Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1166: State of Design 2024

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Each August, I write an article where I review the last year's worth of Magic design. This podcast looks into the history and philosophy behind these articles.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for other drive to work Okay Well, I just finished writing this year's state of design article So I thought what a better topic than state of design articles So I'm going to talk about what the state of design articles are how they came to be why I write them Everything probably more than you want to know about the state of design articles. Okay so first off what are the state of design articles in case you've never read them? So I became the head designer back in 2003 and I'm gonna talk about that story in a little bit but one of the

things that I said I wanted to do was every year, I wanted to look back at the last year. When I say year, I mean the magic year. So the magic year usually starts in the fall, starts in usually, traditionally, it starts September. Bloomberg got pushed back a little bit, so it's been shifting, but the idea is it's the beginning of the rotation.

It's the rotation year. And so this year, it started with The Lord of the Rings and ended with Modern Horizons 3. So I went back and I looked at all the different things going on. I looked at all the booster sets with new content in them, randomized booster sets. Anyway, so the idea is I

look back at the previous year, I get a lot of input, and I sort of talk about what we did right and what we did wrong. That's the idea of a state of design article. So I want to go back a little bit and explain where it came from, why I do it, just sort of talk a lot about... so if you've never read them, I write them every year, usually they come out in August August and it's just me taking a really Trying to be as honest as I can normally there are highlights and there are lessons Highlights are what I think we did well lessons are room for improvement and for every product I talked about at least three highlights and three lessons. I talked about what we did right what we did wrong

about at least three highlights and three lessons. I talk about what we did right, what we did wrong. So let me get back a little bit into how this came to be and then we'll talk a bit about why I think why I think it's important, why the introspection is important. Okay so the first bit of information you need to know is before I worked at Wiz, I was a freelancer. Probably the thing I did that was the most popular was I did a puzzle column for the duelists called Magic the Puzzling. I also wrote articles for the duelists. At the time I was freelancing for different parts of the company. So I had kind of a, I was connected to Wizards but I I wasn't yet an official sort of I wasn't a full-time employee So back then the internet was young

The the World Wide Web I think just started around then and a lot of the interfaces to let you know like not a lot of people had like I There's a point in my time where I didn't have the graphical interface. So if I wanted to go to Wizards website, I had to just know, oh, I have to go up to or over one. Like I couldn't see the picture, right? I had to sort of I can move along with my mouse and then I try on air I could figure out where I would go. Because I wasn't seeing pictures. I'm just seeing text. But anyway back then the use net was what was popular

The use net for those who know what a bulletin board is the idea was there were the threads you could comment on a thread People could then comment back It wasn't in real You know wasn't it was much slower in the sense that I could comment on something and then someone could comment me bad Go back and read what people said and one of the things I did comment on something and then someone could come and meet I had to go back and read what people said and one of the things I did early on was That I definitely would jump in if people were confused about things I had a little better understanding of the rules at the time I was also kind of working with wizards

So eventually what happened was I get hired full-time In October of 95, I get hired full time. And once I'm at Wizards, I feel this obligation to go on Usenet and just, when I can, explain things. For those who don't know, my background is writing. I'm a writer at my core and I like helping people. And so I started going on the Usenet and just if we did something I would explain why we did it Eventually that transitions to I start writing a column for the duelist called insider trading And the flavor of it was hey, I'm a magic player like you but somehow I got hired in a met Wizards of the Coast

So I'm gonna hey fellow magic players. I'm gonna share some behind-the-scenes information Insider trading is where I started doing my teasers And it's just an opportunity where I would talk about stuff I took what things we didn't do or I I just for the first time was trying to do behind-the-scenes information one of my general beliefs is information. One of my general beliefs is that we spend a lot of time putting things together. And the more you, the audience, knows what we do and

what our work is, the more you can appreciate it and the more fun the game is. And I really did a podcast when I got inducted to the Hall of Fame talking about how, at the time communicating what you were doing was just not how game companies worked. The idea was what you're doing is secret, you can't share that information, you're giving away company secrets. Like I said, I don't quite know, I mean I think the reality was I just started writing and no one told me I couldn't so I did

