Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #477: Topical Blend

Episode Date: October 6, 2017

In my "Making Magic" column, I occasionally write articles where I blend together Magic and non-Magic topics selected by the audience. In this podcast, I talk all about the articles I've written in this format.

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. And I dropped my son off at camp. Okay. So today I'm talking about topical blend. So some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. Some of you have no idea. So today is talking about something I do in my column. I'm making magic column. So every Monday on the website I write a column, which I've written for 15 years now. 15 years. Wow. And anyway, back in college, I used to do improv, aka improvisation, improvisational theater is, is you get up on the stage with nothing prepared. You ask the audience for certain topics. And then you make a scene based upon, you're made up on the spot based upon the audience suggestions. And the way the audience knows you're making it up on the spot is you're using their suggestions to make the scene.

Usually the way improv works is there's a format, there's formats. So like you ask for very specific things and there's a certain way the improv works. There are a lot of different formats. They're fun. And one of the things that I and my team love doing was inventing new formats for improv and trying new things and asking for cool suggestions from the audience. One of my favorite, by the way, that we created was we should call it Talk Show. And the thing we would ask from the audience were bumper stickers,

and we would build characters around the bumper stickers. And then we would ask for pet peeves, and that would be the topics we would talk about in the Talk Show. Anyway. And then we would ask for pet peeves, and that would be the topics we would talk about in the talk show. Anyway, so I started an improv troupe in college called Uncontrolled Substance, which I started my sophomore year and ran the rest of my college. And then the troupe continued. I graduated. The troupe continued on.

And it was a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun doing that. And anyway, flash forward many years, I'm working on my column column and I decide that I want to do something fun, something different, just challenge myself. So I came up with the idea of a topical blend. But by the way, the, the, the name of topical blend is from my wife's. Laura came up with it. I'm trying to get a cool name for it. And Laura, I like that name a lot. Anyway, so here's how it works. I go to the audience and I say to them, I need you to give me two topics. Give me a magic topic and give me a non-magic

topic. And the way it works is I then collect them. Now I've done this differently over time. Originally I did it through email. Now I do it on Twitter. But basically I gather together information from the audience. All the suggestions are from the audience. I the suggestions are from the audience. I create some way for the players to vote on the suggestions

and then the players end up picking a magic topic and a non-magic topic. And then what I do in a topical blend is I combine them together to write an article. And the idea, much like improv, is I don't know what the topic is. I don't control the topic. So I have the challenge of trying to make it work. Hold on one second. I have something in my throat. Okay, so now I'm going to talk about it. So, so far, I've made six topical blends. I will make more, but these are the six I've made. I'm going to sort of

walk through and talk about them. For those that haven't read it, one of my little things of today is, here are six fun articles you can read. I'll talk about each one. At the end, I will grade them and put them in order if you don't want to read them all. I'll tell you what I think is the best one to the worst one. But anyway, so we start with the first one. So the very first topical blends, the first time I had ever done this, the magic topic that they gave me was your top 10 biggest magic design mistakes. And the non-magic topic was girls. So I ended up writing a very personal article talking about a lot of my dating foibles.

So the article was basically 10 mistakes I made while dating. And then I apply those mistakes to mistakes I've made while designing. The premise being that I'm very holistic. I believe the things that define you in one area of your life define the other. So clearly the mistakes I made in dating are basically the same mistakes I made when being a designer. And so I sort of connect those two together. It's a very personal article. The names are changed, but I pull no punches. I talk about a lot of the mistakes I made. And almost all of them, not all of them, but almost all of them are my fault.

One or two, I guess, are not completely my fault. But most of my mistakes are my mistakes. I made the mistake. In fact, all of them are my mistake. I guess some of them had some help from other people. But anyway, so I sort of walked through just different mistakes I made. This is a fun article. And I got a real good response to this first article because I sort of talked about something that's pretty universal. Most people have dated and most people who have dated didn't always go well. The idea of just dating foibles

or just things that go wrong while you're dating. I mean, I guess for anybody who's ever dated, which is most people, it's relatively universal. And one of the things that I like as a writer is I like searching for places. Like one of the reasons I've enjoyed the topical blend is would I ever have written an article about my dating life? I don't think so.

