Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #446: 20 Lessons: Bluntness

Episode Date: June 22, 2017

This podcast is the fourteenth in my 20-podcast series based on a GDC speech I gave in 2016 about 20 of the lessons I've learned designing Magic for 20 years. The lesson of this podcast is "Don't be afraid to be blunt."

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today is another of my series, 20 Lessons, 20 Podcasts, where I recap 20 important lessons that I've learned over the 20 years or more that I've been making magic. This is based on a GDC speech I gave. So we're up to lesson number 14, Don't Be Afraid to Be Blunt. So we're up to lesson number 14. Don't be afraid to be blunt. Okay, so for each one of these, I always start with a story from Magic. So this one takes us back to Rise of the Eldrazi. Okay, so the idea of the set was that we run Zendikar,

and we learned that these ancient creatures had been trapped inside the world. And in Rise of the Eldrazi, they get out. Because they're called the Eldrazi, and. And in Rise of the Eldrazi, they get out. Because they're called the Eldrazi, and this is the Rise of the Eldrazi. So we had to figure out how to design the Eldrazi. So the Eldrazi were definitely challenging to design for. So basically the idea was, they were giant, voracious, alien creatures. You know, they were these things that were sort of like, one of the things about them was that one of the reasons they were so hard to fight story-wise is no one understood what they wanted. They were kind of a force of nature more than anything else. You couldn't reason with them. They didn't have any sort of normal sense of reason. So, and they were

ancient, ancient, ancient beings. They were huge. There were three of them, the Titans we called them. So it was Ulamog, Kozilek, and Emrakul. Those were the three Eldrazi Titans. And so we were trying to figure out how to play them. How do you make giant, voracious, ancient alien beings? That's tricky. So one of the things we did was, and this is the first time we met them. Obviously they came back in Battle for Zendikar. But the first time Brian Tinsman was the head designer. And so what he decided to do was just embrace the giantness.

And he created something that we refer to as battleship magic, which is, what if magic sort of just slowed down a little bit and then allowed players to just get out huge giant creatures and then battled each other? And so the idea was, in order to get the hugeness of the Eldrazi, and note, the Eldrazi were not just the Eldrazi, they created spawns and things. And even their spawns were huge.

So we were trying to figure out how to, we were messing around with sort of how to make them flavorful. So to capture the voraciousness, we came up with a mechanic that was called Annihilate. And what Annihilate did is it had a number. Annihilate 4, Annihilate 2. When you attacked with a creature with Annihilate, your opponent had to sacrifice that many permanents. Now, they can be lands, they can be any permanent. But let's say I had Annihilate, your opponent had to sacrifice that many permanents. Now, they can be lands, they can be any permanent, but let's say I had Annihilate 2.

So if I had Annihilate 2, you would have sacrificed two permanents every time I attacked. So, we tested Annihilate, and it proved to be really strong. It was like, when you had Annihilate, you wanted to attack. It was a very powerful ability. And what tended to happen was, it just took a couple attacks before your opponent was such a, you know, such a negative for having to deal with that,

that often it would win you the game. I mean, we didn't bring Annihilate back in Battle for Zendikar because it proved to be so, what we call snowball-y. Like once you start attacking with Eldrazi, they're just so hard to come back from. That losing, you know,

multiple permanents of turn is just something that you don't rebound from back from. That losing, you know, multiple permanents of turn is just something that you don't rebound from. That really tends to, you know, that it really sort of started winning and just kept winning more and more. But anyway. But our problem was, we were doing playtesting, we had a common creature that had, you know, I think it was a 7-7 or 8-8, and had a Nihilate on it.

I don't remember, but Nihhilate 1, Annihilate 2. But the point was, we had this giant common creature that we wanted you to attack with, because the Eldrazi, like, you were supposed to attack with the Eldrazi. But what we found in playtesting is, when we playtested with less experienced players, they just got scared. They got, you know, it took them a while to get out this giant Eldrazi. They finally got it out, and the last thing they wanted was anything to happen to it, so they weren't attacking with it.

