A Year in Review
March 14th, 2011
Welcome, one and all, to a very, very special Dark Designs. What makes this article so special, you ask? After all, it's not like I've never used that in particular line before, at the start of a Dark Designs. Well, it's a good thing you asked that, because it happens to be exactly what I want to tell you. Today's Dark Designs is a celebration of a full year of articles here at Necromancers of the Northwest.
As a quick perusal of our archives will tell you, our first ever article on this site was put up March 15th, 2010, right here in this column. While Necromancers of the Northwest really got its start several months before then, it was on this day that we finally unveiled ourselves to the world, coming onto the public stage to whatever extent we've managed to do that. In honor of our year of publication, I have declared this week The Week of the Necromancer (Necromancer growth doubled!).
If you've been with us since the beginning (or, really, even if you haven't: it comes up pretty often), you may know that one of my biggest design inspirations comes in the form of one Mark Rosewater, head designer of the Magic: the Gathering game, and also weekly columnist behind the Making Magic design articles, which (surprise, surprise) were basically the inspiration for Dark Designs. One of the many things that he does with these articles that I like and would like to incorporate into Dark Designs is his habit of, every 100 articles, having a "review" article where he goes through all 100 of those articles, one by one, and reflects on them. Besides being a handy way to navigate the archives, I feel that this is a useful tool for a writer, as it allows him to come back and take another look at his work from a different, later perspective, and helps to grow and move forward. It also provides an outlet to express any new thoughts from that later perspective to the audience (that's you), without having to wait to amass enough new thought for a whole article.
As such, I decided to adopt a similar tradition. However, to give it my own spin (and because I'm not as patient as Mr. Rosewater), I decided to do an annual review, instead. Which means that today's article is going to be about…all the other articles I've ever written. Well, for Dark Designs, anyway. This one's going to be a bit longer, so, strap in and get ready.
Article 01: Designing Draculas (3/15/2010) Score: 5 out of 10
My first thoughts on re-reading this article are that it's very disjointed. It doesn't really flow together very well, and I tend to jump straight into new points without smoothing the way very well. On the other hand, it does do a fairly good job at what it's supposed to do, which is explain why we decided to write Liber Vampyr, and what problems we were setting out to fix with it. On the other hand, there wasn't a whole lot of information here that couldn't be found in the opening chapter of Liber Vampyr itself. If you want to know more about Liber Vampyr, and are too lazy to actually download the book, it might be worth a read. Otherwise, just read that book's intro, instead.
Article 02: The Darker Side of Vampires (3/22/2010) Score: 7 out of 10
There are a number of things that I have to say about this article, and it's ironic that they have little to do with the article's main point, the story about how playing the vampire classes corrupted our playtesters. The main thing that strikes me is remembering, at the time that I was writing the article, how uncomfortable I was with "pushing" the merits of our books. I remember feeling like a salesman, giving a pitch about a product (which, I guess, is sort of what I was), and wondering whether or not I was entirely justified in some of the claims that I made. Reading through later, I'm more confident than ever in the success of Liber Vampyr's blood points, and every time I stumble across an old piece of "hype" for the book I always realize again just how cool that book really is, and how good a job we really did of innovating with it. I know that it doesn't sound very modest, but, then, I guess I never claimed to be modest, did I?
Overall, though, this was a pretty fun article that did a good job of explaining one of the coolest features of Liber Vampyr. The story could have been a little more memorable, but I think the message got across.
Article 03: Ghosts of Vampires Past (3/29/2010) Score: 5 out of 10.
This is a pretty straightforward explanation of the origin of the risen subtype, and why the various revenant classes are designed to use ability scores besides just their Charisma. If the balancing and fine-tuning process for this sort of thing interests you, by all means, give it a look. Most of you will probably find it a little dry, though.
As a quick piece of trivia, this article was entered with the wrong name. I no longer remember what it was supposed to be called, but I do know that the article later published as "A History of Blood Powers" was originally titled "Ghosts of Vampires Past."
Article 04: Third Party's a Crowd (4/5/2010) Score: 7 out of 10.
