Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1096: Why Restrictions?

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

This podcast was inspired by a number of blog posts asking why we've been adding more restrictions to cards lately.

I'm pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for a third drive to work. Okay, so today's topic comes from my blog. And not just my blog, actually. It's from social media in general. One of the things that's been going on is R&D has been using restrictions a little more. Only play this as a sorcery. Only play this on your turn. Only activate once per turn. We've been using a little more of restricting how often or when you can do something. And the response I've gotten from numerous places is, why are you doing this? I want to do what I want to do, and why are you taking away my fun? So today, today's topic is, why do we do restrictions? Why? Why? So I'm going to explain the philosophy behind restrictions and why it's important. And why we do it secretly

for you, not secretly, but why in the end it's good for you. So that is my topic today. Okay, so I think to start with, let's talk a little bit about game design in general. Not specifically magic design, although we'll get to that. But just talk about game design. What is the purpose of game design? Gotta go big. So the idea is that games are a mental challenge. So the idea is I give you, the game designer, give the game player a goal or goals.

I give them a bunch of rules. And then usually built in those rules are obstacles. And the idea is they have to overcome those obstacles to meet that goal or goals. And that's what makes a game dynamic. meet that goal or goals. And that's what makes a game dynamic. But what's important to understand is it is the job of the game designer to make it not easy to do that. So for example, let's say Richard Garfield made Magic and said, okay, the goal of Magic is to cast one spell. As soon as you cast one spell,

you win the game. Okay, is that an interesting game? Well, your deck would be monocolored and full of nothing but one drops. And basically, whoever won the coin flip would most likely win the game. So is that interesting? No, that's not remotely interesting. The idea is you want to build in, you want to give the players time and ability to sort of work within. Like the whole idea of creating rules and structure and obstacles is so that the players, and a goal, is so that the players can figure out, they can be smart.

What is the cleverest way I can do this? That a lot of good game design is about enabling the player to have the opportunity to be clever, to solve the puzzle of how to win. And what that means for the game designer is, it is not our job to make things easy. It is not our job to give you whatever you want. You the player, whatever you want. It is not our job, you know, like, I understand that players like doing what they want to do in life.

Players like doing what they want to do in life. So I wrote an article a while back where I talked about the difference between options and choices. So let me talk about that a little bit. So options are additive decisions. The example I gave in the article is like, I'm buying a car. Do I want air conditioning? Do I want power windows or heated seats? Some of these things probably are standard now, but I have options for my car. And the idea is the options, if I get

air conditioning, it doesn't matter whether I get heated seats or not. Getting air conditioning doesn't change whether I can have heated seats. The options are all additive. I can have as many as I want. A choice means that what you, the things you choose might interact with other things you choose. The choice is more interactive decisions. My example, my article I gave was a haircut. Do I want my hair curled? Do I want to get it colored? Do I want it short? Do I want it long? Do I want it curly? Now, the point there is that the choices I make have an impact on other choices. I can't say cut it short and make it curly. Well, in order to make it curly, it needs to be long enough to be curly. And so the idea with choices is I'm saying,

hey, you get to choose something, but the choosing of something interacts with what you can choose. So the classic example is, let's say we have modal choices in magic. What a modal choice is, is I give you a list to choose from. Usually there's little bullet points. is I give you a list to choose from. Usually there's little bullet points. An additive choice or an option would be choose as many as you want. Sometimes we say choose one or both. So the idea there is I have different choices to make and I can choose every choice if I want to. Or I can choose every option, I guess technically. Every option I want to.

But the choice is I have a modal choice to make, and I get to pick one. Picking one means I don't pick the other ones. So I'm doing a charm or something, and I have three options. But I can only do one of the three options. So I have to weigh the options against each other. Now, the game has some place for options. I'm not saying that we can't do options, and we do, but there's a lot more place for choice.

There's a lot more rule for choice. And if you notice the game, there are a lot more choices than options in the game. Why is that? Well, because choices lead to more dynamic gameplay. That making the player have to choose something can often make the player have a more richer game experience. The other thing that people misunderstand sometimes is the idea that having choices restricts what you can do. And I would say that's not always the case. So the classic example is the difference between a sorcery and an instant.

So let's say I have drawn, you know, two cards, three cards. I have a card drawing spell. And it could be an instant or it could be a sorcery. Which one of those is more dynamic? Which one of those gives me, the player, better decisions to make? Like more interesting decisions. decisions to make. More interesting decisions.