And the problem we had is, like, we knew the ability was powerful. We knew that once you sort of attacked with it and saw how awesome it was, you would attack. But how do you get by that first barrier? How do we get people to attack with it when their gut instinct is, oh, I don't want to put my creature at risk? And so we had a lot of, you know, trying to figure out how exactly to do that.

How do we get somebody to attack with the creature? And finally, the solution that I came up with was, what if we just write must attack? This creature must attack if able. Or attacks if able, I think is the template. This creature attacks if able. Attacks every turn if able. What we did is, if we gave you an Odrazi and just forced your hand,

you had to attack with it. Well, then the player will like, okay, there's no pressure on them. There's no tension. Like, that's just what the creature did. I have no choice. If I play the creature, it's got to attack. And then once they attacked with that creature, they started to see the value of attacking with Odrazi.

And so by making one common creature just mandatory, like, how do we make sure you attack with it? We just force your hand. We force you to attack with it. It was enough to sort of tip the scales and start teaching people about the Odrazi. And the funny thing is, we went through all sort of subtle things, and in the end, so

there's a story, what's the name of the story? It's a famous Greek story, I think, where, I'm blanking on the name of it, but there is a wise soldier or something. Who was it? Was it like, was it David? King David? King Solomon? One of the wise kings of age old. They come and there's this knot. There's this super, like, I don't know,

very intricate knot made out, made out of, like, giant string. And this knot is, you know, the whole thing is, like, feet in diameter, you know, five, six feet in diameter, uh, because of all the, you know, all the interweaving. And it's this really complex knot. Uh, uh, oh, maybe it was Alexander. I think it was Alexander's the story. Um, but anyway, uh, there's some omen or something that says that, you know,

in order to take the village, you have to untie this knot. And so what he does is, the solution is, he just takes his sword and he chops it in half. And this is kind of the solution here. It's like sometimes you just need a straight blunt answer. You know, there's another classic. I used to make magic puzzles and I made a magic puzzle once where I made this very elaborate setup.

And then I gave you a lightning bolt and you know, there's all these different things and different creatures you can kill and different triggers on the creatures and, like, all the stuff. But your opponent was at three life, and you had a lightning bolt, which does three damage. So the idea was, it was just this idea that, yeah, you can look, and maybe there's an elaborate, complicated answer. But you know what? There was a simple answer. Just bolt your opponent.

The board didn't matter. And that was me playing with expectations of puzzles where, like, you have this expectation that there is this really ornate answer, which normally there was. I just wanted to make a point sometimes that, hey, sometimes the answer is direct and simple. So we get to today's lesson. Don't be afraid to be blunt.

And I think part of this is when you are an artist, when you are a creator, you are taught that subtlety is important. You're taught to show, don't tell. You know, that you're supposed to, you know, don't be so obvious about what you're taught to show, don't tell. You know, that you're supposed to, you know, don't be so obvious about what you're doing, that you want some subtlety built into it. You know, and a lot of times that's good. You know, a lot of times you want to be subtle.

I think stories are better when you sort of have to piece some things out that everything is spoon-fed to you. But the point of today is that I think sometimes in all the lessons of subtlety, in all the lessons of sort of not hitting somebody over the head, that you miss that that's a tool. And that's kind of the theme of today's podcast is not that you should always be blunt, not that bluntness is something that's supposed to be used even the majority of the time,

but that it's a tool. It is something that you can use and that too often, I think, people are worried that if they're blunt, that somehow they're not doing their job or they're not being as artistic as they could be. There's a concern, like, I don't think that, I think a lot of today's lessons,

I mean, different lessons come from different places. I think, you know, so one of my favorite books, if you guys don't know this already, is a book on creative thinking called A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger Van Eck. Dr. Roger Van Eck, I believe. He has a PhD. And one of the Head by Roger Van Meck. A doctor, Roger Van Meck, I believe. He has a PhD.