I like this article. There are a few things that I could have said clearer, or better, and maybe some points that I missed, and, what's more, I worry in retrospect that I may have come off a bit hard on Wizards of the Coast, and perhaps glossed over the fact that there certainly are third-party publishers who really don't know what they're doing. Still, I think that the general point of the article—that, contrary to popular belief, Wizards isn't infallible, and no, actually, the average player's house rules are not going to be as good as the average third-party-published content—is sound, and comes across pretty clear. I suppose that, if you were taking the time to read the article, I was sort of preaching to the choir, but that didn't occur to me then. Still, I'd like to think that maybe this article's other, secret message (which is that, while any random gamer can't necessarily do good design, anyone who really devotes him- or herself to learning design probably can) may inspire someone someday. Probably not, but, whatever.
Article 05: Designing on Shutter Island (4/12/2010) Score: 4 out of 10.
A short but sweet article, I am most impressed, in retrospect, by how quickly I got to the point, and transitioned from Shutter Island, which, I think, served as a pretty good example of what I was talking about, to the pitfalls of half-baked design. There was even a tie-in to our new product, too! Still, the article is short, and, I fear, doesn't really go into much detail, except to say that Into the Armory was very nearly Historical Weapons That You Could Probably Use Existing Stats For. Ultimately, a largely forgettable article.
Article 06: Bear Market (4/19/2010) Score: 5 out of 10
This article is much longer than the ones before it, and many of the ones after it. Part of that is the "open letter" at the end (something I'd really like to do more of, now that I think about it), but a lot of it comes from the fact that, apparently, I was feeling pretty silly that day. There are lots of references and jokes in the asides that many people probably didn't get (at least one was basically impossible), and the whole thing feels a little…cheeky. The discussion of item prices—especially the fact that some items and item abilities are really not worth the price that they're listed at, depending on the circumstances, and that it's important to consider how much of an effect an item is really having on a game, rather than just what the guidelines say it should cost—is good, but you kind of have to dig to get there.
Article 07: Rising Stars, part 1 (4/26/2010) Score: 8 out of 10
This article marks the beginning of my "Eldrazi Conversion Project," where, as an add-on to my normal Dark Designs article each week, I would throw in an additional Eldrazi stat-block for both Pathfinder and 4th edition. There were a number of factors behind this project, not the least of which being that I'm a huge Magic: the Gathering fan, but the biggest was actually that I wanted to promote Dark Designs. You see, at this point, I still wasn't used to the idea that people might actually want to read what I had to say. It's a novel concept that takes some getting used to. As such, prior to this article, Dark Designs was the one article each week which didn't get sent off to Enworld (or elsewhere) to be advertised. I figured that by adding some crunch content, it'd be a little easier to self-advertise. And, voila, it worked.
As for the article itself, I basically dissect some of the mechanics and design of the Magic set Rise of the Eldrazi, and then provide some meditations on how the principles and ideas found in those mechanics could be put to work in D&D or Pathfinder. If you played any Rise of the Eldrazi, it's a must-read (as far as my columns go, at least). If you're interested in general game design, and in "translating" design from one system to another, it should also prove very interesting.
Article 08: Rising Stars, part 2 (5/3/2010) Score: 8 out of 10
Pretty much everything I have to say about part two was covered in part one. In fact, I believe that I wrote them both together (though, don't quote me on that. I don't really remember). This in particular half of the article covered rebound, totem armor, and briefly mentioned that the Eldrazi themselves were an interesting piece of design (albeit, creative, rather than mechanical). In retrospect, I think I'd like to write more Magic-related articles. I sort of shied away from them because, really, they don't have a whole lot to do with what we do here at NNW, but I enjoy writing them, and my attempt to have a separate Magic column on Examiner.com kind of ended in failure, as I found myself far too busy for it, so…who knows? Maybe I should bring it back. I'd love to hear thoughts from some readers about it: do you enjoy these kinds of articles? Would you like to see more of them?
Article 09: Mastering Dungeons, part 1 (5/8/2010) Score: 7 out of 10
This article (along with the second half) marks the first foray of Dark Designs into the territory of DM tips and advice. It masquerades as also being design related, on the grounds that designers also make pre-made adventures (in fact, at the time, I believe we were in the process of writing The War of the Goblin King, which is where that paragraph about figuring out what the room was previously came from). This switch to DM-tips was also part of a movement to ensure that Dark Designs was relevant to you, the reader, and not just my personal blog.
