Top 100? Huh.

Sad news today that Pope Francis has passed on. I barely missed out on meeting the Pontiff when I lived in Asuncion (my wife got to), but I did have the opportunity to hear him speak from about 10 feet away. To me, he seemed a good man and a good Pope; I will miss him.

ANYway...I received an email from a blog database company called Feedspot that Ye Old Blog here is one of the "100 best D&D blogs and websites of 2025." Curious about how exactly I got on this list (I certainly didn't throw my name at them), I emailed the company asking for their criteria for their ranking. Here's what they told me:

Feedspot editorial team extensively searched on Google and social media websites to find the best DND Blogs and ranked them based on several factors such as:

1. Blog content quality
2. Blog consistency
3. Age of the Blog
4. Average number of shares on social sites for your
5. Blog Traffic to your Blog and more.

So, there you go. I mean, I had to admit I was pretty curious, especially considering all the posts about volleyball and Reddit bashing I've been writing this year. "Best D&D blogs of 2025?" Hmmm...

Anyway, I came in at #26, which is kind of cool because that's a number that has personal significance to me (though I'm not going to go into my goofy woo-woo New Age stuff at the moment). Alexis is #24 (appropriate...it would have been a sham if I'd ranked ahead of him), and Grognardia came in at #14 (showing the OSR guru still has some juice), while Dyson Logos, mapmaker extraordinaire, sits at #12.

The bulk of the other sites in the Top 25 seem to be the usual slough of BS, 5E money-making schemers, shills, and sycophants. #1 is D&D Beyond (duh). #2 is that Sly Flourish ("Lazy DM") dude. D&D Sage Advice, DND Wizard News, and ENWorld all crack the top 20. Most of these sites feature substantial advertising and hundreds (if not thousands) of followers across multiple platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Which makes it somewhat amusing that I'm even ON this list, as I use none of those things.

I suppose I would care more if I was actively trying to optimize this blog, or if it provided me some sort of financial incentive. I remember being proud of cracking the Top Ten of "old school" D&D blogs, back when Cyclopeatron used to put out his regular lists of the same, but such accolades mean O So Little to the fractured blogging "community" these days. Just continuing to hang around and make regular posts is a testament of sorts...so many blogs and blog authors have given up the keyboard or fallen by the wayside. Are you still writing anything related to the topic of D&D? You probably deserve some sort of medal if you are...and give yourself a trophy if you can come up with any insight that's new, original, or actually useful. 

Anyway.

Working on re-working I3 today. My opinion of the adventure has diminished from when I last wrote that it was "pretty close to right" with its treasure totals. Nah. I'm re-writing it for levels 3rd - 5th and it STILL needs something more in the realm of 200K given the sheer size of the adventure. Also, I hate the Hickmans' propensity for stocking their adventures with normal humans of 4 and 5 hit dice (Thune Dervishes in I3, "gypsies" in I6, etc.). There's this little book I'd like to introduce them to called the "Monster Manual;" it already has an entry for "dervishes" that work perfectly well in the setting. Just...ugh. They were so young when they were writing these modules...it's hard to be too mad at them (we all make boneheaded decisions in our 20s). 

All right, that's enough. It's my daughter's birthday today and she finally woke up (kids are on Spring Break). Have a good week, people.

They sent me this badge. Yay.