When kind of forced to do it, I did it and ended up making a really fun article that really resonated with the readers. But I don't think I would have got there. That's one of the things about Topical Blend that is fun, is I kind of go places that I don't think I necessarily would go. And as a writer, that is fun. It is fun to sort of push boundaries and test against things, you know, and just see how they feel. Okay.

Oh, so the first one, by the way, it was called To Err is Human. Not all of them have names. I mean, all of them are at least topical blend 1 topical blend 2 some of them I named a few of them I did not name the first one though is called to err is human okay number 2

the magic topic was the pros and cons of a 6 color and the non magic topic is Mark Rosewater is bleeping insane. Okay, this one requires a little explanation because that non-magic topic, you're like, what? So there used to be a website.

Actually, I don't even remember the name of the website. Many, many years ago, there was a website that did humor. What's it called? I don't remember. Maybe I'll remember if I... If I remember, I'll spread it out. And it was a comedy site that did a lot of parody that sort of made fun of Magic. But, I mean, there are people that love Magic. It was Magic fans.

But it was sort of a site to do a lot of parody to sort of make fun. Oh, was it My's Tings? My's Tings, I think it was called, which is Magic Slang. You don't know. Anyway, they had a regular thing in their bulletin boards. They had a regular, they often would have sort of threads. I don't know if people know what I'm talking about, but once upon a time, you would talk in, you would write down things, you would make posts, and people would respond to your posts,

and there was threads, and anyway, long, long ago. But anyway, there was, on their bulletin boards, they had threads that would be, Mark Rosewater's bleeping insane, and they would talk about whatever crazy thing they thought I did, and it just was a running joke on the site. So, I think what happened was, the people, the MyThings people, got all their friends to vote or whatever, and I guess other people just sounded funny. So anyway, I did something weird for this one.

This is the one that requires some prep so you guys understand if you go read this one. So what I did was, my article in quotes, was not a traditional article. When you went to my article, what you saw was what looked like a MySing thread, meaning I was making fun of My Stings. And it was as if, so the idea was, it was a thread, yet another Mark Rosewater is bleeping insane thread, but talking about my article, about my pros and cons article about the sixth color. Now note, there was no article. I mean, I wrote some stuff so I could quote in this article.

So one of the ways I get across some of my pros and cons of six is by people quoting the article when they respond. So there is like pieces of the article you can see, but there's no actual article. The article, if you will, is this thing. It looks like a thread responding to the actual article. And a lot of it was a parody of my things and of the people that made fun of me. I was making fun of them in sort of a meta-humor sort of way.

They actually loved it. They thought it was great. And this article confused more people than any other article I might have written on the website. Because at the time, my articles, we don't do this anymore, but at the time there was threads responding to the article. So after you saw it, you'd go see what people had to say about it and banter back and forth. So people thought that when they went to my article, they accidentally went to the thread of my article because they didn't quite get I was parroting a different

site. And they were just confused because I was parroting a different site. And they were just confused because I was talking about the article. So the thread they could see mentioned the article because I quote the article within the thing. And so people got really, really confused. I was trying to be artsy and have some fun, but I confuse a lot of people. So if you go look at it, so you don't get confused, that's what's going on. The article itself is written in the form of a thread on a bulletin board, on my thing specifically, referring to the article that doesn't exist.

There's a lot of jokes there. The biggest problem with this one is, as parody sometimes is, is if you don't know what I'm making fun of, some of the jokes just you'll miss. There's a lot of jokes packed into it, but what I've found is people that don't really know anything about the source material go and read it. It's funny and there's things to read. I'm not saying it's not worth reading, but it's hard to understand all the jokes. So it's not quite the article it once was just because it's hard to get the context.

