Welcome to the 2023 Unrolled! Here, we’ll highlight the achievements you’ve managed to roll up as a community over the last year.
From countless battles with monsters to the legions of new adventurers set forth on their quests, each roll of the dice has told a story. The stats you’ll see here are a collective tapestry of the intricate tales you’ve woven of companionship and adventure.
So, without further ado, let's take a journey through the stats and stories that have defined a year of imagination in Dungeons & Dragons!
Maps
2023 was an exciting year because our latest tool, Maps, was released in Alpha in September.
Even though this tool is still in development, it’s been encouraging to see all of the battles, exploration, and adventuring taking place.
While it started with a relatively small library, Maps now has fully integrated the content of 17 books. As we move into 2024 and see more tool updates, book integrations, and stable versions of Maps, we hope the core philosophy surrounding this tool, "Prep less, play more," enables players and DMs alike to spend more time adventuring with their friends!
Charity
In an epic display of kindness, over 37,000 adventurers channeled their inner heroes, supporting a cause that impacts our real world by purchasing Extra Life products on D&D Beyond.
Whether you purchase Extra Life products released on D&D Beyond in 2023, like Misplaced Monsters: Volume One and Domains of Delight: A Feywild Accessory or older Extra Life products, all proceeds go to helping sick and injured kids through the power of play. And if that’s not being a hero, we’re not sure what is!
Claimables
Well, it looks like the “Gale train” continues to chug along. Having already topped the charts as the most popular Origin character in Baldur’s Gate 3’s opening weekend update, Gale secures another accolade in being the most popular option from our collection of downloadable Baldur’s Gate 3 character sheets.
We think it’s probably a combination of his roguish charm, capricious arcane power, and, of course, those luscious brown locks.
In other news, the most popular claimable of 2023 was the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves collection, which includes 7 stat blocks from the movie’s main characters, 5 legendary magic items featured in the movie, and a dice set featuring everybody’s favorite chonky dragon. The best part? It’s still available for free! No need to plan a heist to secure these treasures.
Characters
If living through a second (and less eccentric) D&D movie last year didn’t make you feel old, this will:
The average age of adventurers rolled up on D&D Beyond was 28. These adventurers are just old enough to go out on their own and be responsible about it, but young enough that they don’t have bad knees or back pain. Plus, if they miss a night without a long rest, they’re not cranky for the next 3 days.
While this makes sense for the all-popular human adventurer (which we cover later on), what people aren’t talking about are the juvenile dwarves and elves running around on adventures! According to the Player’s Handbook, dwarves reach adulthood at 50 and elves at 100, so if you have a 28-year-old elf in your party, you should make sure whatever they’re imbibing at the tavern is non-alcoholic.
We also found that the average level of player characters on D&D Beyond is 4.77. But, while all you poor "local hero" adventurers are wondering when you’ll get that promotion to "heroes of the realm," worry not! Todd Kenreck gave everybody a free level-up for Christmas, so go ahead and swing twice at that goblin you’re facing off against with your shiny new extra attack.
Here’s wishing you plenty more level-ups for your adventures in the new year!
Names
Maintaining his place atop the podium, Bob is the most popular name for characters on D&D Beyond for the second year running. Firmly cementing the fact that this three-letter, one-syllable name is the “John Smith” of the Forgotten Realms.
Meanwhile, “Link” has risen in popularity, a clear nod to our collective affection for heroes who are more about action than words, silent yet expressive, and probably has nothing to do with a notable sequel that hit shelves this year.
On the flip side, poor Eddie's fame has waned dramatically. Lacking the limelight that Stranger Things season 4 once provided, his popularity has turned Upside Down. Have we all forgotten about our fearless leader of the Hellfire Club so quickly? Rock on, Eddy. Rock on.
Species
Taking a look at the most popular species for characters on D&D Beyond, humans are firmly the most popular pick and, unsurprisingly, followed by the rest of the Basic Rules species except the gnome (sorry, gnomes).
The genasi are punching above their weight class by snagging a spot in the top 10. And yes, we see you, the roughly 80,000 aarakocra players. Couldn’t resist that 1st-level flight, eh?
Strangely, compared to their gold-medal showing in Baldur’s Gate 3’s opening weekend stats, half-elves finished a disappointing fifth in our 2023 round-up. Those armor and weapon proficiencies for BG3 half-elves must really make a difference!
Unfortunately for the smallfolk, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes are apparently among the least popular standard races based on our data and the opening weekend stats from Baldur’s Gate 3. I guess what they say is true: Movement speed does matter.
Classes
Looking at the most popular classes of D&D Beyond characters, it seems like the majority of players like to solve their problems with “I stab them.” Whether they’re using the tactical skill of a fighter, the precise art of a backstabbing rogue, or the pure muscle and rage of a barbarian, the simple ways are often the best.
As for popular casters, players are apparently gravitating to classes that can be prepared for anything. Wizards, who have more spells than they can shake a book at, and paladins, who get weapons, armor, shields, and healing on top of their spellcasting, were the most popular choices. It just goes to show that misty step or a high Armor Class can make you a lot more confident when your Dungeon Master asks, “Are you sure?”
Lastly, there’s the notably close race between warlocks and clerics. It looks like the majority of you listened to the devil on your shoulder instead of the angel, opting to sell your soul rather than enlist with the good guys. But we appreciate that you made the race close, at least.
Mobile App
Among mobile app users, ‘druid’ and ‘dragon’ were the most popular searches, but nobody tell ‘dungeon,’ it might hurt their feelings.
We also witnessed a staggering 7 million spells cast, and yes, it seems the age-old joke "I fireball the room" might have been more than just a meme. Who knew?
