Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1050: Hall of Fame

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

In this podcast, I talk about being inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design Hall of Fame (i.e., the Tabletop Gaming Hall of Fame).

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for other drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Technically, the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design Hall of Fame. Also kind of known as Tabletop Gaming Hall of Fame. Okay, so first let me explain what this is. So there's a group called GAMMA. So GAMMA stands for the Game Manufacturers Association. And they are the people that sort of the organization that joins together all the different companies that make games.

And GAMMA does a bunch of different things. There's two events they run, main events. There's a GAMMA trade show events. There's a Gamma Trade Show, which is more a business thing. And then there is Origins, which is a more consumer-facing game show. At Origins, one of the things

they do, and they've done for a while, is they do what they call the Origin Awards, which is the awards for tabletop gaming. I have won a bunch of Origin awards. I don't even know how many I've won. I know Ravnica, original Ravnica won an award.

Concept Archer won an award. I think Innishrod won. So I've won a handful. I don't actually know off the top of my head. Most of the trophies are up in our lobby, but I do have one at my desk. I think I have the Ravnica up in our lobby, but, uh, I do have, I do have one, one at my desk. I think I have the revenue going to my desk.

Um, anyway, so it is essentially, you know, the Academy Awards for tabletop gaming. Uh, and one of the things that they do, uh, is they have the award show, but they also do a Hall of Fame induction every year. And they normally induct, uh induct three people and two games. So anyway, let me back up a little bit before we get to actually all that. So one day, I get a call from Mike Elliott. Now, some of you might recognize that name. So Mike Elliott, he and I joined Wizards.

I joined Wizards in 95. He joined shortly after in 96. He and I, plus Bill Rose and William Jockish, and then later Henry Stern, for a while were like magic development teams for a number of years. Anyway,

Mike left Wizards many years ago, but while he was at Wizards, he was very prolific. He did Urza Saga. He did Onslaught. He did Mercadian Masaga. He did Onslaught. He did Mercadian Masks. He did a bunch of different sets. And so Mike and I had worked together pretty closely because

in fact, I gave Mike his first design opportunity when I led Tempest. I asked him to be on my design team. And Mike and I had both, both Mike and I had been hired as developers. But he and I both knew we were designers and wanted to show off our chance to be designers. So when I got the opportunity to lead Tempest, I was told I could pick my team.

So one of the people I picked was Mike Elliott because I had great faith and he obviously, he created Slivers. Mike's done lots and lots of stuff. So Mike gave me a call. Like I said, I've known Mike for a long time. And Mike was the one who informed me that I had got inducted. So I don't, the process behind it, I don't know the exact details of it. There's a lot of different factors. They tried to weigh a lot of different types of games and different people. And, you know, there's a lot of desire for the hall to show

the breadth of all that tabletop gaming is. But one of the things that Michael, you know, Mike had realized was trading card games weren't very well represented. Richard Garfield had gotten in many years ago. Mike himself had gotten in and Satoshi Nakamura had gotten in. But that was it as far as people that did any work in trading card games. And so one of the things they were looking at was to try to do more of representing traded card games. And so, obviously, Magic being the 800-pound gorilla of trading card games, they looked at Magic.

And so, anyway, Mike informed me that I was getting inducted. And it was really, it was a great honor. Originally, I actually had a family vacation planned for the week. But my family was, we managed to move it so that I could attend. So I went to Origin. So the Origin Awards and the Hall of Fame induction are done at Origins. So let me just talk a little bit about Origins for those that might not know. So Origins is

a consumer-facing tabletop game show. Basically, there's a giant hall that just has lots and lots and lots of different companies with different games and you can demo any of them. There's lots of places to demo.

There then was a separate room that was for tournaments and things. demo any of them. There's lots of places to demo. There then was a separate room that was for tournaments and things. So lots of different companies were running tournaments. So the demo room was more teaching people that did not know about the game, and the tournaments were more for diehard fans of the game. But one of the things that's cool is, normally if you go to an event, a random event,

there's a few things going on. But here, just name your tabletop game. There are lots of different tournaments and lots of different games going on. And it was a lot of fun just going around and like, you know, my family and I have a Friday night game night that we always play. So I managed to pick up a few games for our game night. But it was a lot of fun just sort of seeing all the games that are out there.

