Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #470: The Pit

Episode Date: September 15, 2017

In this podcast, I talk about the history of the Pit—the area where R&D works.

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. I dropped my son off at camp. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about the pit. So some of you know exactly what I'm talking about and some of you have no idea what I'm talking about. So ever since I've worked in R&D, the entire time I've worked for almost 22 years, R&D has sat in an area that we've called the pit. If you've ever seen my comic Tales from the Pit, that's the pit being referenced.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about sort of, I don't know, everything you'd want to know about the pit. Today is all about sort of the origins of the pit and what it is like to work in the pit and sort of just stories from the pit, if you will. Tales from the pit and what it is like to work in the pit and sort of just stories from the pit, if you will. Tales from the pit. So anyway, so let's go back to the very beginning. So the very first offices, basically Wizards has been in, well, the very first office,

office, I use in quotes, which you can't see my hands, but was Peter Ackeson's basement. One of the founders of the company, before there was a building, it just worked out of his basement. In fact, a few of the earliest hires actually worked out of the basement. But pretty soon on, once the company started sort of becoming a company,

at least, I'm not sure whether it's post-magic, but for sure post-magic, they actually got office space. And so one of the things that they had done was that R&D, most of the offices just had cubicles that were more traditional cubicles where each person kind of had their own space. But something that R&D liked was that we had to do play testing, that one of the most important jobs of R&D is to play, do a lot of playing.

And so we wanted to sort of create something where people were able to play. And part of the culture of R&D, which started really early, is there just was constant discussions going on. That kind of what would happen is some topic would come up, it would get discussed, and then other people would jump in. And it was very common for the whole group to sort of have a, the whole group would sort of, some topic would come up, then they would um have a group sort of group decision or group group conversation about it that r d's always been very big on discussing things and part of that was built into sort of the philosophy of how our desks were put together was

we wanted people to be near each other so when conversations came up, sometimes, so both, two things. One, we needed to play test narrow decks. And two, we wanted conversations to organically happen because a lot of R&D has always been about having a lot of people jump in and offer opinions on things. So what happened was, the way we set it up was we didn't normally in a cubicle the way cubicles will work is you have high walls all around the person's kind of has their own little office if you will and there's high walls all around but for the pit what we did was we put high walls around the outside of it but

inside the pit there were no walls that everybody's desk there are very very low walls the idea was everybody could see everybody, that you were right near everybody, and that if somebody said something, everybody inside the pit would be able to hear it. Now, I'm not sure why, I'm not sure where the pit came from. I think when I got to Wizards, it was just called the pit, so I wasn't there for the origin of it being called the pit. I definitely have kept calling it The Pit. I'm one of the people that, when we've moved to different buildings,

have always sort of wanted to keep a lot. I like terminology, and I like the idea that R&D has sort of its own space, it has its own identity. And so I like The Pit. I like the concept of The Pit. But anyway, it started as, I mean, one of the things that you, I don't know if you study office furniture, but I've actually, believe it or not, been to multiple talks on setups of offices. And one of the things I keep saying is what you want to do is you want to figure out what's important to you. And then you want to make sure that you set up your office space to facilitate the kind of office you have.

Now, different sections of the company work very differently, but R&D has always been very inclusive and very, you know, we wanted when one person talked to another person, we liked the dynamic that other people would jump in. talk to another person, we liked the dynamics that other people would jump in. And so we built the pit such that, you know, there were no walls within the pit. There was a wall outside the pit. And even now, the current pit, there's not really even walls on the outside. It's pretty, everything's low.

And, like, so anyway, the way it works is, this is this was so we the very first building we ever were at i don't know if it had a name but it's where i where i first started working at wizards 20 years ago 20 plus years ago uh we were there now i we shortly moved after i got there i got there in october and i think in january we were in a new building uh in fact the story for those who've never heard it is we were so close to moving. In fact, when I got there, we had begun moving. We hadn't moved to R&D yet, but we'd begun moving. So they didn't end up giving me a desk that both I and William Jockish didn't get desks or computers. And the idea was that we just, we were told to use other people's desks when they weren't there, that I could log into any computer and log in my password and stuff and then it'd bring up my screen.

