3D6 Bell Curve Adjusted to 2D6 Range

From time to time, the discussion comes up about Traveller using only two dice. This can be rather troublesome to players when generating their character, since no one wants a strength value of 2, or an intelligence value of 2, or anything with a value of 2 in it.

But what if a 2D6 dieroll could be converted to a bell curve shape like a 3D6 produces? Things that make you go "hmmmm."

Using this dataset of 16 numbers [-5, -4, -3, -2, -2, -1, -1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5], a Traveller player could roll a 3D6 and subtract 2 from it. So a roll of 3 would be pointing to -5 in the dataset. And a roll of 18 would be pointing to 5 in the dataset. The number that is being pointed to is the amount the player adds to the number 7. So -5 + 7 = 2. And 5 + 7 = 12.

This would just be used when rolling for characteristics during character generation. It would not be used for skill rolls.

An Alternate Die Roll for Traveller Character Generation

An alternate method to rolling attributes for a Traveller character (similar to Method I used in AD&D) is to roll 3D6 and remove the lowest die from the roll for each attribute. This reduces the chance of rolling a 2 for an attribute.