Back in the day, when I first started working at Wizards, I went to Origins a whole bunch. In fact, there were some, for a couple of years, the U.S. Nationals was run at Origins. So I was at the U.S. Origins that like Henry, not Henry Stern, Mark Justice won. I was at the one, I was at a number of them. I was at the one where Mike Long lost in the finals, one of the most exciting sort of dramatic things. Anyway, I had been to, I had been to Origins in the past, but I hadn't been there 15 maybe years. I just had lots of other things going on.

So it was sort of fun kind of retracing my roots a little bit and it was neat sort of seeing just seeing all the games out there. I got to see a bunch of friends. One of the things about Wizards working at Wizards is a lot of people have made their way

through Wizards. And so while Wizards is the only company I've worked at you know when I walk the halls at Gen Con, not Gen Con, sorry, at Origins, I walk the hall at Origins, I can't help but run into a lot of people that I've worked with over the years. So I managed to do that. And there are a lot of Magic fans at Origins. And so I definitely had the opportunity to meet a bunch of people. In fact, I had some autograph signing set up.

So I had a chance to do some autographs. I met a bunch of players, heard some wonderful stories, and really met a bunch of... One of the things that's really fun to me when I get to start to meet people is hear their story of how they got into magic and how magic has impacted their life.

And so that's always fun to hear. So I really enjoyed that. Okay, so on Friday night, impacted their life. And so that's always fun to hear. So I really enjoyed that. Okay. So on Friday night, so the event I think is Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It's a four-day event, I believe. I think it's four days, four day or three day. I got there Thursday night. And so I was there all day Friday. And so Friday night at 8 p.m. was the Origins Awards, which also includes the Hall of Fame inductions.

My mom actually flew in for the event and I have a cousin named Eric who lives in Columbus and another cousin named Dan who lives in Cleveland. So for those that don't know, I grew up in Cleveland. And so I have a bunch of family in Ohio.

And so anyway, I actually had some family at the event. My wife and kids weren't able to come, but it was nice that I had other family that was there. Anyway, so the way it worked is the event starts off by being, the Hall and Fame inductions go first.

So the first person inducted was Matthias Wigge. Well, I did pronounce that wrong. He is an artist. He has done, oh no, sorry, not Matthias. Sorry, I said this incorrectly. He's not an artist. The first award was the Rising Star Award. Matthias Wigge, I hope I pronounced that correctly,

he designed the game Ark Nova. So what the Rising Star Award is, is usually somebody who's only worked in the game industry for five or less years. And it's kind of acknowledgement of somebody who's up and coming, who has some success. Ark Nova was a big game, and so he was the Rising Star. Then there was an artist named Jeff Easley. And he has done a lot of art for Dungeon Dragons and for Magic and Fantasy Art. And he got inducted for that. Then they inducted Martin Wallace.

So Martin is a prolific European board game designer. Some of his games, he's designed a whole bunch. The Brass series. European board game designer. Some of his games, he's designed a whole bunch. The Brass series, I think Brass Lancashire and Birmingham are the two ones that I hear a lot about. Railway of the World, Steam, Age of Steam, London, Automobile, Struggle of Empires, Few Acres of Snow. He's a very, very prolific designer.

He's from Europe, although currently lives in Australia. And, oh, so what happened was on Friday during the day Mike Elliott took Martin and I to lunch so I never met Martin before so I had a chance to meet Martin we talked a little game design also the other interesting thing about the lunch

is all the people at the lunch there were a few other game designers who joined us were all freelancers and so a lot of the people at the lunch, there were a few other game designers who joined us, were all freelancers. And so a lot of the conversation at lunch was about freelance game design. Now, I happen to work for a company, so I actually don't do freelance game design. All my games are designed for one company. But it was really interesting hearing a lot of ins and outs. If you want to be a game designer, most game designers don't work for a single company.

