Nerdarchy’s Top 10 of 2021

December 31, 2021

Another year comes to a close and we start a year Harvey Dent would be beside himself about with 2022. In a few days we’re putting the Nerdarchymobile in high gear with the launch of our second Kickstarter for Mage Forge — Magic Items for 5th Edition but right now we’re looking back at the year that was through the Top Ten most engaging content across the various platforms.

Year in review and looking ahead to the future!

Our final newsletter topic for 2021 was Reflections. Along with free gifts and other perks subscribers of Nerdarchy the Newsletter get additional content delivered right to their inbox and we publish the editorials here on the website every Sunday.

Nerdarchy learned to be more flexible and agile this past year like so many other businesses affected by tumultuous times. But new opportunities arose too! We contributed to several other creators’ projects both through game design like magic items, monsters, NPCs and adventures as well as promotional appearances like live game plays and interviews.

As a company we grew internally by restructuring our model and welcoming a new partner. Nerdarchists Dave and Ted extended an invitation for Nerditor Doug to become a third partner in the company. This core team of three has been working together for nearly five years, since the newest partner’s first post published on Feb. 1, 2017. Moving forward as always with big ideas the partners love kicking off the new year with a new Kickstarter.

You’ll find a series of Top 10 lists below. We checked the analytics to determine the ten most popular things in a variety of categories. All of the items in these lists are exclusive to 2021. This includes website posts and videos published this year, best selling products from our store, newsletters with the most engagement and the most ordered products through our Amazon affiliate.

In addition to representing a snapshot of 2021 this kind of data helps us steer the ship into the future. The Nerdarchy community continues to love fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Something we thought about often this year is how while we certainly do create a large volume of content inspired by our favorite tabletop roleplaying game, we also simply generate a lot of content full stop. Because of that strong foundation we’ve been able to enjoy and share our love for pretty much any game we want, which feels terrific.

Our upcoming Tuesday night live campaign we’re playing superheroes using Cypher System for one thing. Videos and website posts about all sorts of RPGs give us opportunities to explore the ins and outs of tabletop gaming including live chats with designers. The popular daily live chat features Nerdarchist Dave welcoming hundreds of creators to talk about nerdy stuff. We’re looking at ways to make the live chat even better too. Part of this includes providing a podcast version of every daily live chat for our supporters on Patreon. We put together a FREE bundle of stuff and a snazzy new website page where you can learn more about it here.

Heading into 2022 we first of all want Mage Forge to successfully fund! Turns out Nerdarchist Ted’s got a knack for art direction and the illustrations look incredible. It’s a powerful thing for an artist to bring your imagination to life visually, especially when these 250 items come from our own adventures and campaigns. We believe drawing any one of these cards as a reward has the potential to create a memorable moment in your gaming experiences for Game Masters and players alike. And it all comes in a cool box with a booklet of exclusive information for the GMs eyes…

Whether you prefer your Nerdarchy content here on the website, our two YouTube channels, the weekly newsletter or as one of our awesome Patreon supporters we keep doing our best to present engaging, entertaining and authentic content for all RPG players. Thank you to everyone who continues to support and encourage us along the way. You are the reason we do what we do as creators.

Stay nerdy!

Top 10 Nerdarchy the Website

Here on the site official 5E D&D content rules the roost. We published 395 posts in 2021 across a variety of topics and quite a few different RPGs and the readership shows it’s the big dog bringing people to the yard. Going forward into 2022 we’re aiming to broaden these horizons. There’s so many fantastic games out there and it feels like the hobby and industry are turning a corner, which hopefully translates into increased interest in content beyond 5E D&D.

Top 10 Nerdarchy the YouTube

We’re very encouraged by this data! Unlike the website it seems viewers here prefer our classic approach to video content — the kinds of discussions nerds like us have with each other about game related stuff. Some of these videos use official content as a springboard for broader conversations and ideas. Moving into 2022 we’ve got a mind to produce videos less explicitly based on D&D. We also feel established enough to loosen up a bit when it comes to purely game related video content. Also exciting is seeing how our Character Build Guide series grew and evolved over this past year.

Top 10 Nerdarchy Live

Live Chat Revivified wins out over live game plays on our second channel. We’re brainstorming some ideas to shake things up for the chat in 2022 but nothing concrete to share just yet. We through played through three campaigns over the year beginning in January with Nerdarchist Ted’s Dungeons & Delving then moved onto Nerditor Doug’s Ingest Quest II and wrapped things up with Steven Partridge’s Ashes of Ardor. Our next campaign begins in a few weeks when we’ll play a superhero campaign using Cypher System. We’re definitely planning to keep this group going and hopefully add more game play experiences to share.

Top 10 Nerdarchy the Store

Momentum for Out of the Box slowed down in 2022 but still comes out on top as our No. 1 best selling product both in terms of sheer volume and sales figures. It’s our most premium product so this makes sense. Following a distant second is our Nerdarchy Metal Dice. We over ordered on these big time and we’ve got a lot of them to move! We slashed the prices earlier in the year and offer a special deal for our Patreon supporters for even more savings, which ultimately reduces the price by a whopping $50! The rest of our top sellers this part year are all from our digital product library. From Hit Dice to Heroics is one of our oldest titles but the alternative uses for Hit Dice remain incredibly popular. Not far behind comes Taking Chances, a robust title filled with all sorts of minigames along with a heavy focus on tools including a short adventure where characters’ mastery of their tools is the key to success.

Out of the Box
1. Includes associated products (hardcover, PDF, GM screen, print and play card decks and free preview encounter)
Nerdarchy Metal DND Dice Set (US ONLY)
From Hit Dice to Heroics
Taking Chances
Dark Paths: Winter Lord’s Throne
Dark Paths: Forbidden Library
Dark Paths: The Chained One
Bestiary of Benevolent Monsters
Chimes of Discordia: Fantastical Mounts
Dark Paths: Pool of Bliss

Top 10 Nerdarchy the Newsletter

This past year was the year of the newsletter! Last year’s growth was phenomenal and the trend continued in 2022. Every week the topic we choose for our Monday live chat becomes the focus of the weekly newsletter where each of us writes an editorial to further explore the concept. Along with these we share special offers and deals on RPG stuff, spotlight cool projects and more. We also draw from the subscriber list for our monthly community one shot games.

Top 10 Nerdarchy the Amazon

Like the website you’ll see how these items reflect an incredibly strong connection to 5E D&D. With the increased production schedule put in place by Wizards of the Coast this makes sense although as creators with a focus on this particular RPG it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up in a meaningful way. Over on our Facebook page our daily 8 a.m. post features items from Amazon we believe the Nerdarchy community will enjoy whether it’s other RPGs and accessories or media and products we simply like.