you wanted a human fighter, you got to roll 9d6 for strength, 8 for constitution, 7 for dexterity, 6 for charisma, 5 for wisdom and only 3 for intelligence. Take the best, or only 3. Originally, this method was only supposed to be used for human characters but it was expanded to other races in Dragon magazine just a few months later.
The UA method also has the virtue of avoiding the dump stat problem by being purely random without player allocation, which always seemed to subvert the point of rolling stats in the first place.
I'm psyched to see you talking about the OSR! 5e is great, but this year I've been getting heavily into the old school and rules light indie stuff out there.
Nice! Yeah it's been an interest of mine for a while. I figured actual old school dnd would be a good place to start :P
For my homebrew campaign we do 3d6 4times (reroll 1s) and than you get a 15 and an 8 as you last two options. So it ends up looking something like this.
15
3d6
3d6
3d6
3d6
8
I found that for my homebrew campaigns which usually has 5-6 player parties, this really helps everyone have character strengths and weaknesses. Also makes leveling up more interesting when people are debating between Ability Score Improvements and taking a Feat.
Love the videos, thank you for all the hard work in making really good DnD content, as a content creator for other hobbies, you are inspiring!
My friends and I walked from school to the book shop in town and picked this up when it first came out. So much changed in the way we played from then on. Thanks for taking me back.
Method I: 14, 9, 14, 8, 12, 8
Method II: 17, 16, 13, 13, 13, 11
Method III: 16, 13, 12, 11, 11, 9
Method IV: 13, 12, 6, 14, 11, 16
I only rolled a single 18 during all of that and was one of the Method IV rolls: 9, 8, 7, 5, 7, 18.
Dude another great vid 😎🤘
Thank you very much! And thanks for commenting :)
When I was a kid we did 1d20 down the line lol.
Also: There's a system I've been enjoying lately based on AD&D with a pretty interesting process. You roll 3d6 down the line, then choose one to raise to 14. On top of that, all ability modifiers are cut in half (rounded towards 0) from D&D's formula
I'm a fan of 4d6 drop lowest AND after you sum the 6 values, it has to be higher than 72. That means the average will be at least 12, which if you compared to a commoner, it's just +1 in every stats. That way, if you get a 18 but 2 4's you might still be able to roll another character, but getting 18 18 18 4 4 10 means you get to play a super strong character with a lot of flaws, which makes for great RP. Sometimes I lower that value to 66 or even 60, depending on how "weak" I want the characters to be compared to the average commoner.
That's very similar to my method as well! For the alst few years, my parties have done 4d6-lowest 6 times, but the sum must be between 72 and 84. Everyone is powerful, and no one is too much more powerful than anyone else
As someone who rolls notoriously well, this would end up with me rolling stats for way too long
My most recent stat spread for a character had 80 total in 5 abilities, and the only reason I would have been able to keep those numbers with a cap of 84 is because the first number I rolled in that set was a 3 (via 4d6 drop the lowest).
... I then proceeded to place that 3 in Dex because, to quote me, "With where I'm going, I don't need to dodge!"
@@BobWorldBuilder I never tried to put a limit, but makes sense. I really don't mind my players being stronger than normal, usually I can balance things out pretty easily, but often my players leave some flaws and weaks in the characters, which makes for great stories.
@@p2jnyoom wheelchair build haha. Best one
Because I forgot, for the record, the best set of stats I ever rolled was 18 18 17 17 17 16, for a grand sum of 103.
Said set is tied to a Redemption Paladin who will give up on their (ageless and practically-immortal) life if they fail to meet their own standards to redeem themself for their wrongs.
We started a new short Pathfinder 1-shot campaign, Rolled 4d6-lowest in order, and rolled hp. I rolled str 7, int 9, Wis 14, dex 18, con 14, chr 12. My Tengu Ranger has 4 hp and our Barbarian has 5hp.
Great video. I like having high-powered characters in my campaigns, since they are pretty much essential in order to have a high-power campaign.
My method...