So I could do my work on anybody's computer. So for the first couple months, literally I was a nomad. I had no desk. And I just would use other people's desks when they weren't there. Bill Rose, by the way, had a desk. So Bill, William, and I all started the same month. But Bill was good friends with Joel Mick, who was already there. And Joel had saved him a desk.

And so Bill had a desk. But William and I did not have desks. And then we moved to the new building, which is now our old building. So what happens, okay, so real quickly, a history of Wizards offices. So first was Peter's basement. Then was this other office building that was, it was in Renton, but it wasn't near, it was multiple blocks away from where we are now. Then, back in 1995, so I think we moved to that old office in, like,

93, like, I think it was after Magic came out, I believe. Then, we moved from that office to the street we now live on in 95. And we moved into an office that were four buildings that were, there was northeast, south, and west building. They made kind of a square. And the middle there was a section that had kind of like a little fountain that we called the Manipool.

And so there were four different buildings. You had to walk between them. And the buildings were two stories each. Kind of like a little fountain that we called the Manipool. And so there were four different buildings. You had to walk between them. And the buildings were two stories each. And we were in most of the buildings. I think we weren't in, we were in most of them. Anyway, if you ever heard stories of like the 1996 World Championship that was held at our offices, that's where it was held.

The first tournament center we ever ran, that was held at our offices. That's where it was held. The first tournament center we ever ran, that was held. But anyway, I don't know. So back in 2005, I believe, our lease ran up. We had a 10-year lease. And for whatever reason, we ended up moving across the street to a place called Landmark, where we are now. And there's two buildings at Landmark, although we're completely in one building. There's a front building and a back building. We're in the front building. And we take up most of the building. We are most of the first floor,

most of the second floor, all of the third floor, all of the fourth floor. And so that's mostly our building. And so what happened was so we moved to the new building. The pit in the old building was a little looser. I mean, it had low walls, but we didn't have a lot of play space.

We had a little bit of play space. So we moved to the now old building. We set up this thing where we had quads. So the very, very first pit was kind of just open-ended but had low walls. Then, the second pit in the old building, that's when we had the high ceiling wall around it. And then there were four sections of four desks. So, imagine a square, the desks are in the corners, and then the center was a giant table. And so, in the pit, then, there were four sections.

So there's 16 desks that each had its own table at it. And then there were a few people that sat on the outside of the pit, because there was a section that was on the outside. I'm not sure why we had the outside, but there were a few people that sat outside the pit. I'm not sure whether that was their own decision or not. But there were people who sat outside the pit. I'm not sure whether that was their own decision or not. And anyway, I think they called it the Tyco extension after a Netflix,

not Netflix, a Netrunner, a card in Netrunner. Anyway, and then when we moved to the current building in 2005, we rebuilt the pit again, except this time it was all low walls. I don't think there was any high walls. Like, the outside is not high. You can just see everything. And we built a very— There's the same basic thing we built in this one that we built in the old one, which was desks are in clumps of four, and there's a table.

Now, the pit originally, the last pit, had 16 desks. The current pit has one, two, three, four, five, six, six sessions, plus the edits are on the outside. So that's 24 plus four, so 28, I think the current. And then there is some stuff, there's some what we call pit adjacent desks that some people have. And those have high walls. So some of the managers that don't have an office but need to have some sort of space

have high walls that are back there. wall. So some of the managers that don't have an office but need to have some sort of space have high walls that are back there. Now one of the things I many years ago I was asked if I wanted an office and my take on it was I liked being in the pit. I liked being around everybody. I like like I wanted to hear things and the way the pit is situated is they try to sit you near people that you will talk a lot to. So, for example, I sit right across from Eric Lauer. He and I talk all the time because he and I sort of do the front and back end

of all the design development work. So he and I chat a lot. And then usually what happens is, like, the designers are together, the developers are together, the editors are together. There are different clumps of sections. You sit near people who do work similarly to you. So when conversations come up, you're right there to have the conversations.