Meanwhile, 1.9 million players embraced the heart of RNG and rolled dice from the app a colossal 141 million times. That's a lot of tempting fate! We hope that number was pumped up by advantage, more than it was disadvantage.
Finally, 6 million new characters were brought to life from the app—whether by creating a custom character or rolling up a premade character, a fun new feature we added in 2023.
Top 5 Articles
From shapeshifting guides to new player tutorials, you’ve been doing your research this past year! It’s a bit troubling that one of our top 5 articles is about turning into a werewolf, but we’ll let it slide because it obviously just academic research…we hope.
Click below to check out our top 5 most popular articles from 2023:
- Druid 101: Wild Shape Guide
- How to Create Your First Dungeons & Dragons Character With D&D Beyond
- D&D Virtual Tabletop: A Closer Look
- What Is Dungeons & Dragons?
- Embracing Your Wild Side: Playing As a Lycanthrope in D&D
Looking Ahead to 2024
With 2023 wrapped up, we can’t wait to see what 2024 will bring. This next year is a very exciting one for D&D, not only is it the 50th anniversary of our beloved game, but we’ve got the 2024 core rulebooks rolling out!
Thanks for adventuring with us last year, and we’re thrilled to have you in our party for this year to come. We wish you all the inspiration, advantage on your rolls, and critical hits for 2024!
HOW?
If you do that for a living you must be a happy liar and might as well become a magician. If you do this for a living you would know that you should keep a constant scaling for the graph. All we want is to have a slightly more accurate graphs not ones that are pleasing. So if that means that all other races and classes are dwarfed so be it.
Guys does it really matter in the long run how WotC decided to make their graphs, sure at first glance you will be misleaded but if you just look back at the graph and see what it is actually meaning you will know the data. I don't see a point to all this bickering about the graphs. It was made for fun to show everybody what the statistics are, sure they were manipulated a bit. Does all this arguing really matter, its just going to lead to more resentment towards each other and we really don't need that. So let's just appreciate that they decided to send out the data so we as a community could have fun. I completely agree that WotC should change how they do their graphs next time to more accurately depict the data but in reality it doesn't really matter
Bob the 5th level human fighter shall reign supreme! All shall tremble beneath his extra attack!
Bob the 5th level Human Fighter reigns supreme
That seems right when I look at it, thanks for making it
I agree that it really doesn't matter. The ones they made are easier to get numbers from than one with a consistent scale would be, and it's not that difficult to see the trends if you think about it for a sec. Sure, the curve isn't obvious, but with a spread that large, there are disadvantages to any graph you make, especially if you want to keep them short. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that there's no malicious intent here, they just didn't think anyone would care if the curve was obvious or not and chose to emphasize the numbers instead of a trend.
It is a direct and merciless criticism of an individual's work en masse over literally trivial information meant to be fun. And by one person's admission, done because they are angry not at this post, but at the history of business decisions happening way above this poster's pay grade. A series of 'how dare you lie to us!' directed at some person, likely freelance, working for a paycheck because these people can't reach the CEO who may or may not deserve the heat. It's gross. If this were somehow manipulated data to mislead people into subscribing to some (and to be clear, made up entirely by me in this very moment) new $15 per month subscription service, I might understand.
LOL to the gom jabbar though.
cool post :)
This is great! Should've used more accurate scaling on those graphs, but otherwise this is a great idea and a really nice wrap-up.
No mention of the OGL? ;)
I'm seeing a lot of comments about the graphs... does anyone actually care about the actual topic? 😅
I think it's super interesting! I'm surprised the average character level isn't higher though. Druid is also an odd top searched word; any theories as to why that might be? it's not the most common class (based on these stats), and there aren't very many "druid" stat blocks; I can't imagine that's something a lot of DMs are looking for either.
Honestly I wonder why the average level is that low too, a bunch of the characters I make are just random level 12-17 characters, usually multiclass. It is weird how druid is searched up a lot.
Could you please release the graphs with proper (standardised - with a break point if need be) grading, so they can actually show us the interesting spread of choices. These ones are about as informative as a 'top ten' list; if you're not going to make accurate graphs in the first place, why do it at all? Why present misleading visuals at all, if all you WANT to show is a ranked list? If all you want to show is a ranked list, because you don't want to draw attention to the extreme disparity of choices and likes, then do that - but don't fudge graphs like this; it's unprofessional.
Owlin didnt make the list??
Probably because it’s really niche. Unlike most races on the list, Owlin aren’t present in MotM or the Basic Rules. The only supplement they’re in is Strixhaven, which has a comparatively small audience. They’re also a newer addition to the race selection, which means folks haven’t had as much time to tinker and get comfortable with them in the same way they have with, say, genasi. So they’re probably overlooked in a lot of campaigns.
All the folks being surprised at Bob the human fighter.
I imagine a lot of that is just "okay I need some merch for the team to fight. Time to roll up another fighter"
Bob is exactly the kind of name you put in when you're not putting in any actual effort but want it to have a name.
No offense to any actual folks named Bob, but yours is probably short for Robert. Or at least has a Billy in front of it.
OH NO! The graphs don't look right! What sort of a fantasy name is "Bob"!? Not enough carbon life forms on planet Earth are playing dwarves or halflings anymore! Data harvesting! DATA HARVESTING!!! I don't like that elf's fifth favourite pair of pantaloons! (I'm being sarcastic, in case it's not clear)
IMHO, the ultimate tragedy here is that commenters aren't coming together to acknowledge/celebrate 37,000 players giving to charity!
It's like... the D&D community is trying to be... heroic world-improvers in real life as well as in D&D!
(So now that we've celebrate 2023, how long do we have to wait before we start getting exciting news about D&D2024 and new products? Please!)
I love playing smallfolk 💖 being 153 cm myself🥰