6 Years of Critical Hits: More Than Editions of D&D

(Before you say anything, yes, I know there are unnumbered editions of D&D that mean there are more than 4 editions.)

In the past, I’ve done some pretty big write-ups. Feel free to take a trip back through the ages of Critical Hits:

• Year 1
• Year 2
• Year 3
• Year 4
• Year 5

This year, I’m going to go more straight to the point. Before I dive into the stats for the year, I’d like to call out two particular milestones.

We’re Almost Professionals Now

This is the year that blogging suffered a bit, but for a pretty good reason: we were actually game designing. For money, even!

ChattyDM’s adventure as part of the From Here To There adventure anthology finally saw print, and he had several articles published in Kobold Quarterly. ChattyDM and I both also started doing design and development work for Margaret Weis Productions, from the Dragon Brigade RPG (with some of our other awesome blogging friends too) which then lead into the upcoming and super-exciting Marvel Superheroes RPG (in playtesting now!)

We also had our work appear in DDI for the first time. From my contribution to the “Choose Your Fortunes Wisely” article, to “Rumble in the Valley” for Dungeon, and then just last week “Class Acts Assassin: Secrets of the Ninja” for Dragon. ChattyDM broke new ground with the level 0 rules in “A Hero’s First Steps” and the accompanying level 0 adventure, “Temple of the Weeping Goddess.” Expect more to come from us in the next year in DDI, too.

Meanwhile, more behind the scenes, Bartoneus, Vanir, and myself were selected to playtest some upcoming D&D products. This has posed an interesting challenge in some cases between our role as news-hounds for RPGs and confidential material, yet I believe we’ve found a good balance. To be honest, most of the things we get to look at have already been announced, so other than details (which are easy to keep secret) it’s not a big deal. It has definitely lead to at least one blog post that errs heavily on the side of being conservative though!

In non-RPGs, Dixon Trimline got to see publication this year with one of his short stories being published by Nevermet Press. And the new edition of my board game Get Bit! saw a very successful Kickstarter campaign, allowing the funding of special bonuses (like stickers) and to get the Sharkspansion created.

Of course, the already-pros among us kept putting out great work. As only a small sampling, Chris Sims has several pieces in this month’s Kara-Tur themed issue of Dragon, and Logan Bonner has been working on updating monsters and giving them added oomph.

However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the pinnacle of XTREME ROLEPLAYING with the release of Logan’s Refuge in Audacity, hosted here and available for free. Free, that is, except for HAVING YOUR MIND BLOWN BY PLANET-DESTROYING RADNESS.

All in all, a good year. Much of our success I have to attribute to using Critical Hits as a platform, both for exposure and for honing our writing skills. If you want to break into the industry, I say: start a blog!

We’re An Award-Winning Blog

I think I’ve harped on it enough, but winning the Ennie was a huge milestone for us. We also greatly appreciated winning the RPG Site of the Year from Stuffer Shack. The DM Guys Ennie nomination was also a big boost, and something we’d like to get back to.

Onto the stats!

The Basics

• RSS Subscribers: 2900
• Total Page Views This Year: 1,074,221
• Unique Visitors This Year: 375,453
• Total Number of Posts: 2,817
• Posts This Year: 330
• Total Number of Comments: 28,700
• Comments This Year: 3,512
• Total Number of Different Commenter Names: 3,158
• Total Spam Blocked: 129,711

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Our Favorite Posts of the Year

• Booty Talk
• Gamma World: You Can’t Handle All This Junk
• What I Learned Running A Level 1 to 30 Campaign
• The Gammarizer: Bring Your Town To Gamma Terra
• Depression & Dungeons & Dragons
• Beyond Labels: How Each RPG Serves And Rewards Specific Needs
• The Architect DM: World Building By Process
• The One Page Character Sheet
• Bedtime Adventures: May-Gee’s Big Test (Part 2)
• Preference is Puzzling
• Hints From Dire Heloise
• There’s No Crying in Design
• Review: Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab RPG Series Scents
• Improvisional Safety Limits
• Playing Leverage With Just the FAQs
• The Plastic Is Too Damn High: Miniatures Pricing Primer
• The Architect DM: Give Your Cities Some Character
• Agents of the Unkingdom: The Nullmen
• The 5×5 Method Compendium
• The Architect DM: Negative Space in Dungeons
• Mouseburning It: Hacking A Skill System, Small Press Style (our submission to the Ennies judges)
• Into The Unknown

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