Terence Jason Dorman

NOTE: Normally I don’t write the Let’s Build Something series on The Spoils Web Blarg, but Ken asked me to fill in for him this week. The following is the article I wrote for his series.

Due to being kidnapped and tortured by 31v35, Ken is unable to write up a Blarg post this month and kindly asked me to fill in for him. This means that all of you will get a double dosage of me this month in back to back weeks. It’s exciting, I know.

Seeing as how this isn’t my article series, though, I’m going to do my best to discuss a topic that I think Ken would talk about. With that in mind, let me talk to you all about writing within the rules.
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Despite its relatively small number of cards compared to other games, The Spoils has hundreds of deck possibilities hidden in its currently printed 715 cards. As with any card game there are popular decks, which at this moment seem to be Rage Sligh, Monty/Banker/Warlord, Ass, and Research Investment OTK decks. All of these decks are good in their own right and have seen much success and discussion but, like all decks, they started out as a simple pile of cards.

These decks were created by Spoils pioneers, new and old players alike, who fooled around with cards until something clicked. Maybe these decks started out as 150 card piles that needed to be whittled down. Maybe these decks started as something else entirely and morphed into their current forms via playtesting. Whatever the process was, these decks came about because the players chose to try something new.

To put it plainly, they got weird!
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As I’m sure you all know, myself and my Team Hopper brethren have been playing all sorts of card games for over fifteen years. We’ve all played our fair share of good games, bad games, bad but fun games, popular games, silly games, etc. You name it and at least one of us has played it.

While many of us are competitive gamers who love traveling to tournaments and aiming for the biggest prizes/highest ratings, there are quite a few of us who are just in it for the fun. One such member of Team Hopper, my good buddy Mike, is one of those people. The only card games he has ever played seriously were Raw Deal and Highlander, both because he loves the source materials.
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My lack of posts (particularly the promised ones) stems from the fact that life has gotten somewhat busy for me lately in terms of writing. I’ve been writing and editing articles for The Spoils and its Web Blarg, all while taking on some excellent freelance proofreading jobs via this site. I’ll be certain to share some of the pieces I worked on with you once they are published, either via print or e-publishing. I read some great works by some great authors and can’t wait to feature them in the Showcase.

Regarding the Showcase, over the next day or so I’m going to update it so that it features up to ten Showcased works at a time. I’ve only written three Showcase features since I started the site, so for now only those three will appear. There will be more, though, so be on the lookout for that.

Lastly, regarding my lack of posts, I’ve been doing a lot of work on my hope-to-be-first-book, It’s a Love Story: A Memoir. That has kept me from writing as a lot of my time is spent combing through that work to make sure there are no errors in it. I definitely want to self-publish it this year so obviously I want to make sure there are no mistakes before I move forward with that. Once the editing is finished, though, I’ll be going back to work on Punched, my first fiction novel.

As far as cheating goes, I’ve decided to cheat a little and post some backdated entries on this website. Part of the reason I’ve been lacking posts is because I’ve been writing pieces for other sites, mostly regarding gaming. I don’t post them here because I figure most of you that come here are more interested in my musings or discussions on writing, but then I remembered that this is my site and I can do what I want with it. As such, I’m going to be backdating all of my articles written for The Spoils, The Spoils Web Blarg, and Diannara. Feel free to read through them if you wish. They’re mostly going to be there to bulk up the site a bit, but this also serves as a way to consolidate all of my written work found on the internet.

And for those of you who don’t know, Diannara will no longer be a website dedicated to the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. My cousin has decided he is done with the game and is no longer going to be supporting the site in that manner. He plans on using it for something else although, at the moment, I’m not sure what that is. As such, anything I would have written for Diannara will now be found on this site.

I should be updating the site with the backdated entries today and tomorrow, so be on the lookout for all my CCG/TCG related goodness.

In my last post I mentioned that I would continue sharing my history with The Spoils and my service as the first Judge of Great Justice. While I certainly wish to talk about that further, I’ve decided to take a moment this week and address an issue that I find a lot of judges across all games struggling with. I don’t think any judge is excluded from this issue as I know I went through it when I first started out, and I imagine that most (if not all judges) had a similar experience. For the sake of simplicity, though, I’m only going to refer to The Spoils and Spoils judges throughout this piece.

The issue I’m referring to is how to deal with the pressure and power of being a judge.
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Today’s article highlights one of my favorite cards from Seed Two: Gloamspike’s Revenge. As some of you may already know, Arcanist is my favorite trade found in The Spoils so I am always excited to see it get powerful new cards. Redonkulous, today’s feature card, certainly does not disappoint on that end.

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Rock Band currently features an amazing library of songs to choose from. My personal library consists of just over 360 songs and so many of them are classics and fun to play. However, when it comes to Rock Band, there are just some songs that I absolutely must have. Unfortunately, Rock Band doesn’t always put out the specific songs I want, so instead I have to make a wish list. Here are the top 5 songs I want to be added to Rock Band and why.
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This document is designed for anyone who wishes to help share The Spoils with other gamers or card players by demonstrating to them just how great The Spoils is. In this document you will learn what you need to run a demo as well as learn some tips on how to conduct the demo itself.
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Over the past few weeks I’ve been debating how I should write my first Blarg post. Should I tell a story about a specific tournament? Should I talk about my history as a player? Maybe I should just give some judging tips.

Then it hit me that all those ideas, while good, aren’t the best for grabbing my readers’ attention. My first article needs to have some flair, some exciting hook that will pique their interest.

At that point, the only logical thing to do is write my origin story.
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I know this isn’t the post I promised a few weeks ago about my opinions on the Watchmen prequels, but I am here to tell you that my first official post on The Spoils Web Blarg is now live. The post features my history with The Spoils as both a player and a judge, chronicling my path to become the first Judge of Great Justice. If you don’t already know the story, be sure to check it out over on the Blarg.

Also, I promise I will have the post regarding the Watchmen up by the end of February. I’ve been rather busy with a few editing projects and potential jobs as of late and haven’t had much time for my own writing, but quite a few of these matters should wrap up this week. Expect to see this Blarg updated much more regularly from March onward, even if I do get the day-job I’m interviewing for later today.

Wish me luck!