Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1112: Perfectionism

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

We spend a long time designing sets, constantly improving on every aspect possible. But how and when do we decide to step away? In this podcast, I explore the subject of perfectionism.

I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today's topic came from my blog. Somebody wanted me to talk about perfectionism. So let me explain a little bit about the process and then talk about... because one of the things about making magic is we spend a lot of time. We work on a set for a long time. So, for example, we start doing what we call arc planning, which can be as much as like four or five years ahead of time. We will do what we call seeds and exploratory design, usually roughly three years out. Exploratory is anywhere from like two to three months.

Vision design usually is about four months. Set design is another year or so. Play design is like two to four months, although some of that overlaps with set design. But anyway, all said and done, we work on a set from beginning to end for years, for years. We spend a long time on the set. And so, like I've talked a lot before, it's an iterative process, right? We make something, we play test it, we get feedback, we then make changes based on the feedback and continue the loop. So one of the, so the big question, the question I'm answering today is, you know, how do you deal with like handing something off? Like you constantly

are making it better. How do you, how do you deal with that? And the reality is that you can always make a set some incremental amount better. You know, if you keep working on it, you'll improve it, you know, in some way and make it slightly better. But at some point you have to hand it off. And how do we deal with that? How do you deal with not making it the absolute perfect thing it can be, is sort of the question. So today, I'm going to talk a bit about that. I'm going to talk a bit about how do you deal with something in which you're just constantly iterating it. And then at some point, you've got to cut yourself off.

So how do we do that? And then at some point, you've got to cut yourself off. So how do we do that? So there's a couple things that are built into the process that I think are helpful. First and foremost is deadlines, right? When I work on a set, I have a date in which... Now, I work early in the set, so I work on vision design, so I'm going to hand off to set design. So it is built into the schedule that I have X amount of time.

I have so much time to do my amount of the work, and then I'm going to pass it off. So part of the perfectionism is I don't have forever. And, I mean, there's business reasons for to have a schedule, but also on some level, yes, you could work on something forever. Now, there's diminishing returns. That, yes, you could work on something forever. Now there's diminishing returns. That's an expression you'll hear a bunch today. So the concept of diminishing returns means that the more work you put in something, you reach a point at some point where it's, you know, the advancement you make is very little versus the amount of effort you put into it. The idea being that there comes a point where what you're doing is not making the advancements, not making it as much

better. In some ways, you can think of it as each time you work on it, you make it so much better. And how much better you make it shrinks over time. That as you get closer and closer to sort of the best version of it, your changes that you're making are smaller and more incidental. And so one of the big things is when you're making a set and one of the reasons behind our schedule, stuff like that is, look, we want to maximize the amount of time we have to make it as good as possible. I mean, magic is what we call a prestige product, right? You know, we spend a lot of time on it. And to give you guys a little sort of sense of scope here, back in the day, I used to work on other products.

Now, pretty much, I work solely on magic. But there was a point in time where we, magic, or not magic, Wizards made other products, and I worked on other products. So there was one product I worked on, which was the G.I. Joe trading card game. G.I. Joe is owned by Hasbro, who owns Wizards. Anyway, and I was given three weeks to make it. Three weeks. Now, given I was brought in, somebody else had worked on it a little bit before,

but still, like, three weeks, like, I can spend three weeks on, like, a single decision on a little bit before. But still, like three weeks, like I can spend three weeks on like a single decision on a single card sometimes. Three weeks is nothing. The idea that we have years to work on something really shows how much care we put into it.

But, right, the big trick is, okay, how do we know, like when does diminishing returns begin? Now some of that is just working on sets for a long time, getting a the big trick is, okay, how do we know, like, when does diminishing returns begin? Now, some of that is just working on sets for a long time, getting a set, you know. For example, right now, the process is exploratory vision, set, play. So, exploratory design, vision design, set design, play design. Before that, there was a design and development period. Like, we've experimented with different amounts of times at different parts of the process, and we're 30 years in,

and we've gotten pretty good at understanding about how long you need to work on certain parts. And so a lot of sort of trying to cut off diminishing returns comes from the schedule. Now, another thing I should stress, by the way, is we're making a magic set. So on some level, it's a continual process. If I get ahead and do work, then I'm going to do stuff ahead of time that's going to be a benefit to set design. I'll give a perfect example. It is not vision designs. We are not responsible necessarily for making the draft archetypes.

