Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1030: F.I.R.E. Design

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

R&D uses a philosophy in design known as F.I.R.E. design. There are a lot of misconceptions as to what it means, so I walk through its philosophy in this podcast.

I'm pulling in my driveway. We all know what that is. It's time for us to drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to talk all about fire design. A much maligned... So, R&D, I'm going to talk about what fire design is, how it came to be, what it represents, the philosophy behind it, and then explain how I think it... I think people attribute a lot of things to fire design that aren't part of fire design. So we will get to that. Okay, so the origin of fire design is Aaron Forsythe, my boss. We're trying to sort of want to think about things that when we make a set,

there are certain qualities that he just wanted the team to think about for every set they make. And the idea was that he would take them and list them. So say, okay, when you make a set, list these things. These are the things we want to do. And I know originally, I forget exactly what, when we originally made it, there were just four letters. They didn't spell anything. And my advice to Aaron was, it'll be a lot easier for people to remember.

Use mnemonics to your, you know, use the power of mnemonics. And so he figured out how to pick four words that can make a word. And so fire was the word he ended up making. word. And so fire was the word he ended up making. So the four qualities that fire represents is fun, inviting, replayable, and exciting. So I'm going to go through each of those four qualities, talk about why exactly they're important, why Aaron prioritized them, and what we have to think about when we're designing a set. Okay, let's start with fun. So the thing to always remember is that we are making a game. And a game mostly is a form of entertainment.

People play a game because it is fun to play the game. And I've talked about this on a couple different things, my GDC talk and stuff. It's very easy to confuse interesting and fun. What interesting says is there's some mental stimulation, right? That it's something that says, oh, well, that's interesting to think about.

What fun says is that's interesting to experience, that there's an emotional output. And that's not to say that you can't and don't want to create intellectual stimulation. You do. But fundamentally, what makes people come back to a game, what makes people embrace a game, is the emotional response they have to it. That people like to think about things, but they really like to feel things.

One of my ongoing themes about game design is that you have to understand who you're designing for. And you're designing for humans. And humans are very driven by emotional response. It is definitely the thing, you know, like, so when you're making a game, it's important that it's not just, like, for example, one of the things that's very interesting

when you go, like like my daughter in fifth grade had an assignment where the teacher had me come in to talk about game design. Because the class, as one of their assignments, I think on the American Revolution, had to design a game. And that one of the things I realized is that when you watch people make games for the first time, mostly the A, they mimic things they know, and they tend to make something that is, for example, the most common thing people will do when they make a game for the first time

is they'll make a board with a die. And then as you advance on the board, things happen. It's not super dynamic. And that one of the things you learn as you sort of start making games is a lot of the low hanging fruit of what you associate with games isn't necessarily inherently fun. Like rolling dice on a board, if you're not sort of creating moments that are exciting is, you know, that a lot of game design is saying, okay, I want to do something. I want to then see what am I generating out of the players? What am I, you know, I want to get this emotional response. So for example, whenever we design something, we have to play test it because there's a lot of ideas that sound cool in concept,

that sound interesting, but the reality is when you play them, are they interesting? Do they make you fundamentally do something that you want to do? Do they make you do something, you know, if there is tension, is it fun tension? If there are decisions, are they fun decisions? You know, there are a lot of things that you can do. It's not as if you can't keep the player busy. There's plenty, plenty of ways to keep the player busy. But the trick to it is, are you keeping them busy with something that is fundamentally enjoyable for them as they're doing it? mistakes are people that are prioritizing the people doing things and making decisions over making the right decisions or having the right the right play like it's not just a matter of are you keeping them busy is it are you keeping them busy doing something that fundamentally they want to do and a lot of games on a lot a lot a lot of you know early design for me for example is we come up with ideas

and then it's it's you want to play them and experience them and understand them because a really important part of early playtesting was did you enjoy that was that fun to do and that there there's a moment you get when you play test where you can i call it seeing the fun where you have that first moment where you do something and you're like, oh, we are on to something. My example is, I remember we were playing Landfall and it was like later in the game and I was hoping for a land.

