This post originally appeared on Prismatic Wasteland on Feb. 5, 2021. If you had made me guess when this was published, I would have guessed much more recently, just because it is sort of a quintessential sort of thing I would post, isn’t it. A notable behind-the-scenes fact about this one is that for a while the url was just a jumble of random letters, which I later fixed, but it will always appear as a small anomaly in my analytics when I try to search for what posts of mine have drawn the most disembodied eyeballs from across the web.
People have strong opinions on the ideal method for generating stats. Strong enough that when I absent-mindedly tweeted “When rolling up stats, do y’all prefer 3d6, 4d6 drop lowest, or some other more baroque method?” after discussing the question with my players, I was bombarded (from the perspective of an account with a modest following) with enthusiastic responses. I hope no one expects scientific rigor from tweets reported on an RPG blog, but if you do, have a salt shaker handy as I report my scientific findings and then muse on why I use 3d6-in-order (with some baroque tweaks).
4d6 drop lowest is incredibly popular. The donut above is a bit misleading because I categorized any response other than 3d6 or 4d6-drop-lowest as “baroque,” which we will see is a thoroughly Balkanized category. 4d6’s ubiquity was, however, unsurprising. As @Unenthuser stated, it is ideal “[f]or a ‘zero to hero’ game where you’re expected to spend a substantial amount of time with a single character.” Or, more simply put by @ifrit80541, it “makes some beefy boys.” When discussing 4d6-drop-lowest, it seemed to be assumed that players would assign the results to their stats. I did not see any advocates for 4d6-in-order.
Baroque methods are fun and inventive. The methods by which people roll up characters are endless. Some are really cool ideas, like the “18d6” method suggested by @BrianBinh. In this method, you roll 18d6 then assign 3 dice to each stat. I really like this method because it achieves two philosophical goals of rolling stats: choice and chance. It is random in that you are rolling 18d6 (such a gratifying feeling to roll so many d6s at once, a feeling any high-level rogue can appreciate) but the player gets to choose what stats to put them in. Do they put all the 6s into one stat and leave the others lower or do they try to build a well-rounded character? Another honorable mention is the method suggested by @miraleaps: “I normally like waiting until the moon is at its peak and then using the entrails of a sacrifice to determine stat array.” This method wisely eschews the false dichotomy of choice-vs-chance in favor of the far superior cosmic fate.
3d6-in-order is unfairly maligned. Not only were there fewer 3d6 responses than I expected, they also elicited responses like “3d6 in order?! What monster requires that... Thats a recipe to play a class not a character” (sic). Even those who chose 3d6-in-order playfully acknowledged that it was the hard-nosed option. As one commenter said “3d6 in order, or else rocks fall and everyone dies!” For me, these criticisms of 3d6-in-order fall short.
3d6-in-order vs 4d6-drop-lowest is a philosophical difference. 3d6-in-order isn’t just some hard-mode for D&D-inspired games. It merely reflects a different approach to characters than the more popular 4d6-drop-lowest method. This approach is born from the choice-vs-chance dichotomy. 4d6-drop-lowest allows player choice (while still retaining random chance). The idea is that you don’t have any terrible stats and you get to choose which stats get which scores. 3d6-in-order maximizes random chance. It’s just a product of rolling the dice. 3d6 isn’t, however, “a recipe to play a class not a character.” It is a different relationship between player and character. With 4d6-drop-lowest, the player builds their character. This is ideal for players who come to the table with a character concept in mind. With 3d6-in-order, the player discovers their character. This is ideal for players who get a thrill out of emergent gameplay.
The Prismatic Wasteland (my nascent system-cum-setting) prescribes 3d6-in-order, with a twist. I am first and foremost of the view that characters should be created together, at the table, during session zero. That way the rest of the players get to know your character at the same time you do. I have a whole set of session zero procedures, inspired largely by Perilous Wilds and Freebooters on the Frontier, that assist in this that maybe I’ll discuss in another blog post. But the bottomline is that I greatly discourage players from rolling up characters at home, unless it’s for the pure joy of rolling dice (guilty). To generate stats in the Prismatic Wasteland, all players generate an array of stats by rolling 3d6-in-order. This includes the GM, they are a player too. Here is the twist. All such arrays are then placed in the center of the table (or are in a screen-shared spreadsheet if being played virtually) and non-GM players take turns picking score and their associated stat in snake draft order. Because the GM also rolled an array, this has the effect of rerolling the lowest stat. It also is a balance of chance and choice while adding in an element of collective play. This results is an array of unselected stats. The GM is urged to take these and let them inform a character that exists somewhere in the Prismatic Wasteland, perhaps harboring an unspecified, cosmic grudge against the Heroes for reasons they can’t explain. This character is likely incredibly flawed, but I love the idea of this highly incompetent enemy simply existing somewhere in the world. It’s a bit of fun for me.
You should use whatever method you and your group find most fun. Whether you want to build your character or discover your character, you should discuss the stat-generation method with your group and come up with a consensus. With so many options, there is bound to be one that is exactly what you are looking for.
Playing randomly generated characters is way more interesting than obsessing over character "builds", which tends to lead to min/maxing and conversations that sounds like gibberish, "oh, you made a dark snark urban barbarian with snipe and dribble? You should of went with a cerulean jango tunnel wizzord with flicker and stain, because they're better at botchie when they have super ambush during a skirmish level 4."
creating characters as a group totally makes more sense than the gamer trying to shoe in their optimized PC, that they spent a week making at home, into a party.
Whatever the case I'll always prefer rolling dice than point-buy systems. 18d6 sounds fun as hell and the last idea with the GM also rolling is intriguing. I'm gonna try these two.