D&D 5E The Fall Of The Dwarves: What Races Do People Actually Play?

What races are people actually playing, and how much of it is Tolkien fantasy as against other stuff?

Fortunately D&D Beyond provides a better source of data than we've ever had. The most recent data from less than a week ago in December 2020 alas does not provide percentages.

1. Human
2. Half-Elf
3. Dragonborn
4. Tiefling
5. Half-Orc

In February 2019, using stats found via this very site:

1. Human
2. Variant Human
3. Half Elf
4. Tiefling
5. Dragonborn
6. Wood Elf
7. High Elf
8. Half-Orc
9. Goliath
10. Mountain Dwarf
11. Lightfoot Halfling
12. Hill Dwarf

Which is a bit of a change from what people were creating in launch month for D&D Beyond (mid 2017)

1. Human
2. Elf
3. Half-Elf
4. Dwarf
5. Tiefling
6. Dragonborn
7. Genasi
8. Halfling
9. Half-Orc
10. Gnome
11. Goliath

The percentages are presented in different ways in 2019 and the launch month, with launch month merging the various subraces. So to compare like with like:

• Wood elves and high elves taken together in the 2019 data are more popular than half-elves (or variant humans)
• Meanwhile if we split the wood elves and high elves from 2017 they are probably both behind tieflings and dragonborn
• Dwarves taken together in 2019 are only just behind dragonborn. They've still fallen from ahead of tieflings and dragonborn to behind them
• Halflings combined in 2019 are neck and neck with half-orcs and ahead of goliaths
• Genasi combined in 2019 are a little behind goliaths and slightly ahead of combined gnomes

Interesting that dwarves have fallen so heavily out of favour - and half orcs have climbed so strongly into favour; I guess there's been a lot of talk here. The thematics of tieflings and dragonborn (entirely unsurprisingly IMO) have made them core races and even the dwarfs are disappearing in favour of half-orcs (which IMO is a surprise).

 

[JiffyPopTart]

If anyone is keeping a tally, in 5e I have made....

V. Human Rogue/GOO Tomelock
Wood Elf Kensai Monk
Water Genasi Tempest Cleric
Lizardfolk Storm Sorcerer
Hill Dwarf Arcana Cleric
Mountain Dwarf Fiendish Bladelock

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Okay, that was actually not terrible.

Yeah, I was very much thinking the whole time, "This has the potential to blow up in my face SPECTACULARLY if I'm anything less than puissant with circumspect scruples." Starbound could also do things like take inspiration from can-pass-for-human aliens like Kryptonians or Gallifreyans. I spent easily half an hour trying to come up with anything else that wouldn't have Horrifically Unacceptable Implications and came up empty, which was somewhat disappointing as it broke the otherwise rather nice "every folk has 4 options" symmetry. (I also moved away from using the word race and used "folk" instead; human is the colloquial term, with the "formal" term being wanderfolk, because humans, more than any other folk, are unable to just stay wherever it is they're from. It's both part of why there are Starbound humans--because proudly reaching beyond the circles of the world is just such a gosh darned human thing to do--and why humans do so often build great nations or empires.)

 

[TwoSix]

Were I to write the race options for 6e, halfling and gnome would be merged into a single race, probably stealing the FR term and calling them "hinnfolk." They'd loosely be arranged by how they prefer to live: lightfoot halflings prefer a purely above-ground, plains-ranging life; stronghearts prefer the settled and partly-underground life like Bilbo; rock gnomes live underground primarily but near the surface; deep gnomes prefer to live, well, deep and rarely if ever come to the surface. You could probably merge ghostwise halflings and forest gnomes outright, since they're both reclusive, magic-wielding, usually forest-dwelling. Maybe have them be even further divorced from the land than others by primarily living in trees; you don't need massive trees to have a stable village if you're a halfling/gnome-sized person!

But then again if I were in charge of races for a hypothetical future D&D, I'd also actually make human subrace options, so maybe I'm crazy!

Totally on board with these ideas. Sadly, I think any attempt to make the races/folk more coherent that would result in the loss of any existing option (even if it's folded into another race) wouldn't fly with the player base at large. Remember gnomes getting delayed in 4e?

 

[Zardnaar]

Totally on board with these ideas. Sadly, I think any attempt to make the races/folk more coherent that would result in the loss of any existing option (even if it's folded into another race) wouldn't fly with the player base at large. Remember gnomes getting delayed in 4e?

The AD&D races would not cut, probably wouldn't do Dragonborn or Tieflings either.

Races don't use up much room anyway. Would keep optional tags.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

They delved too greedily, and too deep. You know what they awoke in the caverns below D&D Next ...

 

[Weiley31]

Dragonborn are an easy fix: Use the Wildemount variants and change their breath weapons where it uses Cantrip scaling. Then just change the stat to CHA instead of having the Breath Weapons scale off of different stats. And have the DC scale like the Leonin's Roar.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Interesting. Given how weak (mechanically speaking) dragonborn are, I find interesting that they are among the top 5 most played races in the official site...

Just a reminder that most players aren't as focused on the mechanics or mechanical advantages as might be implied by forums such as these.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Dragonborn are an easy fix: Use the Wildemount variants and change their breath weapons where it uses Cantrip scaling. Then just change the stat to CHA instead of having the Breath Weapons scale off of different stats. And have the DC scale like the Leonin's Roar.

I increase the damage by +1 dice and make it prof per long rest instead. Tasha's really made me fall in love with this kind of feature scaling!

 

[Zardnaar]

Breath weapon bonus action, scales as cantrip?

 

[Weiley31]

Breath weapon bonus action, scales as cantrip?

Crap how could I forget about it the bonus action part.