D&D 5E My favorite race- what I play, what I want to see

[JamieEvan]

Halflings. Yeah.
Humans and halfling are two races I have tended to play with 5e but I prefer halflings

 

[Delazar]

Human! Somehow they strike me as more heroic than the others... probably because most of the fiction we see on TV / Comics / Games is based on humans... so they inspire me more.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Woah! There were some...pretty significant voting changes since the last time I looked at this. Dragonborn shot from being tied with most of the bottom-tier races to being #4, beating the elf and one vote shy of tying with Dwarf. I had hoped they'd do well but...wow, talk about an upset. Particularly surprising given my impression of the board's tastes generally. Guess we just have a lot of lurkers who need a breath mint!

 

[Ogre Mage]

In looking at the top three choices of human, half-elf and dwarf it interesting to consider how their popularity has changed over time.

Back in the days of 2E humans were widely considered a joke race from an optimization standpoint and not common in the adventuring groups I played in. 3E with human bonus feat and extra skills points drastically improved their standing and they become one of the most favored races. They seemed to lose a little ground in 4E but were still considered solid. 5E appears to have restored them as the leader of the pack assuming the variant human is allowed. I see little love for the "default" human.

It looks like 5E has done for the half-elves what 3E did for the humans -- transforming one of the least popular (and many would argue mechanically underpowered) races into one of the strongest. I've never seen this race as favored as it is now.

Dwarves seem to have been a strong and popular choice in every edition of D&D I have played.

 

[Valador]

Human, Aasimar and on occasion Half Elf. They make the best Paladins in my opinion which is pretty much my go to class.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Dwarves seem to have been a strong and popular choice in every edition of D&D I have played.

My albeit limited experience is slightly more nuanced than that. It seems like a regional thing, whether elf or dwarf is more popular--though a "region" can be as small as a single FLGS and its repeat customers. All told, the two remain common, but even in those editions where humans were seen as sub-par, humans were still chosen more often than not.

For some reason, you don't see this at all in the WoW community--all the "Wow Census" data I've seen strongly, strongly suggests that humans are dramatically #1, Blood Elves #2, Night Elves #3, and everything else much less common--and these trends hold up even among low-level characters (which are typically alts) where "attrition" is high (either getting abandoned, deleted, or pushed up out of each level bracket until they hit max level). Dwarf was generally vying with Gnome for last place (among Alliance characters), both overall and on most individual servers.

Not that WoW stuff has to have any direct analogue to D&D stuff--different games, overlapping but FAR from identical customer base. But we have kinda-sorta meaningful data for it, so it's interesting for contrast.

 

[Rhogar_Rarr]

My usual party members think it's weird if I am not playing a Dragonborn. I have a lot of fun with them and apparently I am now perceived as one.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My usual party members think it's weird if I am not playing a Dragonborn. I have a lot of fun with them and apparently I am now perceived as one.

Cheers, from one Dragonborn fan to another. If I had a more central group I'd probably be in a similar boat, protesting, "I do play other things, honest, I just really want to play another Dragonborn!"

 

[Rhogar_Rarr]

Cheers, from one Dragonborn fan to another. If I had a more central group I'd probably be in a similar boat, protesting, "I do play other things, honest, I just really want to play another Dragonborn!"

Nice to hear that there are other Dragonborn around. I have yet to see another one in actual play. My tables are usually full of Humans and Half-Elves. I've seen a couple Elves, Dwarves, Half-Orcs, and Halflings. And like one of each of the rare races (Tiefling, Genasi, Gnome, and Goliath). So I guess it is replicating the common vs. uncommon feel.

 

[Ogre Mage]

My albeit limited experience is slightly more nuanced than that. It seems like a regional thing, whether elf or dwarf is more popular--though a "region" can be as small as a single FLGS and its repeat customers. All told, the two remain common, but even in those editions where humans were seen as sub-par, humans were still chosen more often than not.

Yeh, elves have always been popular at my gaming tables too. In my many years of playing though I think they were more favored back in the days of 2E when they were the power gamer's choice, particularly when sourcebooks were taken into account. Old school players may remember the bladesinger kit from 2E Complete Book of Elves.