And one of the things he points out all the time is that one of the things, the book's about creativity. And about, the premise of the book is anybody can be creative. The reason you're not creative is not a lack of the ability to be creative, but the fact that you sort of censor yourself. That you create rules that you sort of censor yourself, that you create rules that you then won't break.

And a lot of creativity is recognizing your own rules and figuring out when it's okay to break them. And I think the subtlety rule is another one of these rules that you're sort of taught of, oh, don't be blunt, don't be blunt, don't be blunt. And what you sort of get glossed over is, no, no, no, no, no blunt, don't be blunt, don't be blunt. And what you sort of get glossed over is, no, no, no, no, no. Don't always be blunt. You know, it's very easy when you're starting out to just want to be blunt.

And, you know, I know, for example, I had a class in dialogue. I love dialogue, and I took a class all about dialogue. And what the teacher said was, you know, part of what you're doing in dialogue, when you're writing dialogue, is you are trying to, A, capture how people speak so it sounds like natural speech, and B, you know, people convey information differently. You know, there's a way by which people convey information, and you should understand it.

And what he was saying is that often people don't come out and say what they think, you know, and a lot of dialogue writing is figuring out how to say something without always just saying it. And so, and I think the same thing is true for any art form. I mean, even in game design, you know, that part of, you know, I talk a lot about what games are, are sort of, you're mentally challenging the game player. That you're trying to, you know, things aren't always what they seem, and you have to figure out interesting ways to interact, and can you figure out, you know, can you get to the goal within the rule system

in a way that might not be the normal way to do it? So in games, there's a lot of pushing people to want to be unorthodox in how they function. And so from that is this loud messaging of you don't want to be too obvious. So let me talk to some examples where we try to be a little less obvious in magic and some problems that we got into so for example, Mercadian Masks was a set we made many years ago so Mike Elliott was the lead designer of that and Mike came up with a couple of mechanics

so the two main mechanics of the set one was called spell shapers and spell shapers. And spell shapers were creatures that you could essentially, the flavor was, you could turn cards in your hand into a particular spell. So, for example,

let's waterfront, waterfront bouncer, for example, could turn any spell in your hand into an unsummon. So basically you spent, you know, you spent blue, tap, and discard a card, and now you can summon a creature.

And so the idea essentially is the card said, oh, well I can turn any card in your hand into this card. That's the sort of flavor. But we ended up using a creature type form. They're all spell shapers, but that was the way we signified them. We didn't mark it in any way. We didn't say, you know, we didn't give it an ability word or anything. We just, they could do that

and they all did a similar thing. They all were spell shippers. Then he also had mechanic recruiting. I'm not sure what it got called. It didn't have an official name. Not part of the problem. And there were rebels and there were mercenaries. Rebels were white, mercenaries were black.

What rebels did is the one drop rebel got you the the two-drop rebel, got you the three-drop rebel. And the mercenaries, the three-drop mercenary got you the two-drop mercenary, got you the one-drop mercenary. So white went up, black went down. For those that aren't familiar with recading masks, up is better than down. The rebels ended up being very, very strong. up is better than down. The Rebels ended up being very, very strong. Mercenaries, not so much. So we had two mechanics. These were legit mechanics. They were in a whole bunch of cards. They did something new. But for the Spellshapers,

we just connected them through a creature type. And through the Rebels and the Mercenaries, we connected them through a creature type. So the set had Spellshapers and the set had Rebels and Mercenaries, we connect them through a creature type. So the set had spell shapers and the set had rebels and mercenaries, but there was nothing to sort of call out the mechanics. But, I mean, they were there, and they were loudly there. It wasn't that they were quiet. There were a lot of spell shapers. There was a decent amount of rebels and mercenaries. It was definitely something significant in the deck.