Choose class and race (player's choice on order), then roll ability scores.
I use Comeliness, so there are 7 instead of 6.
-4d6, reroll all ones, and drop the lowest die.
-Roll up 8 sets, drop the lowest number and arrange to taste.
The Unearthed Arcana for first edition has another method you may wanna check out.
My friends and I always used the 4d6 drop the lowest and then allocate as you want method,that’s was a few years later when the books had the Jeff Easley covers .
I really appreciate and enjoy the way that you look at some of these older rules. Great video!
I like point buy character creation, bc that makes starting stats a mini game in itself, rather than just using a random number generator. I managed, within the rules, to make a half elf character who started with 20 int in pathfinder. She had 18 normal-max plus... racial I think it was? And had 9 cha and 7 str, iirc, but she was also a witch-- as a class and as personality lmao. So eh.
Only got a few sessions into that game due to irl issues, so no idea if she'd have survived very long, but yeah.
Yeah, after reading a lot of comment on that community tab poll about stats, point buy seems more fun and practical than I originally thought
@@BobWorldBuilder depends on each individual. I dont lioe it much cause i like the luck and fun of rolling. Who knows you could get 3 16s. Wlso i usually find most point buy rediculously under powered. I want atleast 2 16s or one 16 and 3 14s. Less than that and you tend to feel under powered in the kind of game i like to play. I d9 4d6 drop the lowest reroll the 1s but dont reroll a 1 off the reroll
I'm wary of points buy because it allows you to min-max, which imo makes for worse role playing
@@Septimus_ii 5e point buy is incredibly tame because you cant go outside 8 to 15 on any stat (racial modifiers notwithstanding). I winf real ability score minmaxing happens a lot less, and if it happens its much less egreqious of a problem than someone minmaxing on the side of class/multiclass and feat choices. And if youre worried a player is throwing out the character side for optimal stats, ask them to describe their character, see if they can justify their array.
Due to how race modifiers work, you usually dont see anyone making an array with more than one 15 and more than one stat below 10.
Whenever I use point buy I decide which 3 stats are most important for that character and get those to the highest even number I can. I usually end up with 2 8s and about a 10 for the others.
Another awesome video. I love the nostalgia of the old books, and seeing how the game has adapted and evolved along the way.
I think 3d6 down the line makes sense in games like B/X where the jumps between ability score bonuses were larger. Also the game just straight up expected you to die so +/-1 here or there didn't make so much of a difference haha! Rolling 3d6 for something like 5E on the other hand is pretty brutal because with smaller steps between ASBs it increases the swing between a good score and a bad one. For example, scoring between 6 and 15 on 3d6 has about 90% probability. In B/X this represents a swing between -1 and +1. In 5E however this represents a swing between -2 and +2! Given that 5E kinda expects you to be heroic having a -2 can throw a pretty hefty spanner in the works!
Wow! That's a great point about how other adjustments to the system have probably influenced the popularity of 4d6-lowest
I have always preferred 4d6 drop lowest, but I found a very interesting alternative from an article in Dracon Magazine #93: You assign min/max scores based on what the player wants to play with respects to race and class(es), then roll 3d6 for each ability: If they roll higher than the minimum, they get the higher score but if they roll lower than the minimum they get the minimum. So in your example of a Dwarf Assassin your minimums would be: 12-11-6-12-12-3 (in order of Str/Int/Wis/Dex/Con/Cha) and you'd roll 3d6 for each to see if you can get higher than the minimum.
Somewhere in another video I saw a commenter recommending rolling 2D6+6 for each stat. Minimum is 8, maximum es 18 and the average is 13. I LOVE this method and has become a staple option at my table ever since.
I personally find that I don't really come to the table with a specific character I want to play in mind, so for me 3d6 in order is great as it helps me to sort of discover my character (if possible I like rolling my character almost completely random for that reason). That doesn't mean that I think these other methods aren't great options for folks who do have a very defined idea of what they would like to play ahead of the game. So good on you for sharing them with the community!