The vast majority of game designers are actually freelancers. And so it was very interesting just hearing about the world of freelance. And a lot of being a freelance game designer is understanding sort of where things are moving. Like what do players want to play? And what are the new innovations and what are the new things you can do? And so it's really watching and seeing the games that have sort of shown in the last couple years. You know, tabletop game design is always shifting and moving. Now, Magic unto itself does that sort of, you know, Magic itself always keeps shifting.

But anyway, it was a lot of fun. We had a nice lunch. Okay, so finally I was called up. Mike, sorry, I'm going to sneeze in a nice lunch. Okay. So finally, I was called up. Mike, sorry, I'm going to sneeze in a second here. Maybe I'm not. Oh, yes. Okay. Sorry.

So Mike Elliott said some nice stuff about me and talked about sort of stuff I had done. And he brought me up on stage. And I was able to give an acceptance speech. brought me up on stage, and I was able to give an acceptance speech. So I thought I would give my acceptance speech that I gave there to you guys. I'll adapt that a little bit because that speech was, I should stress, I did not, it wasn't a speech in the sense where I wrote every word and memorized it. It was more, I figured out what I wanted to say.

And so the actual ceremony is recorded. So if you want to go online to Origins, on the Origins website, I believe, you can actually watch the whole ceremony. And so, but this is basically my executive speech. It'll be adapted to this medium a little bit, but it's the essence of it. So this is the speech that I gave. So I was allowed, basically they gave me eight to ten minutes to say whatever I wanted.

So this was my acceptance speech. So when I was a young kid, I had two great passions. For my dad, I learned the love of games. From a very young age, he showed me a lot of games. We played a lot of games. My family played games. You know, a lot of my friends that I made were through gaming. That, you know, gaming was a very core part of my life.

And so growing up, I loved games. The other thing I, my other hobby growing up was writing, which I learned from my mom, my mom Lynn. So my dad Gene really got me into gaming. My mom Lynn really got me into writing. I loved creative expression. I wrote stories and poems and plays and, you know, whatever I could do. I got involved in like a playwriting contest and I did a lot of different things. So that was my two passions growing up.

I really loved games and I loved writing. So when I went to college, so I went to Boston University. This is the mid-80s. There really wasn't any way to study games. That wasn't a thing. I mean, games existed. People designed them. But the idea of studying game design as something you would do at college simply didn't exist yet.

idea of studying game design as something you would do at college simply didn't exist yet. I went to a communication school, and even that was kind of young when I went there. And so there was, I was allowed to learn about writing, but there was nothing to learn about gaming. So in college, I did set up a gaming group. I played a lot of games in college. I learned a lot about games. I made a lot of friends through gaming. But I decided that, okay, well, maybe I'll study writing since that's the thing I can study. So I got a degree in communications, a BS in communications with an emphasis on screen writing, specifically on television writing is what I wanted to do. And so I learned a lot and I took a lot of classes and did a lot of writing.

I also was involved. There's a thing called Stage Troupe where I did a lot of plays. I wrote some of my own plays. I wrote a play called Lego My Ego. I wrote a play called Last Impressions. I started an improv troupe. I started a writer's workshop. And so I took a lot of classes on writing and then I just did a lot of writing on my own, a lot of extracurricular writing.

But anyway, so the idea was, oh, and at college, I sort of decided that I wanted to fulfill my passion. My passion was, one of my passions was writing for television. I really love television. I love the idea of writing an ongoing story that you keep telling. And so I went to Los Angeles intent on writing for television. I love the idea of writing an ongoing story that you keep telling. And so I went to Los Angeles intent on writing for television. Now, for those that know my story, I had a little bit of success. I got on staff for Roseanne. It was probably the biggest success that I had. But it was during the time that I was in Los Angeles that Magic the Gathering came out. So this is