And by the time people started questioning whether I should I'd kind of done enough of it that people were used to it But anyway, I definitely early in my career One of the things I tried to do was kind of be the voice of R&D That wasn't Ironically, it wasn't my goal. It's very funny that like you know flash forward many years that I've become one of the faces of R&D. It wasn't that I was even trying to become a face or anything. It was more like I thought it was interesting information. I the

writer thought it was cool to write about it and I just wanted to share the information. Like I said, I mean one of the ongoing things of my time at Wizards is I like writing I like communicating Whether it's in my weekly column. It's in my podcast. It's on my blog. I Definitely really enjoy interacting with the public and commenting on things and one of the things I found, like, I was communicating with the public long before it was my job to be head designer. Before I became head designer, I was a designer. In fact, I wasn't even hired as a designer, for those that know this story. When I got hired back in 1995, the thought process was, we don't need designers,

we got Richard Garfield, we need developers. And when I hired, I'm like, well, I think I have more design skills than development skills. And Mike Davis, the guy who hired me, goes, well, we don't need designers, we need developers. And my thought process was, well, look, get your foot in the door, get to know people. With time, I can demonstrate my design skills. And then eventually the big break I would have was, we started doing internal design. When I first got to Wizards,

all the design was external, internal. And Richard Garfield had commented to me that he'd like to work on a magic set. So I went to Joel Mick, who was a designer at the time, and I said, hey, I would like to lead a design team and Richard Garfield will be on it. And Richard Garfield being on it was enough for them going, okay. And that ended up being Tempest and then Tempest went well enough that I sort of I planted my flag in the ground that I

was a magic designer and they started treating me and thinking of me as a magic designer. But that was a couple years in. Anyway while that was happening, one of the things that happened was when I got hired at Wizards, there was a bunch of people were fighting over me. I actually, the duelists wanted to hire me full time, magic brand team wanted to hire me full time, and R&D wanted to hire me full time. A good position to be in. So what ended up happening was I was told that I would be hired in R&D, I'd specifically work on Magic, and

that I would be the liaison to the dualists. And then eventually what would happen to the dualists was Catherine Haynes, the editor, chose to leave. They couldn't find an editor and they eventually came to me and asked me to be the editor. And I said, yes. So for a while, I was the editor-in-chief of the Duelist. Anyway, and on top of that, at one point, they were trying to clean up the website. The website really didn't have a lot of traffic on it. And basically, the Magic brand team said, hey, we want Magic content on our website.

They went to Bill, who I think at the time was the head designer, Bill went to me because I was the writer with a communication background and said, hey, make us a website. And so I worked. We ended up hiring Aaron Forsythe to be the editor in chief of the new website. That's when Making Magic started. And I mean, when we first started out, there was a column

every day. Mostly my column is the one remnant of that time period of making Magic. But anyway, there's just an ongoing theme. My theme from the very first day I walked in the door up until now is I like writing, I like communicating, and I like telling people what we're doing and I have a firm belief that The communication is useful to the players now when I became head designer I Realized a secondary thing that one of the good things about communicating to the audience is the audience would communicate to you That by writing articles people would write would write back or by being on social media, people would talk to me.

Or writing my blog, I would get questions. That there was a two-way communication system. That not only could I communicate to the public, but the public could communicate with me. So there was a strong through line. So up through becoming head designer, I had always been kind of a conduit to the people. And like I said, one of the things that I think R&D does well, Wizards does well, is

kind of let people lean into their strengths. That a lot of what I do at Wizards, a lot of the jobs I do, are just me sort of staking ground in an area that I happen to be good at. I'm a good writer. That is my background. And so I made it a job to make writing like on Fridays I write, I write columns and I do the podcast. I still produce content. That is what I do. It is the core of who I am. They're producing content. So okay, so at some point, I become head designer back in 2003. So real quick version of the story.

I've told it in other podcasts, but I don't assume every person listens to every podcast. So what happened basically is I get hired as a developer. I then work on Tempest, prove I could be a designer. I then am a designer. And so from time to time, I, there's not, back in the day, there's not a lot of people that work full-time on Magic. Basically, originally when I got hired there were four of us. Me, Bill Rose,

Mike Elliott, and William Jockeish. We didn't hire Henry Stern, and for a good chunk of time it's the five of us. Eventually we would hire like Randy Bueller and Matt Place and Mike Donay and Mike Turing and people like that. We started hiring people on the Pro Tour. But that doesn't happen until like 99. Like Invasion which came out in 2000 was kind of the first set to really have a lot of Proour knowledge built into the development of it. Anyway, so when I first get here, I think the head designer is Joel Nick. Then Joel ends up becoming Magic Brand Manager, and then he passes the time down to Bill. Then Bill is head designer for a while. and he was head designer, flesh head developer,

sort of the whole caboodle. And then Bill ends up becoming VIP. And the reason for that is the original vice president of R&D was Mike Davis. Then when Mike Davis moves on to do other things, he becomes Jim Lynn. He's one of the East Coast Playtefters, one of the original Alpha Playtefters. Then Jim Lynn gets promoted, and Bill becomes the VP of R&D. But when Bill becomes the VP of R&D, he does not give up the head designer position. He does give up. Randy Bueller ends up taking his old position of