And the rebels and mercenaries, even if they were linear, they called out, you know, you don't want to play one rebel or mercenary, you want to play a whole bunch of rebels or mercenaries. So seeing one made you go look for others. Yet, when the set came out, the number one complaint I got was, why didn't you guys make any new mechanics? And at first I was like, okay, guys, there's new mechanics. And at first, you know, like I have boy-girl twins.

And so when they were born, you know, we'd have a stroller and we'd be, you know, wheeling them around. And, you know, so people would come up to us and they go, oh, are those twins? And we go, yes, this is Adam, our son Adam, and this is our daughter Sarah. And then they go, are they identical? Now, I was taken aback at the time because I'm like, well, one's a boy and one's a girl. They can't be identical.

You know, identical means you have the same genes. You know, it's split. So, you know, you have the same genetic makeup, so you have to be the same sex to be an identical twin. So the first time I heard it, I just, my thought process was, oh, okay, that person, you know, oh, is a little ignorant of what an identical twin is,

but okay. And then it kept getting asked. And then finally, when someone sort of, like, it just takes some amount of time before you realize that, oh, I don't think the average person necessarily knows what an identical twin is. They're not, not, like, it just takes some amount of time before you realize that, oh, I don't think the average person necessarily knows what an identical twin is. They're not, not like, you know, the difference between

an identical twin and a fraternal twin, for those that don't know, or disegotomous, if you don't want to say fraternal, it has to do with whether there was one egg or two eggs. You know, did the egg, did two eggs get fertilized, or did one egg get fertilized and split in two? And if you split in two, they're identical. The gen X are identical, so they're identical twins.

But they're two different eggs, they're two different eggs. I mean, they have the same parents, but they're two different eggs. So, you know, the siblings could look alike, because siblings can look alike, but they can look radically different. And in the case of my children, they're different sexes. So there's a dynamic that happened with Mercatus Mass, that also happened with my twins, which is I finally came to the realization with my twins that, like, oh my goodness,

a lot less people understand what identical twins means than I thought. I understood it. I assumed everybody understood it. And I think Mercadian Masters is a similar quality that I always assumed that, like, hey, I'm a game designer. I really, I can identify game mechanics really easily. But you know what? That's not something most people are necessarily good at. And when you don't label something, that people can miss it.

And that when we didn't label, oh, spell shaping or whatever we wanted to call it, you know, give it an error, give it a name actually, spell shape didn't even do a great job of communicating. The idea that these peddlers, they were all sort of street peddlers, were selling you magic,

and that you could sort of use that magic to turn your cards into whatever that was, wasn't particularly well conveyed. And, like with the rebels and the mercenaries, if we had just given you recruiting or something, but the lack of a keyword or ability word made people not see the connection okay so likewise

there's another example of that is in Urza's Destiny so Urza's Saga had cycling that was one of the mechanics and so I was trying to do a tweak on cycling so cycling is if the card is in your hand you can discard the card pay two, discard the card, and draw a card.

So I made these creatures that, while on the battlefield, you could pay two, sacrifice the creature, and draw a card. So the idea is, oh, it's cycling from play. Normally, you get rid of the card in your hand, you pay two mana to get rid of the card in your hand, and you get a new card. Here, you pay two mana to get rid of the creature in play. And the idea there was, oh, you know, you could block with it and then sacrifice it so the creature remains blocked. Damage was on the stack at this point, so you could do damage on the

stack tricks. But anyway, there was a bunch of different reasons why I might want to trade the permanent I have in play for another card. And so anyway, I was really excited because I felt like, oh, this is a neat take on cycling. But I didn't label it. I didn't say that, you know, get it, it's cycling.