In particular, I remember that a lot of the inspiration for this article (and the next) came from those articles by Wolfgang Bauer linked to in the article. Though a little more time-intensive than I can usually muster when DMing, his initial tip (expanded on slightly here) about differentiating types of encounters, along with the strength of the encounter, makes for a very well-rounded dungeon, and I always use it (or similar) when it's important that a dungeon is well-polished. Really, though, most of my contribution to the article was the discussion of flavoring a dungeon, and adding a backstory to each room, to make it feel like a place that had a purpose at one point, instead of being built solely to be inhabited by monsters and looted by adventurers.
Article 10: Mastering Dungeons, part 2 (5/13/2010) Score: 8 out of 10
This is definitely the better half of the two-part article, and has a lot more "new" content. Admittedly, the idea of having a dynamic dungeon with NPCs who react to things, and the idea of not having a kitchen-sink dungeon, are not precisely groundbreaking. I'd heard them somewhere, rattling around, in one form or another. But I think I did a good job of going over these, and, as the included story makes clear, a lot of newer DMs really don't know these things. I don't really know a whole lot about our readership (hint, hint: send an e-mail and introduce yourself…), but I assume that we have some neophytes as well as veterans out there, and that means that not every DM tip can be super-advanced.
I particularly liked the detail I went into talking about the example hydra, and pointing out that, if it's really worth it, you should go out of your way to find a way to make something fit and make sense in the dungeon, which is a message that usually gets swallowed up and hidden by the advice of "try to make things make sense." It's important that they make sense, but it's also important (probably more important) that they be cool.
Article 11: The First One's Free (5/24/2010) Score: 6 out of 10
Now, I can finally answer the question I rhetorically asked, of "will Necromancers of the Northwest be switching over to selling content in the future?" The answer, of course, is yes, as we're already selling content. To be honest, the "for sale" status of our products has always kind of been a sensitive issue around the office, and we really are very concerned about making sure that we continue to provide free content, as it was certainly a major part of our early pitch. I think that we've done a fairly good job of that, considering all these free articles. While I don't feel at all uncomfortable about our later move away from free .pdfs (I think the article shows that we never really claimed that wasn't going to happen, and, in fact, it all fits in with the reason why we had free content in the first place), I do get just a twinge reading that bit about the $.99 bin at DrivethruRPG, as our current business plan has pushed us dangerously close to that position.
Overall, I think the article does a good job of explaining why we were offering things for free, and explaining about the difficulties of a small third-party publisher to drum up interest in its products. At the end of the day, I think that our free content was really more of a "if you don't believe we're worth it, why not take a look at all these free things that show how great we are," and I think I did a fair job of explaining that. It also gives some insight into the origins of NNW, which may be of interest to some of you.
Article 12: Pre-Emptive Affirmation (5/31/2010) Score: 7 out of 10
This article is fairly straightforward: it talks about the "say yes" rule of DMing, defending it, and explaining why it's important. It may not be the most complex topic for DM rules, but it's an important one, and one that's easy for even veteran DMs to forget about, especially with difficult or trying players. It also expands that rule to places that you usually don't see it applied to, such as player races or classes, for example. Mostly, it gave me the opportunity to talk a bit about our design philosophy, as one of the major things that we look for when making a new product is whether or not it will give us the opportunity to provide players with options for playing certain kinds of characters (say, vampires) that they are not currently able to play without house-rules of some kind.
Article 13: A History of Blood Powers (6/7/2010) Score: 8 out of 10
This is probably the most in-depth explanation of the creation of blood powers that the world is likely to see, as, by this point, it's been so long that I doubt I could remember the details any better now than what wound up being put to digital pen and paper. The concept came about from Ghostwalk (in retrospect, we should probably have stuck to the use of feats, rather than making the new "blood power," and the reason for that departure from Ghostwalk's model is not one that I recall. Perhaps it was for novelty's sake. Whatever the case, it's a mistake that was corrected for our approach to werewolves, A Necromancer's Grimoire: Marchen der Daemonwulf ), and most of the individual blood powers themselves began life as one of the disciplines from Vampire: the Requiem. A fascinating article if you want to know more about the creation of blood powers, or just learn more about our design process.
