It doesn’t look like that many people are rolling their stats in D&D anymore. And maybe that’s a good thing.

There are three ways to roll your ability scores in Dungeons & Dragons. For the longest time, the only way to do it was to roll three D6s for each ability and then assign them as you saw fit. This system, although fun, was somewhat… let’s say “random.” It meant that you might end up with a 5 intelligence or an 18 dexterity, making your character building options somewhat limited. And there was always the chance that you could just roll entirely low numbers and be forced to play with a truly awful character.

Over the years, many home rules were adopted to get around that problem of randomness, including rolling four dice and using the best three, or simply rolling seven times and using the best six rolls. But everything was still very random, which meant it was hard to design for a game where one character might have much higher or lower stats than their party mates.

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In D&D 5e, that finally changed. The point buy system was introduced that allocated ability scores based on a limited resource–points. Pumping one ability score sky-high meant that other scores had to suffer, and you had to rely on your race and class’s intrinsic bonuses to make up for it. This meant that every adventurer has roughly equal stats and every adventure starts off on the right foot.

According to the latest data from D&D Beyond, fewer and fewer people are rolling their stats using the traditional method. Of D&D Beyond’s 23 million users, 27.7% use the traditional rolling method, while 24% use the new point buy system. That might seem like more people are using the old method than the new one, but the majority of D&D Beyond users actually use manual input at 48.2%.

Manual is sort of a catch-all term for when someone inputs their stats outside of the usual two methods of creating ability scores. This might mean that players are using one of the variant methods of rolling stats, or they’re using larger point pools for point buying. Or it might mean they have an entirely different method of acquiring stats outside of these options.

Either way, the trend is clear: fewer and fewer people are rolling stats, and that’s a good thing. It means that games can be fair and balanced without any party member feeling over or underpowered.

Source: D&D Beyond on Twitch, Bell of Lost Souls