Comparison of Hasbro player age estimate against surveys of new generation and OSR gamers

Comparing the age profiles from many surveys scraped from the web throws out a couple of different profiles:
- the contemporary forum user
- the old school gamer
- Hasbros estimate of the general populace

Two high-detail surveys return a year by year curve we can use to classify populations:
- a twitter demographics survey 2020
- the OSR survey by Questing Beast et al in 2016

Comparing these to the WotC 2000 and Hasbro 2020 estimates of player populations shows that the publishers are counting a population of younger gamers who are not appearing in forum responses.

This gives relatively distinct player profiles:
- OSR survey, show a population with half younger than 31, 80% younger than 42.
- the new generation player population appears to be half younger than 24-25 and 80% younger than 29-34.
- Hasbro estimates 50% of players younger than 27 and 80% younger than 36; closer to the new generation.

The split between the Hasbro curve and the general population response is an indicator that the players of D&D and those talking about it online are not perfectly overlapping.
- it suggests there are players too young to participate in online discussions (~12% under 12 years old)
- the Hasbro numbers also suggest there is a larger tail of older gamers undercounted in online discourse: survey responses would suggest only ~23% of players are over 31 years old but Hasbro estimates they are closer to 40% of the population.

Ranking 5e classes by preference within player populations

Splitting sources into Apps (Apps and reports from DnD Beyond) and Forums (surveys from Reddit, Giant in the Playground, etc) and aggregating the results weighted by number of participants lets us see the average differences between the two player populations.

Sorting the classes by greatest difference in preference (most preferred by app uses to left, most preferred by forum users to right) we see martial classes are preferred by app users, spellcasters are preferred by forum users.

Differences in 5e class preferences by source

tl:dr - preferred D&D 5e player class shows distinct difference depending on whether sourced from apps/online tools or from forum response.

From digging about on the internet I pulled together a number of data sets on preferred race and class combindations of PCs over the past ~4 years (2017-2020). I wanted to see if there was a change over time but instead I found a distinct difference depending on where the data was sourced from.

First - setting everything up according to date does not show much in the way of a distinct pattern.

However once this is sorted by source type we see a difference between the relatively smooth curve of the online tools and apps (orange) and the forum survey responses.




Initial hypothesis is that there is a large block of players who just want to sit down and play that tend towards melee types - "give me my sword and board and lets roll dice!" - compared to those who answer forum surveys that show more interest in spell casters both divine and arcane.

Aggregating these into a pair of archetype finger prints weighted by the number of contributors to each source highlights this difference. A single forum response deviated significantly from the forum archetype: a survey on RPG.net in 2017 requesting only those characters that responders had played for at least 1 session.

Data sources include 2 sets of raw data (OGANM app, Reddit Subclasses 2019) and 1 estimate based on sub-forum pageviews (RPGBOT) - the others are processed outputs from the creators of those sources (e.g. the report-out by a survey creator, DnDBeyond Dev webcast, etc.)

Benchmarking random NPC generation (3.5e DMG vs 5e actual data)

I set off to answer 3 questions: - how to the populations of characters running about map to what the DMG would generate - is there variation between player preferences in different (real world) geographies - are there observable changes over time This is inspired by the large datasets released from DnD Beyond - this shows us the make of the PC population for 5e, broadly speaking. Correct me if I am wrong but the last 'fractions of NPCs in the gameworld' rules that I can spot are the 3.5e DMG so we shall compare to those.


Taking the first - how does what players (blue) do compare to what the 3.5e DMG (grey) tells us is out there? 

- DMG thinks we are playing lots more rogues, clerics and wizards, much less paladins 

- Lumping warlock and wizard accounts for that difference between wizards in both cases (3.5e had no warlocks, both similar magic users) 

- DMG seems to think all the paladins we are playing should be clerics

 - Barbarians, rangers, fighters, druids are broadly the same 

- All the rogues the DMG thinks should exist are actually running monks, bards and sorcerors 

Of course this compares 5e players to 3.5e DMG; I hope to check this with 3.5e data to see if it holds up. 

The orange attempts an estimate from a small (N = ~50) poll in 2003 which indicates there could be a more interesting story: that not all the warlock players are wizards by another name; the theory that they are an arcane flavour of cleric e.g. drawing powers from a greater being could have something to it. More data could refute or affirm this.

The Shifting Sand Tower from Towers of Krshal

Towers of Krshal turned up - had it printed from Lulu and read it avidly.

To test run the tables I set out with the tower generator to see what I could create as a spare tower for Sholtipec

Following down through the tables give me an unexpected 17m tall single story tower with an accessible roof. Relatively ordinary round, stone walls, inhabited by ordinary townsfolk and with 2 levels of basement.

So what have we here?

First off accessible roof means that we can somehow traverse the whole tower - obviously it has a dangerous spiral stair running up the interior of the walls. Why one ludicrously tall single room - because there is something suspended from the ceiling in it. An orrery or difference engine, maybe a hive or other thing the inhabitants or tending. This place is not a temple, or cult, whatever the inhabitants are up to it is odd but secular.

I think we have a pendulum based seering engine here - with the apparatus hanging in webs and chains from the top of the tower; its progress across the floor of the room dictating the activities of the inhabitants.

The apparatus is a complex sand cascade, with many colours of sand being fed into the top of the apparatus and their paths through the structure modified by the tick of the pendulum and the shifting of its parts. The blends of the sand, the intensity of the colours and where it lands on the floors provide weather forecasts, crop timings, and other 'almanac' factors that guide the inhabitants throughout there lives.