I didn't say cycling from play. I didn't do anything. I just did it and my assumption was, oh, well, you know, clearly you're spending two and cycling in Urza Saiga all costs two. You're spending two generic mana and you're getting rid of something, a card,

and you're getting a replacement card. It seemed really clear to me. And as I started explaining that, every time I explained it, mostly, I mean, a few people got it, but most people were like, oh yeah, I didn't get that. And it happened again and again, and finally you're like, oh, okay, people just, people don't see, get that. And it happened again and again. And finally, you're like, oh, okay. People just, people don't see. You, the game designer, have a critical eye. Like, one of the things that happens all the time in game design is we make a mechanic that structurally is similar to another mechanic. But flavorfully and gameplay-wise is very different. But what happens is, because we tend to look things through the lens of the mechanics,

things will seem really similar to us because we're like, well, that's just this without the trapping. And what we've learned is that the public sees it in its final form. They see it with all its flavor. They see it in its synergy with things around it. And that you can have two mechanics

that are kind of in a vacuum playing similar space, but you dress them up a little differently, have different flavor, put them in different environments and have different synergies, and the audience doesn't see them

as remotely similar. That that's something that we tend to do. Likewise, for example, this example doesn't just go to mechanics, but those were good so let's talk about stories for a second

so for a while we were trying to sort of not sort of spoil the story in the cards so we sort of would like subtly hint at things you know so for example in Theros at the end of the story Elspeth

spoilers here if you haven't read the Theros story, but it's been a while, Elspeth dies. Dies at the hand of Heliod. But we didn't want to spoil the book, so like we,

you know, the set was sort of like very vague on it. We weren't obvious about it, you know, and so what happened was, you know, I mean,

now we have a novel. If you read the novel, the novel told you what happened, a novella, I think, and so what happened was, you know, I mean, now we have a novel, if you've read the novel, the novel told you what happened, or a novella, I think, for Theros, but what happened was, we were subtle about it, we didn't, we weren't very blatant, especially in the card set, that Elspeth died, and then what we learned was, people just didn't understand that Elspeth died, people just didn't understand that Elza died. That we were just, like, you know, that what we learned is when we sort of hold back on the story

and we're not blunt on the story, that people, like, that's a pretty major thing that happened. The main character ended the story by dying. And the majority of people didn't know it. You know, the majority of people, like, when I would bring it up, people were like, what do you mean? Well, yeah, she got killed by Heliod.

What are you talking about? You know, and that really made us sort of rethink, I mean, a lot of the modern storytelling. And I mean, obviously, there's amounts of how blunt you want to be. But a lot of the things we try to do in our storytelling now is be a little more up front to make sure that people get at least the general, like, the idea is let's not be subtle in you getting the general gist of the story.

Let's be subtle in some of the details. You know, it's not that, like, I want you to know that Chandra reunites with her mother. Hey, the subtle, what are the emotions she's feeling? Hey, go read the stories. But I want you to know that Chandra and her with her mother. Hey, the subtle, what are the emotions she's feeling? Hey, go read the stories. But I want you to know that Chandra and her mother,

you know, they got reunited. You know, we put it on a card and like, look, they got reunited. You know, it's a cathartic moment. They got reunited. You know, that we want to make sure that big moments and things that happen, that you're aware of it.

So a different way to think of this, as we talked about today, is that, I'm just bringing back the metaphor I had before. So you have a toolbox. One of the things I like to say is you as an inventor, as a game designer, as a craftsman or whatever, you have a bunch of tools available to you. And one of the things that I've learned over time is that what separates a good artist, game designer or whatever, from a great one often has to do with their tools.

That what happens with somebody who's really good is, you know, and for example, What happens with somebody who's really good is, you know, and for example, one of the things they say is if you want to be a writer, read. If you want to be a director, go see movies. You know, if you want to be a game designer, play games. And why is that so important? Because the more games you play, the more things you experience, the more tools that you learn, the more apt you are. I mean, I think there are a bunch of things that define how good you get to become. One of those things is experience. You've tried things, you know what I'm saying?