I was hoping to draw a land. I'm like, come on, I need a land. And I'm like, okay, here's this experience. You know, normally in the late game, what happens is I'm hoping for a spell. I this experience. You know, normally in the late game, what happens is I'm hoping for a spell. I don't want to draw a land, right? So here's this interesting moment where like,

well, either I draw a spell, which is normally what I want to draw, or I draw a land because in this situation, a land was valuable to me. I'm like, oh, that was fun. It's like, no matter what I drew, I was happy. That's good. That's a great experience, you know? And there's this moment when you play a game where you're like, okay, I was happy. That's good. That's a great experience.

And there's this moment when you play a game where you're like, okay, I see the fun. I see the potential of what this can be. And so the reason Aaron put fun, and I think probably the reason he put it first, although he spelled the word fire, but it could have been rice, I guess. The reason that he put it first was, first and foremost, if the players are not enjoying your game,

if the players are not getting an emotional response, if the choices you're making them make, if the decisions you're making them choose, if the actions you're making them take are not fundamentally something that triggers, that pushes their happy button, they're not going to continue doing it. You know, there's an expression, one of my truisms is, if everybody likes your game

but nobody loves it, it will fail. And what that means is, it's not enough, you know, it's not enough to make people go, oh, okay,

yeah, it's okay, it's not bad. Like, one of the things, whenever we have a new meal, my wife likes trying new meals, and one of the things she'll we have a new meal, my wife likes trying new meals. And one of the things she'll always ask after a new meal is she'll say, so what do you think? What do you think of this meal? And whenever I say not bad, that's like the death sentence.

You know, how was it? Oh, not bad. You know, and she's like, oh, you hated it. You know, that not bad is not the ringing endorsement you want. At the end of a play test, how was it? Not bad. Okay, no. We can do a play test, how was it? Not bad. Okay, no. We can do better than that.

How was it? Oh, it was fun. It was awesome. That's what we're shooting for. Okay, so first up, fun. You need fun. If you don't have fun, nothing else matters. Nothing else matters.

If the people aren't fundamentally enjoying what you're doing, nothing else matters. It doesn't say there's not other things we care about, because there's four letters. Okay, next we'll get to the I, inviting. Okay, so one of the unique things about a trading card game is that you, the player, are kind of the game designer, and you choose what you want to play with. In most games, you play with all the pieces. If you open up a Monopoly board or a Scrabble board, like, if you play a normal game, a not trading card game,

you are usually, like, all the pieces are given to you. Or in a lot of games. I guess there are other games where you choose. But anyway, a lot of the things are given to you. And you, the player, choose what you want to play with. So the reason inviting is important is

we need to make cards that you want to play with. So, the reason inviting is important is we need to make cards that you want to play with. That if we make cards that you luckily go, oh, you know, interesting, or whatever, but you're not pulls to want to play with. Like, it doesn't matter how fun we make the cards,

if you never play the cards, you know, I mean, we want them to be fun. That is important. But if we make really fun cards and you never play them and never experience that they're fun, you know, that also is a problem. So one of the things is not only do we need them to be fun, but we need them to, we want them to encourage you.

We want them to be inviting that makes you want to play with them, want to put them in your deck, want to think about them. And that's an important part of any set is that it's not enough to make something that if people play it, they will enjoy it. We have to also build into it something that makes players want to play it. And like I said, that's a very unique thing. You know, no one has to sell you on the bishop in chess. Ooh, here's why the bishop is cool. You know, it's like, well, I get two bishops, so I will play the bishop, I will figure out how to make the bishop work, and I'll find that moment where the bishop is cool. But in our game, because you, the

player, have a lot of say. Now, once again, one of the themes I will repeat today is the key to a trading card game is every card is not for every player. There are a lot of ways to play Magic. There are a lot of types of players. You know, in our means to get everything out to everybody, we have to think of all the different people. Our metaphorical buffet, if you will, right? We want to make sure when you come up to the buffet,

there's something there that you adore. So when I say things are inviting, it's possible that different cards are inviting to different players. It's not that every card needs to be inviting to everyone, but every card should be inviting to somebody, right? We want to make a card, and if somebody go, oh, I'm interested in playing that card, and there's a lot of different vectors there, maybe we aim it at a certain format. Maybe we aim it at a certain theme. Maybe we aim it at a certain strategy. Maybe we aim it with a certain flavor.

