DnD Beyond, the official Dungeons and Dragons application, has just revealed its statistics for the year 2023. Inside, we learn in particular that the name most used by players for their character is… Bob. Additionally, Bob is generally a human warrior. But is it really a cruel lack of imagination?
In recent years, thanks to a fantastic combo of Stranger Things, confinement and dedicated Twitch lives, Dungeons and Dragons has experienced a tremendous resurgence in popularity. There are therefore several thousand neophytes who discover the joy of creating their character sheet, of imagining a being endowed with extraordinary magical powers, evolving in a world completely different from ours… And yet, most of the time, this character his name is Bob.
This is revealed by the latest statistics published by Dnd Beyond, the official Dungeons and Dragons application. Like every year, the latter measured players’ habits in terms of character creation. In 2023, it is therefore the first name Bob that came up most often. Likewise, the most popular race is the human, while the most often used class is the warrior. In other words, not really what requires the most imagination from the point of view of an experienced player.
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Why is Bob the most popular name in Dungeons and Dragons?
However, there are several reasons that can explain this phenomenon. Firstly, Dungeons and Dragons can be very difficult to understand for beginners, as the rules are diverse and sometimes very obscure. Likewise, character creation can be very tedious depending on the class you choose. A warrior, on the other hand, is relatively “simple”: he does not have to choose from a host of spells, he barely has to choose his weapon.
As for Bob, two reasons may come into play. First, many characters are created as examples and experiments in DnD Beyond. The application is in fact very useful for seeing what a given character will become at a given level, and can therefore help to make a choice at the start of the game. Indeed, let’s remember that Bob is one of the oldest jokes on the Internet: he designates the simplest character in a fantasy world, namely a man, in his thirties, white and… a warrior.
Source: DndBeyond