Article 14: To Kill a Henchman (6/14/2010) Score: 4 out of 10
In retrospect, this article may not have really been a Dark Designs so much as a personal soapbox to rant about a particular villainous trope that I've never really cared for. Still, it's alarmingly in-depth, and provides a number of excellent excuses or explanations by which a DM could get away with the trope without making it feel, well…you know. So, if you plan to have your bad guy kill one of his own men, you might want to take a look. If you don't like people whining about trivial character flaws in writing, however, you could probably stand to skip this one.
Article 15: Gygaxian: A Definition (6/21/2010) Score: 6 out of 10
Here's an interesting piece of trivia for you: this article is, by wide margin, the most popular article on this site. It far outstripes any other article I've written, including some of my very popular monsters with class articles. Apparently, dropping Gary's name will boost ratings that way, I guess.
As for the article itself, it's not bad, and it does what it set out to do: it attempts to find an answer to the question "what does the word Gygaxian really mean?" Mostly, I just brought up the three major schools of thought that I could find, and took a moment to examine each one, comparing it to my (far from complete) knowledge of the man. I don't think I ever really came to an answer, but this article was one of those "it's more about the journey itself" affairs, so it wouldn't really be fair to hold that against it.
Article 16: Upper Class Monsters (6/28/2010) Score: 8 out of 10
Sometimes, an article just sort of spontaneously forms within you, and just screams to get out. Or, at least, that's how it is with me, sometimes. The only reason that this article was in Dark Designs is because I knew I couldn't get away with including it at the beginning of the races with class article it discusses (it's pretty rare, by the way, that I write a Dark Designs article about another article. I think this will be my second.). Still, I really felt that it was important to talk about and explain the reasons behind races with class (something I'm really excited about, and wish that I had the time to make it a sixth weekly article), and while From the Workshop was a horribly inappropriate place to talk about it, this was pretty much exactly the place for it.
Ultimately, I may have been a little harsh on both paizo and the old 3.5 guard. In addition to the stat adjustments that I mentioned in the article, it's also worth noting that a monster PC will have PC treasure, which will make it somewhat more powerful than the monster in the manual. All things considered, that may justify some of the "monster PC tax" that paizo was trying to solve. On the other hand, though, if a player used the stat-block straight from the book, with no changes to ability scores or added gear, theoretically CR should equal effective level. Something you might want to consider if you have a PC harassing you to play a monster.
Article 17: An Interview with a Pyromancer (7/5/2010) Score: 4 out of 10
This article is just silly. I don't do silly articles that often, despite being a Rosewaterite, in part because I don't have much confidence that you'll want to read them, and in part because most of my silly ideas don't really have enough to them to really fill a whole article. It was a nice change of pace, and someday it might be fun to bring back Adam Ragar (there was discussion of making a "mock" Pyromancers of the Pacific website, and having a link to it in the article), but ultimately largely forgettable.
Article 18: Heart in the Cards (7/12/2010) Score: 5 out of 10
At first, I thought this article was going to be about Magic: the Gathering. I've certainly talked about it a lot in this column, especially for someone who (lamentably) has nothing to do with its design. Instead, I was surprised to find the story of my first real foray into design, creating the tarot character creation system by improving (dramatically, in my opinion) on the existing "three card ante" character creation system, and my surprise to discover that other people might actually want to use those rules. If you want to know more of the origins of NNW, this is the article for you. In execution, however, it's a little rushed and broad-strokes, and could certainly have been a better-told story.
Article 19: Chess Magic (7/19/2010) Score: 6 out of 10
This is the first article that's really all about Magic. Well, okay, that's not entirely fair. There's also a letter about my Gygax week article, and I took some time to weigh in on that (again, people, I love to get letters, and I try to be good about responding to them, so don't hesitate to drop me a line). Still, the bulk of the article is "chess magic," a variant format for the Magic: the Gathering card game designed to turn it into a sort of super-complicated version of chess. It's not the first time someone's tried to fuse the two, by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it's a fun, quirky little format. It loses a few points for not having anything to do with any of the systems we support, but it gains some points for letting me actually design something in a Dark Designs article.
