Love of Character

Let's take a moment and talk about 3d6 in order.  This was the procedure that began with writing down the character's six stats, usually in the order of Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con and Chr.  (I don't play this order, because early in my gaming it became clear that by separating the two stats that began with 'C,' new players were able to distinguish them more easily).

Then, the player roll 3d6 and wrote the number down next to strength.  The next roll was written next to intelligence, and so on down the list.  Thus the player was subject to a very rigid system in determining realistically what class could be played ... and commonly, with classes that had high stat requirements, like the paladin, a player had to be very, very lucky to get a set of results that enabled that class to be taken.

I have never used this method.  I have never had a player ask me to play this method, or express any disappointment at this method not being used.  But let me explain my position, nonetheless, because I know that 3d6 was a thing, and may still be a thing, with some people.

Three six-sided dice will produce 216 possible combinations.  If we imagine the dice lined up next to each other, then it needs to be understood that 3-6-4, 6-3-4 and 4-6-3 are all different combinations, even if they all add up to 13.  There are, in total, 21 combinations that add up to 13.  There are 25 that will produce a 12, 27 that will produce either an 11 or a 10, 25 that will produce a 9 and 21 that will produce an 8.  Altogether, there are 146 combinations out of 216 that produce a number between 8 and 13.  That's 68%.

In traditional, Old D&D, the numbers 8 to 13 next to a stat mean next to nothing.  There were no ability checks in the game rules, the range won't give you a bonus to your "to hit" or your damage, it won't give you a wisdom bonus against charm spells, it won't add to your hit points.  If you're a mage in AD&D, the range makes some difference in your spells list, but not an especially significant one.  In any case, if a number less than 12 showed up next to your intelligence, you'd have been a bad player to decide being a mage was a good idea anyway.

In truth, you need a 15 or better in AD&D to have any stat make a significant difference to your character.  The total number of combinations in 3d6 that will produce a 15 or better is 20 of 216.  9.3%.  Not even 1 in 10.

Thus, your chance that any stat you roll in six 3d6 rolls being above 15 is only 56%.  Slightly better than 1 in 2.  Stick a pin in this.

Because 3d6 are being rolled, the chances of you getting a number less than 7 is precisely the same as you getting one above 14.  This means that for every meaningful character stat, one that could make an actual positive difference to game play, there's an equal possibility of a stat that provides a negative penalty against game play.  It's true that this sounds like balance ... but it's not a balance when there is a 56% chance of your character having one stat less than 7, AND a very good possibility of having one negative stat, and NO positive stats at all.  The reverse of this situation is eagerly anticipated, while the converse is, well ... shit.

It's often said that players who roll bad characters will suicide by monster, which is sometimes presented as a "fix" for the 3d6 system and sometimes shamed as "bad play."  I consider the argument immaterial.  The bad characters are not the real problem.  The real problem can be found in the good characters.

Using the 3d6 system, there is a 1 in 216 chance (0.46%) of rolling an 18 ... three sixes.  When this is done, the character having succeeded is awarded by vastly overpowered benefits in the case of strength, and moderately improved benefits in dexterity and constitution.  NO significant powered benefit in Old D&D is given to an 18 that occurs with intelligence, wisdom or charisma.  This means, even IF you roll an 18, you have a 50% chance of that 18 being wasted on a stat it doesn't help.  But if you roll that 18 on strength, then you have the benefit of being three times more powered as a fighter and combatant than a character with a 17.

A player with a charisma of 17 is very nearly as charismatic as one with 18.  As far as needing to be a paladin, either a 17 or an 18 will get you the ticket that lets you BE a paladin ... but the 18 is really wasted.  It might as well be a 17, for all the good it does.

The problem is that whomever rolls an 18 in a set of players, who happens to roll it next to strength, wins a bullshit lottery that puts to shame every other character round the table.  Since most of the stats that everyone rolls are essentially useless, and everything between a 7 and a 14 provides NO meaningful survival benefits (81% of stats), the 3d6 method demonstrates only that the original ability statistics design was a shitty, shitty rule set.  They only work now because we've found ways in the last 40 years to lend additional meaning to stats of every amount ... but that meaning did not originate with the arrival of AD&D in 1979.

Now, 4d6.

