D&D General Data from a million DnDBeyond character sheets?

[ichabod]

Among this data someone is making a choice. Might be arbitrary but I doubt it.

Actually, the choices are in the part of the data we don't see. D&D Beyond stores each choice you make (outside of race/class). And that's part of why the abilities are off. The choice to take an ASI instead of a feat is stored, as is the choice of what ability to boost. I can't find that data stored anywhere else, so you would have to recreate it based on the stored racial features and choices.

Yeah, I know that wasn't on point to your post, but I just wanted to try and drag the conversation back to the data.

 

[Yaarel]

That's an interesting takeaway. Can you break down your logic on arriving at this conclusion? Also, please post the site where you got this image from so that others can analyse this a bit further.

The yellow line (DnDBeyond 2023) and the light orange line (ENWorld 2019) closely cohere.

So the surveys at both site share similar class preferences.

This graph comes from the blog that the Original Post links to.



Note, an earlier light gray line (ENWorld 2017) differs signficantly with a huge Fighter spike, so why so requires explanation.

But the more recent result matches the official Database. Perhaps the recent survey proves more accurate for some reason.

 

[MockingBird]

I'd have to agree, this is the only place I have seen users lament the fighter class. In my own experience someone always picks a fighter when we play and enjoys it. I feel the fighter is fine.


*MY OWN EXPERIENCE I know that doesn't amount to anything before I get dog piled upon.

 

[Incenjucar]

I'd have to agree, this is the only place I have seen users lament the fighter class. In my own experience someone always picks a fighter when we play and enjoys it. I feel the fighter is fine.


*MY OWN EXPERIENCE I know that doesn't amount to anything before I get dog piled upon.

Plenty of lamentation in the Discord and other places I frequent. A lot of people also just don't post, and a lot of other people use homebrew or 3P, and a lot of other people played something else.

I left D&D entirely after seeing the original D&D Next playtest, and only came back on the hope of things getting better. While I'm hardly representative, I'm also not a unique snowflake. How the numbers work out there is nigh-unknowable. Pathfinder and other RPGs are doing quite nicely, after all.

 

[Mistwell]

Just so I'm absolutely, 100% clear:

They want something more simple than they like.

YOU used the word simplistic, not me. I said yes, one of our players wants simplistic. That's it. That's all you get. Not this additional spin you're trying to put on my words, but the word you used which was "Simplistic." Got it? The ordinary dictionary definition of the word Simplistic which is, "treating complex issues and problems as if they were much simpler than they really are." That's what that word means. You cannot make it mean something other than that plain meaning for my response.

If you keep at me with this weirdly aggressive tone it will be clear you're trying to escalate. Please stop. You have my answer. You cannot define the word in such a way that nobody is allowed to disagree with your notions, that's not how this works.

 

[Hussar]

Back to the data and the most burning question.

How many halflings?

runs and hides

 

[EzekielRaiden]

YOU used the word simplistic, not me. I said yes, one of our players wants simplistic. That's it. That's all you get. Not this additional spin you're trying to put on my words, but the word you used which was "Simplistic." Got it? The ordinary dictionary definition of the word Simplistic which is, "treating complex issues and problems as if they were much simpler than they really are." That's what that word means. You cannot make it mean something other than that plain meaning for my response.

If you keep at me with this weirdly aggressive tone it will be clear you're trying to escalate. Please stop. You have my answer. You cannot define the word in such a way that nobody is allowed to disagree with your notions, that's not how this works.

I, too, can look things up in dictionaries--and did so before I made that post, just to make sure I wasn't talking out of the wrong orifice.

