Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1064: Inclusion over Exclusion

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

In this podcast, I talk about the meaning and philosophy of "inclusion over exclusion" from a game design standpoint.

I'm not pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work at home edition. Okay, so today's podcast is based on something I wrote on my blog. And I just want to go in more detail. It's a really interesting topic. So something I talked about in R&D philosophy is what we call inclusion over exclusion. And so the point of today's podcast is to explain what that means and just go in greater depth of understanding sort of the philosophy behind it from a game design standpoint. Okay, so my first question is,

what do demons and merfolk and walls all have in common? And the answer is they were all something part of magic. In fact, I believe all of them were in Alpha, and all of them for a period of time got removed from the game. So demons in early magic, there was a worry that it was upsetting,

you know, there's a certain audience that's upset that demons were in the game, and we were, Wizards were sort of anticipating something, so there's a period of time where we removed demons from the game game or at least we removed the word demon from the game. I guess we just called them something else. We called them beasts or whores or something. But we didn't refer to them as demons specifically.

merfolk, there was a period of time where the creative team, I think it was led by Brady Dominuth at the time, just felt that water-based fights are weird when we're summoning things to have a land-based conflict and felt like merfolk and other water-based things were just kind of in a weird state. And it's weird to sort of pluck this merfolk from the sea and have it fight on land. So there's a period of time around Odyssey

where we stopped doing merfolk, where we stopped the creature-type merfolk we didn't do anymore. And walls, this was one of my issues, although I think Brady and I were on the same page on this one. Walls have never made a lot of sense. What exactly is a creature? Well, it's sapient or at least sentient or at least alive, you know, like a wall of stone.

How is that any level a creature? You know what I'm saying? It's an object, you know, why it seems more an artifact or, you know, it doesn't make any sense as a creature. I mean, there are, like, living walls or maybe even, like, you know, it doesn't make any sense as a creature. I mean, there are like living walls, or maybe even like plant-based walls. It makes some sense as maybe being a creature if you're very loose on what a creature is. And anyway, there's

a period in time where we stopped making walls as creatures. That we stopped, like, we walls used to have Defender baked into them. That if you were a wall in your creature type, it was in the rules, just being a wall meant you had defender. We later made the defender mechanic, and then all walls had defender,

but we also made other defenders that weren't walls. Each of these things, at some point, we thought it didn't make sense, or it was pulling away from what magic was. And in each of these cases, we brought it back. In each of these cases, you know, there is, there was a reason that they returned. And so what I want to talk about today is one of the, one of the basic elements that we have to come to grips with is,

so Magic is what's known as a modular game meaning that you know most games when you take it out of the box hey you use most the pieces you know if i'm playing the game of monopoly well i have the monopoly board and the monopoly cards and you know the hotels and i have all the component pieces that i'm playing with and from game to game i'm mostly using all the pieces. In any one game, you know, I might not use every piece, but all the pieces are available every game. And so when you play a game, you, the player, aren't really deciding what pieces you're using. But there are some games, Magic being one of them, where you, the player of the game, have some choice. Like in role-playing, Dungeon Dragons, for example,

you have some choice. You know, a lot more exists than you personally have to use. And games like this, when I talk to them as being sort of modular, it means you have choices about what you want to play with. You have choices about what to include. So Magic right now, you're building a deck, depending on the format, a 60-card deck or a 100-card deck or a 40-card deck, whatever. Different formats, you're building a deck.

The size can vary on the format. But you have choices to make, and you can choose what to put in. Sometimes, you know, if you're playing something like Limited, okay, you have choices. But a good chunk of your cards have to be used. Other times, if you're playing like a Legacy format you have 25 000 cards to choose from and you know your portion of what you have to choose is a tiny of what what exists and so one of the things that's interesting from an r&d standpoint is um we are trying to make sure that each person gets to make the game they want to make. Like, if you make a game, you know, like Monopoly,

you know, when it's a very fixed experience, like, well, you're choosing what they experience, you're choosing the component pieces of it, and everybody's mostly going to experience those things. The difference in a game that has an element where you're choosing pieces is you are making sort of a customizable set of objects that the player can choose from. And when you do that, what you're trying to do is saying, okay, I want to add some customizability. I want to say to the player, look, we are making more than you need and we are giving you the freedom to figure out what you want to do. Now, built into that is

