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.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

It always amazes me when people don't realize that as a collaborative game... you've got to collaborate. Also, rule #1 (IMO) is "play nice with others". This goes for both sides of the screen, of course, but as the GM has the most work to do, they're the ones that get final arbitration. It's quite literally their JOB.

 

[Vincent55]

I do not let stupid names at the table unless they fit a context of say a fae or goblin or something.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Big thanks to @Oofta for making sensible versions of the graphs!

Nothing super surprising here. Glad to see that often maligned halflings are still holding their own. One however could make a case for the genasi deserving a spot n the new PHB. They seem quite popular and also are rather different from any existing PHB species.

It was also noted how half-elves are super popular in BG3, but not here. There is a simple explanation for this. In BG3 the half-elf models have the best looking faces. Full elves in that game are not as good looking. (Yes, I made a half-drow in BG3.)

 

[Demetrios1453]

Oh it was so much worse.

Our DM tried to play it off cool at first. She said stuff like "I wanted you to roll up characters as a group, I have fun little mini-games that we can play, I want to tell you about the different parts of the game world while you choose your backgrounds," etc. And when that didn't work, she described the different locations, factions, pantheons and stuff, explaining why she had picked or omitted certain options.

The player wasn't listening, though. He was all "my last DM let me play this," and "what's the big deal anyway?" and "you're being unreasonable, come on guys, help me out here," getting more and more frustrated. Eventually he snapped at her: "Look, I'm going to play this character. I don't care about your precious campaign setting." I don't remember his exact words but I remember him sitting back in his chair with his arms folded.

The channel got really quiet, as you can imagine. The DM broke the silence, calmly and firmly. "If you don't care about the campaign setting, you aren't going to have fun here. You need to find another gaming group." And then she kicked him from the channel.

"Sorry about that," said his friend, who had invited him. "He takes some getting used to, but I promise he's a good player."

Our DM didn't miss a beat. "Then I'm sure he'll have no trouble finding another group. Now that that's out of the way, let's roll up those stats..."

And even after that, there would still be some particularly hard-core player agency adherents who would say that the DM was in the wrong...

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It was a wonderful campaign setting: the world was once part of the Feywild, but powerful Archfey pulled it into the Material Plane thousands of years ago to escape the Wars of the Courts. Then the gates between the two worlds were all sealed. So obviously, everything in the game world had a "fey" touch to it--lots of elves and gnomes, but also satyrs and firbolgs and half-dryads. But there wasn't a Heaven or a Hell in this world, so no demons and devils and angels...and much to a certain player's disappointment, no tieflings or aasimar (also no orcs or dwarves, or certain subclasses.)

I played an Oath of Ancients paladin. Someone else played an eladrin sorcerer (Wild Magic, of course). There was a Pact of the Archfey warlock, a satyr bard (College of Glamour), and a firbolg druid (Circle of the Summer Court.) The campaign took us from 1st level to 8th level, when we stopped a demented Archfey from unsealing the gates and sending the world back to the Feywild.

That sounds like a great setting and a good example of how curating the character options can be used to support the themes of the campaign.

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

I suspect if Genasi and Aasimar were PHB races their popularity woukd skyrocket.

Espicially aasimar.

 

[CleverNickName]

That sounds like a great setting and a good example of how curating the character options can be used to support the themes of the campaign.

I know right? It was a short campaign (just to level 8) but it was one of the more nuanced and fun ones I've played.

There's probably a reason why the DM won't let you to roll up a half-tortle bard named Fipple Nipple-Flip. But unfortunately whenever you say that, some players will only hear "the DM won't let you." They immediately stop listening and go on the defensive.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm unaware that I have an opposition. I'm not in a debate tournament. This isn't a battlefield.

The people who play the game are picking classes and races that optimizers wouldn't. A reasonable assumption is that means that players are focused on non-optimization.

That does not mean that I'm your enemy

I figured this out around 2002.

It's also a reason Pathfinder won. White room CoDzilka in 3E was broken.

In most games it didn't come up.

The power gaming internet hivemind is mostly online.

He'll I'm a piwergamer in theory. I enjoy it as a mental exercise. I'm crap at it in practice (halfling champion fighter, wood elf monk, 3pp meh class).

Wizards are generally OP at higher levels where most games don't go. Tomelock is probably better lower levels for average player.

You also need to pick very specific builds most players don't know about

 

[Von Ether]

It was a wonderful campaign setting: the world was once part of the Feywild, but powerful Archfey pulled it into the Material Plane thousands of years ago to escape the Wars of the Courts. Then the gates between the two worlds were all sealed. So obviously, everything in the game world had a "fey" touch to it--lots of elves and gnomes, but also satyrs and firbolgs and half-dryads. But there wasn't a Heaven or a Hell in this world, so demons, devils, or angels...and therefore, much to a certain player's disappointment: no tieflings, aasimar, or Pact of the Fiend (also no orcs or dwarves, or certain subclasses.)

I played an Oath of Ancients paladin. Someone else played an eladrin sorcerer (Wild Magic, of course). There was a Pact of the Archfey warlock, a satyr bard (College of Glamour), and a firbolg druid (Circle of the Summer Court.) The campaign took us from 1st level to 8th level, when we stopped a demented Archfey from unsealing the gates and sending the world back to the Feywild.

See. That story supports the vibe of "Select the species and classes that reflect the vibe of your game world," but without all the Twitter gnashing and chest thumping. Sounded like a great game.

I'm not using 5e at the moment, but in my current game we now have a in-joke about squirrel people. So now I have drafted up a Squirrel species as new option the next time someone wants to whip up a new PC.

(My current game is bit more beer and pretzels and less intense world building.)

 

[Oofta]

See. That story supports the vibe of "Select the species and classes that reflect the vibe of your game world," but without all the Twitter gnashing and chest thumping. Sounded like a great game.

I'm not using 5e at the moment, but in my current game we now have a in-joke about squirrel people. So now I have drafted up a Squirrel species as new option the next time someone wants to whip up a new PC.

(My current game is bit more beer and pretzels and less intense world building.)

Really? A squirrel people game being more a beer and pretzel world? I'm shocked!