But if it's something we can work on, like a lot of times we will work on the draft archetypes because it helps shape the set. It helps shape the structure of the set. But set design is the one that finalizes and figures out what exactly the draft archetypes are going to be. So there are times where we work farther ahead. And the more fashion-based the set is, the more the draft archetypes are built into the structure. So certain types of sets want you to understand the information

earlier than others. But the point is, sometimes we get to draft archetypes. Sometimes we do a lot of work on draft archetypes. Sometimes we do very little. work on draft archetypes. Sometimes we do very little and set design is doing that. So the idea essentially is it's a progressive process that I'm going to hand off to the people beyond me and that I do as much work as I can. There's a certain amount of work, like the other reason we split between vision design and set design, for example, is there are certain skills that some people have that are better suited for vision design there's some skills that people have they're better suited to set design or

play design and so the idea is you want the team that have the people that are more skilled in that area to work in that area so when i'm given exposure design vision design there are certain things we're supposed to do there's a a certain responsibility. There's a certain thing I need to do. And I'm well aware of what are the things that set design kind of relies upon vision design to do and what kind of things is set design better than vision design at. So, for example, set design is very good at doing draft archetypes. Now, there's some work done on our part because vision design is doing a lot of larger structure. And knowing archetypes can affect the structure especially on a faction set um but the other thing

is like okay um vision design is very good at sort of creating structure and creating themes and mechanics and so we do a lot of that not that there aren't things made in you know set design will make mechanics will change around structure you know, the metaphor we always use is that vision design is the architect making the blueprints and set design is the builder building the house. And so there's synergy. Like we're trying to give them the tools they need to do the set design. Okay, but there are other things that sort of temper us in what we make.

Meaning there are other things that sort of temper us in what we make. Meaning, there are other things that go into, there are things that shape what and how we can do our design. Okay, so the next thing we have to think about is restrictions. That one of the things that makes magic magic is that there are rules set into place. There are things that every magic set, you know, I often talk about how magic is like mini games all in one. Every magic set is trying to do something new and is trying to make sort of do something new with the game. But there is some consistency.

We want magic to feel like magic. We don't want every time you buy a magic set to feel like a completely different game. We need continuity. And part of having continuity is having some built-in restrictions. For example, the color wheel. There are five colors. Each color does certain things. Colors have strengths.

Colors have weaknesses. We have a whole team. the Council of Colors, is to make sure that colors are doing what they're supposed to be doing. That the integrity of the color, like the color pie is the foundation of the game, of flavor, of mechanics, and we want to make sure that there's a certain feel that comes from the color wheel and that we spend a lot of time, like I said, there's an entire team dedicated to making sure we're doing it right.

And the color pie can evolve. It's a living, breathing thing. But when you're making a set, hey, you have to obey the color pie. You have to think about how to build your set in such a way that adapts to the color pie. Likewise, there are rules about how rarities work. That certain things happen at certain rarity. That, for example, we don't tend to do two-for-ones at common.

We do those at uncommon. Things that are a large board sweeper, things that are sort of more designed for constructed than limited, that have a huge sweeping effect than limited, we will do at higher rarities, at rare and mythic rare. There are certain sort of basic building block effects that we need. We put those in common, that what rarities do and how they function, there's restrictions to them. There's rules to them. And from time to time, and this is true, we occasionally bleed the color by a little bit, not break it, but bleed it a little bit. We occasionally will

shift a little bit on rarities or push things down a rarity if a set's playing into a certain theme. You know, if it's an artifact set, maybe we're making more artifacts in common than we would in a default set. But the idea is that we have to think about that. Card type is another thing. Artifacts, enchantments, creatures, sorceries, instants, planeswalkers, lands, battles. There's different tools at our disposal. And sort of knowing how to use them in a way that reinforces. We want enchantments to have a certain feel. We want artifacts to have a certain feel.

We want artifacts to feel different from enchantments. You know, we want creature. So there's a lot of rules that come into how, you know, and then there's mana, there's curves, there's like we have a whole default set skeleton that there's a certain structure. Anyway, what I'm saying is when we're making a set, there's a lot of restrictions that come along

because we're trying to make it feel and play like a magic set. Also, there are limitations. And what I mean by that is restrictions are things we're doing to make the game function the best way it can from a game design standpoint. Limitations are more, hey, we have to print the cards. We have to template the cards. We have to make the cards work in the rules. We have to template the cards. We have to make the cards work in the rules. We have to make the cards work on digital. That there are other teams that we interact with, that are other elements to making a magic set,

that we, the people making the set, have to follow. I can't make a mechanic that can't fit on the card. I can't use a creature type line that doesn't fit. You know, I, that there's a lot of give and take of making sure that what we're doing can be done. I might have a really cool idea, but if the rules can't make it work, it's, it's not a good idea. Or digital just can't implement it. It's not a good idea. And so when you're making the set, you very much have to be aware of the restrictions the game has to make the game play like the game and the limitations the game has

because we have to make it. That part of making magic, you know, I talk a lot about the design part of it because that's my job and that's kind of a really interesting portion of it. But a lot of design that I spend less time talking about is that there are limitations built into a trading card game. We have to print them on a sheet.