Okay, number three was the top ten coolest creatures in magic was the magic topic. And Dungeons and Dragons was the non-magic topic. This one, the second one, first one was called To Error's Human, second one didn't have a name, third one, or, you know, it was called Mark of Brawls, I was just bleeping insane. The second one was called, sorry, the third one, this one, is called Sessions. So, the problem I had with this one was, so much of magic is already influenced by dungeon and dragons, that it's not hard to talk about

the Ten Tools creatures and how they connect with Dungeon Dragons. Half of them probably were from Dungeon Dragons. So I decided to do something a little different. Ironically enough,

this problem's popped up a couple times where it's so easy to connect them that it's not much of a challenge and I have to sort of add another layer

to make it a little more of a challenge for myself. So this one, what I decided to do, it takes place in a psychiatrist's office, which is called Sessions, and I'm talking about playing Dungeons and Dragons. So what happened was when I was 13 years old, I had a bar mitzvah because I'm Jewish, and my first grade teacher who lived on our street,

we invited her to my bar mitzvah. And she, as a gift, gave me Dungeons and Dragons. I played a bunch of my youth, but my biggest campaign was when I lived in Los Angeles during my Hollywood years, I lived with a man named Chris. And Chris and I had a bunch of friends from college. Chris and I had gone to college.

Chris had actually been... Now that I start an improv troupe, I also started a writer's workshop where we wrote skits and stuff. And Chris was in my writer's workshop. Actually, Chris would later be in the improv troupe, but he and I didn't overlap. Anyway, Chris was my roommate. And we started doing

a role-playing session. So every other week was Dungeon Dragons, and every other week was Gamma World. Gamma World is a futuristic—it was made by TSR back in the day. TSR are the people that originally made Dungeon Dragons. Wizards bought them. So we would do a Dungeon Dragons campaign that Chris would run every other week, and the other week we would do a Dungeon Dragon campaign that Chris would run every other week, and every other week we would do a Gamma World campaign that I ran.

Gamma World is post-apocalyptic and everybody was like mutated animals and it's the game where mutation is your friend, is what I say. But anyway, every other week, Chris would run the Dungeon Dragons game, and I was

an ambidextrous wizard named Gemini. And if you want to hear stories about that, in this article, I tell stories about my role-playing and some of the misadventures. But anyway, the only problem with this article is I was really, really getting into writing about all the stories and talking about all the fun Dungeons & Dragons stuff. And so before I knew it, I was like halfway in, or I was halfway through the list of the top 10. And I realized that, wow, I was going to hit my word limit. So

I had to quickly finish. So I take my time for the first 10 and then quickly through the second 10. If I had played a little bit better, maybe I would have. But it is a fun article and it's also me talking about playing a different game. You don't often get to hear me talk about other games. Now I did do a Dungeon Dragons podcast a while back so you can listen to that where I talk about Dungeon Dragons and its role in affecting magic and wizards

and stuff. But anyway, if you want to hear about me playing Dungeon Dragons you can read this article. Okay. Number four. The magic topic was the best design card in each set, although I ended up doing the best design card in each block,

just because it was... Like I said, I have a cap of how many words I've got to write. And then the non-magic topic was magic. And when I say magic, I don't mean the card game. I mean as in prestidigitation, you know, abracadabra. So in this article, you learn something about my youth.

I was, I'm not sure whether to say amateur or professional. I got paid, so I guess I'm a professional magician. I was an amateur magician and then occasionally got paid. So I technically was a professional magician, but I did kids' parties. But anyway, one of the fun things about a lot of these topical blends have been, I get to get kind of personal and share sort of personal stories. So like you get to hear about my dating or playing D&D with my friends. This time you get to hear about my dating or playing D&D with my friends. This

time you get to hear about me learning how to do magic and all the things that came across to doing magic. And I use that as a way to, so now I do, I learn about me playing magic. I also go, I think, through every block. I think starting with, I'm not sure if I start with Ice Age and Mirage, or maybe I do modern. Anyway, the parameters are in the article. But anyway, I talk about all the best cards, maybe it's in Modern. But anyway, I start at some point, and I talk about every single best card design in each block. The only thing, by the way, that in retrospect, I think I made one mistake, which was for, what was it? Lorwyn Block.