there is both a mechanical component and a creative component. And what I mean by that is our cars do different things mechanically and you, the player, might make choices about mechanically what you want to do. Oh, I like this mechanical theme. I want to build a deck around this mechanical theme. I like the graveyard. I want to get things out of the graveyard. So I'm going to focus on mechanical aspect. Or there is a

creative choice. I like this world. I like this theme. I'm going to build my deck so it brings out, you know, some flavor that I enjoy. And there's intersection between those two, creature types being the biggest one. Like, well, the reason I like goblins is A, I like the flavor of goblins, but also they have a mechanical identity. I enjoy that mechanical identity. Or I like elves or merfolk or whatever. So the players are sort of, what we want to do is we want to craft something so the players can sort of make choices about the world they make.

And the tricky thing about it, and this is one of the things where this whole idea of inclusion over exclusion comes from, is different people want different things. Like one of the most important lessons, when you do game design or come to work for Magic, for example, one of the first big lessons that you have to learn is that when you play Magic,

Magic means something to you personally. That there's some expression to how you play. Maybe there's more than one expression, but hey, you like playing a certain constructor's format or a certain limited format, or, you know, there's just a mix of things that makes magic what magic is to you. And again, part of that might be mechanical-based, part of that might be flavor-based, but there's something that sort of makes magic what magic is to you. And so one of the first things you have to learn

as a game designer when making magic is what that entails, what that is, varies greatly between players. And on many different levels. Like part of it is just the way you play, for example, the format. There's lots of ways to play magic. One of the strengths of magic is there's many different executions of it is just the way you play, for example, the format. There's lots of ways to play Magic. One of the strengths of Magic is there's many different executions of it.

And, you know, if you sit and play Commander versus Draft, you know, it's the same game, the same card, you know, the same rule set, the same game pieces. But those are very different experiences, you know. How competitive it is, how social it is. There's lots of different factors that go into it. So one of the things when you first get to Wizards is, and this is something that is normal human

experience, which is that you tend to frame something by your experiences, how you experience it. And one of the things that it takes time to realize is, oh, well, how I experienced it is just shaped by me, by how I see it, how I use it, what I do. And that one of the things, I mean, this is true of all life. I'm just talking magic. But, that one of the things, I mean, this is true of all life, I'm just talking magic, but, you know,

when you first start designing magic cards, you tend to design cards that reinforce the game that you see it being. You design cards to say, well, this is what magic is to me, so I'm going to make cards that make that version of magic, what magic is to me. That's the first thing you design. You tend to design cards that are what you want to see in the game. But the next level you have to get to as a game designer is going, oh, there are other people that experience the game differently than I do.

And some experience it radically different than you do. and some experience it radically different than you do. For example, one of the big vectors is enfranchised versus not enfranchised. An enfranchised player, meaning I'm someone who magic's a big part of my life, I'm part of the magic community. Like, every day I am interacting with magic in a way where magic is part of my identity, that it's what we call a lifestyle game, that it's more than just a thing I do. It's a thing I define myself as being.

I'm a magic player. That is how I define myself. That if I meet somebody else that plays magic, we have a bond because I'm a magic player. But there are a lot of people in which they interact with magic in a way that it's a thing they do, but it's not definitional.

It is not a way they define themselves. It's sort of like the way I describe it is, there are chess players in which chess defines who they are. That it's a part of their identity. And then there are people that play chess.

And that a chess player and a player of chess are two very different things. Magic has that same dynamic, you know. There are people in which the essence and identity of magic is just very different. And just, like I said, there are lots of different formats. There's lots of different expressions. The other thing we realized, and this is one of the reasons that magic,

the reason we sort of adopted the multiverse premise in the first place. Why, when Richard started, the idea of this multiverse existed was that we want to tap into what different people enjoy. So this is where we get to the concept of resonance, right? That when you play, when you choose what to do with your own free time, you want to do things that really speak to you. And that each individual person, much like magic might speak to you or not speak to you, different elements of life speak to you. For example, let's talk genres.