Now, as the, there's a, in Tales from the Pit my comic, there's a regular comic I do which is called Another Day of Productivity Lost, which is, I use the same picture. It's a picture from the pit from a while ago because it's, well, three of the four people are still there.

It's Eric Lauer, Mark Lobis, Ken Troop, and Tom Lapilli are the four sitting there. Tom Lapilli is no longer at Wizards, but the other three are still in R&D. And the whole idea is

we have a tendency to... We argue about all sorts of things. And a lot of the stuff we argue about is actual work. But some of the times we will get topics that have nothing to do with work that are just very geeky topics. And they're all over the board. I remember one time we were arguing over, like,

if all the characters from Star Wars took on all the characters from Lord of the Rings in basketball, who would win? And then, I mean, as is the case, we're like, okay, well, could they use their powers? Is that allowed?

You know, and they're like, well, if they use their powers... And so we decided that... Decided that the Jedi's had the edge there, but it had a lot to do with what Gandalf was up to, because really he was the powerhouse of the other team. But anyway, we will often have discussions, and the discussions, they range all over the place.

Sometimes I stress, a lot of the time the discussions are actual magic things. I know the comic, I mean, for the sake of the comic, I goof off without talking about other things but sometimes we actually have conversations that are about shocker at work. And one of the things that people do not realize is how

we will debate the most minute elements of magic. Now sometimes those debates are in meetings we have card crafting, stuff like that. But a lot of times they're organic in the pit. And there's some topics, like one of the topics that I, like every year we have a Hall of Fame that I go off in my Hall of Fame rant because I have a very different, like I have a very different opinion

what the Hall of Fame is than some other people in the pit. And then I think they're sick of hearing my take on it because every year the Hall of Pit comes up again and I start up again. going to because every year the whole pit comes up again and I start up again. But anyway, so the pit is designed to be a place of communication. Often we have pretty interesting, like some of the best ideas we have for how to fix magic start in the pit. For example, there's a recent example where there's a problem

in magic. We recognized it. we talked about it in the pit we came up with what we thought was a good solution walked through the solution and now we're setting up a meeting to run through the rest of R&D to see if that solution will work so once it, I can't tell you this because it hasn't happened yet but there's a lot of interesting things that come up in the pit

a lot of times what will happen is one or two people start a conversation other people will hear it, they jump in and then there's real work that come up in the pit. A lot of times what will happen is one or two people start a conversation, other people will hear it, they jump in, and then like there's real work that gets done in the pit. There's real sort of conversations that then turn into serious conversations. So some of them are 100% like very important, we get work done. Other things that happen in the pit sometimes, they vary from tangentially being connected to not remotely being connected to magic.

I think we had a day a while back where we were arguing who the most famous Rick was. And you'll notice sometimes after the people follow me on Twitter, sometimes when we argue

about something, I'll post it on Twitter to get feedback to sort of have some ammo so I can argue with some info on my side. So like I posted who's your favorite Rick? And I got people to tell me, and then I took the top four votes,

and then I made a poll out of it. So if you follow me on Twitter, for example, sometimes those conversations will bleed out into Twitter. Okay, another important part of the pit, not just arguing with each other, is having the place to play. So most playtests happen in the pit, not just argue with each other, is having the place to play. So most playtests happen in the pit. Every once in a while, if you're in a meeting and you have a meeting room, sometimes a playtest is in your meeting room.

But usually, usually playtests are done in the pit. A, it's because it's easier to get more people if you need extra people to playtest. And it just cross-pollinates the ideas, gets other people seeing the cards. Like one of the things that most people don't realize is I'm in an interesting position where I see everything because I'm in charge of making sure everything's doing what it's supposed to be doing. So I have a vantage point of every set, or almost every set. That is not true of most people.

