D&D 5E D&D Beyond Releases 2023 Character Creation Data

D&D Beyond released the 2023 Unrolled with data on the most popular character choices for D&D. The full article includes a wide variety of statistics for the beta test of Maps, charity donations, mobile app usage, and more. However, I’m just going to recap the big numbers.

The most common species chosen by players are Human, Elf, Dragonborn, Tiefling, and Half-Elf. This contrasts with the stats from Baldur’s Gate 3 released back in August 2023 where Half-Elves were the most popular with the rest of the top five also shuffling around.

Also, keep an eye on the scale of these charts as they’re not exactly even. It starts with just over 700,000 for Humans and 500,000 for Elf, but the next line down is 200,000 with the other three species taking up space in that range. This means the difference separating the highest line on the graph and the second highest is 200,000, then 300,000 between the next two, 100,000 between the next, and finally 10,000 separating all the others.

Top classes start off with the Fighter then move onto the Rogue, Barbarian, Wizard, and Paladin. The scale on this chart is just as uneven as the last, but the numbers are much closer with what appears to be about 350,000 Fighters at the top to just over 100,000 Monks in next-to-last with under 80,000 Artificers. This contrasts far more from the Baldur’s Gate 3 first weekend data as the top five classes for the game were Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock, Rogue, and Bard.

And the most important choices for new characters, the names. Bob is still the top choice for names with Link, Saraphina, and Lyra seeing the most growth and Bruno, Eddie, and Rando seeing the biggest declines from last year.

Putting that together, it means the most commonly created character on D&D Beyond is Bob the Human Fighter. A joke going as far back as I can remember in RPGs is, in fact, reality proven by hard statistics.

 

[Shardstone]

It's pretty dope that Genasi, Dragonborn, and Tiefling are all popular. Some of my favorite races, and it creates such a different aesthetic then pre-2015 D&D worlds. Despite being raised on Tolkien and classic fantasy stories, dwarves and gnomes and halflings never stuck with me.

 

[TwoSix]

There's a difference between having a curated list of species for a home campaign (which I do) and not liking specific races. I assume that they were alluding the people have have a limited list allowed for a home game as "not liking" those races. Liking or not liking a race has nothing to do with it.

Seems like a bit of a jump in assumption. It seems much more likely they're simply referencing the people who vocally don't approve of the more recently added races.

 

[Clint_L]

The only species I don't allow are one specific to particular campaign settings that we aren't using (e.g. Kender) and Aarakocra. Because I think flying at level 1 is a pain in the butt.

 

[JEB]

Custom Lineages are nearly as popular as "Lineages" (which I assume is the "everything else" category). So as a group, customization is handily beating anything less popular than Aarakocra.

 

[Oofta]

Seems like a bit of a jump in assumption. It seems much more likely they're simply referencing the people who vocally don't approve of the more recently added races.

Even so, I don't care what other people play. I don't see why it would bother me even if, taken to an extreme, I wouldn't want to play at a table with either species. I mean I guess there may be someone somewhere that is upset ... but it's a tiny, tiny percentage and certainly not enough to disparage them over their opinions.

 

[hgjertsen]

Even so, I don't care what other people play. I don't see why it would bother me even if, taken to an extreme, I wouldn't want to play at a table with either species. I mean I guess there may be someone somewhere that is upset ... but it's a tiny, tiny percentage and certainly not enough to disparage them over their opinions.

Unfortunately if I'm not allowed to play a dragonborn I'm beating the DM over the head with a brick

 

[mach1.9pants]

<laughs in Gnome>

Ahem

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Gnomes

 

[Alzrius]

Ahem

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Gnomes

Tolkien used the term, a little, but it was absolutely nothing like the D&D race, being a particular group of elves. To quote the same page you linked to:

A Gnome is a dwarf-like creature of European folklore, often associated with Dwarves and Goblins. Traditional Gnomes however were unlike his depiction of his High Elves: they were imagined as deformed underground dwellers, and by the 19th century were depicted dwarf-like.

For that reason Tolkien dropped the term since that would confuse the readers. However, other folkloric names like "Elves", "Dwarves" and "Goblins" would persist in Tolkien's writing ever since, although he would be unsure about them (he did replace "Goblin" with "Orcs" after the publication of The Hobbit").

 

[Minigiant]

Gnomes you had your chance.

Time to replace them with goblin.

Also Half Race Appreciation Society recognizes Half Elf greatness.

 

[ninjayeti]

The popularity of dragonborn and tieflings must sting for some people.

The same article says the most popular character name is "Bob." So by that logic people who hate stupid character names must be positively apoplectic.

Or maybe people don't really care what other tables do, and don't view disagreement with their own preferences as some sort of slap in the face?