Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #493: 20 Lessons: Challenging Players

Episode Date: December 1, 2017

This is the sixteenth installment in my "20 Lessons, 20 Podcasts" series where I talk about each of my lessons from my 2016 Game Developers Conference talk. In this podcast, I talk about the lesson "Be more afraid of boring your players than challenging them."

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. So I dropped my daughter off for a college class and we're headed to work. Okay, so today is another in my 20 Lessons 20 podcast series based on my 2016 GDC talk, where I talked all about the many lessons I've learned designing the same game for 20 years. Okay, so today is lesson number 16. Be more afraid of boring your players than challenging them. Okay, so the story for this one is actually a story I've told in my podcast, but it's part of this presentation, so I'm going to tell it again. Okay, so back in 1998, I made a set called Unglued,

which was the very first silver-bordered set. The idea of a silver-bordered set is it's a set where we can do things we don't normally do. They're not tournament legal cards. We can push boundaries. And there's a lot of humor to the set. But also, it's one of the things I'm doing from a design standpoint is just pushing in directions that magic hasn't yet pushed. It's a place for me to be experimental and try new things. So one of the things I tried was I made a card called BFM, Big Furry Monster, which was a creature

9999 creature. A creature so big that you had to have two cards. That it had a left side and a right side. In order to play it, you had to have both cards, that it had a left side and a right side. And in order to play it, you had to have both cards in your hand in order to play it. And then it cost 15 black mana. And that was the most popular card in Unglued, according to our data research. So when I was making Unglued 2, which is a set that never actually got made, but the year after Unglued I made a sequel called Unglued 2. And in it I took the idea, I said, well, people like a card so big that it has to be on two

cards. What if I went the opposite direction? What if I made a card so small that two of them can fit on a card? And the idea I had that I really liked was the idea that you had a choice, that you could cast either the left card or the right card. We called them split cards. And what happened was Unglue 2 got put on Hay, this never got made. So a couple years later, I was working on Invasion,

which was the first multicolor-themed block. So the team was me, Bill Rose was the lead designer, myself and Mike Elliott were the team, the three of us. And so what happened was while we were working on this and it had a multicolor theme, I said, I really, really liked the split cards. And so I came to Bill and I said, okay, Bill, I have a kind of a weird idea.

It was something I was going to originally do in Silver Border, but I, like, there's nothing about it that, like, the game, I mean, the game requires some new rules. But they weren't, they were weird in the sense that they were pushing in new boundaries, but it wasn't, you know, I wasn't asking you to click like a chicken or anything. It's like, oh, it's a card, you can cast either of the two cards. And so the interesting thing was Bill liked them. Mike hated them. But I liked them. Bill liked them, Mike hated them, but I liked them, Bill liked them, Mike hated them, two to one, it was in the set. Plus Bill was the lead, I guess.

And then, as we showed them around the offices, I showed them to Richard Garfield, he liked them, and then that was it. That Bill, Bill, Richard, and I were the only ones in the building that liked the split cards. In fact, the very first meeting,

Henry Stern was the lead developer of Invasion, and the very first meeting, the very first thing he said is, can we just take these out of the file? And I was like, no, no, no. And I had this big defense of, like, Henry, I'm not sure how we're going to lay them out. You know, the idea I have right now is, you know, is the shocking version, but, you know, there's sure how we're going to lay them out. You know, the idea I have right now is, you know, is the shocking version.

But, you know, there's ways to do it that are more normal looking. Let's just try it. Before we kick it out, let's just try it. And I managed to keep them in. And little by little, I got the team to warm up to them. Bill, meanwhile, spent a lot of time working with Bran, getting Bran to warm up to them. And Bill and I managed a pretty impossible feat, which is we started with a mechanic that nobody in the building liked and ended, I mean, it made print.

So the interesting question was, okay, here was something that, you know, there was a lot of resistance to. A lot of people thought we were doing something we shouldn't do. So what happens when the public saw it? They loved it. The public liked was a lot of resistance to it. A lot of people thought we were doing something we shouldn't do. So what happens when the public saw it? They loved it. The public liked it a lot. Now, that's not to say there weren't naysayers.