overseeing magic. Of sort of, I'm not sure what the, well not like the VP of magic, but, so Randy Bueller ends up taking the position of overseeing magic in general. And at the time, Bill is still doing the head designer job So he's head designer and VP and what happens with time is Bill just starts leaning on other people me especially more and more Just because he's busy. He's the vice president. You got all the stuff to do And it became pretty apparent to Randy that it just was untenable That Bill just didn't have the time and energy to be the VP and to be the head designer. So eventually I think Randy convinces Bill that he needs, that we need a head designer, that it just, there's no way for Bill to be vice president and head

designer. And they end up offering the job to me. I think what had happened was as Bill gets busier and busier, I was doing more and more helping Bill. And I think I became the heir apparent for the job. Interestingly when they first hired me, not only am I a head designer, but they put me in charge of the creative team. So for a couple of years, I was doing management and I was also overseeing the creative team. So I oversaw them for, interestingly,

the tail end of champions, but the two blocks that was there for the whole time was original Ravnica and TimeSpiral. After that, it just becomes clear that like, once again, it's a lot of work being head designer, running the creative team is also a full-time job. Let's make that a different job. And interestingly, they hired Kent Rupp, who now is the VP of Magic.

So that's when Kent Rupp got hired originally to oversee the creative team. Anyway, so I get hired to be the head designer. That was my goal. It's what I wanted to do. Obviously, since it is over 20 years later and I'm still doing the same thing, that's what I wanted to do obviously since it is over 20 years later and I'm still doing the same thing that is what I wanted that is where I stayed a great piece of advice a little work advice to people is it is good to

know your goals what do you want to do and that once you're doing what you want to do it's okay to keep doing the thing you want to do you don't sometimes people get promoted past the job they want. Like before Aaron ended up getting the job they asked me if that is the job I wanted and I'm like look I don't want to oversee the guy doing what I want to do I want to be the guy like I want to oversee the design. I don't want to be the guy that oversees the guy overseeing the design. I want to be the guy that oversees the design. So I really held firm. Anyway, okay, so I get made head designer and there's all sorts of things that I want to do. I'm very into

block planning. I later get really into sort of the emotional center. I did a podcast on that. But one of the other things that I thought was important, I mean look, I'm a communication guy, I'm a writer. One of the things that I thought was really important is that I like introspection. I think it's good. Like one of the things that's generally true is no matter how good or bad a design is, there are things that design did right and there are things that design did wrong. The biggest disaster on the planet still has things that went right, the greatest success in the world still has things that did wrong. And that one of the things I'm really interested

in is look part of my whole gig was I became a face for the company, I created avenues that people can communicate with me, that those avenues are really important that I want to hear from the players. And that one of the things I realized, so for those that aren't American, there's something that happens most January, I guess not when they get inducted. But every year, other than the year they get inducted, the US president gives a speech called the State of the Union, where

they just talk about where the country is at. And so I like the idea of, hey, we have a block every year. What if at the end of the block I write and I look back and I say, hey, this is how I think it went. Here's the things we did right, here's the things we did wrong. I just kinda look at the year. So the idea I had, and I knew this from the very beginning, is I like the idea of there's positives and negatives.

I call them highlights and lessons. Highlights because, hey, I want to highlight the things we did right. Lessons because, hey, there's things we did wrong, but I want to put them in a positive way. And the idea of lessons is, well, we learned things that didn't go as well as we wanted, and from that, we will learn to be better. And the idea was that I would have highlights and lessons for the whole year as a whole.

And then I would dig in on all the sets. Originally, the idea was I would just talk about every single set we made. As magic has evolved, it became a little unwieldy to talk about everything, which is so much going on. So I decided I'll talk about the randomized booster expansions. The ones in which there's a booster that are randomized, those are our main steps. I will talk about those.

Now originally when I started writing the column, I would make some goals for the coming year and then I would look at the goals from the previous year. When I first started doing it, so the idea is our goal for next year is to do thing X and then I would look back at the previous year's goal like so the very first column I did was in 2005. I took over in 2003. Why did I wait till 2005 to write my first article? Because we worked two years ahead. I didn't want to write an article until it wasn't until we had all of Ravnik to look to which is the first um I started doing design like I started taking over in the middle of Chambs Kamagawa block. Chambs Kamagawa was done

I was there for part of uh for Traders Kamagawa part for Saviors but it was it was Bill's vision I was just sort of completing what had done. Ravnica for me was the start of my vision. From the ground up, it was the stuff that I built and put together. So the very first standard design talked about Ravnica block because that was the first block that I was responsible for. I felt like let's talk about things that I had designed or done. So it didn't happen in 2005. Ironically, we actually work a little farther ahead than we did back then. But I was able to talk about the year that we had done.

