Contained in this post are the 22 stories at Full Moon Storytelling that I’m the most proud of, plus a few works I did for Sounder at Heart. Part year-in-review, part commitment to the future, my 2022 review serves as a personal reminder of my writing and a handy way to find stories when I’m pitching freelance work.

The biggest news for Dave Clark in 2022 was his new job, new career even. I now do B2B marketing for risk intelligence service Factal. And yes, I started a D&D group with my coworkers. It’s set in the World of the Everflow, of course.

My most personal story was an essay about that d20 in my pocket. It’s taken me a long time to understand some things about my time in the Army, this essay helped me take major steps. I also re-released Storytime as Moons Rise, a short fiction about a retired soldier.

Advice for playing Dungeons & Dragons

D&D continues to explode in popularity, and next year it will become even more popular as the movie D&D: Honor Among Thieves releases on March 31. More people will come up to current players and ask to play. Don’t make them learn dozens of house rules.

I turned a mistake into a great series of encounters. Instead of balancing the use of their most powerful abilities my characters were able to go into a big fight with all their resources. You should try this once in a while. When you invert the standard encounter structure the PCs get to be the most of themselves against the biggest of the bads.

Don’t get rid of personality in the next version of D&D, even if the rules try to ask you to do that. Traits, Bonds, Ideals and Flaws don’t need to be a sentence or two. Pick a few words that inspire how your character acts. Then reward those who act in that way.

Simple homebrew

Everybody loves dogs, what they don’t love is only having a mastiff as an option for their D&D doggo. That’s probably why “Nine types of dogs to add to Dungeons & Dragons” is quite popular.

My main campaign in 2022 is about an urban uprising. My players developed allies on the streets; they control a district guard — but running a small skirmish would be difficult, because what would the players do? The breakthrough was to give the players militia actions that represented small conflicts between their allies and the enemies.

Want to get ahead of One D&D’s “everyone has feats at first level” change? It’s easy to give every character a feat now without a huge power boost.

In Strixhaven it would make sense for the house mascots to be able to be familiars. One of my players needed an Inkling. Here that is an Inkling as a Warlock familiar.

Add glasses to D&D. History had them and so should your magical world.

Bladesingers and Eldritch Knights should have more spells that appear in their weapon strikes.

Rogues need finesse bludgeoning weapons. The lore of good rogues practically requires it.

Backgrounds

The most popular 5th edition D&D background I released this year was the Clerk. It turns out they were supposed to be here today.

My time as a former professional coffee taster pops into Full Moon Storytelling in different ways. In 2022 that showed up as the Tea Master, an artisan of teas, tisanes and other leafy brews.

David Brin’s The Postman is one of the best pieces of science fiction ever. That take on the importance of connection between remote communities inspired the Messenger. There’s similar inspiration to those who use technology to talk across distances, the Far Talkers.

The Barber was released over the holiday break and is already one of the most popular backgrounds I’ve released. The most popular of all time is the Tinker.

I’ve released ~20 backgrounds overall with dozens more to come.

Reviews

I fell in love with Renton a few years ago. Now the Seattle Sounders have fallen in love with it too. They’re moving to Longacres, helping the City of Dragons rise.

Boundary Bay released a D&D inspired beer. You should track it down, it’s good.

Next year there’s going to be more reviews. I still drink beers and coffees like I did when I was a pro. I also travel throughout Washington regularly. Why not share what I enjoy?

Sounders

My return to Sounder at Heart has been a joy. I’ve been to a couple of practices, helped break a huge story, but my biggest joy was interviewing a new fan. Talking to G Willow Wilson about her new love of soccer was an extraordinary reminder of the pleasure of community and the art of sports.

When American soccer lost Grant Wahl I discovered that his tiny words of encouragement to me were part of his constant support of the American soccer blogosphere/creator economy.

No longer part of the marketing team or broadcast team for Tacoma Defiance I was able to watch the young men grow into something greater than they’d ever been before.

The Sounders would only take one trophy in 2022, the biggest one ever captured by an MLS team. I was hyped. You will hear us in our immortality.

My MLS season preview was very wrong.

Seattle sports got it wrong. The biggest story of 2021 was Quinn winning the Olympics. Their victory was a vital advancement in human rights and the recognition that humanity is varied.