I'm not saying everybody loved it. But the vast, vast majority liked it. And they really, really liked it. So much so that we've done split cards in other sets. They've come back multiple times. And, you know, it's definitely something that's become... And not only have we brought them back, we've expanded upon them. We added the fuse mechanic where you could play both sides.

We recently did something called Aftermath in Amonkhet, where you could cast the first side normally and the second side out of the graveyard. We've started expanding upon the technology of what split cards are, because the players really enjoy split cards. Okay, so that brings me to today's lesson.

Okay, so I have introduced a lot of radical concepts. You know, a lot of things. The split cards, hybrid mana, double-faced cards. You know, a lot of things where we were fundamentally breaking some rule we had never broken before. And every time we've done that, whether or not it's my idea, I mean, this is true for pitch cards. Pitch cards, Force of Will is a pitch card. We had a cycle of them in alliances where instead of casting them, you could discard

a card of the same color and on a few of them pay a life. And then without any mana, cast spells. That was really radical. You know, we got a giant letter from customer service saying that we were just fundamentally breaking something we shouldn't do. You know, we made double-faced cards. We were trying to figure out a cool way to make werewolves. We ended up with this idea

that Tom Lapilli had gotten from Duel Masters, another game we made. And I, even I was skeptical now. And even I was like, I don't know. But we tried it. And it just worked really well. And so when we went to make them, once again, people came out of the woodwork.

You know, whenever we try to challenge things, whenever we do something that hasn't been done before, there are always people, very passionate people, that want to stop us. Now, let me, a little side on these people. These, these are people who intentions are good. What they are trying to do is do what they consider to be the right thing for the game. And, you know, I, I don't, I don't begrudge, like, one of the things that when you work on a game, it is your job to try to make sure good things happen and try to stop bad things from happening. And so these people really, really believed that something we were doing,

and not always the same, different people, different time, but whenever we try to make an idea that's a little more out of the box, there are people that step up and say, no, you should not make that. That's fundamentally wrong. Now, interestingly, I also make mechanics that end up to be not so great. I make boring mechanics. And I'm not saying that people don't ever try to stop at the boring mechanics. They do.

You know, if I make a mechanic that's not fun, people will say to me they don't think it's fun. But there's a little less passion there. You know, like when I try to make split cards or double face cards or we try to make pitch cards there were just people that were so like you know threw their body in the way like you can't do

this and when I try to make boring mechanics it's more like eh I wouldn't make that you know it's not there's not the passion that you know people will sort of speak against something. But it's a different animal from what happens when we're trying to do something where we're fundamentally doing something different. There's just a really different reaction. And so the thing I always ask is, why is it that when we kind of do groundbreaking stuff, the reaction is so strong against?

But when we do, eh, kind of boring stuff, I the reaction is so strong against. But when we do kind of boring stuff, I mean, sometimes nobody speaks up. And sometimes the people that speak up are like, well, I don't like it. You know, I wouldn't do it. You know, but it's not the same thing. It's not the throwing your body with passion saying, you can't do this. We don't get that with the boring mechanics. So why? Why is that? And I believe it comes down to a fundamental belief that a lot of people have. That the idea of challenging the players is more dangerous than boring the players. And what I realized is that's exactly the opposite from the truth. So let's walk through what happens. So let's say we do something out of the box, something crazy. What I found is there are players that will dislike things we do. There

are players that go, what are you doing? You can't do that. And it's not that there aren't players that sort of don't come back and say they don't like something. But what tends to happen is that even when we make a mistake, if it's a glorious mistake, if it's something in which we're trying, that the audience tends to say, okay, yeah, that was a mistake, but hey, I kind of like the way you're thinking. You know, that when you do something sort of daring, that people sort of sit up and go, I can't believe they did that, and go, what are they going to do next? So when people see something that they don't like, but that it, it stirs something within them that they're less likely to leave the game because they're sort of

like, okay, I didn't like that, but, but if they're going to do that crazy thing, what else could they do? That usually the response to you challenging it is the audience sort of being accepting. So my metaphor for this is in my college years, I used to do both improvisational comedy and stand-up comedy. Okay, so stand-up comedy is you write a routine. You write a routine, you practice it, and then you go to a comedy club and you talk about it. Improvisation is you have nothing planned. I mean, you have some formats and things planned. But the idea is you get up in front of the audience and you ask for things.