I put, what's the name of the tree folk that attacks? Doran. I put Doran as the best design card, which is an awesome design card. But I actually think I should have picked Garruk. That's the first time we've ever done Planeswalkers. And I think Garruk was the best design Planeswalker of the initial five, of the Lorwyn five. And really, that was such a giant leap forward that I should have labeled that. But anyway, this is another fun one, and you're going to hear me talk both about, like, what cards...

The neat thing about Topical Blend, by the way, is they're both topics that people really want to hear. So you get to hear kind of fun stuff on both sides. Okay, number five. So number five is Unreleased Mechanics and Urban Legends. And this one's called Did You Hear the One About? So this one was a lot of fun to write. So I don't often talk about unreleased mechanics. The reason I don't is I always have this, like, romantic notion that, like, we will save the mechanic

and one day we'll find the right way to do it and then we will do it and I want to surprise you so I don't often talk about unreleased mechanics just because I feel like oh just because we haven't solved them yet doesn't mean we'll never solve them um but you guys picked unreleased mechanics so I share a bunch of unreleased mechanics I talk about the forbidden mechanic I talk about um link and I have a bunch of mechanics that we've been trying over the years. The fun thing about this one, though, was I did some research. So I actually have a book, a book all about urban legends.

And so I did some research and I read up and what I do is I find a bunch of different urban legend structured stories. And then I talk about the unreleased mechanics through stories that are patterned after urban legend structured stories. And then I tell, I talk about the unreleased mechanics through stories that are patterned after urban legend tales. So anyway, it's a lot of fun. It definitely is. It's lighthearted. And not only will you learn

about old mechanics, or unreleased mechanics, but you will, it's a fun read. I really, I had a blast writing it. It was really, really fun a fun read. I really, I had a blast writing it. It was really, really fun to write. Like I said, it's neat as a writer, sometimes you do structures that are different than what you used to, and it's kind of neat. You know, I was like trying to,

how do you tell this story in a way that sounds like an urban legend? That was a lot of fun for me. Okay, number six. So the final one I've done so far, I mean, not ever, I will do more, was, let's see, the magic topic was when do you break the rules,

or when to break the rules, and the non-magic topic was the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Okay, for those that do not know, I am a long-time comic reader. I mean, I started in my youth. And my whole. I, and I've read, my whole life I've read comics.

I love comics. I love superheroes. And I'm enamored with Marvel. I'm a big fan of Marvel. I still to this day read a lot of Marvel comics. And I watch, I see all the movies and watch all the TV shows and I, is it in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Well, I am watching it.

I watch everything. So this one's a little bit different. A lot of my other topical blends, I talk in some more private aspect. This one I own up, for example, that I'm a comics fan, but I spend a lot more time actually talking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So this one, in retrospect, my biggest problem with this one is it really requires you knowing the Marvel Cinematic Universe to understand the article because I use a lot of examples. Oh, by the way, I say this at the beginning of the article, but spoilers, make sure you read at the beginning of the article. There's a

bunch of films I talk about and some of them I give away details about I know Doctor Strange and Avengers Age of Ultron are two for sure that I do some spoiling on so just make sure if you haven't seen the movies yet or whatever, look at it before you read it because there's some spoilers in it

I like the article and if you know the stuff I'm talking about, I'd make some really good... Oh, so the major comparison I make is when Marvel decided to start doing the movies, they made a conscious choice. And what that choice was is that they wanted the movies to represent the characters correctly and the powers correctly and the settings and things, but that they weren't married to the history of the comic books. That they're going to start fresh, they're going to tell their own story, and they'll

tell whatever story they want to tell, that the characters will be consistent with the Marvel Universe. If you meet Captain America, hey, it's Captain America, but the order that things happen in the movies might not be exactly the same as the comics. Comics are a lot more convoluted. They wanted to sort of make their own new sort of world, if you will, which they call the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is now the largest cinematic universe, I think, in history, and the highest grossing.

