(...)
I truly believe that rolling ability scores is more fun for players, and can create balanced characters with the "risk" of having a few bad stats...
...but, would you believe, that I've never seen a balanced character come to my table with rolled up ability scores? They all presented with above average stats for their characters with usually no bad stats, no negative anything, and at least an 18 score (or maybe two 18 scores) to start. Each and every player! This has even happened when the group is like at 5th level, and a character dies, and a player comes back with a new 5th level character with above average rolled up ability stats. You could say that this is "luck of the dice," but I'm thinking that's not the case...
You see, I want to trust my players. I don't want to accuse them of fudging/lying with their dice rolls, especially when it comes to ability stats. And i don't want to sit and watch them roll up their characters and police them. I'm not the kind of DM who micromanages players characters sheets. I generally trust that when they make their characters at home, they are rolling the dice honestly.
But no one has ever came with a character with like a rolled up ability score of an 8 or something like that. They've all presented with some pretty "lucky" dice rolls...each and every time with each and every character that they make. (...)
Rolling for stats is great fun!
You know what's even more fun?
At session zero, everyone rolls their stats together as a group, and can communicate with each other about who wants to create what (partly based on the scores they've just rolled) and can work together to be part of each other's backstories. (...)
Have them roll in front of you. Don't accept any rolls not seen by you. You'll see plenty of sensible stats then.
Tell them this ahead of time, so they come with concepts and then just deal with the ability scores. Create some minimum floor for a viable character - a minimum value of all their combined stats bonuses that lets them re-roll if they roll terribly.
Our game has a Rogue with two 9's. Another character has three 10's. Another had to re-roll because his first one had two scores with penalties and nothing over 14.
Trust me, you'll get much more realistic scores. And it'll scare off the wrong types of players.
All the above. If it is really your preference to roll stats, as you have stated, you don't really need to give it up. See, having everybody gather together for a session zero to roll stats and create characters is part of the social contract of my gaming table, and always worked out just fine. One important thing though, is to know your players' preferences. If they all are really on board on the idea of rolling stats, they should not oppose to rolling stats in front of the whole table.
So I'm just really thinking that this time, for the new campaign, to disallow rolling the stats.
Do you think this is too harsh?
Do you other DMs police your players?
How should this be handled?
Disallowing rolling may very well be the way you need to go in order to deal with your worries.
It may be a good idea to explain your reasoning for the decision to your players first, to see their reactions.
I would add it is also important to understand your players' preferences and expectations. People who like rolling stats are usually okay about not planning a concept in advance, or are open to playing whatever goes according to stats rolled. I do that, as I was used on the earlier editions to have my options restricted by all sorts racial and class restrictions (which frankly, never bothered me) and I prefer rolling stats. On the other hand, [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION] already did a good resume about why people do not like rolling stats, and if your players are not into the randomness that follows, why push them into that?
See, I really don't get the point of die rolling the character stats.
As [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION] pointed out, the difference between a low rolled character and a high one is significant. As in a level, possibly 2 levels worth of significant.
The difference *may* be significant, but this is not guaranteed. For folks like me, who like rolling stats, there are workarounds for bad stats, for example playing support characters. Just remember, there are people, like me, who enjoys the randomness, and are okay with building their PCs according to whichever luck brought.
There is, of course, the other side of the coin, which is when somebody rolls incredibly high stats, as opposed to incredibly low. This is just anecdotal, but in my table, it is common that when it happens, people feel free to go for unconventional builds (melee evoker who likes to sculpt spells around herself, high DEX and CON to be able to frontline, and warcaster for concentration and to be more sticky with cantrip powered AoO) or more roleplay-driven decisions for stat positioning where stats will be placed less optimally (i.e. a barbarian aspiring to be a leader of men, with higher CHA and INT than CON), or MAD classes and subclasses.
It is also worth noting that around here people most often check out what everybody else is playing, so they can fill any gaps for the group. This alone usually avoids stat envy, as usually nobody is competing directly for the same spotlight. Of course, let's not be naive, sometimes a PC casting a shadow on another happens, but in my experience this is rare enough not to bother us.
So, would die roll fans be okay with this - We all start with standard array, then everyone rolls a d20. The highest roll gets +2 levels. Next up gets +1. Next starts at baseline level (presuming 1st) and lowest gets -1 level (use the effects from Raise Dead until you gain "first" level, 150 xp later).
Would that be considered fair?
Well, here is the thing: for folks that like rolled stats, the resulting differences might not be as drastic as what you are painting, mostly due to different character build methods, as I pointed before. Moreover, two PCs might have very different point total but still be mostly balanced, due to having similar scores on their primary and secondary stats. Finally, when rolling stats, it is not guaranteed that somebody will end up significantly better than somebody else, as your presented method for rolling levels suggests. Even if I would agree with your assertion that the resulting differences are as drastic as to give some player up to 3 levels difference from other, a character creation method to mimic that should look more like a bell curve, where most PCs will fall in the middle and not present significant differences from each other.
1) Roll 2d6+5 5 times.
2) Sum those values, and subtract them from 75.
3) If a value is higher than 17, change it to 17 and add the excess to the lowest stat.
4) If a value is lower than 7, change it to 7 and subtract the difference from the highest stat.
5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 until all values are between 7 and 17, and the sum of all 6 values should be 75.
Change boundary conditions (7 and 17), total sum (75), or dice rolling method (2d6+5) to taste.
Even though I like the traditional 4d6k3 method, I really enjoyed this option, and now I want to try it in my next campaign. Kudos for you!