And the reason I originally did goals is I liked the idea of hinting at where we were going. The problem we run into was because we were so far ahead, because I was talking about sets that we were done with mostly, it was a little disingenuous. My goal for next year's a new thing X. Well, I know what I've done It's coming, you know It it was just weird to write goals for things in which it wasn't something I was working on or something I was mostly already finished with

And as we had more and more to talk about because there's more and more products I had less space and so I eventually jettisoned the goals. It just didn't quite come forward the way I wanted to. I kind of missed the one nice thing about the goals that I didn't like is it let me hint a little bit of what was to come. I like that. But it didn't feel right so I ended up pulling the goals. So let me talk a little bit about what I want. So normally my process when I make this data design is I will put out stuff both on my blog and on social media saying, hey, I want input.

Now, I get input all during the year. So a lot of this is just reminding me of a lot of the input I'm getting. So it does not base solely on the responses I get then, but it does jog my memory of just a lot of things I've heard over the course of the year. And just so people are aware, I get input from a lot of different places. I get a lot of input, a lot of people have things to say. I have more input than I can read all the input, that's how much input I have. I have a lot of input. I try to keep up the best I can, but there's a

lot of input. So I really want to absorb what people are saying. So the idea of highlights is I really want to focus in on, hey, where did we succeed? Where were things we did well? And that part of any sort of internal process, to me, is right. There's nothing you do in which everything is wrong to me is right. There's nothing you do in which everything is wrong and or everything is right. There always is room for

improvement but there always is you've succeeded and you went somewhere and you've done something and so the highlights for me is sort of looking at and pinpointing things we did that I'm proud of that I think we did well and sometimes what I've learned on the highlights is sometimes it's on the goals and sometimes it's on the execution. Sometimes the highlight is we tried something that I'm proud we tried. Often we succeed, but sometimes we don't.

But a lot of what I want to do is head designer. And this has been an ongoing thing. This will be my 21st year of being head designer for my 20th year. I became head designer in 2003. So I guess until 2004, this is my 20th year. That was my 20th anniversary. So, oh, no, no, no, no, my 21st year. My first anniversary was my first year.

OK. Anyway, I'm in my 21st year. And I like, I like that magic keeps evolving. And I like to think that we, on the design side, keep evolving too. And part of what I want to do is figure out what have we done in which we're trying new things? What have we done in which we learned important lessons that

we've addressed? Or what are just, What have we done in which we've learned important lessons that we've addressed? Or what are just, hey, we did something and we executed it well that I'm really proud of? I just want to point all that stuff out. The lessons are a little trickier. The lessons are, I want to sort of recognize that I, for all of you, see where we went wrong. We did something like, oh, this could have been better. And I like talking sometimes about why it was wrong, or how

it was wrong, or what we could have done better. A lot of times it's sort of figuring out, what did we do wrong? And that's another thing that's really interesting, and the important part of this process is, it's not hard to know that something went wrong, but understanding what went wrong, what was the mistake, I think is very important. And that a lot of, I mean the reason that you, so we do something called a retrospective for every set.

And what a retrospective is, is we as R&D look back at the set and say, hey, where did we do well? Where did we do badly? And the reason for the retrospectives is, hey, did we make a mistake or did we learn something new that we didn't know? You know, have we done things? Did we do things that if we did them again, we would do them differently? Or did we do things that, wow, that is great. Next next time we do that do that again and the retrospective is very much about us talking with ourselves about what went right and wrong. The interesting thing about the state of design is I do incorporate a lot of the retrospective stuff I mean I do but also a big part of

me is understanding the impressions of the audience. Now one of the interesting things, and this is important to understand, there are a lot of moving pieces behind the scenes. There are a lot of reasons we have to do things. There are things that individual members of the audience might not like that we still have to do. For example, we're a business. There's things we have to do sometimes that are just business decisions. And you as an individual don't have to care about

the business decisions. You cannot like the business decisions. But we as a company still have to make the business decisions. So some of the feedback we get, well, it's good to hear and understand it, I understand why we might not have done what people asked. The general rule is I'd like things more accessible and cheaper. It is a very common feedback from the audience. And we do want things to be accessible. But once again, the goal is to make magic an awesome game