Like, essentially, there's three things, I think, that bring wisdom, if you will. One is experience. Have you done it? You know, like, one of the reasons I think I'm a pretty good magic designer is I have done 21, you know, almost 22 years of magic design. I've been designing magic cards continually for that long. That means I've made a lot of magic cards. I've made thousands and thousands and thousands of magic cards. In fact, I've made thousands of magic cards that for that long. That means I've made a lot of magic cards. I've made thousands and thousands and thousands of magic cards. In fact, I've made thousands of magic cards that have seen print. And like I said, like one in a hundred card seats print.

So, you know, if I've seen thousands of cards that saw print, that means I've designed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of cards. I've designed a lot of magic cards. I've made a lot and a lot of magic cards, some of which were really bad. But the experience of making them taught me a lot.

There's a lot that came from the know-how of doing it. Number two, there is knowledge. That part of what makes you better is you learn things. Part of the things, for example, when I am teaching other people is I have a great repository of knowledge in my head that comes from just doing the job for a long time. You know, when someone says, let's try thing X, like, oh yeah, I've tried thing X. Here's

what we learned. You know, that I have a lot of lessons in my head. I mean, part of that is experience and part of that is just I've learned things. Now, they go hand in hand. Experience brings you knowledge. Another thing also is part of knowledge is just you've thought about things. I've made a lot of different sets that did a lot of different things that have made me think about magic in a lot of different ways. So I've learned a lot about magic. There's a lot of knowledge gained there. So number two is knowledge.

Number three, and this is what I'm talking about today, is tools. That one of the things that really makes you valuable is learning, you know, whether it be little tricks, it be little means by which you can do things. Like one of the things, for example, I find when I'm teaching young designers or newer designers is there's a lot of stuff I've tried that has worked and I can share that. I can share sort of, hey, here's the thing that you can do. Here's something that's available to you. And so if you want to get better, if you want to become a better game designer, those are

the three things that you need to think about. You need to, so when I say experience, experience is make games, design games. The more games you've designed, the better you'll get at making games. You want to be a writer? Write. You want to be an artist? Draw. That there's nothing going to, nothing is going to replace the act of doing it and iterating and learning from it. Number two, like I said, you want to be a game designer? Play games, read about games. Study games. I know Richard Garfield, for example, not only does he play every game he can get his hand on,

he has studied the history of games. In fact, he's taught a class in the history of games. Like, how exactly did chess come about? How did backgammon come about? How did checkers come about? You know, what are games that, you know, what, Mancala? There are games that have lasted thousands of years. And the interesting thing is, chess, as you know it, was not always chess. There are games that have lasted thousands of years. And the interesting thing is chess, as you know it, was not always chess.

There are things that are in chess now that weren't always a given. And there are precursors to chess. Chinese chess and a lot of other chess variants that are similar but different. And when you sort of study and look and say, hey, how did this game evolve? You, the game designer, start to, oh, that is interesting. That's interesting they did this, you know. And so something that Richard has done, you know, and that I say to anybody is, hey, you want to be good at the thing you're good at.

And it doesn't matter whether it's games or whatever, but study that thing. You know, I, for example, wanted to create TV shows. I watched a lot of TV. I really wanted to understand how things clicked and how they worked. And, you know, I, for example, wanted to create TV shows. I watched a lot of TV. I really wanted to understand how things clicked and how they worked. And, you know, I was fascinated. I really, really liked Pilots. Pilots is the, a pilot is the first show of a series that introduces the characters and the premise of the series.

And Pilots are really hard to do because you have to both be the introductory and introduce everything while showing an example of what a sample episode would be like. And I really, really, before I got this job, the thing I thought I wanted to do in my life was make TV pilots. I really love the idea of crafting a world and making a world and then finding sort of how you introduce that world. And there's a period of time where I would watch every pilot I could get my hands on to. In fact, there's a,

at the Writers Guild of America, which is a guild I later joined when I became a professional writer. They have a library that anybody can use, not just guild members. And you can watch videos. And I went in and I watched every pilot I could get my hand on to.