Yeah I think that's a great approach to this game where ANYTHING can happen to your character, and most of the fun comes from random outcomes. It makes sense to do the same for your stats!
I like to do 4d6-drop-the-lowest but in order, as I feel sub 6 stats doesn't really make sense in 5e. No humanoid NPCs are that weak/dumb.
@@zukodark For highly synergistic games like 5e I can understand wanting a character that is at least somewhat competent.
Personally I don't play 5e though, so I don't have to keep those kinds of synergies in mind.
There was another version added in the 1st Edition Unearthed Arcana, where you pick your class first, then roll a number of dice for each stat, ranging from 9d6 down to 3d6 (dropping the lowest if applicable). UA also added Comeliness as an ability score, which is why going from 9 down to 3 gives you 7 different stats. Would be cool if you did an addendum for that version.
My first game was running a Cavalier rolled using that method. A friend was running a Barbarian.
My personal favorite is roll however you chose (3d6/4d6DL/2d6+6/etc) 9 times to make a 3x3 grid. Chose two tik tak toe lines and those are your 6 stats. Makes it easier to get both high and low numbers to fit your concept!
Here's yet ANOTHER way to generate character starting abilities - @
Loved this video. I've shown it to several of my non-TH-cam-watching D&D friends and we all get a kick out of the, "Wha? No. Why does everyone keep saying that?" bit!
Yeah. I remember rolling those methods. LOL
A method we tried in AD&D was pick a class, puck a race. Stats began at the minimums. Then roll 3d6 and assign points to the stats you wanted buffed. At least 3 points had to be put in your non requisite stat,(s). Pretty heroic characters.
Nice video intro! There are methods additionally added to the 1st Edition Unearthed Arcana too
Thanks! I'll have to check that out!
Next video your CON is equal to the number of ghost peppers you can eat at one sitting.
Lol no thanks xD
I really like your desktop wallpaper lol. Great video, love the look at old dnd, neat to see how the game has evolved
Memories of venturing into the Tomb of Horrors with the old 3d6 method, and the subsequent TPK by the 2nd area…..
Ah, those were the days
Haha sounds like a classic dnd experience to me!
@@BobWorldBuilder it was nasty. LOL. But fun
Oh memories! After almost 2-years of the campaign lvl1-14 our party got lost in the Queen of the Demonweb Pits, ended in a sad vortex teleport to different planes - a TPK of a different sort including my cherished Lvl 13 fighter. Could have been nicer about it, but like your Tomb of Horrors story (friends did that in a different campaign) this was the hardcore D&D days.
Tomb of Horrors is a classic. Our party was close to 18th level when the Bloodstone series came out. To prep for it and get that last level, our DM had us solo Tomb of Horrors. We had characters powerful enough that it was mostly a case of navigating the pits and secret doors, and choosing right on the odd 50/50 parts. Wasn't the typical Tomb of Horrors experience, but still memorable.
One that I found was interesting were the character creation options in the 2e player's handbook, specifically 2d6+6 for each stat.
Character generation was, rightly, a mini-game in its own right. The player should be able to make decisions, but the outcome should still be able to surprize. Many systems - old and new - take this idea to heart.
For AD&D I think we used 4D6, but the player chose where to place it after it had rolled but before the next roll. Occasional you could end up with a level zero secondary skill profession character, which was often brief but fun. Characters were less "precious" than they seem to be now (?).
One problem we saw with pure point-spending systems was that, with no or limited uncertainty, characters could become a clone army if players left their imaginations at home.
Geezer here.....
Rolling stats can be a rush for some players. It's short lived at best replaced by "I got a bonus for this or that stat".
All in all the bonus or penalty is all that matters in terms of play or mechanics.
So I let players roll if they like. On rare occasions a player will get a rotten roller. It's roll 24d6... Yep toss a mountain, 24d6. Drop the lowest 6d, leaving a pool of 18d6. Now, organize them in groups of 3, each group generating a 3 to 18 value. Place them where ya like. It may seem generous but has worked very well for me.
