D&D 5E D&D Beyond Releases 2023 Character Creation Data

D&D Beyond released the 2023 Unrolled with data on the most popular character choices for D&D. The full article includes a wide variety of statistics for the beta test of Maps, charity donations, mobile app usage, and more. However, I’m just going to recap the big numbers.

The most common species chosen by players are Human, Elf, Dragonborn, Tiefling, and Half-Elf. This contrasts with the stats from Baldur’s Gate 3 released back in August 2023 where Half-Elves were the most popular with the rest of the top five also shuffling around.

Also, keep an eye on the scale of these charts as they’re not exactly even. It starts with just over 700,000 for Humans and 500,000 for Elf, but the next line down is 200,000 with the other three species taking up space in that range. This means the difference separating the highest line on the graph and the second highest is 200,000, then 300,000 between the next two, 100,000 between the next, and finally 10,000 separating all the others.

Top classes start off with the Fighter then move onto the Rogue, Barbarian, Wizard, and Paladin. The scale on this chart is just as uneven as the last, but the numbers are much closer with what appears to be about 350,000 Fighters at the top to just over 100,000 Monks in next-to-last with under 80,000 Artificers. This contrasts far more from the Baldur’s Gate 3 first weekend data as the top five classes for the game were Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock, Rogue, and Bard.

And the most important choices for new characters, the names. Bob is still the top choice for names with Link, Saraphina, and Lyra seeing the most growth and Bruno, Eddie, and Rando seeing the biggest declines from last year.

Putting that together, it means the most commonly created character on D&D Beyond is Bob the Human Fighter. A joke going as far back as I can remember in RPGs is, in fact, reality proven by hard statistics.

 

[Minigiant]

that'll be our next stage of evolution 10,000 years from now......Humanity hasn't seen that ever.....

My bones will be soil or I'd discover lichdom before we see this.
The best we could hope is for the fans of stuff to be the designers of the stuff.
Like if during an RPG playtest, you could only give feedback on 2 species and 2 classes on the first few surveys. So only the fans with strong opinions on something drive the core design.

This might bring up the popularity and satisfaction of the bottom races/classes.

 

[Hussar]

This might bring up the popularity and satisfaction of the bottom races/classes.

Heh. Suggest replacing the bottom races with something that might get more traction and watch the reaction.

 

[Minigiant]

Heh. Suggest replacing the bottom races with something that might get more traction and watch the reaction.

I know. I know.

1. Add Orc to PHB
   1. Green, Gray, and Brown (Half) as lineage
2. Add Goliath to PHB
3. Add Assmar to PHB
   1. Protector, Scourge, Fallen as lineage
4. Add Genasi to DMG as example to create species
   1. Air, Earth, Fire, Water as Lineage
5. Drop Halfling
6. Drop Gnome
7. Add Goblin to replace shorties

 

[Hussar]

Good luck with that. Although, I'd probably add kobold in there as instead of goblin

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This might bring up the popularity and satisfaction of the bottom races/classes.

The popularity of races doesn't matter. They are there for people who want to use them, and people who don't don't care.

 

[Yaarel]

There will, of course, be Half-Elves in 2024. The update affects its stats. The Half-Elf can use either the Human chassis or the Elf chassis. The update also allows any kind of multispecies mix, such as Dwarf-Elf.

I like this miscibility alot. It is great for Norsesque concepts where individuals often have ancestries from more than one species, and occasionally, one species member can become an other species.

I notice, when one combines the DnDBeyond stats for Elf and Half-Elf, the Elf is far more popular that the Human. Then also add the stats for the Eladrin, Shadar-Kai, Sea Elf, Astral Elf, etcetera for the popularity of the Elf in all its ethnic diversity.

I am glad the Elf concept is still doing well, even while the species demographics are shifting during 5e. I welcome aboard the Dragonborn, which I love. Heh, even the Tiefling which I look askance at.

In 2024, the Orc format will include the Half-Orc. I expect the Orc merge to remain comparable in popularity with the Halfling.

The Halfling seems to be holding its own in popularity, despite its many critics, heh including me. My main difficulty with the Halfling is, it is too much like a normal Human from a pygmy ethnicity, whose average height is roughly 4 feet, but whose individuals can be closer toward 3 feet. At the same time, I recognize the reallife 3-ish feet tall prehistoric Homo florensiensis is a separate hominid species. It even has proportionally large feet and hands. It is plausible to understand a nonmagical Halfling species to be something like the floriensis, tho I wish D&D supplies a meaningful stat to somehow distinguish this species from the Human species. Making short people a separate species is problematic. In any case, the Halfling remains popular. 2024 will grant the choice to build a Halfling or a Small Human with a Lucky background.