1993 where Magic the Gathering came out. Roseanne was in 91. So this is a little after I was on Roseanne. And I was in between things at the time. Writing in Hollywood is very hot

and cold. Sometimes you're working non-stop. Sometimes you're between gigsstop, sometimes between gigs. And so I decided to go to a game store, to work at a game store, just to get out of the house, because writing is kind of a solitary profession. And it is at that store that I first heard and learned about Magic. And Magic just reinvigorated my passion for game design. I like to say that Magic is kind of like catnip for game designers. That it's a game that lets you, the player, have so much control of what you're doing

that you really are sort of a game designer. You get to craft your experience. And that really encouraged me to want to learn more about game design. So I couldn't learn in college. So I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go, I'm going to be self-taught. I'm going to read everything I can about it. And so I went to look for books. Now, this is the 80s. The internet really wasn't a thing as of,

I'm sorry, this is the, not the 80s. I was in school in the 80s. This is the 90s. This is like, you know, 94. The internet is in infancy. It really isn't what we think of today as the modern day internet and

Amazon didn't exist yet so I had trouble finding any books on game design the few that existed were out of print and I couldn't find any even the ones that in theory were in print nobody carried them, I couldn't find them and so in fact the interesting thing

is the very first place that I ever sort of got any training in game design is Gamma had a trade show in Las Vegas and they had a special one-day seminar on game design. And I was so excited. I drove to Vegas. Vegas is drivable from Los Angeles. And that was the first time I ever got any proper training

in game design. And it was exhilarating. So what happened there was Magic came out with a magazine called The Duelist. I was intrigued. I thought that they could have more advanced content. I ended up pitching a puzzle column called Magic of the Puzzling.

And then I ended up pitching articles to them. And so for a while, I was writing a lot of articles about Magic. And in fact, it was through my connection with The Duelists that I was first noticed by Wizards of the Coast. So interestingly, what got me my game design career was my writing. My writing is what got me noticed. So eventually, I was working on enough projects with enough parts of the company. I was freelancing, I think, for seven different sections of the company at one point.

R&D said, do you want a job? And I said yes. So in 95, October of 95, I came to work for Wizards. And once I got there and started actually working, you know, being a game designer, one of the things that I remembered was how I, the aspiring game designer, there was really nothing out there. There was no one talking about game design. And I was a writer at heart. And so I just started writing about game design. At the time, by the way, back in the 90s, it really wasn't a thing that game designers did. I think the thought process at the time was that you were giving away company secrets. That if you explain how you made your game, you somehow were giving

something private away. And so most game designers really weren't allowed to write about their games. But Magic was a young company, and I was just eager to write because I was a writer at heart. So I started writing about it. And nobody thought to stop me. And by the time somebody sort of said, you know, should Rosewater be doing this? Should he be writing about game design? Enough time had gone by, and Magic was was doing well and people seemed to like it that they said, fine, it seems fine. And so one of the things that really happened was

when I had taken the job at Wizards, you know, when I first went to LA, I'm like, okay, I guess writing will be my career and games will be my hobby. Game design can be a hobby. And then when I went to work at Wizards, I'm like, okay, well, maybe game design is my hobby and writing will be my, game design is my career and writing will be my hobby. Game design can be a hobby. And then when I went to work at Wizards, I'm like, okay, well, maybe game design is my hobby and writing will be my, game design is my career and writing will be my hobby. But one of the things that I figured out was that actually both ended up being my career and that the reason I think I, you know, I'm getting inducted into the Hall of Fame is partly my work on Magic. Obviously, Magic is a big game.

It shaped the game industry, the tabletop game industry in many ways. And I play the big part in Magic, although, once again, there's lots of people that work on it. But I think an equal part of it is I think in writing about game design, I became the first person to have a weekly column about game design. There were a few people that occasionally would write. Dave Sertle,

I remember, once in a while would write. But I had a weekly column about game design. And the, you know, one of the things that, my whole belief, the reason that I always believed

that we should write about game design is I'm like, if you are doing good game design, if the product you're making is good, teaching people and educating people about game design just makes them more eager to buy your product, makes them more excited. It makes them appreciate your, your product more. And so, um, you know, I've done a lot to sort of talk about game design. Obviously I do a weekly column called Making Magic.