Article 20: Long Live the Villain (7/26/2010) Score: 9 out of 10
I like this article. It's relevant to just about anyone who's ever DMed, as the problem of recurring villains can be a difficult one to balance. Unlike the “To Kill A Henchman” article, the topic is broad enough to really be helpful, instead of essentially being an editorial. Finally, I actually had a lot to say about it, and I think that I provided some advice and ideas which may not be readily available elsewhere. At the risk of being immodest, I think that this article is definitely a useful tool for any DM's toolbelt, and that's something I'm proud of.
Article 21: Playing with Pre-Mades (8/2/2010) Score: 5 out of 10
Truth be told, this article really existed to plug War of the Goblin King. It's not that anything I said wasn't true (especially all of those assurances about things being free), but to be perfectly honest, if not for War of the Goblin King I probably would never have taken the time to write an article about DM bias against pre-made adventures. It's not like I first discovered that bias while working on War of the Goblin King, though, admittedly, the fact that Josh was the main writer did cause me to think on the subject somewhat (it was a little ironic to see him writing a pre-made when he, as a DM, forswore the practice of pre-mades). Still, you can't blame me for wanting to talk about our upcoming release (especially as it was our first for-pay product), and, again, I stand by what I said: pre-mades (as long as they're well-made) are a great tool for DMs, and, hell, are fun. Still, I doubt I won any converts, so, the big draw on this article is probably the stats for Emrakul.
Article 22: Deserts and Oases (8/9/2010) Score: 5 out of 10
Sometimes theme weeks are hard for me. After all, Dark Designs is a little different from most of the other articles on this website, and so, some topics, such as Desert Week, leave me struggling to come up with something relevant to write about. In this case, I was able to come up with a metaphor for game flow that involved long stretches of desert and little, itty-bitty oases. I'm not 100% sure how many tabletop games this applies to (some, certainly, but probably not as many as I claimed), and, to be honest, I was mostly thinking of video game RPGs when I wrote it. Still, as I believe I pointed out at the time, many neophyte DMs take their cues from video games, and pattern their games off the same work/reward story flow. I'm not sure I really came up with a very satisfactory answer to the problem (at least in the way of implementation), but it was on-topic and I'm relatively proud of the metaphor itself.
Article 23: World War 3 vs 4 (8/16/2010) Score: 5 out of 10
In my defense, it's not actually all that often that I wind up using a canned article like this, and, sadly, edition wars seem to always be relevant. All things considered, I think I did a fair job of explaining, the way I see it, at least, the merits of both 3rd and 4th editions. I seriously doubt I changed anyone's opinions on anything, but, ultimately, this is kind of a blog, and it's hardly the end of the world if one or two articles are really just my thoughts on some design-related issue or other.
Article 24: Guests and Goblins (8/23/2010) Score: N/A
This wasn't my article, so I don't really have any shocking insights about it. It was kind of fun switching articles with Josh for a week, but, to be perfectly honest, I'm far too jealous of Dark Designs to have any interest in doing it very often.
Article 25: Magic the Conquering (8/30/2010) Score: 6 out of 10
I'm really proud of the Magic: the Conquering variant rules. I think that it takes Magic in a fun new direction, and, speaking from playtest experience, I know that it's a blast (though, it does require some amount of initial set-up). That said, not only is Magic a somewhat sketchy article topic for Dark Designs, there was very little new content for this in particular article, as Magic: The Conquering had already been designed as part of a contest Wizards was running that summer. So, while the content was really great, I'm not sure that this was necessarily the best place to put it.
Article 26: Assault on Mirrodin Party (9/6/2010) Score: N/A
More Magic content here. This wasn't really even a Dark Designs, so much as it was a miscellaneous article that was classified as Dark Designs because Dark Designs was able to get away with this kind of off-topic article. Really, this was there as a filler for a week that we took off, and, of course, it seemed wrong to go to the party (I got in as "media," for some unfathomable reason) and not write something about it. I think I did a fair job of covering the party, but, again, this wasn't really the best place.