There has to be collation. We only get so many cards because of the sheet math. You know, there is, and if we want to do something, let's say we want to do double-faced cards or a punch-out sheet, like, everything you do comes at a cost. And both at actual physical cost, but also,

like, other elements of the set have to adapt to that. And so, there's, so some limitations are built into all magic. Like,

you know, there's only so much text that fits on a card in the rules text box. But, some limitations come from, okay, we want to do something cool in this set. We want to have double-faced cards.

We want to have a punch-out. We want to do some new mechanic. We want to do something cool and different. We want to have one of something in every pack. We want to do something different. That itself will create new limitations. So part of also designing the set is that. Okay.

The next thing that we have to think really big is that we're not designing a set in a vacuum. A magic set does not live by itself. That when we make a magic set, it is part of the ecosystem of magic. Now, part of that is following the restrictions, but part of that is also understanding, hey, the goal,

we don't want to make one magic set awesome, amazing, and the next magic set, eh. Like, we want every magic set to be of equal value. We want every magic set to excite the players. Now, there's different themes. Not every set's going to excite every player the same, but we want every set to excite somebody. Like, we want a dedicated, excited audience for every product. Any one person might vary. Maybe you really, really love murder mysteries, but don't like westerns. Maybe you love cute animals, but don't like horror. Like, you know, not every set necessarily is full throttle for every player, but we want to make that every set is full throttle for

some players. And so part of that is, for example, and this is something I do as head designer, is hey, I want to balance things. I want to make sure that we're thinking about larger resources, like design resources, and veins of mechanics, and making sure that, you know, we don't want to overuse something somewhere to underuse it somewhere else. Like one of the things we're always thinking about is, how do I make sure that the mechanics for this set are maximized for the set it's in? And sometimes we come up with a mechanic and go, this is a really good mechanic, but not for here. It doesn't shine here. And there's a lot of things that we've come up with that we've taken and we've waited to find the right place to do it.

Energy is a perfect example where it was originally in Mirrodin, but it didn't fit. We had too much going on. So we held back and we waited for a place that we could use it. Split cards were meant for somewhere else. That product got canceled. So we saved it to find a better place for it. I mean, not that it didn't work in the original product, I guess, but the product got canceled. So one of the things that we're thinking long term is, okay, making sure. So next, let me introduce the concept of what I call the happiness line.

So the happiness line means that when you make a set, you want to make your players happy. Now, once again, different players like different things. But as a general rule of thumb, you want to make the vast majority of your players happy with the set. And part of that is understanding the different audiences and doing, you know, a lot of times we put a lot of different things in sets meant for different audiences. But anyway, the idea of the happiness line is you want to get a majority of your audience above this line where they're happy. They like the set. Now, when you make a set, you can go way above the happiness line. But one of the things we want to be careful is

we want to make sure we're using our resources properly. So if we've done enough stuff, we've got people happy, we think people will really be happy with the set, instead of using mechanics to make them even happier, we might be able to use those mechanics on another set that is below the line that we can get up to the line. That part of what we're trying to do is we're trying to, like there's a quality level that every set needs to be at.

And so part of big picture is thinking about in conjunction, sets in conjunction, and thinking about making sure that there's something for everything and that we want to use things where they're maximized and doing the best. And it's hard sometimes. When you first start designing magic cards and you make something awesome, you're like, oh, I want to put this in the next set I can. It's awesome. And the reality is it needs to go in the right set, not necessarily the next set,

that if you make something really awesome, let's put it in the place where it can be the most awesome, where it's leaning into the themes of the set, where it can shine, where it has a chance to really be the best that it can be the most awesome, where it's leaning into the themes of the set, where it can shine, where it has a chance to really be the best that it can be. Because what you don't want to do is come up with a great idea, put it in the wrong place, have it not surrounded by the right things, and take something that would have been amazing and merely be okay. Other things that we think about is,

there's other, we care about simplicity, we care about's other, we care about simplicity. We care about elegance. We care about aesthetics. There are a lot of things that we want to make sure that we're thinking about when we make a set. And so we, part of making a set is not just throwing everything you can in. Because that makes it complex. That keeps it from being simple.