The basement is filled with all of the reference books.

Some of the reference books have never been opened in the life time of the current inhabitants; some reservoirs of sand have never flowed in all that time. Some streams are beginning to turn up now; flecks of dark bone, greenish metal. None of the inhabitants know what this means and have found no references in the books of the first cellar. They have not yet ventured into the locked second cellar yet, noone has since the last invasion from beyond the ocean.

In Corpathium to feed Nanowrimo

I wrote a draft novel for Nanowrimo this year and short circuited a lot of the world-building by setting it up the road from where my current campaign is set.

This had one or two neat pieces to it because it was easy to have the characters rattle on about their concerns and what was happening in the background because all that was already in play, I knew what was going on.

What was super useful, that I did not expect, was setting out the layout of the city where a lot of the action took place was greatly simplified by using some of the quick and easy world-building tools that are sloshing around in the OSR scene at the moment. In particular, I pulled up the glorious In Corpathium city generator to quickly block out where things were and what was happening in the various places.

Sinking Shenevar - a New Crobuzon

From this post on Githyanki Diaspora - tipped off by Throne of Salt, who was set upon the path (just now) by Anne (of DIY & Dragons)

And so the challenge:

1) Take your three favorite human-ish monsters out of the Monster Manual and they are minority citizens in the city. Detail how they get along, how being in the city has culturally changed them and what niches they fill in the city. How do the powers that rule the city keep them down?
2) Take three really bizarre fucking monsters and figure out how they exist in the nooks and crannies of the city and how the powers that rule the city keep these beasts from doing unacceptable amounts of damage?

Methodologically driven by pulled books from my shelves and seeing where they fell open (mostly).
My races: Kuo-toa, Yakfolk, Farrow
My monsters: Wang-liangs, Harpies, Ettercaps

And so:

A mountain side city, ancient pride of the wang-liangs, once built atop a glacier now sinking as the ice age passes into memory and the light of the sun grow stronger. Glorious vaulted halls, once open to the cleansing winds of the mountain winters now tip and slide into the melt pools. Decorations of ice have melted away, leaving no trace on blank stone. The austere beauty is sullied by vegetation, the presence of birds, the scuttling life that has come up from the fetid forests below.

Now the city slips into the melt-lake beneath and new inhabitants have come to claim it. Some scant resources come from beyond the mountains, expeditions from the kingdom of the yakfolk to keep this foothold but so far ventures down into the forests have not justified the trouble, where they have returned at all.

Three humanoid minorities:
Kuo-Toa (Monster Manual v3.5) have colonised the city, journeying up through the underdark and finding these structures now submerged in the icy lakes. They produce most of the food for the city, keeping fish and cultivating reed beds painstakingly carried through the deeps below to cleanse the run off from the city. The fresh water seems plentiful but is rapidly becoming full of kuo-toa and the filth from the city. Nominally free inhabitants of their lakes, the elders are beginning to consider easing the burdens of foul water by culling the others who live in the city.

Yakfolk (Monster Manual II 3e) have crossed the mountains as the sun melted the ice, first to bring battle to their ancient foes the wang-liangs then to conquer in triumph as their opposition chose to abandon their melting home. This place is too crooked and tilted, damp and austere for the yakfolk and there is argument over how much effort to put into shoring it up enough to make it a proper monument to their glory. While there is room enough to properly allow every yakfolk to be a royal in their own palace, it lacks the gardens, pleasures and competent vassals of their home cities. The yakfolk who have remained here have tended to be the ambitious and the driven and the plotting and scheming for dominance occupies most of their time while the city continues to sink. With their skin-walking ability they are completely aware of the plots of the kuo-tuo and the farrow and intend to make harsh examples of the first to step out of line.

Farrow (Monsternomicon v3.5) brought by the yakfolk to do the work they will not dirty their hands with. For them this is a miserable cold place, with little fuel for heat, not much to eat beyond the soggy fish they trade their pay for with the kuo-toa. Most of the farrow spend their days in work projects assigned by one or another of the yakfolk, often to spend the following week on another project working to stop the aims of the first. Years of this has plunged most of the farrow into despair, with no chance of returning home over the moutains. The small minority of farrow who scout the surrounding land and hunt for food have seen the space available for escape and a small trickle of 'hunting accident' survivors are beginning to form free villages in the woodlands down slope.

Other beings
Wang-Liangs (Oriental Adventures 3e) lurk in the depths of the cities, those that have not already departed in disgust as their city sinks and the interlopers refuse to simply die. These that remain in the cool and shady depths talk to one another through their innate telepathy, moving less and less for fear of attracting the attention of the yakfolk. All are hunted by the yakfolk, engaged in an endless game of cat and mouse. Those that remain are the most affronted, ever less likely to leave, remaining simply to soak their claws with the blood of yakfolk.

Harpy (Monster Manual v3.5) joyous predators of the sodden margins where the city, has begun to slip beneath the surface they roam these happy hunting grounds, snatching kuo-toa from the pools or unwary farrow that stray to close. Both the kuo-toa and the farrow have set up shrines and leave trinkets and food to appease the harpies in the hope of being ignored. The harpies find these antics amusing and have no intention of stopping.

Ettercap (Monster Manual v3.5) the reason that the farrow escapees have not fled further than the local woodlands, these spider horrors have even migrated into the city itself to prey upon the plentiful humanoids. They have been tolerated by the yakfolk as a useful instrument of terror - both to assassinate rivals and to keep all but the most courageous farrow terrified of what lurks beyond the city limits. They keep a careful distance from the wang-liangs, recognising the scent of the old masters of the city.