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This thread is for discussion of this week's Making Magic, which goes live Monday morning on magicthegathering.com.

I had totally, totally forgotten Mark used to write for that show, too.

Not again!  I am so sick of reading about MaRo's time writing for Roseanne that it's not even funny.  Personally, I wouldn't even consider that to be something to brag about, considering what he does now.

At least Charlie Sheen makes her look sane, though.

www.roseanneworld.com/blog/2011/03/charl... 

It's nice to see Making Magic finally deliver on one of its longest "running jokes". I've been a reader since the beginning, and I have always chuckled at the Roseanne references. I'm glad to see Maro make it relevant by drawing general principles from his experiences that can be applied to any topic. I kind of wish he had been ambitious enough to try to connect anecdotes to particular magic cards as a tribute to Topical Blend number one, but maybe that would have been too forced.

One thing I think is kind of amusing is that Magic is probably going to have a much longer lifespan of cultural relevance than the Roseanne show. In another decade or two, Magic will probably still be going strong and not many people will remember a decades old sitcom. Already, even though television is inherently a bit more mass-market than gaming, when you consider magic's world-wide popularity, probably more people have played magic with Maro-designed cards than have ever seen a maro-written episode of Roseanne.

As someone who has poked fun at Mark for his mentions of Roseanne, I'm still grateful to read his accounting of it.  Thanks, Mark!  We're glad you're where you are.

AA 

Well at least we've been warned there is a part two.

Not very Magic-y, but definitely an interesting read on a professional level.  Thanks, Mark!

"You're job in a pitch..."--> Your
"I like to think that Magic history might be forever changes if he and I..."-->changed

So is next week's article a writer's perspective on the value of a good editor?

that was one agonizing read. could you perhaps cater to the international community. a lot of you writers assumed that your readers are americans. and we still have part 2???!! goodness me! scrap the idea please.

and you talk about overstaying your time. have you thought that perhaps, you're in here too long and feel that no one's ever gonna succeed you?

Mar 14, 2011 -- 12:00AM, Guest872980744 wrote:

that was one agonizing read. could you perhaps cater to the international community. a lot of you writers assumed that your readers are americans. and we still have part 2???!! goodness me! scrap the idea please.

That might be a worthwhile post if you would be specific about what you thought was inappropriately US-centric about the article. In its present form, though, it's an insulting threadcrap and nothing more. A little substance, please.

Mar 13, 2011 -- 9:16PM, sulfuricmage wrote:

One thing I think is kind of amusing is that Magic is probably going to have a much longer lifespan of cultural relevance than the Roseanne show. In another decade or two, Magic will probably still be going strong and not many people will remember a decades old sitcom. Already, even though television is inherently a bit more mass-market than gaming, when you consider magic's world-wide popularity, probably more people have played magic with Maro-designed cards than have ever seen a maro-written episode of Roseanne.

Hell, I'm pretty sure the first time I ever heard of Roseanne was in a MaRo column. Of course, I tend to hate sitcoms in general and avoid them like the plague, but still...Magic's longevity is just about to double Roseanne's, and there's a player at our local store who I believe wasn't even born until after Roseanne ended its run.

I don't know why he missed himself off the list, but MaRo has an IMBD page too:

 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0742909/

...which mentions his Magic writing!

It also must be wonderful for MaRo to be able to be so sickeningly self serving and condescending, given his position.  I bet that's quite a thrill, and I wonder if he'll write an article about that in the future, seeing as he's so magnanimous.

Mar 13, 2011 -- 10:24PM, JustinR wrote:

"You're job in a pitch..."--> Your
"I like to think that Magic history might be forever changes if he and I..."-->changed

So is next week's article a writer's perspective on the value of a good editor?

Yep. This is two weeks in a row with multiple typos. Spelling mistakes like this really turn off a certain category of person... many of us would really like to be paying attention to the content of the article, but these errors are like a flashing red light in the background, or a bad smell: they make it hard to hear what you want us to hear.

Also, I don't understand why Random Anonymous Guest objects. As a proud Brit I often notice American cultural assumptions, some of which can be quite irritating (such as occasional assumptions that all the audience follow baseball). But sitcoms aren't specific to America, and the specific details of Roseanne are pretty much irrelevant to the content of this week's article - it's just about how to sell your ideas and how useful it is to figure out why things that need changing need changing. 
 

There's going too be different levels of "getting it" too, and that's OK.  I bet even among American's who've heard of, or even watched the show, a lot don't know that Roseanne was famous for being a writers' hell.  One of the reasons a lot of famous names wrote for that show is that people got churned through very quickly.  So the experience of writing there is different from just being a Hollywood writer in general.

I loved the article. Admittedly, I came here to read about MaRo Making Magic, and his insistence that the article had to do with Magic felt a bit like an attempt to force the article to be fitting for the website (so that it wouldn't sound like a completely off-topic autobiography.) Did I come in wanting to learn about magic design? Yes. Did I? Not really. 

But so what?

On the practical side, it gives nice professional advice relevant to people outside Magic. More than that, it was great learning more about him. This article showed a bit more of the human side of MaRo the magic designer than usual, and that was cool. I could feel his heart and passion (and the tinge of regret) while reading the article, and this article was a nice twist to the rest of the Files.  To me, this article wasn't really about Roseanne as much as it was about Mark Rosewater. And (to feed his ego!) I enjoy articles like that. Hell, I don't really even know what Roseanne is and I still liked the article. 

If it wasn't clear enough, I'm looking forward to Part 2, if there is one .

