A second year of Cannibal Halfling Gaming is coming to a close, which is as baffling as it is amazing. As we wrap things up for the year and prepare for the next one, all the while trying to survive the holidays, let’s see how we’ve done in 2018 and what goals we’ll be trying to strive for in the future!

Since this time last year when Aaron and I collected our thoughts on how the first year of Cannibal Hafling Gaming went, CHG has published:

3 Glimpses Into The Vault, 21 Adventure Logs, 1 Bargain Bin Gaming, 32 Editorials, 12 Kickstarter Wonks, 13 Level One Wonks, 5 Meet the Campaigns, 14 Meet the Parties, 11 System Hacks, 1 System Split, 8 Table Fictions, and 16 Independents, for a total of 137 articles in 2018 as of this post (not counting this one). Every column popped up at least once, and five brand new ones made their debut over the course of the year!

No small part of that is thanks to new contributors joining myself and Aaron. Jimmy got the entire Table Fiction idea off the ground, and Magdalen joined us to talk about 1 GM:1 Player games and crossing over to the GM side of the screen. And, of course, Aki joined us as a regular contributor covering all sorts of topics, not the least of which was writing most of our Meet the Campaign articles before we even knew that was a category and carrying the CHG flag to PAX Unplugged this year.

The Mad Adventurers Society fully faded back into the primordial ooze of the internet not too long ago, but in my last now-vanished post there I compared publishing material online to standing on the mountaintops and yelling up into the void, hoping someone was listening, and how much easier that was if you weren’t the only person yelling. I am super grateful that we’ve had more people join us on our own mountaintop to help bring games and gamers together. I certainly hope to welcome more in the coming year.

Numbers-wise we’ve seen some pretty remarkable improvements. 37 more articles than in 2017, for starters. As of shortly before this post we’ve been visited 74,912 times this year, and those visitors have chalked up 114,365 views of our articles and pages. To compare we racked up 18,085 visitors and 31,233 views in all of 2017. Five times this year we reached a new ‘best month ever’ milestone, the current holder being November with 8,157 visitors and 12,822 views. Now, personally, I like to try and keep myself in the mindset that so long as one reader logs off with a smile on their face then an article has been a success, but it is quite gratifying to see signs of more than one.

7 out of 10 of the year’s most popular articles were published this year; the oldies-but-goodies were our two-part Genesys review, not surprising considering they were posted last December and really took off, and the enduringly popular System Split for Cyberpunk in Powered by the Apocalypse. The rest of the top ten consist of Warhammer 4e, Terrinoth, an old excuse, Mordenkainen, Eberron, the Dawn of Rebellion, and the Spire. So, reviews continue to be a popular draw for readers, particularly if we can get them out quickly. The top ten don’t tell the entire tale, though. Characters, advice, homebrew game ideas and mechanics, and even fiction performed very well. Suffice to say that while we will continue to review games, maintaining a wide variety of content has been as successful as it has been fun, and we’ll be keeping at it.

The Patreon has been humming along at a modest but gratifying pace! We reached the goal where I could start tipping contributors for their articles MAS-style, which I was extremely pleased to do . . . granted both Aaron and Aki decided to be generous gits and have commanded their money to be passed on to good causes. Partly because of that, just like we were hoping for this time last year, CHG has become a Patron as well as a creator, spreading some of the love to other parts of the TTRPG community.

The posts to Patreon have improved as well; crunch time permitting our Patrons have gotten an early look at many of our articles, and there are some exclusive bits on there from both Dresden Files: Philadelphia and Genesys Mecha, among others. There’s definitely more room to keep improving, though. More previews, more exclusives, actually getting some Patron games off the ground, potentially access to a Patron-only Discord for people to chat in, that sort of thing. Thank you so much to everyone who’s supported us so far, whether you’ve been in for the long haul or can only stay for a while. It means a lot.

Our DriveThru RPG Affiliate program also continues to reap benefits! Funds generated by the program allowed us to purchase Sentinel Comics: The Roleplaying Game Starter Kit, Star Trek Adventures, the Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron, Warhammer Fantasy 4th Edition, Strands of Fate 2e, Wrath and Glory, and Masks: Unbound to bring content before your eyes. I’ll be posting screencaps of what people have been buying on our social media accounts later, but here’s the really important point: as of this post we still have $112.10 in our account, ready to go. So, first, please do keep traveling through our fine and elegantly crafted links for your DTRPG purchasing excursions. Second, and much more importantly:

What games do you want to see us reviewing/working with in the new year? Let us know now, and always feel free to drop us a line about a new game on your radar that you’d like to have some info about or material for as we go through 2019.

I’ve talked about the general future of CHG (more contributors/articles, better Patreon support, community-requested content), but what am I personally going to be getting up to? I’ve got a number of games (Shadows Over Sol, Capers, John Carter of Mars) on the docket to review, that honestly have been pushed back so they don’t vanish in the holiday haze. The Adventure Log for High Impact Heroics will continue to its conclusion, and there’s a chance I’ll be starting a new log from the land of Barovia. I’m going to keep tinkering with Genesys Mecha, and there are a few other similar projects on the drawing board. I’d love to return to writing more Table Fiction, and I’ve got a few ideas I can work on to that effect.

Off of CHG, well, I’ve got a few irons in the fire in terms of game content and design, and if they work out you’ll probably hear about them here as well. Even behind the scenes here at CHG there are some projects a-brewing.

And, of course, there will probably be a few surprises along the way. Our five new categories just sort of . . . happened. There’s no telling what’ll pop up in the future.

Two years of Cannibal Halfling Gaming has been, honestly, the most enduring, enjoyable, and yeah even successful creative venture I’ve ever been a part of, and I’m looking forward to a third. So, again, thank you. Thanks to Aaron, Aki, Magdalen, and Jimmy for writing with me. Thanks to Geni for working with us behind the scenes and being probably the sanest one in the channel. Thanks to Ryan Gadsby, Gareth Price, and all the rest of our patrons for supporting us, and thanks to everyone who clicked on one of those fine and elegantly crafted links. Thank you all for every time you read an article, for every like and comment, for every idea or game you submitted or requested, and for every time you told your friends about us. Thanks to Michelle for supporting me, and to Aiden for . . . every little thing.

May your dice rolls be, if not good, at least interesting. May your table always be a welcoming one. May you have new games and new friendships, and may we help you to find both as we go through our third year.

Now go play some games and have some fun! Happy holidays!