And then you make up something that clearly can't preexisted because you're basing it on the audience's suggestions. And the idea is the audience is really different from those two things and what I found was that the audience for doing stand-up comedy is you've rehearsed this make me laugh you know there's no mercy there

if you do something they don't find funny like that's not funny make me laugh but with improv even when you have a scene that doesn't go that well, that they're kind of impressed by the gumption that what improv represents. And so they're much, much more forgiving

when things don't quite work out. Where when you bomb at stand-up, they are ruthless. You know, they want nothing to do with you. They'll boo you, you know. Where in improv, when you have some failures they're a little more forgiving I'm not saying the whole show can't be

it's not that you can't ever perform but they're more forgiving of you and I think that's kind of similar in that when you're doing something challenging when you're doing something out of the box the audience is like okay wow they were really doing something and they give you a little bit more latitude because they recognize that what you're doing

is pretty out there. When you bore somebody, you know, when you bore them by just doing something that either you've done before or just it's not a full thought out idea, they get a little more frustrated because it's like, hey, hey, your job is to entertain them, right? Your job is to make a fun game. And at least when you're challenging them, you're trying something, you're experimenting. They can see that you're doing something you haven't done before.

But usually when you're boring them, part of what's boring them is like, ah, I've seen this before. You know, usually boring is not innovative because that's not boring. You might not like it, but it's not boring. But when they get bored, they start to lose hope in you. They start to go, oh, well, I don't know. If this is the kind of things the games do, do I want to see more of it? I mean, a lot of it is extrapolative, which is if I see something crazy, I go, oh, well, in the future, you'll do crazy things.

If I see something boring, in the future, you'll do more boring things. But the idea of something crazy is like, maybe you'll do something interesting. But with boring, it's like, ah, you know. So the reality is, when you challenge players, the risk of challenging them, they're less likely to leave. Where when you board them, they're more likely to leave. I talk a lot about, in game design, about how the role of a game designer

fundamentally is to make them play the next game. Of your game, not a different game. So, game one, you want them to play game two. Game two, you want them to play game three. Game 45, you want them to play game 2. Game 2, you want them to play game 3. Game 45, you want them to play game 46. Game 112, you want them to play game 113.

That's the role of the game designers. Make a game dynamic enough at every level that the player wants to keep playing it. And so one of the things to watch out for, one of the biggest dangers is, are you doing something that will make an exit strategy? Are you doing something that will make something leave?

And I think the thought is, if I do something challenging, that the person will just react like, oh, I can't believe this, and they'll walk away. That's the worry. Like, oh, I've done something so disruptive, so upsetting to them, that they'll just go, oh, I'm never playing this again.

Where, like, there's a sense, and I've talked about this, another lesson I've talked about this, of there's a sense that somehow not upsetting people is safer than possibly shocking them. You know, the idea that, like, I, you know, one of the lessons earlier on was if everybody likes your game but nobody loves it, it will fail. And kind of that lesson was all about the idea that like to succeed, you have to have passion. That just making people not dislike it is not enough.