And so part of the balance you're trying to make is I want to make this the best it can be, but there's still parameters of things that I'm looking for that I want to be careful with. There also is synergy, right? I want to make sure that the things I'm doing are synergistic with the other things I'm doing and that if something's not synergistic,

yeah, I hold on to that. I wait for a place where I can find the synergy. There's issues of mood. There's issues of tone. Anyway, a lot of what I'm trying to say is, when I'm making a set, there are a lot of factors that I'm addressing. And these factors can fight with each other sometimes. There's something I can do that would help in one factor but hurt in another factor. And that part of sort of perfecting the set is understanding all the things you care about. Now, let's get to the perfectionist part here. There's two big things that are really important to keep from sort of letting perfect be the enemy of good, as we say. The idea is an expression. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good, as we say. The idea is an expression.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. And what that means is that you need to make something and that you can always improve upon it and you can get paralyzed in that, well, I can't put it out yet because I can make it some percent better. But like diminishing returns is, there's a point at which

it's just not worth the amount of time and energy you're going to spend to make it that much better. But like diminishing returns is, there's a point at which it's just not worth the amount of time and energy you're going to spend to make it that much better. Okay, so one of the things that you have to think about is the way I like to think about it is I like to make a line, and the line in my head is what I'll call the printable line. I go, if I was told in a week's time that I had to stop design, you know, that I want to make sure that everything's above a certain line.

Like, basically, when I hand the set off, I want everything above this line. There's a line of what is good enough that it'll be something that I'm proud of, that my team is proud of, that it's... There is a... I'll call it the quality line. That there's a certain quality that I expect of all the cards in the set that I'm handing off. That I want the set to match a certain level of excellence. And so the idea is, the reason this line is important is, I want to get a sense of what is and is not over the line.

And the way I think of it is, okay, if I was told tomorrow, hands off, you're done. What stuff would I be happy with? What stuff's above the quality line? And what stuff is below the quality line. So this is another, this is a really important point. You only have so much time by the nature of how we do things. And the goal is to use your time as wisely as possible to make the set as good as you

can. And in order to do that, you really need to understand what is working and what is not. What is delivering in the way you want to deliver and what is not. There's a term we use in R&D called CQI, which I think stands for Continual Quality Improvement. Way, way, way back when, it was like in the 90s, Peter Atkinson was the first CEO of Wizards and he liked to bring in people to give seminars and things. And one of the seminars he brought in,

this person introduced the idea of continued quality improvement. The funny thing about it was R&D did not like that particular seminar and I think we were making fun of it and I think we used the term CQI. I think at the time we were sort of, we thought it was a funny term. But we've, it's just going on to become, it's right now in the file just say CQI. There's a, there's a field in the database

and what a CQI means is this is not good enough. I'm letting everybody know who looks at this file that this will be made better. This isn't good enough. This isn't up to standard. And so part of meeting perfectionism really is having a good sense of where your set is at. Where are you happy? Where are you not happy? And you want to make sure that you're putting your energy to sort of fix up the things that are below your quality line. Let's say I have something. I make a mechanic. I'm happy with the that are below your quality line. That before I want to, like, let's say I have something.

I make a mechanic. I'm happy with the mechanic above the quality line. I actually, I will spend less time on that than I will on this other mechanic that isn't there yet. It's not, this is not something we can hand off, right? I will spend more time on the things below the line than above the line. Now, part of doing any playtesting is you're playtesting the whole set. So even if you're focusing on one aspect, when you playtest, you'll get notes on that other aspect,

and you can make changes. So it's not as if something's above the line, I can't make it better, because I can. My point is, I will focus on the things below the line to make sure that our work that we're doing is, I want the whole set to be at the right place at delivery. Okay. Now let's say I'm working. Vision design is four months long. It's the end of month three and everything's above my line. What, what do I do next? Then I make a new line, right? The idea of a quality line is I'm setting something so I have a standard to work against.

But if I meet that standard, if I get to the point where I'm happy and everything is above that line, I can redraw the line, you know? And the idea is within the time frame we have available, this is why deadlines are very valuable, I want to make sure that I'm constantly striving to do what I need to do. Now, once again, like I said, there's other factors that go into play here. It is not as if I'm trying to make the set

the best that it can be within the context that is doing all the things that I said before. That it is following the restrictions, the limitations. It's thinking about the needs of other teams. I'm thinking about simplicity and elegance and aesthetics and synergy. Mood, tone. I'm thinking about sort of larger magic needs. That I'm looking at the set in the context that we need to look at the set.

