Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #677: Other People's Lessons – Lessons Learned

Episode Date: October 4, 2019

This podcast is another in my "Other People's Lessons" series where I talk top ten lists of lessons for something else and apply them to Magic design. Today is life lessons.

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 daughter off at camp. Okay, so I'm doing, I do this series that I call Other People's Lessons, where I take a top ten list about somebody talking about something else, lessons about something else, and I apply it to magic design. So today, I am doing ten life lessons people should learn before they turn 30 by Royal Scootery on Lifehack. So I like taking very offbeat lessons and applying them.

So today are life lessons and I'm going to apply them to magic design. Let's see how we do. Okay, number one, money will never solve your real problems. Okay. So in the life hack version, they're trying to say that people get a little bit too focused on money. That really the reason you're happy or unhappy have to do with internal emotional things that money is never going to fundamentally solve those problems. Okay, from a magic design standpoint, it talks a little bit to me. I'm going to talk about cost in general. There's this general idea that when you design something that, oh, well, it can just be costed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, play design will

just, they'll cost it whatever. So I can do whatever I want. It'll just later get costed. And that is not so. That is not actually the case. One of the things that you are responsible for when you design a magic set is making sure that you are making cards that can be made or can be adjusted by play design. And the reality is, not everything can be. And that one of the responsibilities of designing a magic set is working with play design early on so that you understand whether or not your mechanic can or cannot be adapted. Because not every mechanic... Now, there are a couple of different issues. One is the cost issue, which I'm

talking about here. So my classic example there is the free mechanic. It's a mechanic I made in Urza Saga block. The way the mechanic works is you have a spell and then you cast the spell and then the spell untaps the number of lands equal to the converted mana cost of the spell. So it might be like I do something and then, you know, it costs four mana to play it and then I untap four lands. So the problem with the free mechanic was because, especially at the time, there were lands that tapped for more than one mana, often when you cast a free spell you were not only not spending mana but you were gaining

mana, you were going up in mana. And what that meant was that if you change the cost of the spells and made them more expensive you weren't necessarily making them weaker. Which is, not a lot of mechanics that is true, but it was true of the free mechanic. And that one of the things I think is really important is that part of design is not just making cool, fun stuff, and that's an important part of it,

but also working with play design to understand what can and can't be made constructed. Now, not only do you have to make sure that there's knobs and things that they can adjust to make sure that they can balance the card, but also you want to talk through about, is it doing something that's doable and constructed? That's another big one. Are you making something that could be done? Sometimes you make mechanics of like, oh, maybe in Limited you can jump through those hoops, but man, it's hard

to jump through those hoops and construct it, and it's very hard to push this to make it a viable card. And so, when you are making stuff, you have to be very conscious of that. Like, one of the key things about making a magic set is you need to communicate with the other people that you're going to be

working with sort of downstream of you. And that you have to think about what you're doing so that you can enable the people who are later going to work on it to be able to do it. My metaphor I always use is that vision design is like making blueprints of the building. Well, you have to make sure that the things you're drawing on your blueprints are doable. That the people building the house can do them. That it will stand up to the, you know, the weight and all the things that you need to do will in fact work. And that is a responsibility of

the design of making sure that you are thinking longer term than just what you're doing into what other people will do. And that's just an important part of any sort of collaborative process of thinking about what other people are doing and making sure, especially if you're working early in the process, making sure you are setting up the others for success. You know, if I'm making the blueprints for the house, I want to make sure that the people who are actually building the house have what they need and what I'm suggesting they do will work.

Okay, number two, pace yourself. So the life lesson here is talking about how sometimes people want something so badly that they don't give themselves the time to sort of get there. Part of what they're saying is, look, you want to have goals and you want to work toward those goals, but you want to have realistic expectations on how those are going to happen. you want to have realistic expectations on how those are going to happen. That if you say, oh, I want this thing to happen, and then you have an unrealistic expectation for when that's going to happen, you will just be unhappy. You know, like for example, when I joined Wizards, my goal was one day, well actually my goal when I first joined was just to be a designer.

I wanted to design magic sets. Later my goal was to be head designer, first joined was just to be a designer. I wanted to design magic sets. Later, my goal was to be head designer. But I started wanting to be head designer. But when I started, I was hired as a developer. I was not hired as someone who did design. And I realized when I was hired, I said to them I wanted to design. They're like, well, but that's not what we're hiring. And I said, okay.

Well, I knew if I wanted to design, what I needed to do is get hired for the position that was available, do a good job at the position that was available, do a good job at the position that was available, and slowly work my way to the point where I can prove myself as a designer, which is exactly what I did. But that took time. You know, like I started working in 1995, and it took me about a year before I was able to convince them to let me lead Tempest. Now, to be honest, that's pretty fast. We talk about pacing yourself.