And it didn't matter whether I was interested in the show or not. What I wanted to see, I was particularly interested in, I mean, I watched both hour long and sitcom. I was very interested in sitcom. But anyway, I watched both. And I was like, how do you introduce stuff? How do you learn stuff? What are the tricks? And so I educated myself.

I got a lot of knowledge. I also did a lot of writing. The same with game design. Before I worked for Wizards, I got a lot of knowledge. I also did a lot of writing. The same with game design. Before I worked for Wizards, I made a lot of games. I read about games. Now, there weren't a lot of books about game design at the time, but I found the stuff I could. I read the stuff I could.

I went to Gamma is a convention, a game manufacturing association, and there were seminars in game design. I went and I took seminars in game design. I talked to professional people. You know, I acquired all the knowledge I could. Third thing was tools. And what that is, is A, in gathering the knowledge and playing other games and stuff, you know, like one of the most valuable things about playing other games is seeing how they do things,

how they solve problems. And what I say is not just play the game, but think about how the game ticks. Think about what makes it work. What is the engine that drives the game? What's the fun of the game? How does the game make you, you know, like all the lessons, all the other lessons I'm giving you through this series. Like, look at existing games and see how they do it.

You know, and, you know, usually games you can tell if they've lasted the test of time, you know, and play some of the classics and try to understand, okay, why they do what they do, why they do this, why they do that. And it's also fine, something I like to do is

say, hey, is there some place, you know, some way, I mean, always play the original. Something I like to do is say, hey, is there some place, you know, some way, I mean, always play the original and understand the original and then go, hey, is there some way I could adapt it? Could I take this game and add a few rules and maybe, you know, do something to the game that might make the game more fun for me? You know, experiment with it. And so the reason that I, when I talk about bluntness is I believe bluntness is a very important tool that people are kind of trained not to use. And the funny thing is when you start out, it's one of the most popular tools you use.

People, beginners are incredibly blunt. And what happens is, um, this is gonna sound a little weird, but you want to be not too blunt with your blunt brush. You want to figure out where you need to be blunt. So when I say don't be afraid to be blunt, I'm not saying that bluntness is the answer. I'm not saying that every problem is a nail. But I am saying that it's a hammer and that at times you'll have nails

and when you need to pound nails in, you know, a hammer is a good thing to have. And it is really easy. So I did a podcast talking about don't do things to prove you can. A very common thing that I see people doing is they somehow pull-poo the tools and go, oh, that's not the tool of a real artist, you know. A real artist is not blunt, so I will never use the blunt hammer. And what I find is when you get experience and you get knowledge, you start to realize that there are tools that you often write off early on.

you start to realize that there are tools that you often write off early on. There are tools that you're like, it's not when and how you are blunt is not something that should be done lightly. Interestingly, that I'm not saying to be blunt in how you use your bluntness. I'm saying use it carefully. That it is a surgeon's tool and you want to figure out the place to do it. So let me talk through the most common reasons why you might want to use the blunt hammer. Number one is, and this is a good example from my Razzle Razzle story, is

when you try things and your audience just isn't getting it, when you try stuff, and what I say is, it's fine to start from a subtle place. I have no problem saying, okay, let's not hit them over the head. Let's try to be a little subtler on it. But do play tests. Watch. And this is why it's so important to play tests with people that aren't you and your team. You need to play tests with people that don't know your game

and ideally aren't emotionally invested in you because there are things that are obvious for you because you've been playing around with it that there's no way for you to see whether it's something people will understand or not. And so the reason playtests are so important is that you need to constantly be testing. Do people get this?

Does it make sense to them? Do they understand it? And so a common theme you will find in these kind of playtests is players just miss something. And like my example with Mercadian Masks or Earth is Destiny or even my twins, it is so easy when somebody makes a mistake to just gloss it like, wow, that was a weird mistake. I wonder why they made that mistake.