You know, sometimes, for example, people are excited because it's the right creature type, or it represents a character they like. And so we want to make sure that every card is inviting to somebody. On some level that is true of fun as well, meaning we want to make sure the card for the player

it's aimed at is very fun. Some players enjoy something that other players don't. So cards aren't necessarily universally fun, although we try to make them as universally fun as we can. And same with inviting. We want to make them as inviting to as many players as we can. But within the caveat that we understand that different players want different things.

So that's another thing about making an inviting set is not that you push everything in the same direction. It's that you put things in different directions and say, hey, if you look at this set, we preview and show you the cards, something about the set should pull you in. Something about the set will go, ooh, I want to try out this thing or this card or this mechanic. Because if you don't do that,

if we make sets that aren't inviting, people don't play them. Yeah, we can make them super fun, but if no one wants to play them, if no one experiences them, they won't see the fun. So inviting is very important because we want to make sure that people are pulled in

and want the set we are making. Okay, number three is our R, replayable. So one of the things about magic, and I think this quality goes all the way back to the very beginning, to Richard Garfield. I remember when Richard worked at Wizards way back in the early days, we used to have a public file that we shared,

a place for messages, called Kickshaw. And what it was is Richard just wanted a place for us to talk about game design in sort of a formal sense, of explaining, like, here are things that games can do, and here's how certain things do, you know, how do you make the best political game? How do you make the best strategy game? How do you make the best strategy game?

How do you make, you know, what are good decisions versus, you know, a lot of the concepts like fun versus interesting started there. You know, there's a lot of the talk in that thing with just making us be analytical about game design. It reminds me back in my days when I used to do stand-up. One of the things that's really fun is you'd go do stand-up, and then you'd sit in the back with the other comedians, and the other comedians really had a great joy of breaking down comedy and humor.

That part of wanting to sort of master comedy is understand, why are things funny? Why do people laugh? What makes them, you know, what are the tools that work that make people, you know, the rule of three or repetition or callbacks

or, you know, there's a lot of things that go into comedy and you want to understand the nature and structure of comedy because if you understand that, you do a better job of making comedy.

Same is true with game design. If you understand game design, you have a better chance of making games. Same is true with game design. If you understand game design, you have a better chance of making games that really sing and resonate with people. But anyway, one of Richard's big things was Richard was not a fan of what he called disposable games. And what that means is it's a game where you experience something

and then, okay, you've experienced it and you're done. Richard really felt that the best games had a shelf life to them. They had a length to them. That the game introduced concepts to you that you then could think about and that you wanted to keep coming back to them because there was this replayability. And the key to it is you want to make a game robust enough

and dynamic enough that you can't absorb it all in one play session. And Magic is very much that. Magic is a deep game with lots going on. And like I said, even at the very beginning of deck building, I'm trying to make the best

deck I can. Then I'm trying to play the deck as best I can. And, I'm trying to make the best deck I can. Then I'm trying to play the deck as best I can. And then I'm trying to understand how my deck faces up against other people's decks, the metagame. And there's many different layers of things that you can sort of try to master, none of which are easy. And so one of the things we want to do is make sure that when we make a card,

we want to make something that you come back to, that you're interested in. Unsets, for example, it's very easy to, a lot of unsets work around novelty of playing a new space. And it's very easy to make something that is novel solely for the sake of being novel, right? I play it once, okay, I've experienced it. That's it. I don't need to play it anymore. And you want to make sure, like when we're doing,

I mean, this is true for all design. I'm just picking on design right now. But I want to make sure that I'm doing something that is fun that you want to come back to, that you want to do again. And that's just true of all magic design, which is when you play something, when you're iterating on it,

we want to make something that is dynamic and has room for growth. That you, the player, a lot of times we like having strategy. You have to understand the strategy. We want to get things that how you use them has some openness so you can figure out how best to make use of them.

You know, it definitely is something that really creates a desire from the game player to keep wanting to interact with the same game pieces. That the game pieces themselves have enough... When I say complexity, I don't mean comprehension, but in strategic

complexity. There's enough going on with them and they interact with other cards in interesting ways and there's fun ways to play them that you, the player, really have to work your way through and understand it. And a good mechanic, for example, is something where I'm not using it the same way every game. You know, one of the things, for example, when we're trying to make things fun, is we want to make sure there's enough variety in how it plays.

