D&D General Some Interesting Stats About D&D Players!

The full cover spread for Phandelver and Below, by Antonio José Manzanedo​

GeekWire has reported on the recent D&D press event (which I've covered elsewhere). Along with all the upcoming product information we've all been devouring over the last day or two, there were some interesting tidbits regarding D&D player demographics.

• 60% of D&D players are male, 39% are female, and 1% identify otherwise
• 60% are “hybrid” players, who switch between playing the game physically or online
• 58% play D&D on a weekly basis
• 48% identify as millennials, 19% from Generation X and 33% from Generation Z
• The majority of current D&D players started with 5th Edition

 

[Minigiant]

Why wouldn't Gen-X outnumber Boomers, though? GenX is exactly the right age to have discovered D&D in their early teens (as most people do) because it existed then, and Boomers were already older. The game was invented by Boomers, but the game itself had its very first BOOM with GenX. And it's had more booms since then.

I can't imagine why it would be a surprise that Boomers, while certainly playing the game, would be a minority. And a small one. Doesn't mean they're not welcome!

I'm not saying the Boomer outnumber Gen Xers in D&D. I said that Boomers outnumbered Xer in real life.

So that even with them being adults in the first D&D boom, they should still be above 0.9% as many of them are still alive.

 

[Oofta]

Wait five years. We are at the start of a steep decline in Baby Boomer numbers.

OK. So what?

Let's say you are 100% correct on everything. So what?

What would you like WotC to do differently because of it?

Create a disco-themed campaign set in Greyhawk? New iconic characters including a half-elf who drives a Trans Am? Drop more references to Ronald Reagan and Back to the Future into the Forgotten Realms?

Dang. Now I want to play an artificer that has a talking Trans Am named Kit. Human artificer of course, but not sure I could pull off the hair.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm not saying the Boomer outnumber Gen Xers in D&D. I said that Boomers outnumbered Xer in real life.

So that even with them being adults in the first D&D boom, they should still be above 0.9% as many of them are still alive.

I don't follow what you're saying then. The "less than 1%" statistic is talking about playing D&D, not existing or being alive in real life. One does not directly affect the other.

 

[codo]

So that even with them being adults in the first D&D boom, they should still be above 0.9% as many of them are still alive.

Many of them are also not alive anymore also. It has 50 years. If you started playing D&D is 1974 at 26 years old you basically have a 50 percent chance of being dead now. Life expectance is the U.S. is only 76.4 years now.

 

[Dire Bare]

I don't follow what you're saying then. The "less than 1%" statistic is talking about playing D&D, not existing or being alive in real life. One does not directly affect the other.

I get what you're saying, but . . . . being dead does kinda affect your continued playing of the game . . . .



EDIT: Well, unless there is a God, and they are good, and have D&D clubs up in Heaven . . . .

 

[Oofta]

I don't expect they care. That would be mighty arrogant of me. But they are misrepresenting themselves and I won't let it go unchallenged.

You challenging them by making claims you can't possibly back up with any verifiable data on a forum they likely don't care about? What is that supposed to change?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I get what you're saying, but . . . . being dead does kinda affect your continued playing of the game . . . .



EDIT: Well, unless there is a God, and they are good, and have D&D clubs up in Heaven . . . .

Right. Being dead does mean that you're (probably) not playing D&D, but being alive does not mean that you are playing D&D. I think I worded that right this time!

 

[Parmandur]

that is true for any edition, I would have assumed the ration for 1e and 2e is about the same, so 2e selling half the copies but having more players starting with it is odd to me


if this is from WotC directly (and not something the article misinterpreted) then yes, it shows that 3e and 4e were struggling

Well, here's the exact verbiage from the article:

"According to Wizards’ surveys, the player population recently crossed a point where the majority of current D&D plans are those who started playing the game with the fifth edition. Previously, the most popular version of D&D was still the second edition, published in 1989. (“We actually built fifth edition as a follow-up to second edition,” Crawford said at the panel.)"

 

[Micah Sweet]

TikTok, which barely gets a mention on this site.

Yeah, I barely know what Tik Tok is, and I'm fine with that. I don't even use YouTube anymore except for how-to videos.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't follow what you're saying then. The "less than 1%" statistic is talking about playing D&D, not existing or being alive in real life. One does not directly affect the other.

Actually, its talking about WotC customers who responded to their survey.