Before that, I had a column in the Duelist called Insider Trading. I mean, Making Magic, I've written over 1,000 columns now. I have this podcast, Drive to Work, in which I've done over 1,000 podcasts about game design. I have my blog, Blogatog, which I think has been up for 11 years, and I've answered over 144,000 questions. And so another reason I believe that I'm being inducted into the Hall of Fame is that I think I've done a lot to advance the idea of game design and the idea that it's okay to write about game design. That one of the cool things now is that, you know, if you're going to make a game,

there's some expectation that you write about game design. The idea that game design is not only something that you can write about, but that you should write about is a very big change from the 90s when I started in my day. So I like to think, I mean, I'm not the only person, but I think I'm one of the people that really helped push the idea of game design writing as a thing. The other thing that's really interesting now is now you can go to school and study game design. You know, I know when my daughter Rachel and I were visiting schools, we ran into a couple of schools that had a game design program.

And it was really exciting to see that. And it's cool that some of my work, like I did a speech at GDC, and some of my writing, you know, Making Magic, and even some of my podcasts are being used in classes where they're teaching people game design. And so that, it's very exciting that I went from a place where I wanted to study game design and couldn't, to a place where the stuff I've done is being used to teach other people about game design. So anyway, I just really wanted to thank, first off, my parents, my dad Gene and my mom Lynn, for really imbuing in me a love of games and a love of writing.

I think really have been my touchstones for my whole career. I want to thank my wife Laura and my kids, Rachel, Adam, and Sarah, who have been there all the time. And I don't always turn off my game design brain. And so they have to put up with me constantly sort of talking magic, even in times when it's not really the thing. So I want to thank them so much for being there and

being my rocks. And finally, magic is not a solo endeavor. I did not make magic by myself. Finally, magic is not a solo endeavor. I did not make magic by myself. There's a huge, huge group of talented people. This is my 28th year making magic. I've worked with literally thousands of people. I want to thank everybody who had their hand in making magic. I definitely think I've had a big influence, but no way alone and it is through the work of so many other people

so I want to thank all of them that I don't think I would be recognized for my work on Magic if not for all those other people so anyway, thank you so much I'm so honored when I look at the list of the names of the people in the Hall of Fame these are the people as a game designer I've always looked up to.

So it is very exciting to be on that list. And so I thank you so much for this very pretty plaque. And thank you. I'm quite honored. Anyway, guys, that was my speech. So, what else?

So the, I, so, oh, after that, after that was the awards ceremony. And they gave out... I don't know how many awards they gave. They gave out like 10-ish. So one of the awards was for best trading card game. And two different Magic products were up for it. The Warhammer 40,000 decks and the Brothers War were both up for Best Trading Card Game as well as some non-magic

games. And Warhammer 40,000 won. So I was actually honored to go up and accept, so Ethan Fleischer was the lead designer. I was able to go up and accept on Ethan's behalf, because I was there, Ethan was not. So it was nice to go up and give an acceptance speech for Magic.

And then Warhammer was also up for Best Game of the Year. It didn't win a little cat game called Boop One. It's like a two-person strategy game with cats on a bed. But anyway, it was nice that Magic managed to win in Origins this year. Magic usually doesn't win every year, but it wins about every other year Magic has a pretty good track record obviously

we make a good game so and so the award went on and then afterwards my family took me out for a celebratory dinner and it was nice

I hadn't seen my cousins in a while I used to live in Ohio but I I went to college in Boston, then moved to Los Angeles, then I moved to Seattle. So I've not been,

and my parents, neither of which still live in Ohio. So I don't get back to Ohio all that often. So it was really nice to see Eric and see Jason. I'm sorry, see Eric and Dan,

and then Jason showed up the next day. He wasn't at the ceremony. Basically, I have four cousins. I have more than four cousins, but my mom has a brother, and he has four kids. And so all of them, or three of them live in Ohio. That's who I got to see.

