Decades of D&D fans repeating the old adage “Friends don’t let friends play half-orcs” may have had some tangible effects. Yesterday, FiveThirtyEight published data on the most D&D popular classes and races and, well, half-orcs only make up about five percent of all D&D characters played between August 15 and September 15. For comparison, more than fifty percent of players were either human, elf, or half-elf.
To figure out the most popular race and class combinations, FiveThirtyEight asked the makers of the online tool D&D Beyond for data. Their chart, which is based on over 100,000 characters registered on D&D Beyond, confirms what longtime fans already knew: No one wants to play half-orc sorcerers. Just 126 characters (0.1%) were half-orc sorcerers, while the most popular class-race combination, human fighter, had 4,888 (4.8%) characters. Fourteen percent of all characters are human. Also, people love elf rangers—hello, Legolas—and tiefling warlocks.
I was surprised to see that people love dwarf clerics, a combination I’d never really thought of. You can check out the data here.