Game on.
I like that a lot! I want to try a similar method for my next game, but it also boils down to rolling a pool of numbers that you pick from
"24" d6's?! Nobody has that many d6's, what are you, some kind of Mad Man?!
Oh, right......madness is an accurate diagnosis.
@@paulcoy9060 The term proper sir, is Dice Goblin...
@@nonya9120 I purchased 100 d6 of the smallest size I could find to give to my brother.. he is the guy that tosses dice across the table and you can never find them... Well now he has a hundred he will never find and barely be able to read anyway
@@paulcoy9060 Meh.. i have around 80 or so d6 of standard size and about 500 or so in the 5mm size (Battle System anyone?). My go to dice bag weighs about 3 lbs. We not gunna talk about my d10 collection....
Nice, I've been wanting to experiment with interesting ways of rolling stats. Here's one I just came up with:
take the 6 stats and order them from 1-6. Then, for each one, roll 3d6 six times, and take the n-th best one, where n is whatever rank you gave that stat.
so if I wanted Int>Dex>Con>Wis>Cha>Str (for example) I would roll 3d6 six times and pick the best one for INT, then roll 3d6 six times and pick the second-best one for Dex, ... roll 3d6 six times and pick the second-worst for Cha and finally roll 3d6 and take the worst roll for STR. That would give you a really extreme range from your best to worst stats, simultaneously letting you have the good stats you want but giving you significant limitations to compensate and role-play with
One that is becoming common these days is rolling 4d6 six times and then re-rolling all 1's. I've had a DM run character creation this way and my character ended up with no stat being lower than 10 (although I dropped one of the 10's to an 8 to increase my DEX to 18). Her stats ended up 16 / 20 / 18 / 8 / 10 / 14 after racial ability score improvements and feats.
Haha well those were some lucky rerolls!!
My cousin had a fun way of rolling characters. It was a 2 step process.
First, roll 4d6 (remove the lowest) and assign those to abilities in order.
THEN, you have the option of buying a point in any ability, by spending two points in another one, and this could be done twice.
So in the 4d6 example, it would be:
STR 16, INT 9, WIS 16, DEX 11, CON 13, CHA 6
And if you wanted to lean into being a fighter, you could take 4 off of Wisdom and add 2 points to say, Constitution -
STR: 16, INT 9, WIS 12 (-4), DEX 11, CON 15 (+2), CHA 6
There were some other restrictions, like I don't think you could take points from a score less than 10. So in the example above, you couldn't drop your Charisma to 4, or your Intelligence to 7, and you could only take from Dexterity once, since it would bring it to a 9.
Nice video. I saw a statistical analysis of these methods once with pretty bell curves. I think the strict method is good but only with more generous ability score modifiers than Ad&d gives. I'd go for 3d6 down the line, but the average must be over 10, and at least one score over 13. But in reality, 4d6 drop the lowest is just faster... That said, if everyone is on board for 3d6 down the line, and rolled HP, it makes for a really memorable game,.amd that's the point
I'm so glad you like Alignment. Awesome, I came to the right place.
I kind of went overboard in my current game. 6 + 1d6 for each stat in order, and then each player rolls 6d6 and can add those dice to any stats they want, even multiple dice. Also they could drop 2 of the dice to get a feat. My intention with this method was to make the players feel like paragons, or the best of the best, and i think it accomplished that, but I wouldn't do this method again without tweaking it. Players are having fun with their characters though, and i guess thats what matters.
Great point at the end! It's definitely all about what ends up being fun for the group
I love hitchhikers. It's my second favorite series after discworld.
I enjoyed this, thanks Bob World Builder. I started with AD&D, and would enjoy your take on more variances with 5e. One of these, which definitely takes away from PC's having to genuinely think about what they are doing and how they choose to get it done - is hit point recovery. I like the Hit Die concept in 5e, but sitting down for an hour and potentially fully heal from 10% health just allows ridiculous lack-of-thought actions. I DM this differently than AD&D and 5e.