Please Mark. Stop torturing us with RoseAnne, it isn't fun anymore. Pretty please.

I mean... Is this some sort of an ego-boost thing?

Mar 14, 2011 -- 3:05AM, bateleur_ wrote:

I don't know why he missed himself off the list, but MaRo has an IMBD page too:

 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0742909/

...which mentions his Magic writing!

Huh, highlighting a URL and rightclicking has an "open link" option now in Firefox, when did that get added? Handy!

Anyway, Roseanne is more of a context for what he's talking about here than the text. Not as bad as the title lead me to expect.

(Incidentally, while I remember basically nothing else about Roseanne, I can still recall a surprising amount about the layout of the house. >_>)

I think there's a lot to be learned from articles like this, especially if you're in one of those Great Designer search things. 

The straight "Magic-only" articles can get a bit dry sometimes, relating it to something "real world" can help you see things about it you might miss otherwise*. And sitcoms (even US centric ones) are a pretty understandable concept in the abstract.  

I always enjoy any kind of article like this where we get to see how somebody did something besides Magic, as that can always help us better understand their approach to Magic. 


And besides, Roseanne gave us the incomparable Sarah Chalke. Google image her yourself, I'm at work. 



*Reminds me of a discussion I had with Brady Dommeruth on the forums years ago. He was arguing against the inclusion of any real world/normal creatures in Magic and my counter argument was that you need the occasional "normal" one to really make the magical ones standout.  




-----------------------------

As for the house keiyakins, it's pretty much a standard sitcom house layout. If you started stripping them down to their basic layouts, you'd realize they're almost all the same, especially when they use those stairs towards the back of the stage (some drama major can probably point out a classical term for that).  

Don't care. Write a Magic article.

Mar 14, 2011 -- 7:12AM, Lord_pygmy_puff wrote:

I loved the article. Admittedly, I came here to read about MaRo Making Magic, and his insistence that the article had to do with Magic felt a bit like an attempt to force the article to be fitting for the website (so that it wouldn't sound like a completely off-topic autobiography.) Did I come in wanting to learn about magic design? Yes. Did I? Not really. 

Perhaps not specific magic design, but it does educate about general game design =)

Hot news: Making Magic is not going to appear on this site on March 28. Instead we will run another ad for a sitcom long past written by one of its minor writing staff members. Thanks for understanding!

Mar 14, 2011 -- 2:41PM, Thalain wrote:

Hot news: Making Magic is not going to appear on this site on March 28. Instead we will run another ad for a sitcom long past written by one of its minor writing staff members. Thanks for understanding!

If the article is written by John Goodman, I don't think anyone would mind.
Hell, I'd pay money for a download of John Goodman reading MaRo articles.

Mar 14, 2011 -- 12:55PM, milo_bloom wrote:

I think there's a lot to be learned from articles like this, especially if you're in one of those Great Designer search things. 
 

I have to agree. I saw a lot of people essentially quoting Mark Rosewater articles as answers to each other (and me) in the opening stages of GDS2. This provides a few tidbits to have memorized and bookmarked for GDS3.

Loved this article.  I've been waiting a long time.  Every time you hold a vote for a topic, I've voted for you to write about Roseanne.  It was one of my favourite sitcoms (until the terrible last season).  Please don't make us wait too long before you write the next part(s).  Can't wait!  I hope you write about your interatcions with Roseanne herself.

Mar 13, 2011 -- 10:24PM, JustinR wrote:

"You're job in a pitch..."--> Your
"I like to think that Magic history might be forever changes if he and I..."-->changed

So is next week's article a writer's perspective on the value of a good editor?

Yeah, I find it ironic that the article in which I find the most spelling errors in a while, is an article about his professional writing career.

Mar 14, 2011 -- 8:57PM, Throgan wrote:

Yeah, I find it ironic that the article in which I find the most spelling errors in a while, is an article about his professional writing career.

Roseanne wasn't exactly a program targeted at the intelligentsia.

Great article Maro,
I Love Roseanne, IMHO it's a top five best sitcom ever and  I've seen every episode 3x. (Working night security with Nick at Nite marathons on tv will allow that.)

@ Qmark- You could not be more wrong. Good sarcasm requires intelligence to understand.

Mar 14, 2011 -- 9:00PM, Qmark wrote:

Mar 14, 2011 -- 8:57PM, Throgan wrote:

Yeah, I find it ironic that the article in which I find the most spelling errors in a while, is an article about his professional writing career.

Roseanne wasn't exactly a program targeted at the intelligentsia.

That's EXACTLY the impression you would get if you never actually watched the show, yes. Bravo.

It doesn't come up often but Roseanne was one of the nerd-friendliest shows in sitcom history. People not unlike MaRo and Joss Whedon writing characters like Darlene and David were a big part of that.

I feel bad for the people who dismiss articles like this as not being Magic-related. As someone who dips his feet in the waters of design once in a while, I find there's a good amount to learn here.

Mar 15, 2011 -- 12:48AM, WotC_MattT wrote:

I feel bad for the people who dismiss articles like this as not being Magic-related. As someone who dips his feet in the waters of design once in a while, I find there's a good amount to learn here.

MaRo's holistic philosophy of creativity is right on the money to me, but I know from reading his column that we think alike in a lot of ways anyway.

I've pretty much given up on Magic but as a writer I find him incredibly helpful. I practically wanted the exact words "restrictions breed creativity" tattooed onto my forehead BEFORE I read it in his columns. I look forward to pieces like these.

I like these a lot. Please ignore the haters as much as you can. And I'm European and have no trouble liking these pieces.