Dice Rolling, Character Creation and Bonus Inflation

I've been reading some interesting articles on character generation and the bonus increases from 0e onwards. As Philotomy wrote in his post, OD&D characters don't need high rolls. In later editions the bonus became bigger at the upper range of atributes, so to does the drive for exceptional rolls when making a character. Many DMs will say "suck it up and play." Indeed, that is part of role play; to play the rolls you get. Back in the day everyone expected to play a weak wizard, or clumsy cleric, etc. But should we really force players to take characters with multiple bad rolls?

I have come around to the "low bonus" way of thinking, and it is changing how I think about classes. In S&W there are very few stat based bonuses that go beyond +2. Notably, the Fighter's Parry modifier for AC and maximum spells for Magic-Users. Making more of the rolls based on class or level rather than atribute will negate the need for great scores. Obviously, if the atribute bonus is minimal the players can worry less about getting good rolls.

Still this raises the question of how to roll up a new character. I think Lord Kilgore makes an interesting point when he says, 'it's easier to change character creation than to change the bonus structure.' With all the OSR blogs I'm surprised that the ways we used to roll up characters are no longer even mentioned. They aren't as limiting as roll 3d6 in order, but still don't hand the player 18s for everything. So here are some old school character generation rules from way back...

3d6, Reroll 1s
This was probably the most common way to do it and it has an interesting effect on the bell curve. Unlike, 4d6 and toss the lowest, this has no effect on the high end of the spectrum. However, it does push up the low end, effectively making the range 6-18 for players. Either roll in order or roll and assign will work. I usually go with roll and assign, mainly to let the players choose their class.

Roll 2 Characters
A real classic, have each player roll up 2 characters with straight 3d6 in order. You let the player choose which one to use. In exceptionally dangerous campaigns you can have the unused character become an NPC henchman.

Roll (3d6)x7, Toss the Lowest
Another very common system was to make an extra atribute roll. The player uses the highest 6 rolls for the atributes and assigns them at the end. Might be able to use this with a roll in order system and replace a score of your choosing with the last one.

Note that none of these were used with the 1-for-2 point buying system.