In storytelling, there's a lot of different kinds of storytelling. There's stories that lean in different directions lot of different kinds of storytelling. There's stories that lean in different directions that tell different kinds of stories. Some people love the horror genre, you know. Some people don't. Like, my example is, I'm personally not that much into horror. Like, if I have to go watch a film, I don't tend, I mean, I'm not saying there's not horror things I've watched.

There are horror films I've seen, but I don't go out of mean, I'm not saying there's not horror things I've watched. There are definitely, you know, there are horror films I've seen, but I don't go out of my way to watch horror films. And if something is a horror film, something about it has to, like, I have to be lured in to see that. Where other people are like, oh my goodness, I love horror films. You know, the more horror film it feels, the more they want to see it. And so the idea of genres is different people feel comfortable interacting with different

genres only because it reinforces different aspects of who they are or plays into their identity. And different people like different things. And the idea of resonance is that you want people to, like, there's a term I use called piggybacking. And what piggybacking means is that you take things that people already know and use that as a means to reinforce something. And so I'll just use Innistrad example since we're talking horror. If I want to make a zombie deck in Innistrad,

well, okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to say, well, let me tap into people's experience with zombies in movies, in TV shows, in books, in pop culture. Zombies mean something. The reason that zombies resonate,

the reason that zombies are popular, is there's something about zombies that speaks to the human experience that resonate with people. So if I'm going to make a set with zombies, especially one that's leaning into sort of what zombies are, I want to make sure that I'm doing something that feels like zombies.

But, from a game design standpoint, I have the freedom that zombies mean something to people, and that when I'm building, I'm not building from scratch, I'm not making a brand new thing you've never seen before, I'm leaning into something you know. And that is the power of genres. And that is the power of the multiverse,

which is there's a reason that magic keeps bouncing around. The reason that we don't go to Eldraine, stay in Eldraine for five years, right? We, one of the things that we realize is that there's such a widespread of audience that really keys into different things that I call it pushing the pendulum, right? That we want to keep making magic different things and that the idea behind that, the reason that we have a Greek world and an Egyptian world and a city world and a gothic horror world and a fairytale world. The reason we have all these different places is different things are going to speak to different people. Different people are going to go, oh, wow, that.

And the cool thing about it is no matter what we do, no matter where we go, pick any magic set, there's somebody who, like, that is at the core of what they are, of what they believe, of what they want. And it speaks to them. And likewise, look, every set is not going to squarely hit every person, but the philosophy behind it, so inclusion versus exclusion, is that we want to give everybody the opportunity to find the thing that speaks to them so that they can choose that. That one of the powerful things about magic is that the customizability of it,

the ability to craft it means that you, the player, can say, hey, I want a game that satisfies certain qualities. And this particular game gives me so much freedom to craft it that I can make it resonate with who I am as a person. I can make it something that really speaks to me as a game player. It's one of the most powerful things about Magic is that its customizability, its modularity lets the player make it what they want it to be.

Do you want it to be a game where you sit around with your friends and goof off for hours on end? Do you want it to be highly competitive where you're testing who you are and what you're capable of doing? Do you want it to be something that's just really expressing who you are in a way that other people can see? Like, a lot of the psychographics and, you know,

a lot of the stuff that we define is just sort of saying, like, hey, how are you using the game? Okay. Now, the key to it is what we found is the more flexibility we give, the more options we give, the happier the audience seems to be as a whole. This is how I got to my buffet metaphor, for those that don't know. I spent a long time trying to understand, like, what the quality of designing magic. And any metaphor, I mean, if you push to, you know, like, metaphors work up to a point. But the buffet metaphor I've really enjoyed for magic is we are trying to make an awesome buffet.

And the neat thing about a buffet, and the reason I like this metaphor, is the goal of a buffet is to give each eater their perfect meal. We want you, the person who's going to eat the food, to go, wow, this was a meal made for me. And the whole philosophy behind a buffet is, well, if I just give a lot of food and give you a lot of options, then you, the eater, can choose what it is you want. And hopefully, if we have well-crafted food, that's the kind of food you want, you have a great experience. Now, here is the challenge. And this is where we get to inclusion over exclusion.