The way R&D works for most people is you work on set A, and maybe you don't work on set B, and then you work on set C, and maybe set D, but not set E or set you work on set C, and maybe set D, but not set E or set F. So there's gaps in people. So a lot of people are very knowledgeable in some sets and less knowledgeable about other sets. So one of the reasons that we do playtesting

and we have kind of open information is we want people to see things. So it's very often sometimes when you're playing, somebody who has not seen the set you're playing will come and kind of watch you play a little bit or ask you some questions because they're trying to figure out what the new thing is. Now, we do have meetings like the Magic Meeting on Tuesdays where we will do presentations and explain stuff to people. So people get looped in, but there's a difference between hearing about something and actually seeing it be played. And so that's another real valuable aspect of the pit

is, I mean, like I said earlier, one of the big philosophies on workspaces is you want your workspace to facilitate the kind of work you do. And, you know, I've talked about this time and time again, that magic is a collaborative effort. No one person, you know, with rare exceptions, no one person makes something. It is a group of people making something. And even beyond the group that's dedicated to making it, they constantly get feedback from other people. You know, even if you're not on a set, you might playtest a set or have an idea for a set or argue with somebody about a set or give feedback. Everybody in R&D tries to be involved as much as they can in everything we make.

Now, one of the things we do is every once in a while we have what we call game days where we will not work for the day. Well, we'll not do our normal work for the day. Instead, we will all play. We'll pick some set that's in the middle of being made and everybody will play it. And then we have just sheets you fill out to get feedback on it. And it's like, OK, let's play soup. Let's play spaghetti.

Let's play meatballs. And then everybody sort of takes the day and play everybody who can. Sometimes the people who have pressing work, they have to get done. But usually everybody who can takes that day. We bring lunch in and it's fun. And like usually the way it works is for the play days is there's drafts that go on.

They make sealed products. They make some pre-constructed decks. There's a bunch of different ways you can play depending on your time. Usually if you play all day long, you try to play a bunch of different ways so you can experience the set through a couple of different ways you can play depending on your time usually if you play all day long you try to play a bunch of different ways so you can experience the set through a couple different vantage points and then

at the end of the day or ongoing during the day you pick a lot of notes and you give notes in that's true of any playtest by the way that if you participate in a playtest there's always up on the wiki there's always notes and then you're supposed to give feedback on your playtest in the wiki

and one thing that's important if you're running a set and you run a playtest, those feedbacks can be really key. Because R&D is pretty blunt and so if something is working or not working, they will tell you in great detail. And one of the things I say is we play a lot of bad magic so you don't have to. You know, we try a lot of things and not everything we do is in the best form. And we make broken things or unfun things. We do things. And that part of getting the set from a

not great place into a great place is having a lot of people play it. And the pit is a big part of that. That just having a place where people can play, where you can pick up, you know. The other neat thing about the pit is if you are bored and in the pit, there'll be something to grab your attention. Maybe there's a playtest you can join. Maybe there's a conversation you can jump in.

Maybe there's, oh, some other cool things that happen in the pit, just other variety of pit things. So sometimes brand will get goodies from one of our licensees, you know, sleeves or binders or whatever, and they will bring it down to R&D, and so we can get some goodies for ourselves. Sometimes there'll be food elsewhere in the building and R&D got a rep for eating food

that other people won't eat or eating leftover food. So oftentimes when there's leftover food they'll bring it to the pit. I also, by the way, I'm famous for bringing in sweets and stuff to the pit.

My wife and I love throwing parties and often we'll have extras because we make too much food and so I often will bring in food to the pit. And I've told a bunch of stories about the pit over the years. I'm approaching

500 podcasts. Before the year is out, I will have 500 podcasts. So if I hit a story or two that I've told, I'm trying not to tell stories I've told before. I really do try. But when you have as many podcasts as I do, sometimes you hit things. So I want to talk about the Randy Farmer. So we had somebody who was a prankster, who I still to this day don't know who it is, although the prank stopped, so I assume they went away.

But many years back, there was somebody who I used to call the Randy Farmer because they used to do farm-themed pranks. Like one day, in fact, I was going out of town, and I stopped in because Brian Tinsman was giving me a ride to the airport, and somebody had covered my desk. Covered. I mean, every square airport. And somebody had covered my desk. Covered. I mean, every square inch of my desk had eggs on it. They were in cartons.

