Interestingly,the original, "this is just a wargame evolved" rulesets were better at addressing this than either the modern editions or Sawyer's retarded ideas.
In 1e and 2e you were supposed to have mediocre stats be the "norm", the game was not supposed to be balanced around 18s, and even if you thought your fighter sucked ass physically because he was charismatic... fighters get hirelings & entire kingdoms as you level up, so you could quite easily roleplay a popular but not amazing fighter who gets by as a leader rather than a wet works operative.
It's amusing to me that the games that were most closest to the number-crunching origin are the ones that are best focused on the actual roleplay part of the medium. Goddamn does this reality make me hate Sawyer even more. It comes back to the eternal conundrum: is he as fucking stupid as he appears, or is he just pretending?
In original D&D and the later non-advanced D&D versions, characters were supposed to roll attributes using 3d6 in order. However, this ended with AD&D 1st edition, which introduced four new options for rolling attributes, while discarding the 3d6 in order method, and a fifth option was added in the 1985 Unearthed Arcana rulebook. AD&D 2nd edition had six options, including 3d6 in order.
The AD&D 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide had four options for rolling ability scores (Method I was probably the most popular by far), and a fifth was added by Unearthed Arcana:
- 4d6 6 times, drop the lowest die from each result, arrange the six scores as desired
- 3d6 12 times, keep the higher 6 scores, arrange the six scores as desired
- 3d6 6 times for each ability in order, keep the highest score for each ability
- 3d6 in order for 12 characters, keep whichever set of scores the player prefers
- Unearthed Arcana's method, in which class was selected first, following which players would take the best three rolls from a number of dice ranging from 9d6 to 3d6, as specified in a table for that class and each ability (comeliness was introduced as a seventh ability; each class had one ability assigned to each possible number of dice, from 3d6 through 9d6, with the abilities more important for that class receiving a larger number of dice)
The AD&D 2nd edition Player's Handbook had six options for rolling ability scores (Method I is the original D&D method, Method V is AD&D 1st edition's Method I, and Method IV is AD&D 1st edition's Method 2):
- 3d6 for each ability in order
- 3d6 twice for each ability in order, keep the higher score for each ability
- 3d6 6 times, arrange the six scores as desired
- 3d6 12 times, keep the higher 6 scores, arrange the six scores as desired
- 4d6 6 times, drop the lowest die from each result, arrange the six scores as desired
- Roll d6 7 times, add these rolls to a base 8 for each ability score, but each roll must be applied entirely to one ability and no ability can exceed 18
3d6: Mean 10.5, deviation 2.96
4d6, drop lowest die: Mean 12.24, deviation 2.85
3d6 six times for each ability, take highest score: Mean 14.23, deviation 1.77
3d6 twice for each ability, take higher score: Mean 12.18, deviation 2.44
Unearthed Arcana: Mean 13.8, but this varies from 10.5 for the attribute assigned 3d6 to 15.8 for the attribute assigned 9d6