Thanks! Yeah HP would be another great topic to dive into
@@BobWorldBuilder An alteration of 5e health recovery rules would be great in 6e, or as an alternate rule addition. Why ever go to an inn?-- recovery. Or find a farmhouse that would put the party up for a couple days? Just health recovery opens up role playing opportunities. But 1 HP/level a day recovery is too harsh.
This one was great. You have been making some real winners lately. :D
My favourite method of statting characters as both DM and player has become array scores (method from the phb).
The DM provides an array of 6 ability scores that the player gets to arrange in their wanted order, and then apply racial bonusses to it as well.
I tend to modify the array from the phb to 8 8 11 12 16 17 as it gives two low and 2 high scores. meaning you will have a powerfull character that can do thing reliably, but also have shortcomings where you will need other players.
It also makes sure that the powerbalance between players is kept, which is always a good thing in my opinion.
The method I thought up that I like: the wheel. Roll 7 times with choice of method (4d6, 2d6+6, etc), preserving order, possibly making a little 7 spoke wheel. Pick one number and one stat to associate, and then the rest fall accordingly to the order rolled and the stat order. Adjacency is preserved like the old roll-in-order, but you aren’t stuck with your first roll being strength. It doesn’t create optimized characters, but it’s good for somewhat immersive and organic characters. Great for scribbling in notebook margins and pondering character concepts. For table, ymmv.
Since adjacently rolled numbers stay together, this means that there can be MAD characters which just don’t work. Paladins need high strength and charisma, so you need to roll two high scores adjacent. Monks need a sequence of high-high-dump-high after you delete a score. SAD characters are neat, though, since after putting the lucky 17 or 18 into mainstat, the rest are pretty random. Getting 12s in traditional dump stats can be interesting.
My go to method as a DM is known as devils advocate. It's the traditional 4d6 drop the lowest but the dm also rolls 4d6 drop the lowest behind his screen. Then for each roll the player may choose their roll or the secret roll the dm made. It has made for awesome characters, and a very fun experience when rolling said characters.
My fav method is one I invented, and it's kinda convoluted but I enjoy it:
As a table, roll 10d6, rerolling all 6s. If the sum is less than 30, reroll low numbers to increase it (still rerolling 6s), likewise if it's above 38, reroll highs to bring it down.
Once that's done, add 2 6s to the pool, then you can start assigning scores
For each score, pick any 2 dice and add 4 to the score.
Finally, you can reduce the number on any one die to increase the number on another die. This can be done up to twice.
This gives a good balance of scores in the 6-16 range, ensures all players are balanced relative to each other, and leaves some agency with the players for a result that's not as random as 3d6 or as designed as point buy
Min and max sums and such can all also be easily tweaked to get results in a different range
I usually DM, but recently started playing 5e and have been having a blast! All the other people are first time players and our DM had us roll an unusual way, but MAN did it yield good results. Roll 8 d6, keep six and this was two ability scores. So if you rolled 6, 6, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1, do you keep a 17 and then an 11, or because you have a strength modifier, go a 16 get bumped to 18 and a 12 which also gets a a=1, it makes you think about every score you take and even if you roll a really poor group you can still get one salvageable stat.
lol I started playing DnD with the Expert Box Set in 1978. I still have the dice. Even then we didn't use the 3d6 to gen characters. We decided on 4d6, re-rolling 1s, and then dropping the lowest die. It served well.
That is how I learned D&D in 78 and 79.... even after I got the players and monster manuals.... Some of my best characters had intelligence scores of 3-5... Of course they were Dragon Magazine's Berserker class... Of course having an natural 18 (92%) strength helped... and a high dex of 17... "Run Rampant" I miss you...
Ever since I started playing AD&D, in the 90s, we have always rolled 4D6, picked the top 3 dice then assigned to appropriate skills based on the desired character. Later on we started re-rolling the lowest die if a new character was created mid-campaign (usually needed very specific scores for a class or something).