You have to make them care about it. And so it's the same sort of, this is an extrapolative lesson of that one, which is if I want to challenge somebody, I'm going to stir something in them, even if they don't like it. Even if, like when I do something radical, usually the audience either feel strongly for it or feel strongly against it. But they're not middle of the road about it usually. They have feelings about it if you're doing something truly different, if you're really challenging them. When you bore them, that's not the case at all. You know what I'm saying? It's sort of like, at best when you

bore them, it's sort of like, oh, okay, I guess I don't mind this too much. You know, and at worst it's like, oh, this is just not fun. I don't want to do this. And so that, the core of today's lesson is the idea that I think there's this people are so afraid of the negative that they don't understand the rationales

behind the negative what is the person doing for example I can't believe they did that is a very different reaction from and I can't believe they did that, is a very different reaction from, you know, and I can't believe they did that, is a much better response to get than, you know, the number one reason somebody will not play your game the next time. The number one reason is, it wasn't an enjoyable

experience. And now, the very first time you play, if you don't enjoy it, your chance of playing again is near zero. But later on, if the player's played it for a while, they're willing to, you know, a Magic player who's played Magic for many years is not going to just quit Magic because they don't like a particular card, a particular mechanic, you know. I mean, at worst, maybe they don't like a whole set and maybe they sit out for a little bit. But, odds are they're going to peek their head back in. Odds are if they played Magic for a while, that one bad experience is not going to turn them off. Well, if that bad experience is something in which they see what the attempt is,

but if they play it and it just isn't fun they're going to go I'm not having a good time I'm just not enjoying this and if they see that often enough they say oh this game doesn't have the potential to make me happy it doesn't have the potential to excite me and that's when they move on

okay now the lesson really is trying to say to game designers, don't be afraid of pushing boundaries. Don't be afraid of trying new things. Because that is way less problematic. Okay, but there's a corollary to this, which is, it's very easy to walk away from this lesson saying,

well, if boring players is a problem, then I should just be challenging them every chance I get. So let me talk a little bit about how, when and how to challenge. Because the idea is you want to challenge the players, but there are some means and ways by which to do it. So number one is what you're doing has to be organic to the game you're making. That, for example, Innistrad didn't start out, you know, we, I mean, I do think you can start with having an idea and build around it.

But we didn't force Double Faith into Innistrad. We're not like, we're making a Gothic horror set and, okay, we've got to figure out a way to get Double Face cards in here. What we did is, it came about because we were trying to solve a problem. How to do werewolves. And that it was a suggestion of how to do werewolves. We knew we needed the creatures to be in a human state some of the time and a werewolf state some of the time. How do you do that?

some of the time, and a werewolf did some of the time. How do you do that? And like I said, Tom, Tom Lapilli, who was on my design team, had worked on dual mafters, had seen the double-faced cars. He knew the technology for printing existed. And he pitched them. And I was skeptical. I really was. I really didn't think necessarily this was going to be the answer.

But, and this is important to understand, I experimented with it to be the answer. But, and this is important to understand, I experiment with it. I tried it. Don't ever stop doing things just because of the presumption that it couldn't possibly work. There's two reasons for that. One is, sometimes the things that you don't see working can work.

You know, don't underestimate sort of the ability of ideas. And second is, sometimes the ability doesn't work, but it's a stepping stone to get you to an idea that you would never get to without it. So one of the things in early design, which is true for me in exploratory and beginning of vision, is try things. Try crazy things.

Try things that couldn't possibly work. Because sometimes those things that couldn't possibly work. Because sometimes those things that couldn't possibly work do in fact work. And by the way, a little corollary to my corollary. I do think if you have a cool new idea, you can start with a cool new idea and build around it. Like if I had said, I really, really like double-faced cards,

how can I make use of that? I could have started it as a thing I wanted to start with and built around it. The thing you don't want to do is throw an idea into a set just because you had the idea. The idea is either not built into the set from the beginning or organic to the set.

