I didn’t do quite as much writing for public consumption as I have in most years since I started blogging regularly in 2008. Some of that reduction was due to me taking a step back at Sounder at Heart, focusing my work content on video briefings and emails, and Full Moon Storytelling being a “when inspired” project rather than an income generator.
Here at Full Moon Storytelling my most popular writings over the past year were older materials.
- Why am I so concerned with the popularity of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves? (2023)
- Adding Feats to 5e Backgrounds (2022)
- Naval Skirmishes and Battles for 5e D&D (2021, by Dave B)
- Add the Herbalist Background to your 5th edition D&D games (2021)
My custom backgrounds and my take on Sports in D&D remain popular as well.
In fact, that’s where my biggest D&D related project ever came from, and one of my favorites of 2024. I helped out with Worlds To-Go: The Elysians.
My contributions were five custom backgrounds, most completely new, plus formalization of sports rules including inventing two new sports — The Pentiad and Constellations (a team juggling sport that creates constellations).
Here on FMS my favorite of the year was Goodbye Alignment. Hello short-form personality. In that article I encourage people to continue to use personality traits in their games, but make them as short as alignment! Then the DM and other players can grant Inspiration based off of something small enough to remember as opposed to the original 5e personality system that was six long sentences that no one remembered.
There was also a quick review of the 2024 Player’s Handbook.
If you ever need a quick 5-room dungeon and associated adventure, pick a pop song and convert it into one. That article may not have been well read, but I’ll refer to it when I’m back behind the DM screen.
I stutter. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot. A personal essay I felt compelled to write after a re-watch of Agents of SHIELD, it also falls into the not-well-read column, but it meant a lot for me to share this about myself. It was not the only personal essay of the year. The other was about how the fragmented storytelling technique of D&D may fit me better than novels or short fiction.
Soccer stories
For the most part at Sounder at Heart I’m now the weekly columnist, sending out a large newsletter that covers one important topic, plus everything else you need to know for the week.
Choosing the best of these was easy, because one of them helped change the approach from the organization towards the US Open Cup — Ship’s Log, May 7: Let’s win trophies again.
My second favorite was about using the Club World Cup to sell the world’s best players on the region that I’ve chosen as home for all of my adult life — Ship’s Log, Dec. 6: Selling Seattle.
I still dipped into journalism, covering Defiance’s new coach and the new practice facility. Walking through history is one of my favorite pieces of soccer writing ever (and there’s about 5000 of those).
Factal
Most of my writing at Factal is in emails. Some additional material is in the various Global Security Briefings I hosted this year, covering news like the Key Bridge collapse, bomb cyclones, DANA storms, mpox, Olympics security and more. On the blog I supplemented editors’ writings on Olympics security and for our year in review.
Finding me on social
- Mastodon or a bridge if you are on Bluesky (where I prefer to have most of my RPG and soccer thoughts)
- Threads (a wider mix of who I am)
- Instagram (mostly pics of my dog, the moon and soccer stuff)
- LinkedIn (almost all safety news, intelligence and marketing)
P.S. That jersey on the header was for the soccer team I sponsored this fall. I’ll be sponsoring again in the spring, because supporting my friends is fun.