Merriam-webster

simplistic (adjective) : excessively simple or simplified : treating a problem or subject with false simplicity by omitting or ignoring complicating factors or details
(some example quotes snipped)

Did you know?​

The facts of nature and of life are more apt to be complex than simple. Simplistic theories are generally one-sided and partial, wrote the American clergyman James Freeman Clarke in the 19th century, nicely illustrating the difference between plain, ordinary simple and the then-new adjective simplistic. Simplistic is generally synonymous with oversimplified, but we didn't have the verb oversimplify and its participle oversimplified until well into the 20th century. Simplistic is sometimes used in the neutral sense of "not complicated" (in which case it is synonymous with simple) but this borders on misuse-simplistic is generally understood to be pejorative.

Dictionary.com

simplistic​

[ sim-plis-tik ]
adjective

1. characterized by extreme simplism; oversimplified: a simplistic notion of good and bad.

Collins Dictionary

simplistic​

(sɪmplɪstɪk)

adjective
A simplistic view or interpretation of something makes it seem much simpler than it really is.
He has a simplistic view of the treatment of eczema.
Synonyms: oversimplified, shallow, facile, naive More Synonyms of simplistic

I was "aggressive" because I genuinely believe, or at least believed, you meant something other than the word you were using. Since you have doubled down on asserting a contradiction, fine. I take you at your word. Using "simplistic" as merely a synonym for "simple" is, as these and other dictionaries note, borderline misuse--but if you want to do that, fine. Don't let me stop you.

 

[TwoSix]

I'd love it if you spin this out from the conversation. I'm intrigued by this, but it seems that the basics of damage dealing would be greater than a Wizard.

As it should be, right? The comparison point for such a class should be a Fighter or a Warlock with EB/AB, not Wizard.

Maybe the concept should exist as a Wizard template that is meant to be used from levels 1-4, showing the basics of a magic user in D&D? This would be similar to a pre-built character but it would explain the choice points and reasoning behind certain decisions.
[/QUOTE]

 

[Oofta]

Plenty of lamentation in the Discord and other places I frequent. A lot of people also just don't post, and a lot of other people use homebrew or 3P, and a lot of other people played something else.

I left D&D entirely after seeing the original D&D Next playtest, and only came back on the hope of things getting better. While I'm hardly representative, I'm also not a unique snowflake. How the numbers work out there is nigh-unknowable. Pathfinder and other RPGs are doing quite nicely, after all.

There is no way any class will satisfy everyone. You see complaints on any social media about just about anything. There's an entire reddit forum for people that hate dogs, yet they are quite popular as pets. The fact that some people dislike fighters, or dogs, does not mean that many people like fighters. Or dogs.

Say that you actually like the fighter and you get dogpiled on and note how often people go out of their way to qualify that they personally like the fighter and people they know like the fighter. If you say that based on the evidence we have that the most straightforward conclusion is that fighters are liked well enough and you get dog piled on.

People with complaints are generally more vociferous and likely to continue to post about something than people who are satisfied with the status quo. That, and people who are actively involved in social media on RPGs are not particularly representative of gamers in general.

 

[Hussar]

There is no way any class will satisfy everyone. You see complaints on any social media about just about anything. There's an entire reddit forum for people that hate dogs, yet they are quite popular as pets. The fact that some people dislike fighters, or dogs, does not mean that many people like fighters. Or dogs.

Say that you actually like the fighter and you get dogpiled on and note how often people go out of their way to qualify that they personally like the fighter and people they know like the fighter. If you say that based on the evidence we have that the most straightforward conclusion is that fighters are liked well enough and you get dog piled on.

People with complaints are generally more vociferous and likely to continue to post about something than people who are satisfied with the status quo. That, and people who are actively involved in social media on RPGs are not particularly representative of gamers in general.

There is the other side of that though.

Say you are dissatisfied with the fighter and you’d like to see a few changes and the world comes to an end as everyone shouts you down and tells you that because the fighter is so popular it should never be changed.

It’s very very much not a one sided thing. Good grief, the idea of damage on a miss was so controversial at one time they actually had to create a sub forum just for it.

So you might excuse people for being a tad touchy when these things get discussed. Let’s not forget that people shut down any and all conversation about any change to the fighterfor nearlya decade.