And then what you have to say is whenever anybody makes a mistake, you have to say, oh, could this be a mistake a lot of people would make? And you can't use your value judgment. You know too much. Yes, I get the spell shaping is a mechanic. And yes, I understand how a mechanic works. And yes, I understand the dynamics of how you define a mechanic. And under any definition, yeah, this is a mechanic. But people didn't see it. You know, Earth is Destiny, Cycling from Play. Look, there's so many reasons, there's so many parallels why obviously it is exactly Cycling from Play. And if I said to somebody,

hey, why don't you design a card that cycles from play, they would make the exact same card. But that is not, but the point is, that doesn't mean they see it. You know, being obvious or being sort of direct in how you do something doesn't mean people see it. So number one tool for bluntness is when people aren't seeing something, sometimes what that means is you got to put it in the face. That, you know, you don't want your audience just missing things. So it's okay when you test and iterate

and they're not seeing things, it's okay to use it. The other reason you might want to use the blunt hammer is sometimes misdirection. That sometimes what you want is, I used to do magic as a kid, like actual magic tricks. I'm missing my word I want.

You know, making a pull a rabbit out of a hat and stuff. And one of the things that I learned in that is a lot of the tricks of magic is sort of pulling focus. It's making people pay attention to your left hand when your right hand is doing something. And a lot of the tricks I learned there was that you want to make sure people are looking in the wrong place. So bluntness sometimes is a great way to make people look in the wrong place. So sometimes when you want to mislead, bluntness can be a tool to help people mislead. Another thing is when you have a sequential issue, when you need

to build on something, sometimes you need to be blunt, not because people won't eventually figure it out, but they need to figure it out really fast because there's things that build upon it that if they don't understand that fast, they won't build upon it. So sometimes bluntness is just for ordering, to make people do things in a certain order. That the things you need to find the earliest you're the bluntest with. And so, you know, that is the... Like I said, there's a lot of ways to use the bluntness hammer.

There's a lot of different tools you can use it with. And like I said, it runs the spectrum from your audience isn't getting something to you're using it as a means to make people focus on it for some reason of how you're doing your design. And, you know, the walkway, I'm almost to school today. The walkaway today is that you need to make sure that you have every tool available to you. You want a full toolbox. And the reason this one got called out for a specific lesson,

there's lots of tools. And for example, I write a bunch of nuts and bolts articles, right, talking about how to make magic sets. And in there, I talk about all sorts of tools, like the design skeleton, for example, is a tool that we use in magic design to sort of plot out what we're going to do. And a lot of when I teach people, I like to teach people the tools.

The reason I bring this one on, the reason this had a whole lesson to it is I am fighting something. There are lessons you learn early on in any sort of creative endeavor that you later must unlearn. sort of creative endeavor that you later must unlearn. Like one of the things, for example, when I was a writer is in school, they really pull a lot of common speech out of you that you're taught to write really formally when you're taught writing. And then one of the things as you start to study communications is going, oh, oh, oh, these things you learned early on actually aren't 100% true. That a lot of good communication is being more casual in how you present things.

Same with math. There are certain math concepts that they just teach you, like, this is just true. And then you get to higher math and go, well, it's not completely true. And the reason is early on, sometimes you need to learn things and then unlearn them later on. And I think the bluntness rule is one of those things that when you're first starting out, because beginners are so blunt that you are taught to sort of not be so blunt. And so this is an advanced lesson that says, okay, one of the first things you learn is don't be so blunt. And now what I'm saying is, wait, wait a minute.

Bluntness is a tool. You can use that tool. Figure out when and where and how to use it. Use it effectively. Use it to use it on purpose. But, you know, be very careful with when and how you use it. But don't throw it away. Don't abandon the tool.

It's an important and valuable tool. And there are just times when you need to convey the things you need to convey or your players are just getting it or whatever. You have some reason that you need eyeballs on something and it's a great tool to get the eyeballs there. It is okay in the right place at the right time to force your player's hand. And that, my friends, is lesson number 14. Don't be

afraid to be blunt. But anyway I'm here at Rachel's school so we all know what that means. I mean this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye bye.