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.

 

[Hussar]

Now you can say that 5e is flawed because it doesn’t actively prevent this option. I would say it probably never needed to, until some guy on a forum somewhere came up with it and started spreading the word around.

This particular example was from a player who never reads online stuff about the game. He came up with it entirely on his own after reading the spell. It's pretty much exactly what the spell is for, at least, that's the way it's written. He wasn't trying to screw over the game. He was just honestly using an option from the PHB straight up.

 

[Stormonu]

I don't have a problem with the "reshape reality" thing. That's not really the issue. The issue comes more in the edges. So many of the spells in particular (although class and race abilities can come into here as well) are worded in such a way that the DM constantly has to double check and police every bloody thing the players try. Can they do X? Can they do Y? What, exactly does Z mean in this context? And it's so exhausting. If it only came up once in a while, I'd be fine, but, with so many casters in the groups, it comes up every freaking session it seems. And it never, ever ends. "Can I do this? Can I do that? Does the HP from my Abjurer class stack with the temp HP from my Artificer class (and, as written, yes they actually do.) On and on and on.

For me, this is nothing new, I've had to police spells and abilities since I first cracked the AD&D books. It is, sadly, part of the DMs job because it sure appears players won't do it themselves and are more than happy to be too generous with what spells or abilities can/will do. It's why D&D has a "referee".

@TheSword - what's this stunt with Banishment? If it was posted earlier, I missed it and I'm curious.

 

[Hussar]

For me, this is nothing new, I've had to police spells and abilities since I first cracked the AD&D books. It is, sadly, part of the DMs job because it sure appears players won't do it themselves and are more than happy to be too generous with what spells or abilities can/will do. It's why D&D has a "referee".

@TheSword - what's this stunt with Banishment? If it was posted earlier, I missed it and I'm curious.

See, but, that is the problem. We actually had an edition where no, I didn't have to police the damn casters every session. Even 3e wasn't generally that bad because the rules tended to be pretty solid, most of the time. Yes, there were exploits, but, because the game wasn't written in such a casual style, they tended not to be such an issue.

I haven't have issues like this since 2e. I'm to the point where I simply no longer trust the books anymore because I keep getting burned every time I turn around.

 

[TheSword]

For me, this is nothing new, I've had to police spells and abilities since I first cracked the AD&D books. It is, sadly, part of the DMs job because it sure appears players won't do it themselves and are more than happy to be too generous with what spells or abilities can/will do. It's why D&D has a "referee".

@TheSword - what's this stunt with Banishment? If it was posted earlier, I missed it and I'm curious.

The banishment spell has been changed in the playtest to be save every round. Big improvement to my mind. Makes it a bit harder for the party to deal with everything else then ready actions and drop the spells so everyone gets to make an extra attack on the thing.

 

[Oofta]

See, but, that is the problem. We actually had an edition where no, I didn't have to police the damn casters every session. Even 3e wasn't generally that bad because the rules tended to be pretty solid, most of the time. Yes, there were exploits, but, because the game wasn't written in such a casual style, they tended not to be such an issue.

I haven't have issues like this since 2e. I'm to the point where I simply no longer trust the books anymore because I keep getting burned every time I turn around.

I've had plenty of casters in my group, I haven't had to "police" them any more than anyone else. Which is virtually never. Occasionally I've had to make a ruling here and there but it's been across the board. But I've had some people bend the rules in every edition.

I just can't imagine why you have such issues when I haven't seen them in any game I've been involved with over a decade with dozens of different people and groups.

 

[TheSword]

See, but, that is the problem. We actually had an edition where no, I didn't have to police the damn casters every session. Even 3e wasn't generally that bad because the rules tended to be pretty solid, most of the time. Yes, there were exploits, but, because the game wasn't written in such a casual style, they tended not to be such an issue.

I haven't have issues like this since 2e. I'm to the point where I simply no longer trust the books anymore because I keep getting burned every time I turn around.

Well it’s easy to fix the spells if you take out anything unusual, original or unique out of them. Whether that cost is better than just agreeing with your fellow adults what is reasonable on the corner cases, like simulacrum, tiny hit, forbiddance etc.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on whether 3e was largely free from rules disputes. My guess is these forums would suggest otherwise. My time on the Paizo boards definitely would.

Edit: I found this gem. That only covers the 20% of 3e spells that were in the PhB.

D&D 3E/3.5 - What are the "problem" spells in 3E?

So the thread on harm got me thinking (a rare and dangerous thing, I know), what are the "problem" spells in 3rd Ed? Let's keep the discussion centered on the PHB/SRD spells please! Cloud, what do you mean by "problem" spells? I see problem spells as those spells deemed as either 1)...

www.enworld.org

We’ll also have to differ on whether Forbiddance was intended to be an offensive way of killing dungeon inhabitants or as a defensive spell to prevent folks teleporting or attacking your base. I know what I think. Do you perchance play largely online with people you’ve never met face to face as well? Interestingly the original 3e forbiddance spell didn’t deal damage to folks already in the area when the spell was cast.

 

[Stormonu]

See, but, that is the problem. We actually had an edition where no, I didn't have to police the damn casters every session. Even 3e wasn't generally that bad because the rules tended to be pretty solid, most of the time. Yes, there were exploits, but, because the game wasn't written in such a casual style, they tended not to be such an issue.

I haven't have issues like this since 2e. I'm to the point where I simply no longer trust the books anymore because I keep getting burned every time I turn around.

Are you saying 2E didn't have this problem? Because I sure did have problems in that edition with all sorts of badly worded or remembered spells and abilities that gave me enough headaches I walked away from the system at the tail end of it rather than deal with it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

See, but, that is the problem. We actually had an edition where no, I didn't have to police the damn casters every session.

Play that then.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Are you saying 2E didn't have this problem? Because I sure did have problems in that edition with all sorts of badly worded or remembered spells and abilities that gave me enough headaches I walked away from the system at the tail end of it rather than deal with it.

I think you've read that backwards and he's saying that 2e was the last time they had that problem.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At the end of the day... the game is the game and the designers are the designers. They are going to make the game they wish to make.

And what that means for the rest of us is that we are free to come onto boards like this and complain about how those designers designed their game. There's nothing wrong with that at all (so long as you don't make it personal by insulting the intelligence or skills of the designers.) Folks are free to rant as much as they want about the game on theses boards here till the cows come home. Even if others find those complaints annoying.

But then at the same time... other people are free to come into these threads and post back stating that they think the complaints are unreasonable or overblown or not an issue for most others in the playerbase and thus there's no reason for WotC to change what they are doing.

That's pretty much the entire point of boards such as this. People debating about what should or shouldn't happen with the D&D game.

So while it is unreasonable to think posters can't come onto these boards to complain about issues they have with the game... it is likewise unreasonable for those folks to think can complain free from response. That's not how it works. It's a public board. One person can post, another person can respond. And if (general) you don't want other people to tell you why they think you are wrong, you have two choices-- either make your thread a (+) thread and word it in such a way that it's more about finding solutions to your issues rather than just complaining for complaints sake-- or else complain about WotC and D&D on your time and don't do it on a public message board.