When I ran an old-school D&D (1st edition) game a few years ago, I incentivised the players (come in at 2nd level, full hit points and a simple magic item) to "

When I ran an old-school D&D (1st edition) game a few years ago, I incentivised the players (come in at 2nd level, full hit points and a simple magic item) to "roll straight" (that is, 3d6 for each stat, in order on the character sheet, and play the resulting character) and all but one did so. It made for a very fun game (one of the highlights---the paladin backstabs a (obviously evil) NPC and with the cleric's help, sets fire to a carnival; both are arrested while the thief and magic user help bail them out).