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

[MoriSpumae]

They do - D&D Beyond knows how often hit points go up and down, level-ups, short rests, and long rests get used, for example, and they can reasonably guess when someone's actually using the character in play. I didn't think D&DB exposed that to anyone else.

So, "last time edited" is a thing that I did find. I'm sure they have more detailled info interally on that. However I think it's difficult to just assume that people not using hit points means that they aren't actively using the character. Obviously printing a sheet completely takes it out of their view, but many people (me included) play on roll20 or other VTTs and use hit points there.

I would assume they do have a metric for how regularly the sheet is being viewed, which would probably be best for "active status".

 

[Oofta]

Well, that really depends on what you want to use those numbers for.



With respect, assuming they won't is just as bad as assuming they will.

The way to know if it impacts the numbers would be to compare numbers with, and without, a filter for active characters, and see if the results differ. This, of course, we cannot do ourselves - D&DB would need to do it for us.

But, the fact that we can't do it doesn't mean we can honestly go ahead without that knowledge, and claim we have an accurate picture.

Especially because, to be honest, we are unlikely to even think of all the relevant possibilities, and the nuances they create.

For example, last I saw D&DB describe it, it measures active characters in a given time period. Like, active characters this month, this quarter, or this year. I have D&D Beyond characters I built in the past, used for a while and are now inactive. So, clearly, "never intended to play" is by no means the only option.

Last I recall, the rate of campaign failure is pretty high - a lot of games, start, run for a couple of sessions, and then stop. We should not assume those characters instantly get removed - they may well stay until the user runs up against the limit, and then they'll delete one to make space. Those are characters they had interest in playing, but didn't play long for some reason.

Then with all due respect I disagree. Most people I know don't pay for DDB and are limited to 6 characters. I see no reason to build a PC that I'm not at least curious about if you have that limit.

But the only real way to know to a high degree of accuracy would be to spy on every table in existence and see what they actually play. Since that's impossible, the best we can get is a general idea which the numbers given provide. IMHO of course.

 

[Oofta]

So, "last time edited" is a thing that I did find. I'm sure they have more detailled info interally on that. However I think it's difficult to just assume that people not using hit points means that they aren't actively using the character. Obviously printing a sheet completely takes it out of their view, but many people (me included) play on roll20 or other VTTs and use hit points there.

I would assume they do have a metric for how regularly the sheet is being viewed, which would probably be best for "active status".

If you had a "created on" in combination with "last time edited" it seems that would be about as accurate as anything, especially if the dates are weeks or months apart.

 

[HomegrownHydra]

Fair enough. I DID try to take a different tack and looked at the data in a different way - which actually makes a fairly solid argument for how good halflings are- the fact that they aren't just one trick pony races, pigeonholed into a single class or single group of classes.

Half orcs suffer the same fate as goliaths - fighters/barbarians make up about 60% of all the characters. And, while it's fairly evenly spread among the remainder, it does make half-orcs something of a one trick race.

Look, I totally get that I'm not going to get what I want. Fair enough. The hold of Tolkien and tradition is just far too strong. I just think it's a shame because the one time we actually managed to get races that aren't Tolkien races- both of them proved to be really, really popular. I've been banging this drum since 3e came out to be honest. Not necessarily haltings. I don't actually care that much if halflings get cut or not. I think they're a waste of space, but, whatever. What I actually want is more variety of races in the PHB because whatever races are in the PHB are the ones that we're going to see in supplements and in modules. How many Aarocockra NPC's have you seen in a WotC module? There's a couple, I'm sure, but, not a heck of a lot. Same with Genasi or Tabaxi or anything else that isn't in the PHB. How many Plasmoid NPC's would you guess appear in the Keys from the Golden Vault? Are we likely to see a Hadozee or a Tabaxi or a Gensai in the new Phandelver book?

At least since Tieflings made it into the PHB, we got TIefling NPC's. But if it's not in the PHB, it might as well not exist for the most part.

You'd get a lot less pushback if you simply advocated for more races in the PHB rather than spending 20+ years insisting that halflings should be removed from the PHB and telling people who like halflings that they are a waste of space.

 

[MoriSpumae]

If you had a "created on" in combination with "last time edited" it seems that would be about as accurate as anything, especially if the dates are weeks or months apart.

Yeah, true! Maybe even just looking for characters that have different values for "created on" and "last time edited" will filter out lots of characters that were never played. There still is an argument to be made for people printing sheets but I doubt that can be included. DDB probably knows but I don't

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, that really depends on what you want to use those numbers for.



With respect, assuming they won't is just as bad as assuming they will.

The way to know if it impacts the numbers would be to compare numbers with, and without, a filter for active characters, and see if the results differ. This, of course, we cannot do ourselves - D&DB would need to do it for us.

But, the fact that we can't do it doesn't mean we can honestly go ahead without that knowledge, and claim we have an accurate picture.

Especially because, to be honest, we are unlikely to even think of all the relevant possibilities, and the nuances they create.

For example, last I saw D&DB describe it, it measures active characters in a given time period. Like, active characters this month, this quarter, or this year. I have D&D Beyond characters I built in the past, used for a while and are now inactive. So, clearly, "never intended to play" is by no means the only option.

Last I recall, the rate of campaign failure is pretty high - a lot of games, start, run for a couple of sessions, and then stop. We should not assume those characters instantly get removed - they may well stay until the user runs up against the limit, and then they'll delete one to make space. Those are characters they had interest in playing, but didn't play long for some reason.

And if we are judging popularity, all those characters count.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, true! Maybe even just looking for characters that have different values for "created on" and "last time edited" will filter out lots of characters that were never played. There still is an argument to be made for people printing sheets but I doubt that can be included. DDB probably knows but I don't

Right, but if the date created and updated are different (especially if you can do a delta) then even if people print out their character sheets they're still going to update on a regular basis. I frequently print out my character sheets so I don't have to hassle with plugging in a device at the table.

 

[Raunalyn]

It is enormously entertaining to watch someone complain about being mischaracterized when they are guilty, repeatedly, of mischaracterizing others.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

From what the Beyond people said at the time, filtering for active characters didn't qctually make much of a difference in terms of the ratios of what Classes and Races were being used, but they privideded the filtered numbers a lot of the time duentonpopular demand.

Yep, and that should be no surprise. People aren’t making tons of characters they don’t want to play.

At most, I’d expect to unfiltered data to heavily skew the low end, not the high end. Because you might make a character that’s a plasmoid and then forget they exist until you need to delete a character. But most of your characters will be stuff you’ll actually play, if given a chance.

Same here and I have no real idea where my younger players get their halflings archetypes from exactly, which have much more in common with Dragonlance's kender than Tolkien's hobbits, despite none of them knowing anything about Dragonlance.

Anime, and the LoTR movies, which judging by social media are still very popular and beloved by “the youths”.

 

[Argyle King]

Really? Because I've recently re-read the Hobbit, and the dwarves in that are more like gnomes, making magical toys, and casting spells to conceal treasure.

And as often or not, they are defined by their accents, be it Scottish, Irish, Welsh or Russian (more recently).

Even when some of the details change, there are typically themes and details associated with dwarves.

What you mention is a highlight, not a bad thing. You can see that, even with a strong archetype, variety can still exist.

The dwarves from Dragon Age are interesting for a lot of different reasons, but they still like being underground; have gruff demeanor; and lean toward smithing/mining. Snow White had seven dwarves with a variety of personalities, but they still leaned toward certain behaviors. In both cases, the dwarves are typically also stalwart companions who enjoy having a drink.