The thing about instant is what instant says most of the time is hey, because the choice you have when you're playing a spell is if I play a spell on my turn, I'm using my mana. And then the mana is not available to me on my opponent's turn. And even if I don't have something to do on my

opponent's turn, I at least want my opponent to think I have something to do on their turn. Especially, for example, in blue. We're talking about card drawing. Hey, having mana open means maybe I have a counterspell. It maybe makes your opponent act differently. If my card drawing's instant, the best time to draw it,

the vast majority of the time, is wait until the end of my opponent's turn, right before my turn is about to start, and cast it then because if i do that i'm offsetting the inherent problem of not knowing what to do with my mana so if i have a card drug spell that's an instant in fact there's not i don't have a lot of decisions to make i mean the only reason i will cast it on my turn is i need the cards on my turn because i have enough mana that i could then cast the cards on my turn.

Maybe late game that would happen. But the idea is, barring that, and like I said, that happens much less frequently, and definitely not until you have enough mana later in the game. The correct play, the correct decision, the best strategic decision is to wait until the end of my opponent's turn to play that spell. Now, if I have a sorcery, now I have to weigh what do I want to do in my opponent's turn versus what I want to do now. Now I actually have a more interesting decision to make. So the idea that having more availability to do things means that I have more strategic decisions isn't necessarily

correct. Okay, so let's get a little bit into the history of magic because this idea that there's restrictions is baked in to magic itself. It is not as, like, when Richard Garfield first made magic, it's not as if he said, oh, I don't want restrictions. No, no, no. There are restrictions baked into the game. So let's go back to Alpha. Okay. So for starters, the symbol didn't exist, but tapping existed since Alpha. The tap symbol would come later. But it actually had the words, you know, tap

this card or tap card name. So the idea of tapping is, hey, here's an ability that goes on a card, but if I use this ability, usually it went on a creature, most likely. If it went on a creature, well, I can't both tap this creature for its effect and attack with the creature

because tapping the, in order to attack, I have to tap the creature. So tapping it for an effect means that I have to choose between, do I want to attack with this creature or do I want to use its ability. And like I said, tapping was built into games since Alpha. Richard also did something in Alpha on artifacts called Mono and Poly. And what Mono Artifact did was basically said this is restricted to one-time use.

It's kind of like it had a tap symbol. For some reason, he chose not to put a tap symbol in alpha. But a mono artifact was very much that. I have an activated ability. I can use it once per turn. That that is the limitation. And so it is not as if restrictions were not from magic's very beginning, baked into magic's very beginning.

And why? So another way to maybe explain this, here's a different way to think about it. Let's say I said to you, I want to hear about your favorite game of magic. I want you to tell me your favorite game of magic. Now, what story are you more likely to tell me? Are you going to tell me about the time that you draw the perfect hand and your opponent got mana screwed and you just ran him over without, you know, like it just was a runaway game? No, I don't think that's the story you're going to tell me.

You're going to tell me a story, most likely, about a game in which things looked hopeless for you. It did not seem like you had a possible route to victory. But somehow, just at the right time and the right moment, you figure out the right combination of cards, and you managed to get victory. You pulled victory from the clutches of defeat that you found a way to win

when it seemed like you couldn't win. That, that is the story you're going to share. That's the exciting moment of magic. That is the thing that is like, I talk about a thing called narrative equity. And the idea of narrative equity is that one of the things you value when you play a game, magic,

but any game, is that there's something about having an experience that you can then share with other people. There's something about creating a story and that story is something that you now becomes part of your life. And now I've gained a thing. I've gained a story and I can, for the rest of my life, share this story. And one of the things games can do real well, and the whole concept of Nerd Equity is that games are experiences. And that experiences can do a lot for you.

One of the things they can do for you is that they can become stories. And that's very important. The other thing they can do is they can teach you. You can learn from them. You know, that a lot of the reason people play games is it's an enriching experience, that you're not just playing the game, but you are learning something along the way, and the things you are learning can be added to your real life.

You know, the reason Nerve Equity matters is I've gained a tangible thing for me. A story is something that I will carry with me and something that I've gained that before the start of the game I didn't have it and at the end of the game I do have it. And like I said, there's also things you can learn in strategy and vocabulary and there's lots of other things you can get from a game. But that's my point is that when I sort of say to somebody, what is magic at its best? What is your favorite memory? Winning is not number one.