By rolling 4d6 and discarding the lowest die, we produce 1296 possible combinations.  The chance of rolling a 3, which can only occur by rolling four 1s, is 1 in 1296.  But the chances of producing an 18 by this method, where the lowest die might be a 3, a 5 or a 2, is 21 in 1296.  That's a 1.62% chance that any given throw will be an 18.  That's almost four times the chance of rolling an 18 over the 3d6 method, with 9.72% of all characters rolled at the table having at least one 18.

Using the same Old D&D rules regarding adjustments produced by ability stats, this increases the chance of a character having at least one stat of 15 or better.  There is a 300 in 1296 chance of doing so ... or 23.1% of any stat doing so.  This makes 15 or better stats far more common throughout the collection of player characters ... importantly reducing the excessive value bestowed upon a very unlikely but inevitably occurring 18 in the 3d6 method.  Because more characters have more 15s, 16s and 17s, the 18 is devalued.  That makes it LESS a game breaker when it occurs ... especially when there's a fair chance that two players at the table will have one.

Now, getting rid of the roll-in-order expectation.

IF the players can choose where to put their 15s, 16s, 17s and 18s, this diminishes the special importance of the character who happens to roll an 18 with their first roll.  He or she feels no special responsibility to be a fighter and make use of that 18 where FATE dictates, and can instead be the character class he or she wishes to be.  This means that any fighter with an 18 can be looked at by another player with the thought, "I could have put my 18 there if I'd wanted, but I'd rather be a mage."  Or a paladin, or whatever.  Less resentment, therefore; a greater personal sense of connection with the character; happier players all around.  AND the essentially broken ability stats system as it existed originally is smoothed out considerably at a time when other fixes were not yet conceived.

I have made the point repeatedly with my character background generator that a player ought not to be able to choose a character's birthplace, parentage, social status and class, or skill-sets that the player learns as a child.  My only exception in this is that I allow the player to choose the character's sex.  That is because, realistically, it would be stupidly obtuse in this day and age not to recognise that many people will never be comfortable or encouraged to play a sex that they do not feel able to play.  I'm not stupidly obtuse, so I don't insist on this.

That said, a character's class IS something that the character LOGICALLY should be able to choose.  Before the character can become that class, he or she must raise the money for the necessary training, and then as a fully-functioning teenager and afterwards an adult (as some classes require more than a decade of training), that person must WANT to work and train and pass tests and overcome shortcomings in order to be that class.  If the character didn't want it, then the character would never have excelled in the trainer's expectations ... and thus, would never have been that character class.

Thus, it's reasonable to ask the player to suffer not having parents, or having been raised as a poor street urchin in a whorehouse, or accept that when they were 5, they accidentally got a limb caught in a mill-wheel and had it torn off ... because the character's intelligence isn't that high and hell, the character was only five.  But it is stupidly obtuse to tell the player that his or her character became a fighter because there was no chance of spending years studying books to raise his or her wisdom, or years in the wilderness learning about plants and animals, or years cheating and killing people on the street while increasing his or her reaction time.

See, here's the thing.  That baby there might someday have an 18 strength, but when it's a baby, it's strength is 1.  And the argument exists, does the adult have the 18 strength because the baby was destined to have one, or is it because the baby slowly gained a point of strength every other year until it was 11, and then it began training as a fighter.  Because I think it's the training the baby, later the child, got ... and not the bones or the blood or the speed the baby had as a baby.  Maybe those things helped.  But without the training, there's zero chance that whatever the baby starts with is going to become an 18.  18s are not born.  Like with Olympic athletes, 18s are made.  Just as my intelligence was made with conversations I had with my father, who continually challenged my logic until I went out and found smarter people than my father.  Just as my wisdom was built with books and experience and not my mother's womb.  Just as my charisma was born from my empathy and not my wavy black thick hair (which is now salt-and-pepper).  We are not designed by our attributes!  Our attributes start off as little stubs, that have ever possibility of remaining stubs if they're not fed practice, direction and effort.

Thus, I let players be the characters they want.  Thus I let players organise their ability scores.  And thus I further insist that if the player does not roll at least one 15 AND one 16, or otherwise at least one 17, then all the rolls are scrapped and the player starts again.  As many times as it takes.  Because a player deserves more than a character who "happens" to be what it is.

A player deserves a character that can be fallen in love with.