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.

 

[ECMO3]

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.

You would think, but there are an non-zero number of people who don't like others playing any races at all.

In their defense, I think a lot of these people are players and don't want to play with those races. It is much easier to have a curated list of species as a DM than it is as player. As a DM you can say "No Tieflings or Dragonborn in my campaign" and you might lose a few players, but more than likely most will just play something else. It is much more difficult to sit down as a player and tell other players and the DM that you don't want Tieflings or Dragonborn.

 

[ECMO3]

Haven't had much time to look, but DDB has released a new set of statistics. Not sure there's too much difference from numbers we've seen before. Species (races) are still human, elf, tiefling, half-elf, dwarf, halflings, etc. Fighters are still the most popular by quite a bit followed by rogues and barbarians.

In any case, if you're curious DDB look back at 2023 statistics

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Do Shaddar-Kai and Eladrin count as "elf" in this poll?

 

[J.Quondam]

It is piecewise linear. it goes by 20K per increment up to 100K, then by 100K per increment.

I thought so at first, but the species graph, for ex, hops up by +20k to 100k, then by +100k, +300k, +200k.
I think it's just arbitrary so it all fits on a pretty slide.
It's not important, since it's just a PR thing. It's just a little odd for anyone looking carefully at the plot.

 

[Minigiant]

If I had a say, I'd vote kobold over goblin. But I honestly don't expect either of those options would end up more popular than gnome

Buddy the youth love goblins

 

[Umbran]

I thought so at first, but the species graph, for ex, hops up by +20k to 100k, then by +100k, +300k, +200k.
I think it's just arbitrary so it all fits on a pretty slide.
It's not important, since it's just a PR thing. It's just a little odd for anyone looking carefully at the plot.

Ah, I was responding to thoughts about the class results, so I was responding about that graph. My mistake.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

As always with D&D beyond statistics, I'm curious about how many of these characters are actually played, and how many are build experiments, and if there is a significant difference in distribution between the two. Interesting stats none the less!

 

[bedir than]

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.

If we're going off the language that WotC uses Lineages should be the three options from Ravenloft.

 

[Scribe]

Buddy the youth love goblins

In my experience, because they (Goblins, to be clear) are mentally unstable, shifty, reject social norms and just live for the hedonistic day. Essentially nothing positive. Which is fine by me, I'm good with there being Evil options.

 

[JEB]

If we're going off the language that WotC uses Lineages should be the three options from Ravenloft.

Hmm, maybe. Unfortunately, they don't clarify.

Also Half Race Appreciation Society recognizes Half Elf greatness.

Yup, half-elves are top 5, and half-orcs are still ahead of gnomes and every non-PHB race. There's definitely going to be a contingent of DDB users unhappy if those aren't affirmatively supported in the 2024 rules.

 

[Scribe]

Yup, half-elves are top 5, and half-orcs are still ahead of gnomes and every non-PHB race. There's definitely going to be a contingent of DDB users unhappy if those aren't affirmatively supported in the 2024 rules.

Wizards going to take the cowards way out and say 'compatible'.