I mean, people like to win, but it's not so much about winning unto itself, but the how, the why, the win, the how. I would not say the why, the when, the how, not to the wow, the what. It's sort of the games are at their best. Games shine when they are dynamic and you, the player, are captivated, that you are making interesting decisions and that there's back and forth and that there is there that the game itself requires thought requires strategy requires requires you having to think and think differently and be clever and so it is our job as designers to create that system where that thing can happen um

and that one of the things that's very easy for a game designer to get lost in is there's a difference between what I'll call immediate happiness and long-term happiness. Immediate happiness is I get what I want when I want it. Long-term happiness is sort of I get what I need. It's kind of the difference between I get what I want in the moment versus I get what I need long-term, and that my job as a game of the difference between I get what I want in the moment versus I get what I need long term. And that my job as a game designer is not to give you what you want in the moment. I'm not, I understand, like, the reason I talk about options and choices. In real life, you want options.

Options are better than choices. I don't want to buy a car and they say to me, well, you can have air conditioning or heated seats. And I have to go, well, I'd be more worried about being hot or cold. You're like, I don't want to have, like in real life, I don't want, I want options, not choices. Choices do not enhance my life. I want to be able to do what I want to do. But that is about real life. That is about the comfort of life. That choices can be very difficult. And I don't want difficult choices in life. But a game is a self-contained thing. That one of the

nice things about a game is it allows you to experience something that outside the context of the game might actually be stressful. Might be problematic. But that's one of the nice things is there's something similar to a horror film. Right? In general, being scared is a negative thing. Being scared is not fun. It is not what I would call a positive emotion in a vacuum. In real life, when I'm afraid, that's not great.

But if you are with a contained thing, I'm seeing a horror film. I understand I'm sitting in my seat. Nothing on that screen can actually harm me. So getting scared in that constraint, having those feelings that is fun because I get to feel afraid without the real life consequences of being afraid. That a lot of entertainment is about letting us experience things that is troubling to experience in real life. And like I said, being mentally challenged, I mean, there's some of life that is good. I'm not saying I don't enjoy any mental challenges in life.

But in a general rule, I'd rather have options over choices in life. I'd rather not have to pick between things. But there is fun to that, and that a lot of what makes a game a game is we, the game designers, want to put the players into a situation where they have to make the difficult choices. And having to make difficult choices in a contained way, in a way where, look, it's not real life, there's not giant consequences, there's the game, can be very fun.

Now, one of the things I talk a lot about is the game designers, it's what I call the broccoli effect, which is, if you're a parent, you want your kids to eat your vegetables. Why? Because vegetables are good for the kids. There's a lot of things that kids get that is good for them. But the problem is, it's a long-term good. Not an immediate good, it's a long-term good.

And then a lot of parenting is, well, I know this is good for my child. I know them getting this shot will keep them healthy. But the child is very much focused on the here and now. That shot is going to hurt me. That broccoli doesn't taste good. So one of the things parents do is sometimes they try to sort of hide the necessary good that causes short-term unhappiness. Game designers do this as well.

For example, randomness is pretty fun. There's a lot of fun in randomness. But sort of obvious randomness can put some players off. Some players enjoy it, but some, so one of the things that we tend to do is we try to hide things where we can. For example, there's a reason why when you play a game of magic, you draw from a deck. I mean, Richard could have made a game of magic. Here's how it works. Take a deck, put it in whatever order you want, and then start playing. Is that as interesting a game of Magic as a randomized deck?

No, not remotely. You can try it if you want. So the idea is something for you to try. Play a game of Magic where you and your opponent literally just stack your deck. Put whatever cards you want in whatever order. It actually is fun for a game or two because early on it's about, ooh, can I outthink my opponent? You know what I'm saying?

What are they going to do? What am I going to do? Quickly, once you play a little bit, you start understanding, like, the right play, and then, you know, it becomes sort of much more coin-flippy. You know, I'm trying to guess what's going on, but it becomes much less strategic once you get in a few games. But the randomized deck does a lot.

You know, some games, I, like, the order you get in a few games. But the randomized deck does a lot. You know, some games, like, the order you get things, like, it makes a lot of situations where I have to adapt to what I got. And that is very fun. But the nice thing about sort of putting it into the deck thing is even though the deck is random,

it's a little bit hidden. You have to sort of stop back and go, oh, well, the deck I'm getting is random. Like, it's just kind of a given. And the randomness comes at the beginning, meaning it happens as I draw it. So it's not like when you do effects that are random, like, you know, destroy a random creature.

