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

[ichabod]

I just created a character with a custom background with an empty name. Characters with no background in the data could actually have a background, it's not clear.

 

[Hussar]

It’s important I think not to let perfect be the enemy of good.

Yes we might be cutting out some data by excising bits based on blank entries. But we can be fairly sure that the remaining data does represent actually fully made characters and if someone does cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s, then presumably that’s a character that was either played or stonily intended to be played.

It’s not perfect but probably better.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, since each background grants not just 2 skill proficiencies, but also proficiency in 2 languages/tools, plus some equipment, plus a possibly useful feature, it would seem strange for a full player character to lack some form of background.

Some DMs or groups may choose not to use backgrounds or to houserule in some alternative, which would mean those characters wouldn't show backgrounds.

 

[Hussar]

Some DMs or groups may choose not to use backgrounds or to houserule in some alternative, which would mean those characters wouldn't show backgrounds.

True, but since they are houseruling right out of the gate like that, then aren’t they automatically outliers?

IOW if we’re looking at this data to see trends in how people are playing the game, shouldn’t we start out by ignoring people who aren’t actually using the rules of the game?

 

[xaosseed]

True, but since they are houseruling right out of the gate like that, then aren’t they automatically outliers?

IOW if we’re looking at this data to see trends in how people are playing the game, shouldn’t we start out by ignoring people who aren’t actually using the rules of the game?

Would this not depend on how many of them there are? I would have thought check to see if it is a meaningful share and that is an interesting insight in itself - what fraction of folk are using all the rules would be a trend in how people play the game.

 

[Hussar]

Would this not depend on how many of them there are? I would have thought check to see if it is a meaningful share and that is an interesting insight in itself - what fraction of folk are using all the rules would be a trend in how people play the game.

I could see that.

 

[FrogReaver]

Some DMs or groups may choose not to use backgrounds or to houserule in some alternative, which would mean those characters wouldn't show backgrounds.

This was my initial thought as well

I just created a character with a custom background with an empty name. Characters with no background in the data could actually have a background, it's not clear.

Great find!

True, but since they are houseruling right out of the gate like that, then aren’t they automatically outliers?

IOW if we’re looking at this data to see trends in how people are playing the game, shouldn’t we start out by ignoring people who aren’t actually using the rules of the game?

I actually think it's important to keep outliers and understand their significance unless we are dang sure they represent not an actual character as opposed to a character played under some house rules.

For example, Before removing characters with the name Like "NPC" I scanned through the list and determined that there didn't appear to be any actual PC's in the list (or so few that leaving them out of the data would have a negligible effect).

Given the possibilities of houserules, or more likely custom backgrounds with no name being an option, I'd suggest those as the likely explanation for blank background names. *Note: custom backgrounds are an official option in the rules as well.

 

[FrogReaver]

Would this not depend on how many of them there are? I would have thought check to see if it is a meaningful share and that is an interesting insight in itself - what fraction of folk are using all the rules would be a trend in how people play the game.

Numbers will update slightly when i make adjustments to my working data set on character stat ranges, 1 to 24 instead of 1 to 20 due to barbarian but shouldn't be a significant change.

By the way, I did check and even previously posted the number of characters without backgrounds.

There were about 52,000 characters with a blank background name out of 322,397 characters. ~16%

 

[FrogReaver]

Multiquote isn't working for me, so here are my thoughts to various things:

I'd want to look at keeping all the classes more. There's a lot of munchkin stuff in the data. There's a 1,000+ characters with point buy scores high enough to get all 18's as starting abilities. I assumed the odd classes were part of that. But maybe that could be taken care of by trimming out the munchkin stuff directly. And remember: all the abilities in the data are starting abilities. Racial bonuses, items, and ASIs are not included. I don't think class features are either, but I'd have to check to be sure. That's why I was using point buy score to trim the data. I was trying to find an upper bound for a 4d6 drop low character. So if you are going to trim by ability scores I would actually used 3-18, since that covers rolling and point buy.

Interesting. I'm assuming you were able to test to confirm that they are starting abilities some way? I'm interested in how. Also assuming that's true and if you can confirm that class features are not included then I think the best thing to do is to include all >=1 except for all 8's (starting unmodified point buy). I'm fine having some obviously houseruled characters in the data.

Thoughts?

I could try looking into the backgrounds more, by finding no-background leveled characters and checking the JSON. Maybe over the weekend.

I think you finding that custom backgrounds can have blank names more or less explains the background piece.

 

[Oofta]

Numbers will update slightly when i make adjustments to my working data set on character stat ranges, 1 to 24 instead of 1 to 20 due to barbarian but shouldn't be a significant change.

By the way, I did check and even previously posted the number of characters without backgrounds.

There were about 52,000 characters with a blank background name out of 322,397 characters. ~16%

Can you see what skills they have proficiency in? Because if you can do some spot checking and compare that to how many they should have based on just their class. For example a fighter would have only 2 skill proficiencies, if a fighter with a blank background has more you know extra proficiencies were likely added by a background.

Of course, some groups may have custom backgrounds that add benefits other than skills as well.