D&D General Data from a million DnDBeyond character sheets?

[Thomas Shey]

My above notwithstanding, it sounds like you'd at least need to bin out the obviously-incomplete characters from others just to get a basic evaluation of what might have been played as contrasted with ones someone just generated to test out the tool. Even the latter might tell you something, but they tell you different things.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Forum users and other terminally online types would do well to use this as a reminder that what may appear real here and in other online echo chambers, is potentially (likely imo) not in step with reality at all.



The only data Wizards is going to have, is going to come from the minority of their 'user base' anyway.

The vast, likely overwhelming, majority of the people they are putting in the D&D player bucket, have zero connection to forums, zero connection to online D&D at all.

I continue to remind myself of what Maro said of the majority of Magic the Gathering players that they did poll and do focus groups with, paraphrasing.

"The majority do not know what a planeswalker is." unless my memory (likely) fails, it was in fact over 70% not knowing what they are.

Now, I dont know if you are a MTG player, but anyone, literally ANYONE, I have played Magic with, against, or discussed online with, knows what a Planeswalker is, yet the MAJORITY of actual players, people who have bought and shuffled, and played a commander deck, whatever, do not (edit) know what a Planeswalker is?

If it was coming from anyone but Maro's mouth (or fingers) I would not believe it. Its a staggering piece of information to me.

"We" the perpetually online, hyper connected, obsessive types, are such a miniscule outspoken niche of the mighty WotC pie of users aka players, and what may appear to us, in our excessively loud echo chambers as 'true' or 'real' quite likely is nothing of the sort.

walks off muttering about the impossibility of not knowing what a Planeswalker is as a Magic player...

Does that not then apply just as much to any position we take, up to and including from this scraped data, unless and until we get an actually well-designed survey?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Why? People can not want to deal with the issues of overhead of playing a spellcaster and still find some of the martial options inadequate. The threshold level is important here. I mean, I mostly prefer fighter-types over messing with spellcasters, but that doesn't mean I'm a fan of them being minimalist or I'd find the tendency for mages to take up the show more appealing. "Prefers given the available options" and "very much enjoys" are not synonymous.

Precisely. Hence why I say folks make WAY WAY WAY more of the data than they are in any way reasonably able to do.

"Fighters are played a lot, more than wizards" EMPHATICALLY DOES NOT mean "Fighters are deeply beloved for being the extremely specific mechanical implementation they have and if you changed even the smallest part of it everyone would hate it."

Waaaaay too many confounding variables.

 

[ECMO3]

Yeah. I wonder how to match up "Player Sheet" to "Time Played". Also, there are different ways characters might be used which would impact the analysis: What characters are NPCs? How many are for one-shot sessions, or for organized play, or for campaigns? How many are for beginner players and how many for more experienced players?

I'm thinking additional information is needed to put the data to use for particular decision-making.

TomB

I think with a sample this large you get a pretty diverse sample generally.

I also disagree with the idea that new players gravitate towards fighters or simpler classes. The last time I started a game with entirely brand new players we had a Wizard, a Paladin, a Cleric and a Fighter. The first two multiclassed to Wizard-Cleric and Paladin-Rogue. And the guy who went with a Fighter still plays only Fighters, Barbarians or Fighter-Barbarians 8 years later.

I believe the people on forums tend to want higher-power options and that why you see the disparity between the data from forum surveys and from the databases. I also believe the current fighter is pretty close to exactly what most players want in a fighter thematically and mechanically. Not most on forums like this, but most in terms of total players.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I believe the people on forums tend to want higher-power options and that why you see the disparity between the data from forum surveys and from the databases. I also believe the current fighter is pretty close to exactly what most players want in a fighter thematically and mechanically. Not most on forums like this, but most in terms of total players.

And is this based on anything besides your personal intuition?

 

[Lanefan]

30.9% of the characters in the data had no equipment. Of those that did, these are the top rankings out of the top 150 pieces of equipment (I stopped tracking mundane weapons after sickle):

Most popular armor:

1. Leather
2. Shield
3. Chainmail
4. Studded Leather
5. Scalemail
6. Platemail
7. Breastplate
8. Chain Shirt
9. Half Plate

In my games it's probably plate, leather, none, then whatever else.

Most Popular Magic items:

1. Potion of Healing
2. Bag of Holding
3. Potion of Healing (Greater)
4. Ring of Protection
5. Cloak of Protection
6. +1 Dagger
7. Potion of Healing (Superior)
8. +1 Shield
9. +1 Longsword
10. Boots of Elvenkind
11. Elven Chain
12. 1st Level Scroll
13. Ring of Mind Shielding
14. Cloak of Elvenkind
15. Wand of Magic Missiles

How in all the hells did Bag of Holding get so popular/common? Are they dime-a-dozen in 5e?

 

[Clint_L]

In my games it's probably plate, leather, none, then whatever else.

How in all the hells did Bag of Holding get so popular/common? Are they dime-a-dozen in 5e?

Pretty much. Artificers can make them at low levels, to start with, and they are also only uncommon items. 5e is not big on managing inventory.

 

[Lanefan]

Pretty much. Artificers can make them at low levels, to start with, and they are also only uncommon items. 5e is not big on managing inventory.

Sad.

Thanks for the info though.

 

[ichabod]

A lot of those are default items that you get when building a character on DDB, if you don't pick other options. Like, all of the top six.

In terms of what is the most popular sword, I tried looking at rogues, who get a choice. As part of that I did a quick build rogue on D&D Beyond, and noticed that it gave the character two shortswords. As it turns out, 5% of the PCs in the data have two shortswords, which probably includes many of the rangers as well. Those would have been double counted in my analysis above.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In terms of what is the most popular sword, I tried looking at rogues, who get a choice. As part of that I did a quick build rogue on D&D Beyond, and noticed that it gave the character two shortswords. As it turns out, 5% of the PCs in the data have two shortswords, which probably includes many of the rangers as well. Those would have been double counted in my analysis above.

I'd expect any default-build things the program does to be overrepresented.