For example, we try to be careful not to have too much repetition of play where things play the exact same way every time. And part of that plays into fun, part of it plays into replayability. These all interconnect, by the way. But that's a big thing, that we want you to interact and play and then one of the signs

that you are doing a good game, that your game design is working, is at the end of one game, the player is intrigued to play the next game. That was fun. I want to play again. That's a really good sign. If, for example, someone finishes and goes, okay, do you want to play again? Eh, I'm good. That, much like, it's okay. Not a great sign. You know, you want to drum up in the game player this desire to go, ooh, I want to continue experimenting. I want to continue experiencing this. That with time, that there will come growth,

and there will come, you know, you feel as if your time invested pays off. That the more I play my deck, the better it gets. The more I understand it, the more dynamic the deck becomes. The more I start thinking of larger decisions about who am I playing and what's going on. Okay, now we get to quality number four, the E, exciting. So another thing to think about is we make a lot of magic sets. And it's important that each set sort of stands apart in its own way.

That when we sell a set, there's a reason we don't say, it's set number 84. Ooh, set number 84. The set will have a theme and a story and a mechanical identity, you know, that we're trying to say, it's this. And that we try to make sure that whatever we're doing, it's that. As much as it can be, you know, whatever it is we're

trying to do. Oh, it's a war of planeswalkers? There's 36 planeswalkers! You know, we're doing a set with, um, you know, uh, multicolored. Like, oh, there's guilds We're doing a set with multi-color. Like, oh, there's guilds and there's two of them and there's ten of them. And this set has four and this set has three. We're trying to do whatever we do in the boldest sense.

In a way that makes people sit up and want to talk about it. We want to make cards and mechanics and sets. There's a whole community. Like, one of the things that, one of the big things that Magic has going for it, that other games don't necessarily have going for it, is we have a built-in audience that's been playing for a very long time. So when there's a new Magic set, we get sampling. Like, when you make a brand new game, the hardest part of game is not even making an awesome game. That's hard. That's not the hardest part of a new game. The hardest part of a new game is getting people to want to play your game. That there are a lot of really good games that don't

make it, not because they're not good games, but because it just was hard enough to get enough people to sample it, to get a lot of, for example, a lot of successive games, especially sort of more gamer games, if you will, is you want to get a mass of people playing. You want to create this thing where everybody's talking about it. That is a big part of getting people excited, is you want to have a community that discusses your game. Now, Magic, luckily, 30 years in, we have a whole community that if we put out a new product, there's going to be score. There are going to be podcasts and videos and articles. You know,

there'll be a lot of people talking about it because there's a huge built-in Magic audience. But we want to make sure there's something to talk about. We want to make sure that when people look at it for the first time, there's something that grabs their interest. We want people to want to, you know, we want to generate excitement. And we want to generate buzz. We want people to be discussing it and talking about it. We want people to be examining it. We want, you know, and once again, like I said, these are all interconnecting, you know,

part of being exciting is, you know, making, makes the cards very inviting. Um, but the difference inviting is more about, I'm, I'm encouraged to play the card. Exciting is I want to talk about the card. I want to, that it, it is so, like, on some level, fun is about the emotional response of playing, right? Fun is about I play the cards. It makes me feel happy, you know, pushes my happy button, and I enjoy the experience of playing. Exciting is I want to get emotional response, but not necessarily from playing. I mean,

not that play can't be exciting, but a lot of the exciting part is we want to really, we want people to be excited for seeing it. We want to create an emotional response when you see it. We want to create an emotional response when you, you know, we want to make that buzz happen for every set. And we spend a lot of time with how we do our pre-release plan and who shows what, of making sure that people are intrigued by it, right? We want people to go, I want, you know, I want to know more. Or I want to talk, you know, I can't be quiet about it. I see something and I have to go to my friends who are part of my community

and say, did you see? Oh my goodness. Can you imagine? You know, we want people to be finding combos and we want to drill up. You know, we want people to be passionate about what the latest thing is. So the reason exciting is on it is we need people to really come forward and want, you know, on a visceral high, you know, of just, they see something and they're just so excited to want to interact with it and talk about it and communicate.