but also part of making magic an awesome game is making an awesome business and that I've talked about that a lot of one of the reasons magic is as good a game as it is is it has a Revenue structure that allows us to pour a lot of money into the game, into design, into resources for the game. We can get the best artists, we can have, you know, play aids, we can do a lot of things that allow us to design. I mean, I firmly believe Magic is the best game. I think structurally from how Richard built it, it's an amazing game. And there's just a talented group of people and a pretty large group of people

who are constantly working to make it better. And that one of the things of being here for so long is just watching so many different people work so hard on it, and that a lot of the excellence of the game came from smart people iterating again and again and again and again, and just finding the best answers. But part of iterating is the feedback, is understanding how

we can be better. And that there's a constant strive in R&D to make magic better, to say magic is good, or magic is even great, but magic can still be even better. And a lot of my goal as head designer has been, I mean my job is to think big picture stuff, mechanics, larger connectivity, synergy, themes, how do we just make the best magic sets, how do we make exciting magic sets, how do we make magic sets that people are excited to buy, like all that is important. And anyway, so the state of design

is, I just like you guys to get a mindset of where I'm at and And here's another important thing. I want you the audience to feel heard, right? I don't want us to do something you guys really dislike it and that's going well, that's what it was Like that's not some feedback. I want to say hey, and this is important part of the article very important part I want you to hear that I hear what you're saying. And that a lot of the point of the state of design is just really being honest and going back and being critical and saying, hey, we did this well,

we did not do this well. This was a sign of cool things, we should do more. This was us not being at our best and we can approve. Or sometimes it's we tried something new and it didn't work. But that's a big part of the state of design. So by the way, every year I do state of design, I link to every previous state of design article. And it's fun if you want to go back. There are definitely themes that run through. One of the things that's tricky also is It is possible for me to be aware of things and that thing to be slow to change

One of the reasons is like I said, there's a lot of factors behind the scenes that can complicate things There are goals. I mean one of our goals is to make you, our number one goal, is to make you the player happy with the game. We want you to want to play, we want you to enjoy playing, we want you to be excited, we want you to want to buy the game. But on top of that there are other things that also matter. You guys aren't worried about cost of goods or anyway, there's infinite things we have to worry about behind the scenes as a business and so they're definitely

sometimes they're interesting pressures where the act of making magic there are forces that hand we have to deal with and that I can address so I do want to say sometimes there's things that get repeated because solving the problem at hand can be a complicated thing. And so recognizing a problem doesn't necessarily mean the problem goes away, but at least means we're aware of it and we're looking at ways to deal with it. And there's, you know, if you go back and read all state of designs, there's a lot of ongoing themes, some of which I think we've addressed over time, some of which are tricky

things to deal with, and we're constantly trying to be better about it. But I'm happy that I write the state of design articles. I think it's important for you all to see that I, the guy in charge of design, do listen to what you very much listen to what you have to say, and I'm not alone, all of R&D listens, and that we are aware when things go right or wrong we're very aware of it&D listens, and that we are aware when things go right or wrong we're very aware of it. If we do something that upsets the players it is not as if we have no idea it upsets the players. We are listening and that's a big part of it. I really want to write an article that says hey look I and the

other thing that thinks important is magic is an ever evolving game, right? That one of the things that makes magic a very unique thing is it is constantly improving upon itself. Most games you make the game and you're done, that's the game. And for the rest of the time that will be the game. You know, Monopoly got made in whatever, 1920s, 1930s and other small tweaks, it really is what it was. Um, but magic is kind of a living, breathing thing that is constantly

changing and evolving and adapting. And that I want you, the audience to understand that. And I want you to understand that part of the adaptation, important part of the adaptation is the feedback we get from all of you. One of, like I said, one of the reasons that I consider my role as face and as condom information to be actually a pretty important part of how at least how I function as head designer because I can't do things that make all you happy without knowing what makes you happy without knowing what you like and dislike.

And so I think the state of design articles are a lot about just demonstrating you that I'm trying as much as I can to be in touch with what all you think. And be aware that we're conscious of it and thinking about it. So anyway guys, I guess what I will say here is you've never read my state of design articles. I'm not sure when this when this column is going up are this podcast versus the article. Maybe I'll maybe I'll wait to put this up the week the week I put up the state of design article. But anyway I hope I hope you guys read it if you haven't read before it's online making magic and if you read one state of design article links to all the other

state of design articles it's fun going back and looking and seeing different things we talked about. Anyway guys, I hope it's interesting. I hope if you... For those who have never read it, you go read the state of design. And for those who do read it, I hope you enjoy it. But anyway guys, I'm at work. So I don't know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you all next time. Bye bye.