D&D 5E Halflings are the 7th most popular 5e race

[EzekielRaiden]

You don't like verisimilitude? Why is this the first time you're telling us this?

It's certainly been infuriating, more than once, to deal with the extreme sacrifices in terms of functionality, user-friendliness, and overall "help players have a good time doing the things the vast majority of players do," that folks are willing to make in order to gain even a tiny amount of additional "verisimilitude."

I think that has about a snowball's paladin's chance in hell of ever happening. I think WotC's approach these days is to be very generic and make sure you can include just about any species in any setting they do publish. I do think the PHB needs some basic info to explain what an elf, halfling, orc, etc., etc. is all about though.


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On this we agree fully. Cutting out non-humans from the core books would raise a stink so great you'd think 4e was rather well received by comparison.

 

[MGibster]

It's certainly been infuriating, more than once, to deal with the extreme sacrifices in terms of functionality, user-friendliness, and overall "help players have a good time doing the things the vast majority of players do," that folks are willing to make in order to gain even a tiny amount of additional "verisimilitude."

I don't know why you find it so infuriating. I don't find it the least bit infuriating that some folks want to get rid of all semblance of verisimilitude in favor of bland generic abilities for all species in order to gain a tiny amount of user-friendliness or a quantum of good time. I have different priorities, but I'm not infuriated by those who have different preferences.

On this we agree fully. Cutting out non-humans from the core books would raise a stink so great you'd think 4e was rather well received by comparison.

For good reason, too. I can't imagine D&D without the ability to play an elf, dwarf, or halfling.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Thats not quite right though.

The only difference between an elf and a half elf is two skills. That’s it.

Really? I honestly haven't played a half-elf in awhile. I thought they had some other abilities. Is it really just their Charisma bump that I'm thinking of? (Which obviously doesn't matter with floating ASIs). They surely don't get the magic abilities that an elf gets. Maybe I should actually go take a look...

 

[Hussar]

In light of the evidence that halflings are popular, people still insist that they must be removed or so dramatically altered that they are no longer halflings.

it's sad

What evidence is that? It’s exactly what we saw years ago. Halflings are the second least played race after gnomes.

In what way are they “popular “?

 

[Hussar]

Really? I honestly haven't played a half-elf in awhile. I thought they had some other abilities. Is it really just their Charisma bump that I'm thinking of? (Which obviously doesn't matter with floating ASIs). They surely don't get the magic abilities that an elf gets. Maybe I should actually go take a look...

Yup you lose two skills in return for either a cantrip or a movement bonus.

Not really very different.

 

[bedir than]

Halflings are the second least played race after gnomes.

You're in a thread where the link in the opener proves you wrong by the way.

 

[Hussar]

You're in a thread where the link in the opener proves you wrong by the way.

Sorry, misstated. Least popular PHB race after gnomes. My bad.

I'm sorry, but, didn't you write this yourself:

The least popular of the core races isn't a surprise, and it's probably not a surprise that they are behind Tieflings and Dragonborn.

Which, of course, has ALWAYS been the point in these halfling threads. I know people desperately want to prove that it's only because people hate halflings, but, your own point is word for word exactly what I've always argued. Halflings, despite having every possible advantage - being a core race, being in Tolkien, being the least banned race, etc. still scrape the bottom of the barrel in the game.

 

[bedir than]

Sorry, misstated. Least popular PHB race after gnomes. My bad.

No, you're still wrong.
Halflings are ahead of another PHB race.

 

[Scribe]

No, you're still wrong.
Halflings are ahead of another PHB race.

I dont even know that this is the most critical path of the argument.

Most, Least, Kinda, Not?

They are popular enough, with enough people who would miss them.

Why would we consider removing them at all, when Wizards has already done as much as they can to limit the amount of unique space needed to 'define' a <object formally called a race here>?

Let Halflings exist. There is quite honestly negligible space being used.

 

[MoriSpumae]

This data reads as pretty suspect for a variety of reasons, beyond the ones mentioned. E.g. dwarf is 4th most popular on this list, immediately after elf and half-elf, but literally at no point prior to this has dwarf been that high in any of the D&D Beyond official data.

My suspicion is, a lot of people create dwarves without playing them, which is something this data set can't meaningfully engage with.

Hi, I'm the creator of the dataset. I think you are absolutely correct that people create characters without playing them. I'm not sure how much of an impact this has since free accounts only get a limited number of slots. I'm not sure how to filter them out though.
Levels don't work because you can just create characters at higher levels. I will think about it some more. Do you have any ideas?