Is anything that one person might love another person might hate. So for example, we do a horror set. We do Innistrad, let's say. Some people, it speaks to their core. This is the essence. This is the genre they love. This is the thing that just makes them all excited.

Other people are like, well, that's not really my thing. You know, I'm not really, it's not, it doesn't speak to me. And so, you know, I'm, I'm less excited by that. Or maybe I hate horror. It's like, it's the thing I, you know, like I run away from horror. If there's a horror film I don't want to see, I don't want to see the commercials. The commercials freak me out. I don't, you know, that no matter what we do, there are people that are going to respond to it and people that are not going to respond to it. So one of the common requests that I get is we do something and we do infinite things, but we do something and somebody out there goes, wow, wow, I don't like that. I don't like that. And I don't want that in my game.

Because once again, everybody experiences magic through their lens of what it is for them. This is my game and like I said, the genius of the system built by Richard Garfield was that each person had so much ability to craft what they wanted that you really could feel like this was mine because it hits on all the points that I wanted to hit on. You know, it pushes all the buttons that I need pushed, that it lets me craft the game

to be the game that I most want it to be. So what happens is people are like, wow, I love, you know, all these aspects. Ooh, but there's one thing that I don't like. And wow, when I have to play, now, obviously I won't put it in my deck or maybe I have to put it in my deck if I, you know, if I mechanically, like, maybe it has a mechanical reference

that I need because I want to win the game, but I don't like the creative reference of something. Or, I mean, vice versa. Maybe I love the creative, but the mechanics I don't like. But the idea is, look, when I play Magic, Magic is, you know, I have to play with somebody, and

while I control what I play with, I don't necessarily control what they play with. And so, when I'm playing the game, there might be things that I don't like, and wow, I don't want to interact with that thing. My game is better if that thing isn't there. That that thing being there knocks down the game for me.

It makes my game less of what my game is. So the challenge is we have the tools to be additive. We have the tools to be inclusive. And what I mean by that is, we can make a lot of different things. We can make a lot of different settings. We can make a lot of different mechanics. We can, you know, with Universes Beyond, do other IPs. Like, there's a lot of things we can do. We can dip in a lot of different places. So magic as a game is structured to go wide. It is easy for us to add something. And this is sort of my buffet metaphor, which is if we learn that there's a food that we haven't served before that people would like, it is easy for us to add a food. It is easy for us to go, oh, you guys want seafood?

We've never had seafood, but you want seafood? Yeah, we can add seafood. What is much harder for us is that to remove something is not just to remove it for you, the player that want it removed, it's to remove it for you, the player, that want it removed. It's to remove it for all players. So if we don't do something, it sort of shuts... Like, if we make something that you want,

okay, you can play it. Like, let's say, for example, you love fairy tales, and we make Eldraine. Now you, the fairy tale lover, have access to it, and you can build it. Somebody who doesn't like fairy tales doesn't have to put the stuff in their deck. But

if we, let's say we say, okay, we're never going to do this thing, you know, we're going to try to keep it out of the game. Well then, I'm preventing everybody from having access to that. That exclusion is, inclusion means everybody has access, but exclusion means no one has access.

And Magic as a customizable game, as a modular game, isn't well suited for that. So when someone to me says, hey, could you not do Thing X? Or what's more common is, I don't like Thing X. Can you do less of Thing X?

That is a lot harder for us. Now, I'm not saying there aren't like Thing X. Can you do less of Thing X? That is a lot harder for us. Now, I'm not saying there aren't things we avoid. For example, there are some things, especially mechanically, where we have feedback that the vast majority of players, it really makes the game less for them. Like,

efficient direct damage, or highly efficient card denial, or counter spells. Like, there are definitely things where early in Magic we did something and like, wow, it made for a not fun game. And there are other things like harmful stereotypes. I mean, there's things that are, that actually being in the game hurts people in a way that goes beyond sort of just, I don't like it, you know?