I wouldn't halfway through Innistrad go, oh, double-faced cards are cool, let's put them in Innistrad. Unless they organically fit. So the idea is, a challenging idea shouldn't be done just because it's a challenging idea. My lesson today is

be willing to challenge yourself and be willing to try ideas, and don't be afraid that pushing boundaries will push your audience away. Now, I mean, once again, another common thing to do something, and once again, there's a whole lesson about this,

is someone goes, I want to prove I can do something. Another bad reason to do it. Like, don't do a mechanic just to prove that you can do the mechanic. I don't mind you building around it. I don't mind you going, I've tested it. Like, whenever you have an idea, you always want to test your idea

and then, you know, make cards that are that idea. I mean, in a, I'm talking in magic, but whatever your idea is, test it. Playtest it. First playtest it with your own design group. And then if it goes well and it's really radical, do some playtesting

with outside people. You know, see what they think. Take people that enjoy the kind of game you're making and see what happens when you do that. That a lot of the idea of pushing boundaries isn't you should just push them wherever, whenever. It's you should push them when they make sense. And you should test them. You know, one of the things about trying something new is, I want to see how people react. And sometimes what you'll learn is that your idea, you have to sort of inch your way toward your idea. Sometimes you try something and it's too far away, the audience can't get there. But if you give them a sort of middle point first,

that then they can, you know, sometimes you sort of work up to an idea. Another thing is understand how much, where your idea works and how much of your idea works. Another big mistake sometimes is I try something and it's fun and I go, okay, you know, I'm just going to push it to make it as large as possible. And my metaphor for that is my cake and icing metaphor, which is understand whether your element is cake or it's icing. What I mean by that is icing is something that's tasty. It's probably the tastiest part of the cake. But a cake of just icing isn't particularly interesting.

That you need the cake to ground the icing. The icing is sweeter than the cake. But the idea is that you need the cake to a cake. You need the substance to a cake. And that sometimes you have things that add value, but they add value because they add some sweetness. They do something that enhances it. But they themselves aren't the core gameplay experience.

And so when you're sort of pushing boundaries, make sure you understand what role the thing you're pushing boundaries on has. What is it doing? Like, for example, split cards is a good example where I had a neat idea. We didn't do a lot of split cards. You know what I'm saying? We, I think they were an uncommon cycle. They were one cycle at uncommon. Is that right? I think they were one, yeah. And then we did, we did one cycle in Invasion and then another cycle in Apocalypse.

So they were just in the whole block, 10 cards. Because what we knew was it was something really different and what we wanted to do was just get some excitement you know that same with hybrid for example the first time i did hybrid um it was in uh ravnica original ravnica and it was just a little bit of spice and you know i realized it was something that was kind of cool but we started by making it but we started by making it the icing by making it something new and different and then later on once people sort of got understood it and it was an accepted sort of element of the game then we started finding ways to make it more of a tool obviously we did shadow more what was the major theme you know and then you see things like

alara reborn or fate reforged where like we had to solve a problem and it was a tool to help us solve the problem where it wasn't a splashy thing at all it was an interesting tool and so part of part of pushing boundaries is understanding what you're doing and where you're doing it a very common thing if you're making an ongoing game like Magic is the first time you do something there'll be some splash value to it and then in later times it's less about splash and more about functionality so you can understand where things get used double-faced cards have proved to be an interesting thing

in that the double-faced technology there's a lot of different components to it so for example, when we made Magic Origins and we made the you know the planeswalkers before they were planeswalkers those legendary characters that sparked into planeswalkers we were doing something new with the technology of what Double Face and

Transform could do. Likewise, in Ixalan, we had this idea of exploration leading to land, that you had to sort of have a little game, and the reward is you have this really cool land. And that was, once again, taking the same sort of general technology, but pushing in a slightly different direction, and expanding upon it, and playing it into what the set is doing. And that's a good example where in each case we use double-faced cards in a way that reinforces that theme set. Sorry, that set's theme. That a big part of what I'm talking about today is don't be afraid to push boundaries.

Don't be afraid to sort of try new things. But do it wisely. Do it smartly. Figure out where and how, what you're doing, so that you can incorporate it. You know, the point of the lesson was that a lot of my lessons are fighting sort of just general beliefs that are fundamentally, you know, sort of myths, if you will.