But like open cartons with eggs everywhere. Like not like the sealed cartons you get at the store, but like the open cartons you get at like a farmer's market or something. And my desk was covered, covered with eggs. Like every square spot had eggs on it um there's a different person who came in and their whole desk had been covered in hay that someone had just taken hay and covered everything in hay uh and there was there were a bunch of these and they happened about for a little while they were happening like once a month

for a little while they were happening like once a month and they were always farm themed and they were always incredibly whoever did them it was very thorough and they were it was particularly funny if it wasn't your desk when it was your desk you you had to clean it up although I had to leave town so actually other people cleaned my desk which led to the this story I think I told but so I walk in see my desk covered in eggs

took a few pictures but I go to the airport I'm late to the airport because the reason I stopped in is to get 10 minutes drive to the airport so other people

cleaned up the eggs anyway flash forward many months later and there's a smell and I assumed it was Worth Wilford's gym bag because his desk was right next to mine.

And eventually what I realized was that there was a box on my desk that was like a box for cards that had been empty. And so when they put eggs on the desk, they had put eggs in the box. But when people had cleared my desk, they didn't think to look inside anything. And so I hadn't looked inside that box in months. Nobody looked my desk they didn't think to look inside anything and so i hadn't looked inside that box in months nobody looked inside when they cleaned the desk so it turns out the eggs had been sitting there for months and they had gone bad and that was the smell um and then uh we had to get the eggs into the garbage can and a few must have broken of us moving it and then no one was in the pit for the day. Well, except for me.

No one was in the pit for the day. It smelled horribly, but I have a horrible, horrible sense of smell. So it didn't bother me because I couldn't, I mean, the fact that it took me that long to even recognize the smell

that I thought, oh, Jim, you know, it was Worf's bag meant I, you know, it was right next to me and I barely could smell it. So for those who don't know, I have very good hearing, very bad sense of smell.

I don't know what that means. Other fun pit adventures. In the ceiling, we have who I call Randy. I said Randall. He's the R&D llama. That's how he gets his name. I don't know how he got that. It's a little stuffed llama. Here's my take on what happened, but I'm not 100%. I think what happened is somebody did something that accidentally made a hole in the ceiling.

Like they were throwing something or whatever. Somebody accidentally made a hole, which was a big deal. So to cover up the hole, they took this little stuffed llama and poked his head there. And because he was there, he kind of like... Because whenever you looked up there, you saw him, but it kind of made it feel like the ceiling was okay. So someone did that to sort of hide that there was a hole in the ceiling.

And he has been there... I mean, that happened the first year of us getting... And we moved in 2005, so it's 12 years ago. So anyway, Randall's been there forever. And I always point him out to new people, and they're like, oh, I didn't realize he was there. But I posted pictures of Randall on been there forever. I always point him out to new people, and they're like, oh, I didn't realize he was there. But I posted pictures of Randall on my social media.

People seemed very enamored with him for some reason. But he's the R&D llama. Stuff llama. Other things in the pit. We changed around from time to time. In fact, we're about to do another big change. I think we're moving to a different place

within the building. Oh, here's a funny story. So we have the pit in the old building, not the current building, but the old building, and I had my desk and I had some stuff hanging from the ceiling. We're not allowed to hang stuff from the ceiling in the current version, so I don't have to. But I, like,

unglued, had a little hanging thing, and I had some hanging stuff. Anyway, they were redoing the pit, and so I had always had theing the pit and so I had always had the same desk and so officially my desk was going to be moved but it turned out that my desk, because they sort of broke everything down

and then rebuilt it and my desk was literally one foot from my old desk that I didn't even move my hanging things because they were fine so in the old office I always had the same desk. So like I didn't have a desk in the first building. I was a nomad. I had one desk in the second building.

Oh, the funny story though is I finally get, so I didn't have a desk. So I said I wanted a desk. Like, oh, when you get to the new office, you'll get a desk. And then I get there and for like weeks, I have a desk, no chair, no computer, no phone. And my joke at the time was, I guess when I asked for a desk, I should have been a little more specific. But anyway, I had one desk in the old building for 10 years. Then in the new building, I think I'm on my third desk. We've moved around. The pit itself hasn't really moved, but we've moved desks because we'll shuffle around a little bit,

and I always stick with my group. So I've sat in three different spots, all by the window. Oh, the way the pit works is whenever we have to pick seats for the pit, it gets to go in priority, sorry, seniority order. So I'm always the first person to pick my seat, and I always pick one by the window to get some sunlight. But I don't know. Actually, the new building, I'm not sure where I'm sitting in the new one.