Eric and Jason and Dan. And then Laurel lives in Chicago, but my daughter just spent four years going to Chicago. So, actually, I've seen a lot of Laurel recently, which is cool. Anyway, I'm trying to think of other fun things about this. The

other thing that was really fascinating about getting a chance to go to Origins was to see so many other games, and it's fun. One of the things that is neat to do is see trends and see what are people playing and what's fun. Like, one of the things that is neat to do is see trends and see what are people playing

and, you know, what's the hot thing. And, you know, there are definitely different flavors, you know, of the time. A lot of times what will happen is one game will come out and that game will be very, very popular. And then it sort of spawns similar style of games. popular and then it sort of spawns similar style of games like dominion comes out and deck building games become a thing or um you know uh code names comes out and there's a lot of sort of uh language you know type games and stuff like that so it's neat to see how something comes out and then a lot of things follow suit that whatever you know um this year you can see Wingspan for example

was a real popular game last year you can see influences this year anyway it is a neat thing to sort of watch and see and the thing that I always enjoy as a game designer is it's always fun to play new games

one of the reasons that my family does a game night is I just like to see what other people are doing and experience other games. And a lot of times, you know, when I play a new game, it'll inspire me to think about magic differently.

Not that magic does exactly what that game will do because usually, you know, they're apples and oranges. But it is a neat thing that always gets me

creatively to think about, you know, how games can be. And anyway, I think sometimes that I'm very insular in magic. I spent all my time making magic and it was very fun to have a weekend where I get to see the rest of the gaming world, tabletop gaming world, and see the games and meet the people and meet the designers and watch the awards. And, you know, it was really, I don't know, I was very touched by it. And one of the things that I like to say is that

one of the great things about gaming in general is that there's so many different experiences out there. And that I hope if you're a fan of Magic that you keep an eye on tabletop games and see all the different things that are going on. And, you know, there's a widespread of games from very casual to very sort of what I call crunchy, meaning the games have lots of moving pieces. And one of the things that's really interesting to see is I love seeing the whole spectrum of, like,

what are games that are trying to be, you know, the simplest of possible? Like, here's the game, there's very few few moving pieces and there's something to do that's very simple easy to learn versus stuff in which there's a thousand components but it's really capturing something neat and the experience you're getting to do you know the one of the things that's fun looking at games is seeing all the different flavors of games um like for example, I did Infinities last year, and so we were really playing around in the space with amusement parks. There were numerous games that I saw this weekend

that really had an amusement park or carnival theme. It was just sort of neat seeing how other people took a theme that I played with and did completely different things with it. I was playing in the space of magic and an unset, and these people were making tabletop games,

you know, there were board games and stuff like that. So it was just really, it's just neat seeing all the different things there. But anyway, I just want to end

by thanking Mike Elliott, thanking the Academy, thanking all of Gamma and all the people that I worked with. John, who's the head of Gamma, who I worked with directly. John Stacy. And anyway, it was a great honor.

I really, I think there's times in your life where you sort of do something. Like, you know, I was very touched that, you know, I obviously, in my job, I have a lot of, you know, the audience reaches out to me, which is really awesome. So I have a lot of feedback directly from the players, which I adore. But it is nice to sort of get a little bit of feedback from something beyond just Magic players. But, you know, the gaming industry as a larger organization. And I'm very touched to be part of gaming. I'm very happy that I ended up becoming a game designer. It really is something that I enjoy immensely and it is so fun. It is so fun

to be part of that world and the fact that I could be honored by my peers was a big deal. So it was really special. So anyway, like I said, it was recorded. You can go to the Origin site. If for some reason you want to see me give my speech, but slightly differently, you can go on there and see it. Or you want to see the awards and see how the people get awards.

You can do all that. It was really fun. People were so excited to get me their awards. There's some passion that, you know, people spent years and years making their game. And so when it gets recognition,

like Magic is in a weird space where we have such a huge community, and I'm constantly getting feedback, and there's, you know, I can go on Reddit any day to see, you know, all sorts of comments about the game I make. That is not true for every game designer, and so I know getting recognition for a game when you pour your heart out, and this might be the one big thing you get is a giant, giant deal, and so, anyway, I just want to thank everybody. It was an awesome experience. I'm so glad I went. And I wanted to share it with all of you

because it really was a really once-in-a-lifetime event. So, anyway, I can see wizards from here. I think I've said all I need to say for today. So I just want to say this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.