That, you know, a lot what I missed, if you will, that, you know, a lot of times when you're designing something, you walk in, I mean, this is one of the things that I've learned over my many years of designing is a lot of times the thing that is stopping me, the thing that is causing me problems is the fact that there's some assumption that I made that with time I realized that assumption just isn't true. I mean, today's lesson was just, well, clearly, clearly upsetting the player is more problematic than a mild response. Yeah, you know, if it gets them all upset. So, okay, well, it's better to play it safe.

And the funny thing is playing it safe is ironically one of the least safe things you can do in games. Like when you're trying to get your game out there in the first place you are fighting against such giant odds. You know,

there's so many games made and it's so hard just, it's hard to get someone to even play your game for the first time. The last thing you want is they play your game

for the first time and they go, eh, because that's the death, even if they go, eh, it's interesting. because that's the death, even if they go, eh, it's interesting, like, that's the death knell. Like, what you need is someone to go, I really enjoyed that, that was fun

to play, I had a good time, because then they go, I'm going to play that again. But if they play it, and they're like, eh, I didn't really have fun, and maybe, you know, I was a little bit, a little bit stimulated intellectually, you know, but then, like, ah, I saw it, okay, I had my stimulation, I'm on, I was a little bit, a little bit stimulated intellectually, you know. But then, like, I saw it. Okay, I had my stimulation.

I'm on. I'm not playing that again. And that a lot of it, like, one of my, another maximum of mine is no risks. Taking no risks is the greatest risk of all. That the gaming business is a tough business. And that it is not about just, you know, it is not about not offending anybody. It's not about not making anybody hate your game.

It is about standing up and getting recognition and making people see things. And on some level, shocking people or surprising people or just you're doing something they haven't seen before that excites them. You know, that is how you make your game succeed.

You have to, there's something, you have to be bold about it. You know, like one of the things I learned in my Hollywood days is if I write a story that people have seen before,

if I write a story and they go, oh, yeah, I, like, for example, you can write a story where someone goes, well, I haven't actually read this story before.

I felt like I read it before. There's nothing about it that was fundamentally new. That, if a reader reads that, they're like, oh, okay, well, they wrote something that somebody else could have written. You know, that you have to write something that you can write. You have something that stands out. And that one of the big things and one of the themes you'll see throughout this talk is

you want to be a game designer? You want to make a game? You want your game to succeed. Well, guess what? You have to make people sit up and pay attention to it. And part of doing that means that not everybody's going to have the same response. There's no game in the world that 100% of the audience goes, I love that game. Any game that people see that somebody really loves it, somebody else doesn't like it at all. But the point is, you really need to make your audience sit up. And that

part of that is being willing to challenge them in how the game works. You have to be willing to push boundaries and try things and experiment with things because the lack of experimentation, the lack of pushing, the lack of challenging

is way, way, way more dangerous than not trying that. That making a lackluster game that excites nobody is not the route to success. And so, and even me, I've been making the same game for 20-some years. I'm constantly trying to do that. You know, I have players that have been playing the game for 20 years. And still, I'm trying to surprise them.

I'm trying to shock them. I'm trying to challenge them. Because that is what kept them in the game for 20 years, is that the game keeps evolving and doing different things. And so we're always trying to sort of reinvent things and try new things. And that, you know, that's why this lesson came about today is the idea. It's kind of laughable almost that early on I was afraid of, you know, that I would sometimes be worried about challenging things because I felt like that

was the dangerous path. And the lesson of today is no, no, no, no, no. That's not the dangerous path. The dangerous path is putting your audience to sleep, Is making them go, eh, that wasn't fun. You know, that is the death knell of your game. The death knell of your game is not somebody being shocked that you did something or them being uncomfortable or them trying something they never thought they'd try. All of those things you actually can salvage stuff out of that. The thing that's going to make them not play your game anymore is, wow, that wasn't fun, and at no level did it push me or challenge me. At no level did it do anything where I at least sat up and go,

oh, that's interesting, or that's different, you know. And so the lesson today is I want you to take the safe path. The safe path is trying things, is challenging things. It is not, you know, the path of no risk is ironically the riskiest path of all. Okay, guys. I'm now at work.

So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.