D&D General Why does D&D still have 16th to 20th level?

[Maxperson]

I didn't even know there was any actually collected data. Anyone got a link?

 

[Maxperson]

To be honest, D&D Beyond is the first time anyone's got a good look at what levels people actually play with a sample size large enough to be statistically significant. D&D Beyond Data is not perfect but it sure beats the anecdotal experiences people give, unless there's some reason why people would put characters of every other level on there except 16+.

It's a specific subset of players, though, like those who talk on forums. It's not indicative of players in general. It only shows those who like to play online, and online play is much more limited and less enjoyable than in person play, so campaigns are likely to die off sooner or convert to in person play where possible.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think their methodology seems pretty sound from what we know of it.

That doesn’t follow. The books were written first, based on feedback from a subset of the player base at the time, which largely showed that the majority didn’t expect to use the full 1-20 spread often, but wanted the option anyway - a good reason to include them in the books! Then the player base expanded significantly, to the point where the subset who gave feedback on the original playtest is no longer representative. Given that players who actually used the full 1-20 spread were already in the minority during the playtest, it is not at all unexpected that after massive expansion, that minority would shrink even further. Might that be a good reason not to include those higher levels in a hypothetical 6th edition? Possibly, although as the 5e playtest feedback shows, there are factors that go into including or excluding features beyond just how much they’re used. It is entirely possible that the majority of the player base would still want the option to play to 20th level, even though only a tiny minority would take advantage of that option.

There could also be other phenomenon at play. A few possibilities:

1. D&D Beyond measures characters not users. A user could have 10 characters and only one of those be high level. So, IMO asking how many characters are high level will yield a much lower number than asking how many users have character that are high level.

2. Campaigns start at lower levels. Players may use the builder to create a few different character concepts for the levels their games start at periodically. If this is done by a significant amount of players you will be counting many not-real characters for the low level data.

3. Since players usually start much lower level and slowly build up to high level and then repeat that cycle - then given how D&D Beyond excludes characters that haven't been 'recently' updated - it goes to reason that they would only be counting a small fraction of the players that play to level 20 at any given time.

4. This isn't intended to be a complete list.

 

[Yora]

View attachment 138523

Oh. Yeah...

That's...

Thank you.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's a specific subset of players, though, like those who talk on forums. It's not indicative of players in general. It only shows those who like to play online, and online play is much more limited and less enjoyable than in person play, so campaigns are likely to die off sooner or convert to in person play where possible.

I think that's a good reason to potentially be skeptical of what it shows. I will note though that during covid lockdowns many in person groups started playing together online. So I'm not sure that works as a great explanation anymore.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's a specific subset of players, though, like those who talk on forums. It's not indicative of players in general. It only shows those who like to play online, and online play is much more limited and less enjoyable than in person play, so campaigns are likely to die off sooner or convert to in person play where possible.

Do you have any actual data that suggests online campaigns are likely to convert to in-person or die off, or is that an assumption based on your personal experience?

 

[FrogReaver]

Do you have any actual data that suggests online campaigns are likely to convert to in-person or die off, or is that an assumption based on your personal experience?

The same could be asked to you - do you have any data that suggests that is not the case?

IMO. If you want to convince people you don't just point out they don't have data, you show them the data that shows otherwise.

 

[Maxperson]

I think that's a good reason to potentially be skeptical of what it shows. I will note though that during covid lockdowns many in person groups started playing together online. So I'm not sure that works as a great explanation anymore.

Yep. We did, but a lot of those used other platforms like Zoom and Discord, AND as soon as we were vaccinated, we dropped it like a hot potato. It just wasn't as good visually as being at the table and seeing the figures. It wasn't as good auditorily, as online sound is very limited, so you can't have more than one person talking at a time without losing a lot, and if 3 try to talk... When our in person games started again, it was like a breath of fresh air.

If you've been following the Pandemic thread here, you'll see a lot of posts about folks who have dropped or will drop online play and run back to live play.

 

[FrogReaver]

One other thing that bugs me with D&D Beyond data -

People just assume that just because you have alot of data that you have data good data for a purpose. That's not normally the case. You can have alot of data that isn't good for anything until you manipulate it by excluding certain things and if your not very careful about what gets excluded then the data still isn't going to tell you what you expect it to. People read the data wrong and jump to conclusions that it doesn't actually reveal.

What we can say from D&D Beyond Data is that of their pool of 'active' characters that most at a given snapshot in time were lower level.

 

[Charlaquin]

There could also be other phenomenon at play. A few possibilities:

1. D&D Beyond measures characters not users. A user could have 10 characters and only one of those be high level. So, IMO asking how many characters are high level will yield a much lower number than asking how many users have character that are high level.

Sure. I don’t think this is a point in favor of high level campaigns being more common than the D&D Beyond data suggests though.

2. Campaigns start at lower levels. Players may use the builder to create a few different character concepts for the levels their games start at periodically. If this is done by a significant amount of players you will be counting many not-real characters for the low level data.

I’m pretty sure they control for this by only counting characters whose sheets are regularly updated - not something you’re likely to do with a character you’re just building to test a concept.

3. Since players usually start much lower level and slowly build up to high level and then repeat that cycle - then given how D&D Beyond excludes characters that haven't been 'recently' updated - it goes to reason that they would only be counting a small fraction of the players that play to level 20 at any given time.

If you actually look at the encounter building guidelines, the progression curve is mostly pretty flat after 11th level. It takes about 6 medium encounters to get to 2nd level, 6 to get to 3rd, 12 to get to 4th, 15 to get to 5th-10th, 18 to get to 11th, and 10 to get to 12th-20th. Moreover, even if groups aren’t typically following those guidelines, the “updates” they look for aren’t just level ups. If the characters are being played with, their HP totals should be changing, they should be gaining new equipment, spending and earning gold, etc. If they aren’t doing that, it makes sense not to count them.

4. This isn't intended to be a complete list.

For sure. Data collection is hard, lots of things can skew the results. But for the most part, I think their methodology is solid, and in the absence of data suggesting otherwise, I’m inclined to believe that their data is fairly representative. At least to the point that I don’t doubt the significant majority of campaigns end before 11th level.