Well, you see the randomness very loudly. I do think restrictions are something we hide where we can. I think the tap symbol is a good example of something where it's a little more hidden than out in the open. The problem is, and this is where we got to the issue today, is that tap symbols work great on creatures. They work on artifacts. But two things. One is, they work on creatures when you want to have a trade between the effect and attacking. But let's say you have something like the root wall effect.

So the root wall is like a one-time giant growth. Well, if I can't attack with that ability, what does it matter? Why do I care if I make my creature bigger? But at the same time, we don't want you, if you have lots and lots of mana, making your creature even bigger. We want you to make your creature bigger once. So we need to have some restriction there. And that's why we say, okay, use once per turn. The other thing is we've chosen to make enchantments not tap.

We're trying to just have enchantments feel a little bit different from artifacts. I mean, flavorfully. But there are things on enchantments we want to do where we don't want you doing them multiple times. Or we only want you activating them at a certain time. There are spells we want you doing at a certain time. And I think what we've learned over time is that it's more fun long-term

to make effects that are a bit bigger, that have more impact, but there's more restrictions tied to them. Part of that is, we've been making magic for a long time, and some of the simpler effects, you're like, if we want to do things you haven't seen before, inherently, 30 years in, the effects might be slightly more complicated,

or slightly bigger in effect. Allowing yourself to have bigger effects means the design vein is larger. So there's more things you can do. The other thing we've kind of learned is, and this is just a lot of back and forth for a lot of years, a lot of iteration, is that restrictions do, once again, long-term versus immediate, lead towards better gameplay and ultimately more fun games. And like I said, I think when players are complaining, a lot of it, like, a lot of it is, hey, if I just, I can imagine things I could do if I wasn't restricted, you know. And that the restriction seems like, oh, we're taking away your fun.

But that's sort of the point of today's topic is that our goal isn't to let you do everything you want in the moment because that's not the role of game design. Okay, so just to answer this question because it comes up. Is there a better way to template the restrictions? One of the things that we keep hearing from players is that they dislike it being at the end. I see an ability, oh, that looks awesome, and then I read

the restriction. Oh, sad face. Sometimes we do do the restrictions ahead of time. A tap symbol is ahead of time. That is something we're looking at. It's not the challenge from a templating standpoint is we want to make sure the things you need to know

are as soon as possible at the beginning of what we're telling you. Because we don't want people to sort of miss what is going on. Now, there's a double-edged sword there. We also want you to know the totality of what you can do. there's a double-edged sword there. We also want you to know the totality of what you can do. So, templating is always looking for the cleanest, simplest, easiest way

to both convey the information and make sure the player has all the information they want. I do want to say, I do hear from players that they are happier when I understand the restrictions going in. Like, tell me what my restrictions are, then tell me what I going in. Like, tell me what my restrictions are,

then tell me what I can do. I get that. And it's, it is something that editing and templating, you know, that they're looking at. The, the challenge, and here's some of the trickiness is, sometimes there's a lot to convey and you have to sort of make choices of what you up front and what you, you know, where you put things. And we want to be consistent in how we write things. And so there are a lot of templates

that pre-exist. And so it's a complex topic. I don't want to say that we are ignoring, like, I do hear you. There is a very loud group saying, please, please, please, okay, if you have to do restrictions, let me know up front that I have restrictions. And I hear you.

And I don't want to say we're ignoring that. It is something we're looking at. A lot of times people offer solutions, and the solutions themselves come with their own issues. A good example in this particular case is, oh, what if there's a word? What if we introduce a vocabulary word and the vocabulary word says the restriction? And the answer is first, vocabulary is a tricky thing. We only get so many vocabulary words. There's a point at which you reach a threshold where you really cause problems for newer players.

Yeah, the more enfranchised players that have learned concepts, you can turn those into words. The enfranchised players can handle more because they've internalized more. But when we talk about vocabulary, we have to keep sort of the lesser enfranchised player in mind. That it's not okay to make something just for the enfranchised player

and then make it unapproachable by less experienced players, less enfranchised players. That would be not good for the game. A death knell for the game, if you will. We need new blood. We need fresh people. So vocabulary comes at a cost.

I'm not saying things can't be worth it, but there's a cost that comes with that. The second thing is, it's not as if there's one restriction. Just, even me talking so far, can only be used as a sorcery, can only be used on your turn, can only be used once per turn, you know, can only be used outside of combat. I mean, there's a bunch of different ways and things,

and one of the challenges has been different effects right now are best used in different ways. And so if we wanted to sort of create verbiage, it would kind of demand that we lower the number of restrictions. And so that itself is a cost because certain restrictions work well with better things. So it is not as if it's not something we might want to do. I just sort of want to, my point is that there are templating issues, there are design issues, there are gameplay issues.