And there's just a lot of movies and a lot of things that take place there. But anyway, they made this kind of decision of, okay, we're going to start fresh, which allows us to change things. We can tell the story slightly differently because we're not beholden to the original tale. And so I talk a lot about, you know, in magic, when do we break our rules? And I talk about, like, well, when does Marvel

kind of break from its rules, from its thing? And anyway, I use that comparison in the article. I think it's a really good comparison, and I think there's a lot of cool comparisons I make. The biggest problem with it, though, is if you have no idea anything about the Marvel Universe, it's a hard article to read. I'm sort of using something and making examples of something

that if you don't know is not... That's my biggest problem with this article, is it doesn't stand on its own as much as the other articles do. If you read my dating article, you don't need to know much of anything. I mean, you need to know magic, but assume if you're reading me,

reading my magic design article, you know magic. But it doesn't require additional information. And it was fun writing the article. I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it was fun talking about it. But I think I learned a lesson from it that I probably want to more steer toward the personal stuff and a little less away from material people may not know.

Like, for example, in Dungeons & Dragons, I spent less time talking about Dungeons & Dragons as a history of Dungeons & Dragons, and did more of, like, my relationship with it. Okay. So I promised I would give you a rundown of top one through six. So if you're going to read these in order, or you only have one to read. So, okay, my top favorite by far, by far, by far is number one,

top ten biggest design mistakes in girls called The Heir is Human. It is one of my favorite articles I've ever written. Maybe my favorite article I've ever written. It's up there. I really really like it. It does this interesting thing in that it's informative and personal. One of the things I love about writing is when you can sort of speak in a way where you really share something with the audience and that does this. I'm super vulnerable. I really, I honest to God talk about lots of design mistakes I made that were really honest.

A lot of them are embarrassing because I, but, but, it's what humans do. It, it, it is, uh, so. Anyway, my top choice, number one, is Topical Blame number one. Um, my second favorite, uh, or as far as I think best written, uh, also my favorite, I guess. Uh, Number five. Did you hear the one about? This is Unreleased Mechanics and Urban Legends.

I really, really enjoyed how this one came together. It was fun writing in another style and I really thought I did a fun job of interconnecting the urban legend archetypes with the stories I was trying to tell about the mechanics. My number three choice

I think is Sessions. Topical line number three, which is the top ten coolest magic creatures and dungeon dragons. This is me doing storytelling. If you enjoy me listening to my podcast where I just tell stories, that's what this article is. It's me telling

stories while playing with my friends, playing D&D with my friends. And it's a lot of fun and once again, it'll give you a little insight. I don't often talk about playing other games, so if you want a little bit of a game that shaped me as a designer, you can hear about me just having fun playing with my friends. My fourth

favorite, I think, is Topical Blend number four, which is best designed Cards in Each Block and Magic, you know, Abracadabra Magic. This is another one. This is one of those articles where I get to kind of share something about me that most people just didn't know. I mean, like, for example, I think

that you know, for example, that I dated. I mean, maybe you didn't know what mistakes I made, but you could guess I made some. Or the fact that I played D&D. Okay, look, if you know, for example, that I dated. I mean, maybe you didn't know what mistakes I made, but you could guess I made some. Or the fact that I played D&D. Okay, look, if you know my age, and I'm a gamer, and like, okay, I probably played D&D at some point. The fact that I did professional magic, eh, I bet you might not

have known. And there's some, I talk about just some of the things of performing, and anyway, it's a fun little insight. My number five choice, I think, is Topical Mind number six, When You Break the Rules in Marvel Cinematic Universe. I like this article. I actually

think if you know the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's a really interesting article. The reason that it's the second lowest is if you don't know the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's actually hard to read. I mean, I try to explain things, so you don't have to have to know the Marvel Cinematic Universe? It's actually hard to read. I mean, I try to explain things, so you don't have to have to know the Marvel Cinematic Universe,

but wow, does it lose a lot if you don't. It really means a lot. If you know the movies and know the things I'm referencing, it's just my examples are so much clearer than when I don't. And my number six, my bottom one, it's not that I didn't enjoy this one. I actually think it was well-written, but it's a parody of something

that the thing I'm parodying hasn't existed for, you know, ten years or something. So it is it's one of those things where, if you understood it in its context, I'm very proud of it, but it loses a little something with time in that it is

something, um, I mean it's fun if you're going to read them all. I'm not saying not to read them. I'm just saying go ahead and read five of them. It's the one I would skip if you're not going to read them all. For a while it was broken and you couldn't read it at all. But I think they fixed it. So I think you can go back and look at it now.

