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.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't see why it's a stretch to say that people enjoy playing fighters when there's no other reason to play them over a different class.

Because we don't know how they feel about playing them.

See: decades of people grumpily playing clerics because they felt pushed into it.

 

[Hussar]

Okay. Well, I don't doubt your experience but it is certainly at odds with mine, with the data from DDB, with actual play shows. But given your opinions about martial classes, I can see why they might not be super popular at your table.

You have to admit that in the ten years of 5e, to never see a single non-casting fighter is a bit unusual, yeah? Turn on Critical Role.

Edit: here are the line-ups of my past 6 campaigns:

Artificer
Fighter (Eldritch Knight)
Rogue (assassin)
Bard
Cleric
Ranger

Monk
Barbarian/Fighter
Druid
Artificer
Fighter (Psy Knight)

Bard
Cleric
Artificer
Wizard
Paladin
Barbarian

Cleric
Wizard
Rogue (Arcane Trickster)
Warlock
Fighter (BM)
Monk
Paladin
Artificer

Warlock
Rogue (swashbuckler)
Fighter (gunslinger)
Bard
Wizard
Paladin

Dude, in your own campaigns, you almost never see fighters. 1 fighter in four groups and one group with none. And, two of your fighters are magicy fighters. HOw is your experience particularly different from mine?

 

[Clint_L]

Dude, in your own campaigns, you almost never see fighters. 1 fighter in four groups and one group with none. And, two of your fighters are magicy fighters. HOw is your experience particularly different from mine?

You wrote:

To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a single non-casting fighter in 5e. There might have been a fighter/rogue in there somewhere, that's sort of waving at the back of the crowd in my memory, but, by and large? Nope, I haven't seen them.

and

Yeah, I have seen exactly one non-caster (as in a class with no spells) in the past two campaigns.

In those 6 campaigns, all within the past 18 months, there are three non-casting pure fighters, and one non-casting barbarian/fighter multi-class, which is obviously very at odds with you having never "seen a non-casting fighter in 5e."

There are 8 non-casters, representing 25% of all characters, as opposed to your 0 in the past two campaigns. Seems to me like on both counts my experience is highly different from yours.

In terms of class representation, I have

Artificers: 5
Fighters: 4.5
Bard: 3
Rogue: 3
Paladin: 3
Wizard: 3
Cleric: 3
Warlock: 2
Monk: 2
Barbarian: 1.5
Druid: 1
Ranger: 1

Aside from artificers being unusually popular (thanks in part to my spouse), fighters are at the top. Actually, if you do the math, fighters are 14% of the class representation, which is...right where it is on DDB, and over-represented given that there are thirteen classes.

Which is not surprising, because the DDB data shows us that fighters are the most popular choice. Again.

We could also look at the three Critical Role campaigns, where 6/24 characters have been non-casters, two of them fighters (3 barbarians, 2 fighters, 1 monk).

 

[Hussar]

Oh, I freely admit that my group is an outlier here. Totally get that. Wasn't disagreeing with that point at all.

My point being your group has had ONE non magic fighter out of all those classes.

 

[Oofta]

Because we don't know how they feel about playing them.

See: decades of people grumpily playing clerics because they felt pushed into it.

I like playing fighters and clerics. I really don't understand the lengths people go to in order to deny that someone may simply enjoy playing the class.

There is zero evidence that people feel compelled to play fighters. I have several fighters, rogues and barbarians in my current games, people are playing what they want.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I like playing fighters and clerics. I really don't understand the lengths people go to in order to deny that someone may simply enjoy playing the class.

There is zero evidence that people feel compelled to play fighters. I have several fighters, rogues and barbarians in my current games, people are playing what they want.

I don't think Wizbang is at all saying that people are forced into playing fighters. He's saying that we don't KNOW if they enjoy playing them. All we can know from the DDB data is that people make a lot of Fighters on DDB. We don't know how much they enjoy playing them.