It's a thorny, complex topic. It is not like just do it or not do it. I know sometimes people are like, just do it. But, well, we have to think through the ramifications of what we do. And every sort of decision you make affects other things. So you have to think about it. I do respect, like I said, the interesting thing and the tricky thing in general about game design, magic design, game design in general, is that game design is one of the few designs where you are trying to cause problems for your end user. I often talk about how, you know, if you made a game design lamp, that the

on switch wouldn't be obvious. Well, no lamp designers, like, the point of most design is ease of use. Ease of use is a giant feature. Like if you go and study, you know, actual, not game design, but sort of physical design, designing objects and things, ease of use is a giant, giant goal. That if I'm making a lamp,

I want you to know how to use the lamp. I don't want it to be a surprise. It's not a challenge. You know what I'm saying? That normal design isn't trying to build into its design problems with its use. And that's what makes game design so unique. That game design, by the very nature of what it is, wants to create stress. Wants to make the player have to solve games and puzzles are the two things where we want to force the opponent to have to work at it. Which is counter

to how a lot of design works. It's funny, a lot of time I look at truism, I've done a couple podcasts like this, where I look at design lessons from other skills that aren't games. And I would say most things overlap. Most things that are true about designing a lamp actually are true about designing magic. There's a lot of overlap in any design field. The one difference, the one area where there really is where it changes is that games because they're trying to get the opponent

this mental challenge, because they're trying to, like, once again, that we're trying to take something that in life would be taxing and scary and problematic and bring it to you in a place where you can sharpen and hone those skills.

Like, one of the things is, problem solving is a great skill, a very, very useful skill. But actually solving problems in the real world is taxing and can be scary and is stressful. So the whole point of games is, we want to teach you skills that are valuable life skills that will actually be very useful to you. Like, being a gamer, having a gamer mindset has helped me infinitely in life. That when I come up against a real life problem, I use all the skills I've learned as a game player

to solve that problem. And, in fact, it makes my life easier. So that is what we're up to. That is what we as game designers are up to. We're trying to find a way in a safe environment to do something that will make your life better for you. But what that means is we're going to add stress. We are going to add restrictions. We are going to add restrictions. We are not going to make things easy for you. And that those restrictions,

well, in the short term, in the immediacy, yeah, it's frustrating. Yeah, I'd rather just do what I want to do. But as a game player, when push comes to shove, once again, when I ask you to tell me your best magic memory, what you want long term, what you want down deep, is you want the dynamism, you want the interesting choices, you want the thing that makes you think. And that is

what restrictions are. That restrictions, it's not us being mean, it's not us sort of like that is what you sign up for. That when we add restrictions to the game, that is what you come for. Now, I understand, and I, like I'm saying, there are means and ways to offer them. I think we could hide the vegetables sometimes a little more.

Like, for example, there are some tricks. Like, for example, there are some tricks. Like, for example, if we do a triggered ability that happens at a certain point in time, like at the beginning of your end step, that is a one-time use, but it's a little less, it's a little less

obvious as a one-time use. Well, you know, and stuff like tap symbols. There are ways to hide it a little bit, and we do try to do that. It's not as if we don't try to sort of hide the vegetable some. But we can't always do that. And sometimes, look, the cleanest

simplest way to do what we want that'll lead to the best gameplay is writing those restrictions on the cards. And I understand that maybe we do it a little more than we did before. And that's mostly because, like I said, we are iterating. And the lesson we've learned is, you know, the trade-off of being able to do more but adding restrictions is leads to a better game, makes for a better game. And I know in the immediacy of it that maybe it doesn't make you immediately happy, but I'm saying that we're

doing it for your long-term happiness. That we're doing it to make magic a better game, which fundamentally, as magic players, is what you fundamentally want. And so why restrictions? We are in fact doing it for you. And maybe that's something that's not

instantly apparent. It's very easy to get focused on the here and now. But that's why I did this podcast to show you that there really is a strong reason, a good game design reason, why we are doing it. Okay, guys. I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking to magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So I hope you guys enjoyed today's podcast topic. And if you have other questions, ask. One of the things I'm trying to do when I get good questions online that

are a 30-minute answer rather than just a paragraph answer, I'm trying to do them on my book. I'm looking for all sorts of topics. Anyway, guys, thanks so much, and I will see you next time. Bye-bye.