And so it's not that we don't exclude anything. There's definitely things that we have to be careful about. But the general point is that the game sort of thrives if we say, you know what? We're going to try to give something for everybody and then say, look, we're going to put it in the game. You, the game players, then figure out how you want to use it. And the challenge is, and this is something that's, I mean, it keeps coming up. You know, I mean, probably the latest cause of it is Universes Beyond, but it's a tale as old as time.

Whenever we introduce something new to the game, whatever it is universes beyond, but it's a tale as old as time. Whenever we introduce something new to the game, whatever it is, whenever we go to a new world or have a new genre, or, you know, like, whenever we introduce something new, there are people who are like, well, that's not what the game means to me.

I don't want that thing. And the message I have to kind of give is, well, there are other people other than you who do enjoy this and we are trying to make the game inclusive for them. We are trying to offer the thing they love. And so what that means is

that kind of the R&D is much more empowered to add things than we are to remove things. And so, because a lot of people are sort of like, well, I, this is what magic means to me.

There's this component I don't like of magic. Hey, people that make the game, hey, this is how I feel. Could you please remove that? And the answer I have to kind of give is, look, there are tools for removing things. You can make a format where only certain things are allowed. You could have a play group where you choose to play with certain things. Or you could maybe choose a format where only things are allowed. I mean, you have the ability on the player end to have some control, not total control. And

one of the things also is being a social game is, look, part of playing with other people is, as I point out, magic to each individual is a slightly different game. And part of playing magic with other people is seeing their experience of magic.

Like, here's the way I like to think of it, is when I make a deck, I'm optimizing what magic is to me. Like, I'm making something that really speaks to me that is how I want to play. When I meet somebody else and I play against them, I get a glimpse into what magic is for them. I get a glimpse into what magic is for them.

I get a glimpse into their version of magic. And my argument sort of is that no person's magic is exactly the same. There might be people that are aligned, but each person has a slight, that's one of the genius of the game, is that you really can make it your own. And part of playing other people is experiencing what they enjoy. That when I play against somebody else,

I get to see what aspect of the game that means to them. And so when I play against somebody else and they do something that I don't enjoy, but they enjoy, kind of my message is, well, embrace the fact that part of playing with somebody else is they're bringing what they love into the game. And maybe what they love into the game isn't the thing that you love about the game, but

part of the human experience, part of interacting with people, is realizing that each person has their own things. And so, you know, if I play with another player and they have an aspect that is not something I would want to include but it really brings joy to them our hope is that players can come to realize that the game is better served that we are giving each person the tools to optimize the game, to make what they bring to the game

what they most want the downside, and I don't even think it's a downside, but what comes with that is that you enable other people to bring what they want to the game. And so, since Magic, I mean, we've made some Solitaire variants, but

assume you're not playing Solitaire, because very few people do. Although my man and me, Solitaire, if you go back and read the Duelist ones, it's very cool. Part of the play experience is interacting other people and seeing what they enjoy and that we think that magic is better suited

if we, the makers of the game, try to go broad, try to include as much as we can that let each individual person maximize their ability to make the game what they want. And in doing that, there's a cost. And the cost is other people have to interact

and absorb what other people enjoy. And like I said, there might be parts of Magic you just really dislike. And if other people are tapping into that and you just don't enjoy the experience, that, that is where you have to sort of look at your play group or look at how you play or what you play or where you play,

you know, um, we're, we're kind of putting that in the hands of the players because R and D isn't good at exclusion. We're not like the only way to exclude good at exclusion. We're not. Like, the only way to exclude something is to exclude it for everybody. And we believe that

