11 YEARS OF DADDY ROLLED A 1 (BLOG ANNIVERSARY)

11 years ago, I made my first post here at Daddy Rolled a 1, and that set me off on a course of rediscovering, or perhaps renewing, my interest in the hobbies I'd had as a kid. 

I'd never really stopped roleplaying, or at least collecting and reading RPG books, since I discovered the hobby in 1981. My interest in reading comics had continued, off and on, since I first reading Marvel's Star Wars #1 back in 1977. I still enjoyed Star Wars, Star Trek, Tolkien, and the occasional board game. 

But, it was starting this blog that got me to focus, dig deeper, and make these hobbies a more regular and consistent part of my life. I began reviewing comic books, both here on my blog and as a journalist for ComicAttack. I began researching the history of tabletop roleplaying games, dug into the retro-clones and other adjacent games of the so-called OSR or Old-School Renaissance. I've been asked to be a judge for the fantastic and creative One Page Dungeon Contest for eight years running. I secured a freelance editing and writing position for a game publisher. I started running a D&D campaign for my daughter and her friends. And I began creating content for D&D (most often for the 1981 "B/X," aka "Basic/Expert" or "Moldvay" D&D, as well as for Old School Essentials, a B/X retro-clone). All of these activities directly arose out of that first post I made 11 years ago after I'd discovered what is now commonly referred to as the "old-school blogosphere" and seeing all the creativity among the folks there. 

Those of you who have stuck with me over the years know all this already, as I talk about these topics every year on this day. So, this is mainly for any new folks just discovering my blog and how it's impacted my creativity over the past 11 years. 

Enough about the distant past. What's happened over the last 12 months here at Daddy Rolled a 1? The stats below will give most of the story from what's happened directly here on the blog. As far as the Daddy Rolled a 1 "brand," the main things that happened this past year are that I became much more active on #ttrpg Twitter, something I never thought I'd do, and I've found a great community there to share ideas and talk about D&D and other tabletop RPGs. I also opened up a small shop selling products like t-shirts, hoodies, coffee mugs, tote bags, and more. Right now, as I don't have a Patreon (yet) or have any RPG books/supplements for sale (yet), the best way you can show your support if you like the content I'm creating is to buy something at my shop. 

One thing that did happen this past year is that I actually blogged less than I did the year prior. This is mainly due to a combination of an increase work load for the ad agency I run, more time spent on Twitter (which I hadn't really thought about but which is impacting the amount of time I spent blogging, for sure), and also working on two RPG supplements that I plan to sell. So, I'm still creating content, but rather than posting it on the blog as often, I'm writing stuff that I plan to sell. 

My main goal for the blog this coming year is to get back to posting more regularly, and for the "brand," is to finally get my Experts & Specialists supplement available for sale, and also my D12 Subclasses book for sale. That book is probably going to have roughly 10-12 chapters. I've finished one chapter so far, for a total of 43 pages. 

For a full retrospective, I encourage you to check out my 10th Anniversary post from last year. 

And, as always, if there's content you'd like to see me post more often, please let me know in the comments below. And thank you all for your support these past 11 years. Hearing your comments and suggestions is really what keeps me going. Here's to another year at Daddy Rolled a 1. Cheers!

STATS (Feb 11 2021 - Feb 10 2022 compared to year prior)

• Page Views: 15,194 vs 11,778 (+29%)
• Average Pages per Session: 1.76 vs 1.61 (+9%)
• Average Time per Session: 1.36 vs 1.25 (+14%)
• Bounce Rate: 76.58% vs 79.43% (-4%)
• New Users %: 87.3% vs 88.4%
• New Users Total: 5,654 vs 5,104 (+11%)
• Location: 
• United States (68.47% vs 70.35%)
• United Kingdom (5.58% vs 4.85%)
• Canada (5.20% vs 4.58%)
• Australia (2.69% vs 2.41%)
• Brazil (1.71% vs 1.56%)
• Sweden (1.64% vs 0.78%)
• France (1.34% vs 1.31%)
• Italy (1.22% vs 1.68%)
• Germany (1.01% vs 1.58%)
• Ireland (0.85% vs 0.18%)
• Top Referring Sites:
• Google
• Twitter (this is a huge change; in the past, Twitter has not even cracked the Top 10)
• Facebook
• Bing
• DuckDuckGo
• From the Sorcerer's Skull Blog
• Jeff Rient's Blog
• "Other" (everything else)

My Top 10 Most Popular Posts Over the Past Year

I was really happy this year that, aside from the top two posts, the remaining eight in the Top 10 were all "new" posts made during the past year. 

• Finally: A New Post (Updated Currently Watching) - this one gets the most views every year
• New Comics Wednesday: Revisiting My Post About Why People Do or Don't Read Comics
• Making Characters Weird: Halfling
• This is the first "new" post I made during 2021, part of a series on weird characters
• GUEST POST: Old School Essentials Campaign - Session 9 (My Daughter's Campaign)
• Another newer post, featuring a recap written by one of my players
• Making Characters Weird: Fighters
• Making Character Weird: Elves
• Open Game Content: Norse Subclasses for Fantasy RPGs
• Part of a series of making slight tweaks to old-school B/X character classes
• GUEST POST: Old School Essentials Campaign - Session 8 (My Daughter's Campaign)
• Making Characters Weird: Thieves/Rogues
• GUEST POST: Old School Essentials Campaign - Session 6 (My Daughter's Campaign)

Hanging: Home Office (laptop)

Drinking: Mike Ness Brewing Hard Charger Hazy IPA (Limited Release)

Listening: "Cherokee" by Kamasi Washington, from the album "The Epic"