A fan collected data on 1.2 million DnD characters on DnD Beyond, and found out that most players are using the same small handful of DnD race and class combinations. If you’re running a Human Fighter, an Elf Ranger, or a Tiefling Warlock – we’re sorry to have to inform you of this – but you’re basic as it comes.
But you’re not alone. In fact, the data collected by Dice Scroller shows that over half of DnD characters are the same 30 combinations of DnD class and races. Blogger, Seed of Worlds, has done some of their own analysis to show that over half of DnD Beyond characters utilize just 4% of the 686 possible combinations on the platform.
The most popular DnD character build by far is the Human Fighter, with almost 50,000 entries. In fact, while Human is extremely popular overall, over one third of 5e Fighters are Human. The next most popular character build is the Elf Ranger, followed by Elf Rogues and Wizards. You’re also not straying far from the crowd if you make a Tiefling Warlock, a Dwarf Cleric, a Half-Orc Barbarian or a Gnome Wizard.
What’s particularly interesting is that the overwhelming popularity of the top archetypes means there are some combinations that have never been picked, at least not in this dataset, which stems from late 2022. Apparently no one at all is playing a Minotaur Wizard, a Satyr Rogue, or a Vampire Barbarian. If you’re quick, you could be the first!
Of course there are some issues with the data. For instance, some options, like the 5e Artificer, are locked behind a paywall – which obviously reduces their popularity. We also don’t know what proportion of these created characters were actually played. Some may have just been made to test out DnD Beyond’s 5e character creator.
Still, with so much data available, you can pick out some pretty clear patterns. It turns out that DnD players just love the classics!
For the budding DM, we have resources on the best DnD campaigns. And if you want to immerse yourself in lore, check out these DnD gods and DnD settings.