Magic is a better game if we include things, if we let people have more choices and more options and more ability to craft Magic to be what they want. But the cost it comes at is the lack of exclusion. The lack of saying, well, we're just not going

to do the thing you don't like. And once again, the caveat I have is if enough people dislike something, there are things that are universally disliked that we're not doing. It's not like we're doing everything. There are things we aren't doing. But as a general rule of thumb, if there are things that we can do that there's a decent sized audience that it really speaks to them, that it really enhances magic for them, we're going to do that. And that is the core concept of inclusion over exclusion, is we think that magic is

a better game if each person has something that speaks to their soul, that is something that really excites them, that makes magic a joy. And that, if that means that I have to play with other people, and I have to experience their joy, even if their joy is not my joy, that that overall is a better game than us excluding

things so that people can't make the game as much of their own as they want to. And so, that is why when people write to me and they say, can you just please take thing X out of the game? The answer, and I'm not, I don't mean to be glib or anything, is it really boils down to that thing that you don't like, there is someone who not only likes it, there's someone who that is their favorite thing. That is the thing that makes them shine the most

and that I'm not going to take that thing away from them and that you as a player have to sort of, and once again, there are a lot of tools that you as a player have of when and how and where to use your cards, but that I'm not going to take joy away from another player to, so you don't have to interact with that aspect you don't like.

That, that is the core of inclusion versus exclusion is we'd rather empower people to have what they want, um, at the cost of you having to experience other people's joy and what, what other people love. Um, and that's the. And that's the core. That's the core of it. The reason this all came from me sharing my wall story, I got rid of walls because I thought walls were dumb. I thought walls were just stupid.

I'm a writer at my core, and it just didn't make any flavor sense, and I care about flavor, and I'm like, this is just dumb. Why are we doing this? And so I took walls out of the game. I mean, I and other people took walls out of the game. But I kept getting people writing in to me saying, wow, you know, the same thing that

I hated about walls, that they made no sense. Other people were like, hey, that's charming to me. I like that, you know. And the reason that we brought walls back, and I was, I originally sort of fought against us bringing walls back. But what I came to realize was that the walls brought happiness to

other people. Even if they pissed me off, even if it just, there's something about them that made the game less for me. And then what I had to come to realize, and the reason that I support walls now, is not that I'm a great come to realize, and the reason that I support walls now, is not that I'm a great fan of walls. It's not that I

think walls add something to the game for me, but I recognize they add something for other people. And that part of a game of community, part of which, you know, that I want Magic to have things

that make Magic a better game for everybody. And even though things don't make Magic a better game for me, even though the things make, you know, that other people getting what they want, the game being better for other people, the joy to other people is a benefit to me. That Magic and the Magic community, that the more that each person

can sort of make magic the thing that makes them the happiest, that that is a boon to me as a magic player, especially someone who's part of the magic community, who's part of the environment of magic, that us allowing each player to bring their joy to the game, you know, that other people's joy

is to my benefit, not to my detriment. The fact that the game is not 100% crafted to what I want makes Magic a better overall game for everybody. And just, like, being a designer, like, that lesson in game design that I have to make Magic cards that aren't for me, that I have to make Magic cards that, you know,

I have to learn what other people like so I can make something, not that enhances Magic for me, that I have to make magic cards, that I have to learn what other people like so I can make something not that enhances magic for me, but for other people. That part of being a magic player, I think there's a realization of understanding that magic as a game is better if people have access to the thing they love, even if access to the thing they love

might be something I'm not that crazy about from time to time, might be something that I even dislike, but that magic as a whole is a better game for people to have access to that. That is inclusion over exclusion. That is a philosophy we're talking about, that, you know, you might not care for fill in the blank. Fill in the blank might mean something

that you actively dislike, but if there are people out there that really truly love that thing, if that thing is what makes magic shine for them, the game having it just makes more people happy and, you know... Anyway, so that is my topic for today. I'm just sort of talking about why we are doing something that you personally don't like, but that other people really,

really do. And that is why. And that I know it is a hard sort of lesson to say, you know, that it's great if the world is always optimized for what you want of like, well, this is what I enjoy. So I wish everybody around me would optimize to what I want. But the reality is your life will be better if you recognize that other people just want other things and then other people having those things and having their own sense of happiness and having their own sense of belonging is in general an additive to you. That the magic community gets better. The game gets better

if more people feel included. If more people feel like the game speaks to them. And that way more is added to the game than is taken away from you. And that is the inherent lesson of inclusion versus exclusion. Anyway, guys,

I hope this is me going a little more introspective today, but I hope you guys enjoyed it. But I can see my desk, so we all know what that means. It means instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So I hope you guys enjoyed today's podcast, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.