I don't think Eric likes the sun, so if I want to be near Eric, maybe I'm not sitting near the sun. We will see. But anyway, the I don't know. The point of today is I just try to hit different topics, and 460, and I guess you got to shake it up. The pit, though, for those that have heard of it, it is...

I like to think of it as part of R&D. Like, it is... The two things that have been... There's only two things, R&D things, that have lasted since I started almost two years ago. Which was the pit, which is where we sit, and the danger room, which is a room right near the pit that we use for meetings. Maybe one day I'll talk about the danger room

and where that came from. But anyway, I like the pit. I enjoy the pit. Like I said, I've had choices to move out of the pit, which I've turned down. I kind of like being in the center of everything. I like sort of jumping in

on arguments, whether or not those arguments are actually about magic or about which cloned dwarf. If you can make an army out of one clone to the seven dwarves, which one would you want?

Some of these, by the way, some of these you might recognize as comics because I use a lot of actual conversations we had in comics. My argument, by the way, some of these you might recognize as comics because I use a lot of actual conversations we had in comics. My argument, by the way, for which clone dwarf

was sneezy because it's like kind of chemical warfare. But anyway, so that, my friends, is probably more than you possibly could know about the pit.

But it is something that goes back to the very early days of magic. And I like to think that it has contributed to some... Probably there are a few things in magic that you love dearly, be it a card or a theme or something we did. And that started because one or two people or three or four people were in the pit

and it came up and it spread from there. I've had... Okay, my last story, my last pitch story. This is a famous, famous pitch story. It has to do with Scaf Elias and Jim Lynn. And I'm not sure if I've told this story on my podcast, but it's a classic story. So in case you haven't heard it, and then I will call it a day. So I used to, in the early days, I would go to work.

I would get to work early, stay to work late, and then I would go home and I would sleep at the apartment, at my apartment. But really, I spent very little time there. I mostly just slept there. So one night, Scaf and Jim, and for those who don't know, Scaf Elias is... Both of them are East Coast playtesters, have been into the game since the very beginning. They both designed Ice Age, Alliances, Fallen Empires, Antiquities. Really smart guys. Both of them were VPs at one point.

Jim was VP of RD for a while. Scaf was the Magic Brand Manager for a while. Both of them smart guys, and both of them for a while. Skaff was the Magic Brand Manager for a while. Both of them smart guys, and both of them love to argue. So, it's late at night, I'm trying to do work, and Skaff and Jim are arguing. I don't even remember them arguing about something.

It was work-related. It wasn't like, you know, arguing about which is the best Star Wars film, which is a big debate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you're going to say Empire Strikes Back, but it's built upon Star Wars. A new hope. Anyway, see, of everything I say,

that's when it's going to cause the most controversy in response to this thing. Anyway, so Skaff and Jim are just going at it. They're yelling at each other, and for hours, for hours. So finally, I'm tired. I've been working late. I mean, it's late in the morning. So I go home.

I go home to go to sleep. So I go home. I go to sleep. And I sleep for a good amount of time because I'm, you know, I... So anyway, I get a full night's sleep. I get up. I probably have some breakfast or something.

I come back to work. Now, I'm not far from work at this point. Work's probably five minutes away. But anyway, I did drive home. I slept for a full night's something. I come back to work. Now, I'm not far from work at this point. Work's probably five minutes away. But anyway, I did drive home. I slept for a full night's sleep. I had breakfast. I probably had dinner, had breakfast. I get up.

I go back to work, walk in the pit, and Scaf and Jim are still having the argument. That argument, I believe, clocked in at something crazy like 10 hours, 11 hours. What is known as the longest argument ever held in the pit. And we've had some long arguments in the pit, but nothing that long. So anyway, guys, that is more than you probably want to know about the pit. But I'm now at work, so we all know what that means. It 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 guys next time.