In the Unearthed Arcana supplement to 1st edition, there is a 5th method for stats. It has you start by picking a class and then you roll a number of dice for each stat (keeping the highest 3) based on a table. So for example if you wanted to be an assassin, you would roll 6d6 for strength, 7d6 for intelligence, 4d6 for wisdom, 9d6 for dexterity, 8d6 for constitution, and 3d6 for charisma. It's a really weird method but it basically guarantees your character is good in the areas they need to be. Oh, and in classic 1e fashion, this method is only available if you are playing a human
All hail Mentzer, Editor Supreme and Fixer of Antiquated Systems! Acknowledge Moldvay at your peril!
Make mine Method V: *3d6, then choose between rolled stats or standard array. Afterwards, -2 from one score = +1 to another score, then assign.* Some low scores make for interesting chances to fail forward, plus it makes it easier to design adventures that don't try to one-up PCs. Every other method is for coddled superheroes; you might as well roll 1d4 +14
0:06 Okay, I'm gonna need that spiked caltrop called a d6.
Another method which might have been from the AD&D Unearthed Arcana or 2e DMG was something along the lines of
- Sort ability scores by importance for your class according to a table
- Ability Score 1 (most important): 7d6 drop 4 lowest
- Score 2: 6d6 drop 3 lowest;
- 3: 5d6 drop 2
- 4: 4d6 drop 1
- 5: 4d6 drop 1
- 6: 3d6
I have always done 4D6 drop the lowest, going back to 2e. I did run a 5e campaign where the DM had us roll 1d20 for each stat. I had some really good rolls.
That was a superb jumpcut!
I use three methods, other than standard array, and let my players choose.
5d6, drop the lowest 2 (for more combat focused campaigns)
3d6, no mulligans (for RP heavy campaigns with low combat risk)
4d6, drop the highest (for campaign geared towards to creative problem solving)
However, i have also used a system i came up with while drunk like a shore leave sailor.
Roll 2d20, divide the points, no Ability score can be lower than 5.
It actually worked pretty decently.
My table uses a slightly complicated homebrew mathod. We do 3d6 in order, with a pool of 6 re-rolls to be used as you like. If you choose to re-roll, you must take the new one, and once you move on to the next stat the previous one is final. But, you get to choose what order you roll the stats in prior to beginning your rolls, so that you still can prioritize your most important stats.
In theory I like the idea of the strict methods because sometimes fate can be cruel and sometimes that can be fun but in reality I want more control than that when I'm building a character.
Choosing how I allocate my stats makes me feel like I am choosing how my character will feel during gameplay and that's important to me.
Yeah I think it all comes down to the long terms expectations and investment in the character
The ability method is best for those who don't know what they want to play and let the dice decide. Nothing wrong with that (just have the courage to stick with whatcha got).
7:33 I'd say 'scores rolled are according to' is grammatically correct.
I've made characters with stats between 3d6 in order, to point buy, to 5d6 drop high and low, to 5d6 drop 2 lows.
I played for over a year with a character made on 5d6 drop the lows that had a stat of 4.
In the groups I have belonged to, we use the following: 4d6 re-roll 1's, drop low, begin again if end result is 10 or less. Put numbers where you need them.
The original Gygax method is fun for one-shots. A group I was a part of went through the Tomb of Horrors in 5e, and that’s what we did for our first characters. I played a bard that was optimized for social play, not dungeon exploration, and I lasted longer than the other characters getting about halfway through lol
I started playing in 1980 and I had the original D&D books as well as the AD&D books, so yeah...I remember doing all of these things as..a thing. Still have them, btw. The original 3 D&D books came in a little white box btw (still have that too). They're like stapled pamphlets for the most part. Oh and I also have the D&D Expert edition, which was also a thing. :D
when i started playing in 1977, we rolled not only the characteristics but also their history. so much of it we custom made, and while we bought and used the books lots of gygax stuff we ignored. The challenge of playing what you rolled was part of the fun. all it took was some left field thinking.
roll 4 and drop the worst was often used, but we had other methods.