And that is important. The buzz is important. You know, when you make a game, yes, the game has to play well. Yes, the game wants to be replayable and all these things. But you also have to make something that makes people sit up and take notice. And that one of the hardest things about games, and this is one of the reasons that having a game with a built-in audience, a very big built-in audience, is a huge advantage,

is that you want to generate that conversation. And we spend a lot of time, you know, when I make a set, it's not just what is this set, but how do I make the set that most this thing can be? How can I make, you know, I want people to sit up and go, what? You know, and that's an important part of design. That's why the E is on the design. Okay. So we want things to be fun. We want things to be inviting. We want things to be playable. We want things to be exciting. So, how did those four simple qualities, which all seem

like pretty awesome things, how did it turn into something that people are like, oh, fire design. So, here's what I think happened, which is when we first announced fire design, it was around the same time that Theros was coming out. And one of the things about Theros was we had realized sort of behind the scenes that magic had been shifting. So for the longest time, magic sort of center was standard.

It was the format most people played. And essentially what happened was we more said to people, you know what, like a lot of the reasons that standard was so popular, we kind of forced people to play standard. We did a lot of things that say, you know, hey, this is the most important thing, you've got to play this. And over time we said, you know what, instead of making people play the format we want them to play,

let's listen to the players and say, what format do you want to play? And what happened was other formats, Commander probably being the biggest in tabletop, but Commander, Modern, Pioneer, other formats really came to the forefront. And what we realized was that if we wanted sort of the premiere sets to be what they needed to be, we needed to speak to a broader audience. And instead of aiming them at standard, we needed to aim them at a more eternal audience,

if you will. Part of doing that was changing the base power level. That the power level you need to make standard work is a little bit different than the power level you need to make commander or modern or pioneer work. And so what happened was we made the conscious choice to switch the power level. Now, this happened at the same time we were sort of introducing fire. So in the same article where we're talking about fire, we're talking about changing the power level. So I get it. I get it.

People sort of, people put those things all together. Like fire also is changing power level, which wasn't, I mean, there is some subtleness of part of being exciting and stuff is we want to make sure that things are relevant. But the change in power level was more of a one-time thing we needed to do to adjust magic in a big meta way. And the problem was, look, the first time we do something, we don't have as many... The first time we do something, we don't have history on our side. You know, one of the nice things about making magic is we've made magic for so long that we have a lot of lessons we've learned.

There's a lot of shorthands we get to do because we've built in experience from just doing it. You know, iteration is a powerful tool. Okay, well, we've made, you know, we've done drafts for a long, long time. And so we have a pretty good sense of what makes a good draft. You know, there's a lot of things we do that are built upon all the knowledge. We stand on the shoulder of giants. We've built a lot of knowledge along the way. But every once in a while, we do something for the first time.

We reset the power level. And at a level we didn't quite understand because we had not done it before. And one of the things in general is, we will make mistakes whenever we're playing to new territory. Magic shifts. We try new things. Well, you know, sometimes we try a brand new mechanic we've never done before. That's the place we're more often to make mistakes. Companions is a perfect example.

We were playing in space we didn't quite understand. And we had two mechanics playing in space we didn't understand. And we missed pretty big on one of them. But it came from we didn't understand. And we missed pretty big on one of them. But it came from we didn't have the experience on it. But the more we do something, the more we learn. And so what happened was we made throw a Valadrain. We were aiming for a slightly different power level.

We missed. Like, we had a target. Maybe our target was a smidgen high. I'm not my area of expertise. But we made a target. Maybe our target was a little bit off. I'm not sure. And we missed the target. Like, we didn't't hit the target we were aiming for. We overshot

it some. Why? Well, we were playing with new things and trying different things. And, you know, one of the things about magic, I mention this from time to time, is the greatest risk to magic is not taking risks. You know, nobody, you want people excited. You want people talking. You want, you know, so, we want to

be careful not to power creep. But also, we don't want to, like,, you know, so, we want to be careful not to power creep, but also we don't want to, like, not make any, like, we can make sure that no card is ever broken, because we can be so conservative that we never come close to the line. But that's not what players want. Players want us coming up to the line. Players, you know,