I love Elemental themes, and am happy with the popularity of the Genasi, including its ethnicities specific to each element. I feel the stats for the Genasi need more work, including the ability to fully become the respective Element, like an Elemental Wildshaping to actually become watery liquid, airy gas, etcetera.

Due to its popularity, I hope to see the Genasi in the 2024 Players Handbook, despite WotC having never mentioned the possibility.

I love the Gnome and hope it continues to hang in there among the top ten.

The Goliath is the tenth popular species, not counting the merged Half-Elf. I expect the Goliath to continue gaining popularity after it is available in the 2024 Players Handbook.

I want the Orc, Goliath, and even the Human to have a possibility of being Large Size, over 8 feet tall. Possibly Strength and-or Constitution is a prerequisite. The Large Size should be a tag that has no mechanics in itself, but other mechanics might refer to it. There can be feats that grant benefits, like extended reach and heavier damage, to a character meeting the Large Size prereq.

Aasimar is the eleventh species in popularity (without counting the Half Elf separately). Because the Fiend Tiefling is so popular, being fourth, and the Celestial Aasimar is a counterpart, I hope the Aasimar will make it into the 2024 Players Handbook. The Aasimar is to the Angel, as the Tiefling is to the Fiend. These are the Astral species, Celestial and Fiend respectively.

The origins of the Tiefling according to the UAs is something like the following, if one forgives the interpretation. Fiends created Tieflings by means of Fiendish magic. The Tieflings are native to the various Fiend dominions. This creation exhibits humanity, including freewill, thus has the Humanoid creature type. Pretty much immediately, the creations rebelled against their inhumane creators. Most of the Tieflings fled the Astral realms, including to materialize into the flesh and blood of the Material Plane. But there are still Tieflings who inhabit their native Fiend realms. Some but not all of these natives choose to behave inhumanly like their creators.

I hope the 2024 Aasimar has flexible features to represent the archetypes of the different Celestial realms. Traditionally, the Aasimars derive from LG Mount Celestia, but also reside elsewhere like NG (or TG, True Good) Elysium. Technically, the Tabaxi species is a kind of Aardling which is a kind of Aasimar that is native to the GCG Beastland. Aasimar traits might make it possible for a player to build a Tabaxi or other animal form using the Aasimar traits, as well as other kinds of angelic beings. Encouraging the Aasimar species to exhibit a wide range of appearances − humanlike, elementlike, or animallike − can help represent the various angelic beings of the G alignment realms. What was the old school 2e "Eladrin" of CG Arborea is in 5e a kind of Angel. It is unclear if the 5e Eladrin which is the Feywild native, also includes populations who are native to CG Arborea, or if there is an Eladrin-like Aasimar there. In any case, the Aasimar concept and its many versions needs a diversity of appearances and abilities to help represent this.

Heh, I hope 2024 officially spells the name of the species, Awesimar (or Awsomer), so as to avoid the giggles at assy-mar.


Because the Genasi ranks higher than the official Gnome and Goliath which will be in the Players Handbook, and because the Tiefling and Aasimar are counterparts, these DnDBeyond stats for the "most popular" species, might in fact be a hint at what we will see in the 2024 Players Handbook.

In other words, the options for Genasi, Aasimar, an Aarakocra might be in the Players Handbook, among the others that will be.

Re the Aarakocra, I dislike full flight at level 1. But there are ways to make winged flight balance, even at level 1. If flight is available at level 1 in a way that doesnt cause the DM headaches, I am all for it. Notice that one can use the Aarakocra to represent ANY kind of bird: eagle, crow, raven, humingbird, parrot, stork, swan, etcetera. What were earlier Owlin and Kenku might merge in to become ethnicities of the 2024 Aarakocra species.

I expect 2024 to include an option to customize ones own species. I am unsure if this Custom species will be in the Players Handbook or in the DMs Guide as a variant rule. If in the DMs Guide, it is anyway a situation that "both you and your DM agree on" it. But in either book I hope normal games see heavy use of the Custom species option.

 

[Minigiant]

The popularity of races doesn't matter. They are there for people who want to use them, and people who don't don't care.

Yeas it does.

The more popular bonus races deserve a chance with the less popular legacies.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeas it does.

The more popular bonus races deserve a chance with the less popular legacies.

What do you mean by "a chance"? All a race needs to exist is a stat block.

 

[Oofta]

What do you mean by "a chance"? All a race needs to exist is a stat block.

I agree, I don't understand why people care what is more popular. I like certain races more than others, but it doesn't really matter if that Tabaxi I played is a minority of all races others run.

It's interesting information, but beyond that? Eh.

 

[Minigiant]

What do you mean by "a chance"? All a race needs to exist is a stat block.

Tell that to the "no new x no new y. Don't put stuff in the PHB" crowd that WOTC used to cater heavily to.