Revisiting D&D race preference by source

Prompted by an expression of surprise that a twitter poll was showing ~1/4 players choose human, I want to revisit the question at it and share the datasets. This is partly in response to realising my old go-to player race article is not good, hence this update.

As of time of hitting publish these were the results of the poll, where human/other has been rising and dwarf trending down overnight.

Looking at the favoured races as extracted from the 5.30.8 "Is your D&D character rare" article, D&D Beyond presentations in 2020 and 2 different character building sources (Aidednd, Oganm) we get a sense of favoured races among players who do not necessarily interact with forums or surveys.

To me this looks relatively stable across the top 12-15 races. The D&D Beyond 2020 numbers have been highlighted. Note a number of races were not available on D&D Beyond in 2017 when the 5.30.8 article was written.

In comparison, data as compiled from multiple polls and surveys on social media and gaming forums is pretty noisy.

With a charitable eye you could read a swing in preferences for various races over time but this is very noisy and shows again the disconnect between the responses gleaned from questions on forums and what appears to be happening among players in general.

Tabular data from the Apps for those interested.

Source	5.30.8	AideDnD	DnDBeyond	Oganm
Year	2017	2020	2020	2020
Human	0.231234202	0.239579757	0.2117	0.238770686
Elf	0.150593472	0.166517888	0.1366	0.135933806
Half-Elf	0.095743122	0.090984001	0.0953	0.061465721
Dwarf	0.087070008	0.088237314	0.0622	0.066193853
Tiefling	0.069916108	0.069216508	0.07	0.052009456
Dragonborn	0.07496245	0.054384399	0.0603	0.061465721
Halfling	0.054181778	0.060839113	0.0468	0.046099291
Genasi	0.054685497	0.013870768	0.0441	0.011820331
Half-Orc	0.04614976	0.046968344	0.042	0.055555556
Gnome	0.042440561	0.037766944	0.0351	0.047281324
Goliath	0.041414807	0.02135549	0.0358	0.027186761
Aasimar	0.016183097	0.036736936	0.0441	0.024822695
Aarakocra	0.035425138	0.009682071	0.0272	0.010638298
Tabaxi	0	0.030007553	0.0119	0.01891253
Warforged	0	0.015930783	0.0066	0.002364066
Firbolg	0	0.00995674	0.0064	0.017730496
Tortle	0	0	0.0061	0.01891253
Kenku	0	0.002334684	0.0053	0.010638298
Changeling	0	0.002334684	0.0054	0.001182033
Lizardfolk	0	0.000412003	0.0053	0.007092199
Other	0	0.002884021	0.0418	0.08392435

Sources on the Big List of TTRPG surveys post - top 4 are the relevant general population sources.