and if occasionally we fall over the line, occasionally make something that is a little better than it should be, all in all, that is better for the game than us playing safe all the time and never doing that. And so, you know, we made some mistakes with Eldraine. The power level of Eldraine was higher than it should have been. But I think what happened was people equated us sort of missing on readjusting the power level with something like

that the core of fire design is just making broken things or something which is not the core of fire design is making fun inviting replayable exciting cards um that that i mean and there is a correct balance you know i'm saying I'm not saying that good design is not pushing boundaries. It should be. And part of that is occasionally we will make mistakes.

I'm not trying to I'm not trying to excuse mistakes in the sense that we'll make mistakes and mistakes are mistakes and we try to fix them when we make them.

But mistakes are a byproduct of us sort of trying to get to come to the line and do exciting things and try things we've never done before. And part of that's going to happen, you know, part of making 25,000 game pieces is, hey, maybe a few game pieces are

we didn't quite hit. And also we also err on the other side. Sometimes we make things and that we think will be good and end up being not that playable. But those mistakes, you know, those don't tend to disrupt anything. I mean, we've made sets that are a little, you know, that don't do much. And there's repercussions for us as a business. But it doesn't have quite the problem that making things that break things are.

it doesn't have quite the problem that making things that break things are. Although, on some level, having a set that everyone's disappointed in is not good for us. And, I mean, it's not like players like it. We make a set that mostly disappoints players. Players aren't happy with that. But anyway, I think that is where

a lot of the negative talk about fire design came from, is that association. I think Theros made a bunch of mistakes. Not Theros. Throne of Eldraine made a bunch of mistakes. And that is where that equation came from. Now, the other dynamic that's going on here, and we saw this

with other things like New World Order, for example, was we come up with something. The thing we're coming up with usually has a very specific, you know, New World Order was about complexity of commons. And what happens is players are unhappy about something because there's always something to be unhappy about.

And they take whatever the latest sort of R&D trend is and then they associate blame of, well, that's the problem. This thing that they're doing, that's what caused the problems. And whatever it is, you know, I mean, we're a very transparent company. When we do things, we tell you about them.

You know, I spend, I make lots of podcasts and articles, and I'm on my blog. I spend a lot of time explaining to people what we're doing and why we're doing it. And so the audience has a much greater insight than most games of understanding what we're trying to do behind the scenes. But just as there's a lot, I mean, I think it's generally good I do it. And I think that the game is better served for the audience getting to see what goes into the game but the downside of that

is people who want to sort of weaponize things have they can they have something with a name that they can make the enemy if they will and so I think when I talk about things R&D does if people get happy with something unhappy with something

you know it's the thing R&D is doing, that's the thing. And so I think fire design, there's a lot of things attributed to fire design that have nothing to do with fire design. Like I said, fire design really, all fire design is is what I explained today. There's certain qualities that are important. We want to keep those in mind. And that's all Aaron was trying to say is, hey, there's certain things we want every

set to do. Just keep this in mind. I'm going to give you some simple words so you can keep it in mind. And the idea is, you know, constantly think of, am I doing these things? But that, fire design is not so scary. Maybe fire festival didn't help us. That was a concept that was disastrously bad. So maybe people think of fire and they go, oh no.

I do think in general that where Magic is right now, and I think the game design is in a really good place. I think we're making really fun sets. There's a lot of dynamic stuff. Play design has definitely got a handle on power level and stuff. You're not seeing

Throne of Eldraine power level issues anymore. So they're getting the hang of it. You know, once again, as you iterate, you get better at things. And I think that fire design is responsible, or one of the things responsible, for a lot of the awesome things going on in magic right now. I think magic design is doing great. And I think fire design is partially responsible for that.

So next time you hear fire design, I want to speak it down and how horrible it is and how the air wizards made fire design. I just wanted you all to know what fire design is and why we did it. So that was my reason of today's talk. But anyway, I am now pulling into the parking lot. So we all know what that means. It means this is the end of my drive to work.

So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So I hope you guys enjoyed a look at fire design, and I'll talk to you next time. Bye-bye.