When it originally aired, Monty Ashley who at the time did the website made it look exactly like the Miles Tings boards. It was like spot on. And the attention to detail we paid to sort of really mimic it was really good. I don't think that's

still there. I think when they rejiggered it it looks not necessarily like that. But I do think they fixed it. For a while you couldn't even read it. I think they fixed it. And by the way, if you're interested about my feeling on the six colors, don't skip over couldn't even read it. I think they fixed it. And, by the way, if you're interested about my feeling on the six colors, don't skip over the quotes from the article. I particularly wrote

those to sort of convey some stuff about six colors. So, there is me talking about the topic in there. It is sneakily in there, but it is in there. So, don't gloss over that stuff. I'm almost to work, so let me just end by saying the following, which is so, I started writing this

for fun I think I did a swap one day we did a thing where the authors we had a theme week where the authors wrote other authors columns

and I wrote the deck building column which I think was Jay Jay Moldenhorst Salazar at the time I think Jay wrote my article. And if I remember correctly, well, whoever wrote my article wrote a topical blend for my article. Then Gavin Verhey started writing his own topical blends in his column,

and he's done a couple of them. And then I've seen other people on other sites do it. So it's become a thing. I'm kind of proud of it that I made something that was, not only was it fun and I really liked the work that I produced but inspired other people to also do it And so it's kind of cool that it's it's just become this thing that people do It's become a writing form if you will I'm kind of proud of that And like I said the one of the things that I enjoy like it's very funny when all I did was write my column

I tended to be much more experimental in my column. And as time has gone on, my column has, I'm now translated in a whole bunch of languages. And I now have a lot of other formats like this podcast, like my blog, where I can be a little more experimental. And I've actually started taking a little less risks in my column because since I've been writing for 15 years, I've figured out kind of the things people really want to see. So I hit those a little more. I'm not done taking risks in my column. I still occasionally will try to do things.

But I've been a little more experimental in stuff like my podcast just because I have... Somehow this is a little more... Because of the nature of the website and the column, the fact I'm translating so many languages, I feel an obligation to write something that everybody can understand. And when I get experimental sometimes, it's hard to translate me. Like, for example, if I do an 80-picture walk around the office

where I'm writing on a bulletin board, I don't quite know how you translate that. I'm sure there's a way to do it. One of these days, maybe I'll do 80,000 words part two, but that's the one where I walked around with my picture. Anyway, I hopefully, part of the reason I did this today was I want to encourage you. I like to sort of talk about different things I've done.

I'm very proud of the topical blends. They're a lot of fun. It gets some insight into me as a person. You'll learn a bunch about magic. I mean, all the topics are things magic players wanted to hear about. So the topics themselves are actually interesting topics. So I just want to say, hey, go give it a try. See what you think.

And I'm going to leave with a final question. Something I'm not sure about. So I want some input from all you guys, which is I'm toying with the idea of trying to maybe do a topical blend in my podcast. I don't even know what that means exactly. But I'm sort of curious

what people would think if I... I want to try something experimental here. It's a little bit harder just because I have... the nature of how the podcast works, I have a lot less control and I have to do it for half an hour, which is a lot longer. Um, but anyway, I'm willing to experiment. I mean, I, I guess you won't probably hear it unless I'm successful. Meaning if I try

something and it's just, it's a horrible, it doesn't work, then I won't force you to listen through it. Um, but anyway, I'm definitely, let me know whether you think that some sort of Topical Blend podcast might be interesting to you. It's something I've been toying with. But anyway, guys, that, I'm now here at work. That is a little peek into an aspect of one of the things I do. I write my column. If you don't read my Making Magic column, I read it every Monday. I've been writing for 15 years.

I have over 800 articles. It's all archived. You can read them. And anyway, there's lots of fun things. One of these days, I'll go back and talk about my favorite articles that I've written. Not right away, but on my list of something I'll do one day. Anyway, I'm now at work. So we know what that means.

It means this is the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.