And yes, intelligence of 3 is a playable character, the player had also rolled 18 for strength, think mongo from blazing saddles, he patted a horse and knocked it unconscious.
If you think that was bad, have a look at the roll up for traveller, you could go through the whole thing and the character could die on the last roll. start again.
I found this interesting way to roll ability scores. You roll 6d6, and label each d6 in some way (such as with letters). Your ability scores would be 12 + A - B, 12 + B - C, and so on. This leads to an ability score total of 72, with each score having a possible range of 7 to 17.
thanks - I always wondered which of these was best but was too lazy to test it myself!
DM Guide: 'As this book is the _exclusive_ precinct of the DM, you must view any non-DM player posessing it as something less than worthy of an honourable death'
Right, that settles it, I've got to get a copy of these 1st edition books. I was around for the period where more than once I read published advice on playing evil characters that amounted to 'Don't, without permission, and also reconsider why you wanted to in the first place' (rather than anything useful, like 'Remember your character is still a member of the adventuring party, and is ideally supposed to have reasons for being there; if they're going to be evil reasons, it may take extra work to get them to line up properly with everyone and everything else')
But no - just throw in random sarcastic incitements to strife and annoyance at the gaming table, and trust that your audience are able to sort it out for themselves. That's _amazing_ and it's going on the 'this is worth your time and effort to source copies of' list right now.
in 1e you were allowed to lower a stat that was rolled "too high" (like cha for half-orcs) in order to qualify for a race or class
I do something different in my games, but with the same motive. Because its VTT players rolls the script of "4d6 drop the lowest, arrange as you want" if they don't like the stats, they reroll ALL OF THEM as long as they want. Campaign's pretty rough, so that's a given.
Just my own method: each player gets 15d6 and 3 cards either between 5 and 8 or 4 and 7 (depending on what power level you want for the campaign). Each player then rolls one stat at a time, declaring what stat the result is before moving in to the next roll. A player can use any number of dice and/or cards they wish for a single stat, but any points above 17 are lost.
It’s a fun little mini game that results in quite balanced characters, choose 5-8 cards for a slightly stronger group of pc’s, and 4-7 for a more average feeling group. Power level is very similar to roll 4d6 drop lowest, but characters almost always end up with at least one weakness, making it much better than that method imo. Also it’s more fun x)
4d6 drop the lowest seems like by far the best of those methods! It gives a nice spread of numbers that you can fit to a character concept without requiring too much rolling and recording results
Our group always liked using the base 10 method and then having points to use with increasing costs as you get higher up. Like most of the computer games use. That way you could be in control of the way your character turned out. I mean you are stuck with them for however many months or years you end up playing.
man, gygax sure said some insane shit huh
Yep! haha
Another way that we would do it was use method of 4 d 6 but roll 6 sets.
Then you would choose either down or across for your 6 stats. So it actually gave you 12 choices.
We used this method for creating a group of mercenaries we hired. So if you hired say 5 or 6 you could choose the ones you wanted to hire from judging by their stats. It worked pretty well for us.
My faves:
"Cheater's Dice: 3d6, but all 1's are counted as 6's. Arrange as desired. Minimum roll of 6, radically boosts the overall spread. Arrange as desired.
6+2d6: The minimum roll is 8, average roll of 13 (for some very "Gygaxian" stats!) Could be adjusted up or down easily. (5+2d6 or 7+2d6, etc.)
But my all-time fave are point-buy systems because most players want to build to suit a concept.
I've been using a custom method for a long time as follows:
Roll 3d6 six times, distribute to the 6 ability scores as desired. then distribute 6 points to the ability scores (maximum of 2 points on any one ability score, cannot be increased higher then 17), than apply racial modifiers.
Use of this method usually results in almost any race class combination desired.
However, since I play with experienced players, I often simply let them choose their ability scores with the understanding that a character is more fun if (s)he has strengths and weaknesses.