And this is not disparaging Fighters! I mean, I love playing Fighters. Do I think that the design of the Fighter could be better? Yes I do. Do I always enjoy playing every fighter I ever make? Usually, but not always.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I don't think Wizbang is at all saying that people are forced into playing fighters. He's saying that we don't KNOW if they enjoy playing them. All we can know from the DDB data is that people make a lot of Fighters on DDB. We don't know how much they enjoy playing them.

And this is not disparaging Fighters! I mean, I love playing Fighters. Do I think that the design of the Fighter could be better? Yes I do. Do I always enjoy playing every fighter I ever make? Usually, but not always.

I believe it makes more sense that people play more of what they like, generally. The data does not prove this.

But by the same token, I find suspect statements “everyone knows X sucks!” without any data at all.

That is usually where this conversation starts.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Okay, well my claim is pretty straightforward: martial classes consistently do more damage over time in all three of those campaigns, so do you have another interpretation of that data to offer, to justify calling my claim "superficial"? Anything? Feel free.

Because if my claim is superficial, yours is nonexistent. It amounts to "nuh-uh."

I mean..you are the one who made the positive assertion (and provided zero evidence) and thus are the one with the burden of proof.

But we'll let that slide, because we've already done this dance months ago the last time the Critical Role data was used to try and make this case.

The example then was "Beau does the most damage in the whole party" but that damage includes 13 sessions where Caleb does not participate in combat for whatever reason.

On a per combat session basis, Caleb did the most damage outside of Yasha (whose overall partipation in the campaign, makes stats hard to compare). Caleb has the most kills and more ">200" damage sessions than the rest of the cast combined...And this is with no magic item support to his damage and with a laaarge portion of his spellcasting devoted to utility.

Heck, iirc, he's even pretty close in total damage.

 

[ECMO3]

Okay. Well, I don't doubt your experience but it is certainly at odds with mine, with the data from DDB, with actual play shows. But given your opinions about martial classes, I can see why they might not be super popular at your table.

You have to admit that in the ten years of 5e, to never see a single non-casting fighter is a bit unusual, yeah? Turn on Critical Role.

Edit: here are the line-ups of my past 6 campaigns:

Artificer
Fighter (Eldritch Knight)
Rogue (assassin)
Bard
Cleric
Ranger

Monk
Barbarian/Fighter
Druid
Artificer
Fighter (Psy Knight)

Bard
Cleric
Artificer
Wizard
Paladin
Barbarian

Cleric
Wizard
Rogue (Arcane Trickster)
Warlock
Fighter (BM)
Monk
Paladin
Artificer

Warlock
Rogue (swashbuckler)
Fighter (gunslinger)
Bard
Wizard
Paladin

This class mix is fairly consistent with my recent games as well. Your parties are a bit larger than mine, and generally have more full casters than mine (full casters filling the extra positions), but it is a similar mix of classes.

I will say though, as I said earlier, most of the Rogues, Monks and Fighters I have seen can throw a spell or two.

Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade in particular are on almost every melee Rogue build I see now. Either they play a Kobold, a High Elf, an Arcane Trickster, they multiclass or as a last resort they get magic initiate .... but they always seem to have it. Fighters do something to get shield and occasionally misty step. Monks are often playing way of the Shadow and when they are not they are dipping into something that gives them some Cleric cantrips.

 

[ECMO3]

Because we don't know how they feel about playing them.

See: decades of people grumpily playing clerics because they felt pushed into it.

I agree with this to a point, we don't actually know, but we can draw inferences.

I don't play Barbarians or Druids because I don't like playing those classes. If you go back through history you will find on the order of 30 characters I built (and played) in DND Beyond over the last 2 years and not a single one had a single level of Barbarian or Druid. I did not play with those characters because I do not like those classes.

With this in mind it is hard for me to believe people will continue to play classes they don't like playing when other classes are available. Why play a Wizard if you don't like playing a Wizard? Now if they don't like playing any class at all, then to me it feels like they just don't like playing D&D.

We can only use the data we have and I don't know of any other data with which to draw conclusions.