So that I'm thinking about, and I'm making valuable decisions. Like, one of the big things, and this comes from, like, one of the beauties of deadlines. If you are working on a project, I think giving yourself deadlines of saying, hey, I have to get it done by this time is a very valuable tool. It really brings focus, and it makes you have to do some prioritization. Oh, that's another big thing. Let me talk a little bit about prioritization. The other thing that happens is when I'm making a set,

I need to figure out sort of, I like to say, where the happy is. Like, what is the most important part of the set? So people have listened to me talk forever. I'll call it something the mechanical heart of the set. And what that means is, this is the thing that, like, the set is built around. This is the core mechanical element. Other things we care about, for example, is,

you know, what is the focus of the set? If I'm making a set, what do I expect the audience to be most excited by? What do I think the audience, like, I want to make sure that we are making a set that, and once again, this is also thinking of other teams. I need to make a set that's marketable, right? I need to make a set that players can get excited by because there's something really exciting, you know, that there is focus and theme

and there's a lot of things that go into sort of maximizing that. And so there is, when you make your set, you sort of, not only do you have the sort of quality line, you also have to rank the things in order of how they matter. And that's another really important thing you need to do that helps with perfectionism, is understand sort of the ranking of the component pieces of what you're building.

What matters most? You know, what is the thing that's going to endear people to the set? What's the people that's going to make people excited about the set? What's going to make people want to buy the set? What's the thing that really will draw people in? That will make them happy? What is that? And you want to spend more time, and on some level, the quality line is higher for the things that are the most important. You spend a little bit more energy there because

one of the things, and this is where perfectionism comes into play, you can always make something better, right? There are sets that I printed that I'm happy with that I think are some of the best sets I've ever done. I take something like Ravnica, which is one of the most influential sets in Magic's history. I'm super proud of Ravnica, but

I don't like the Boros mechanic. There's structural things we did. I don't think the initial draft of the original Ravnica block could have been better. I mean, there's lots of room for improvement to make things better. And so the idea, I mean, I can work on a set, work really hard, make the best that I can, hand it off. There's still things I could fix. And the other

thing that happens is we are working in a vacuum when we make sets, right? We have play testers, but once the set gets out to the world, you guys all get to play with it. And, you know, the stress testing of the audience supersedes our stress testing in like minute two. You know, there's millions and millions of magic players. And so there's also things we learn. I mean, one of the tricky things about making magic is we are guessing at where we think things will be. You know, you all, magic's a, like, important concept here.

Magic, when we make it, is in flux. That when we make magic, it's not locked down. That if I have a playtest and I don't like a card, that card can change. And so one of the things that is tricky for us is we are trying to make something that we think when the dust settles, when the audience gets to it, will be something fun. But there's a lot of unknowns. And a lot of the tricky things about making magic is we don't necessarily know everything. In fact,

if we knew everything, you know, like we want you guys to explore and discover stuff. And so if it's not so big that we can't understand it, you won't be able to do that. And so there's a lot of, a lot of the challenge of designing magic is that, is that we're sort of designing possibilities and options and choices and that you all will sort of see what you want to do. But anyway, what that means is when making magic, a lot of the key to succeeding sort of percentage-wise, if you will, because we don't know, until the audience gets it, we don't know. There's just things we don't know because the audience will sort of determine stuff. So basically, the idea is you want to prioritize what matters, and you want to have a general line. There's the quality line, and then there's the percentages of what order, my stacked order of what matters most to the set.

And that when I'm trying to focus on perfecting things, I want to make sure that I spend my time and my energy in the places that will matter the most. I want to make sure that I spend my time and my energy in the places that will matter the most. Now, there's a lot of detail. There's a lot that goes into it, and there's a lot of things we do care about, and that one of the things about Magic, because we have such a long time frame to work on it, is we do have a luxury of spending time

on some very minute details at times that really, I think that can make the set shine for different players. But anyway, so that, my friends, I'm now at work. That is how to deal with perfectionism. I mean, I think the key, the real key to it that I've learned from, you know, doing this forever is having a sense of what you want and what matters and what's important and focusing. having a sense of what you want and what matters and what's important and focusing.

And understanding deadlines and, you know, like, another big thing of sort of meeting the perfectionism is understanding when you're getting diminishing returns and understanding, you know, when am I working on something on the set where, like, this is, I mean, I don't know if good enough is the right term, but, like, I have a quality line, I've met the quality line, somewhere else I've not met the quality line. Like, it's understanding where I can work in

that will pay off the most dividends for the game, for you, the audience, you know. And a lot of fighting perfectionism is sort of understanding your resources, understanding your time, and figuring out how best to apply it. Anyway, I hope this was insightful. This was one of the things when you're thousands of podcasts in,

I try to find new topics that people suggest. And so anyway, I hope you guys found this interesting. I thought it was interesting. But anyway, I will see you all next time. Oh, sorry. I'm at work, so we all know that means it's 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.