Article 27: Shaping Springdale (9/13/2010) Score: 7 out of 10
As we began publishing for-sale books, Dark Designs gained the additional task of providing some hype to sell the books. Nothing that I said there was untrue, but you can certainly tell that I'm excited about the book and encouraging you to go out and get a look at it yourself. In some ways, the article is a sales pitch. Luckily, there's also some solid design talk in there, mostly about the importance of ensuring that your adventure knows who its audience is, what they want, and what it needs to do to cater to them. The high point of this article is definitely the admission that, were it a simple and straight hack-and-slash adventure, War of the Goblin King would be best if it was designed to get the PCs out of Springdale as quickly as possible. Honorable mention goes to the revelation that, even though there is an extensive background for Springdale, the adventure need stay there only as long as the PCs and DM find it interesting, and that they can get out of town and into the action as quickly as they please, more or less.
Article 28: Character Creation and You (9/20/2010) Score: 4 out of 10
This was a great article that, apparently, got away from me when I realized that I was contradicting something I had said in a recent article. I think that the idea of using the character creation method to help set the tone for a campaign is the sort of small detail that can have a big impact, but which most DMs don't really give much thought to, and I applaud my attempt to spotlight that. However, I definitely lose some points for letting myself, apparently, get flustered over the fact that part of what I said—about a DM telling a story—ran counter to something I had said before. Any point I had was derailed in an attempt to reconcile these two statements, and, embarrassingly, I never actually ended the last sentence in the article (that's what happens with all those parenthetical asides, I guess).
Article 29: Game Designers vs the World (9/27/2010) Score: 8 out of 10
This is one of my favorite articles I've written. The Scott Pilgrim tie-in is a fun and easy way to get to my point, but the article isn't really about the movie: it's about some of the difficult hurdles that one has to overcome to "make it" in the design world. Here I was able to speak from experience, and I got a good amount of positive feedback on this article, so I assume that I was on to something. If you intend to get into game design, I'd definitely recommend giving it a read.
Article 30: Tricks with Skills (10/4/2010) Score: 9 out of 10
As I explained at the time, this whole article arose out of a quirky campaign idea which was spawned by all that flavor text at the beginning (and end) of Advanced Arcana. It was a fun creative exercise, and I think that I was able to make some rules that are definitely worth a try—in the right campaign. Someday, it'd be nice to try giving the same treatment to some of the other skills. As it is, this may not be the most Dark Design-y article, but there's plenty of design theory along with the practice, and it's got a good deal of crunch. What's not to love?
Article 31: Destination Innovation (10/11/2010) Score: 8 out of 10
One might argue that innovation was a bit of a stretch for Explorer week, and one would probably be right, but it's a good and pertinent topic, and, well…what was I going to say about explorers? "Here's how to design a game of exploration?" Maybe. "Here's a discussion of how learning any game is a journey of exploration?" Yes, that probably would have been good, as well. Still, this was a good discussion of my view, at least, on innovation, and on some of the ways we try to focus on it and ensure that it's a major part of our products. A little horn-tooting may have commenced, but I don't think it was too bad. Overall, one of my better articles.
Article 32: Advanced Designs (10/18/2010) Score: 7 out of 10
There are really two books that we've made which, every time I re-familiarize myself with them, I find myself falling in love all over again. The first is Liber Vampyr, which I talked about above, and the second is Advanced Arcana, which is what this article is all about. This article does a very good job of going over the major cool things that were going on in Advanced Arcana, and also of explaining how they came to be, and what we were thinking when we made them. A solid article on all fronts.
Article 33: Fear Factory (10/25/2010) Score: 3 out of 10
This article was better than I remembered it being, but as I remember it being almost entirely off-topic and having little worthwhile content, that's not really all that shocking. The discussion of why people like horror, as a genre, wasn't really in-depth enough to go anywhere, and, more to the point, really isn't why you guys come to Dark Designs. The discussion of how d20 isn't well-suited to horror was good, and to the point, but really I should have included all of the tips in this article, instead of breaking it into two, and cut whatever I had to in order to make that happen.
Article 34: Scare Tactics (11/1/2010) Score: 5 out of 10
Here I finally get around to providing some useful help for DMs, though it takes me long enough to do it: it's pretty much all crammed into the last third or so of the article. Overall, I think it was a solid article, though I am somewhat embarrassed about a clerical error near the end. See if you can catch it, I guess.
Article 35: Beyond Good and Lawful (11/8/2010) Score: 8 out of 10
The paladin code is one of those hot-button debate issues in the gaming community, and is one of the few topics that can create as much heat as a good old-fashioned edition war. Obviously, I feel that I cut straight to the heart of the issue and have finally put it to rest in a way that everyone can agree on, but I understand that others may have different opinions on that. Still, I think that DMs with paladin-related problems (or paladins with DM-related problems) will come away from the article a little better equipped to handle those issues, and that makes this article a success, to me.
Article 36: Stories and Spells (11/15/2010) Score: 8 out of 10
Like this article, Stories and Spells was another experiment in trying to apply Mark Rosewater's methods to the work I do here on Dark Designs. This in particular article came about from his habit of writing articles where he just goes through a new set of cards, and writes a brief story about whichever ones strike him as having stories to write. Stories and Spells gave that treatment to Advanced Arcana. I think it makes for a pretty fun and informative read, especially if you actually have the book.
Article 37: Tales of the Table (11/22/2010) Score: 5 out of 10
I fear that my attempt to be light-hearted and heartwarming may have gone awry, and the story in this article may have been a little more guilt-laden than I was hoping. Still, I think the message is sound, and amazingly on-topic for "Thanksgiving Week" of all things (that was one week that I did not recommend!).
Article 38: GM on the Go (11/29/2010) Score: 5 out of 10
You won't find anything groundbreaking here—each and every point in there was something that I had gotten the idea for from some other gaming website or article or what-have-you—but I think I did a fairly good job of presenting those ideas, and providing my own twist on them, and, of course, putting them all in one place. It may not be the most revolutionary article, but it might be to anyone who hasn't seen those in-particular ideas before.
Article 39: Ice Breakers (12/06/2010) Score: 6 out of 10
Despite all the talk about how this article was going to be about ice (it was Ice Week), it was really about a very specific kind of power creep. Interestingly, I discovered while looking over this article that in it I mention having talked about power creep before, and casually toss out an ill-explained metaphor about Magic: the Gathering. Astute readers will realize that I never actually did write about power creep before. In fact, the article I was thinking of (where I better explain that metaphor) apparently never got put up. I'll need to find a good place for it in the future.
Article 40: Idle Hands (12/13/2010) Score: 7 out of 10
If GM on the Go was a little "basic," this is definitely the article for "advanced" DMs. All of the suggestions here are about going above and beyond the call of duty, and being an extra-awesome DM. They all require more work than one would normally expect from a DM, but I think that, individually or together, they can really take a campaign from good to great. Overall, one of my better articles.
Article 41: Elven Designs (12/20/2010) Score: 5 out of 10
This article was an attempt to design a sort of "stop-gap" solution to the problem which spoil-sports tend to point out about long-lived fantasy races, which is that it's highly unrealistic that someone who's 350 (but still in their prime) wouldn't simply outperform a 27-year-old wizard or fighter, due simply to hundreds of years of experience. It wasn't exactly something that needed to be done, but I think it made for a fun article to write, if nothing else.
Article 42: Changes (12/27/2010) Score: 6 out of 10
The whole point of this article was for me to give a "heads up" about some changes in our .pdf schedule, as well as, to a certain extent, to put some positive spin on those changes. The positivity wasn't hard: the change was my idea, and I stand behind all those reasons for the change. It's unfortunate that we didn't conceive of the new plan sooner, as we were really only able to get out about a month’s worth of work on that before circumstances changed and we had a lot less time for design, making this a fairly short-lived change, but, hopefully we'll be able to keep at least a moderate pace from here on.
And that's the end of 2010. I'll be back next year to cover all the articles in 2011, but, in the meantime, don't miss any of the upcoming Dark Designs. I'll keep writing if you keep reading.