But in general, you want to have a sense of what you're trying to do and, you know, be able to pace what you're doing. Now, from a magic standpoint, part of pacing yourself is saying you want to have the end in mind. I'm trying to do something. But the act of making a mechanic, the act of making a set takes iteration. It takes time. You know, you have to understand that it is not something you're just going to get right away. For example, in Zendikar, we wanted to make some relevant land mechanics. So what we did is we tried a lot of land mechanics.

A lot of land mechanics. Probably 50 different land mechanics. We tried a whole bunch of different things. And the earliest versions of what ended up becoming landfall didn't quite work the way landfall worked. Early on, for example, we experimented with the idea of land drops as a resource that you could spend. And so the idea is if I don't play a land, it will allow me to cast certain spells cheaper or do certain things, activate things. And that didn't play really well. But the idea of caring about when you played lands got us to, instead of caring about not playing lands, what if you care about playing lands? And that the iteration got us to where we

needed to be. But had I part way in go, oh, it's not working. I'm going to give up on land mechanics. We would have not got to landfall, which is one of the best mechanics I think we've ever made. I think it's a really strong, fun mechanic. But we did not get there overnight. It took us a while to get there. And that part of design is recognizing the idea that you have to pace the amount of time it takes to do things. You have to have expectations for what something is and give yourself the time to get it right. Okay, number three, you can't please everyone. So this life hack, or they call it life hack, this life lesson talks about how one of the ways to be really unhappy is if you try to please everyone,

in some ways, you'll never be happy because not everyone can be pleased. And part of it is it is not your job necessarily to please everybody. It's your job to do what is good for you and, in general, what's good for other people. But you don't have to, you are not dictated by what other people want. And that trying to make everybody happy is a recipe for disaster. Coincidentally, as a designer, trying to make everybody happy is a recipe for disaster. So magic has a lot of different components to it. And it is important that I want every magic player to find something in every magic set that they can enjoy.

every Magic player to find something in every Magic set that they can enjoy. But what that doesn't mean is not every Magic card is for every Magic player. And that part of being a good designer is understanding who is for what and then making sure that you are making that group happy. Not every group, not every player. You're making the, whoever you're aiming the card at, you're making the people you want to enjoy that card happy. And the reason you have to have targets, you have to know who you're aiming at, is different players want different things. You know, there is no such thing as a preview card that everybody goes, I love that card. You know, there's cards that the majority of people like, but there's always someone who goes, that's not what I want, that's not what I enjoy, you know, and that, I mean, I always talk about, that's not what I want, that's not what I enjoy, you know, and that

I mean, I always talk about how magic is not really one game, it's many games. Well, we're making components for lots of games and different people want to use things in different ways. You know, if you're playing pauper, you don't care about anything but the commons. If you're playing commander, you know, you're much more focused on things within your

color identity or whatever new legendary creatures. You're focused on things that make sense for how you're much more focused on things within your color identity or whatever new legendary creatures you're focused on things that make sense for what how you're playing or just psychographically speaking maybe you know you're timmy or tammy or johnny or jenny or you're spike there's certain kinds of ways that you enjoy playing you know or if we're talking about different aesthetics you're a vorthos or you're a mel that there's certain things that make you happy those things don't make everybody happy but they make you happy. Those things don't make everybody happy, but they make you happy. And so we have to understand who we're making happy

and then aim those components at that person. Trying to make everybody like everything is just going to water things down and make nothing exciting. Because the stuff that truly, truly excites people, the stuff that people get all excited about, odds are if it's creating that much emotion out of one player,

it's creating emotion out of another player that isn't necessarily positive. You know, and some of the mechanics that I've gotten the biggest response have gotten some really negatives. Take something like double-faced cards, or split cards, or, you know, just take things where we went out of the box to do

something. Yes, there were players that loved it, but there were players that hated it. And that part of designing something is recognizing that trying to please everybody with everything is just a recipe for disaster. Number four, your health is your most valuable asset. So the saying here is one of the things about life in general is you got to look out for yourself. You got to think about yourself and that it's very easy to make short-term decisions missing the importance of the long-term.

That, oh, well, right now I'll have fun doing A, B, and C, but what's the ramifications of doing that? If you want to live a long and fruitful life, you've got to think long-term. And your health is a long-term decision. If you just do things that are constantly harming your body now, you're going to be paying for it later in life. Design is not much different. You need to think long term. You can't just always think in the short term. You know, yes, this one card might be fun and exciting,

but does it fit the larger set? Is it helping making the set work? You know, every time you add a card to the file that isn't advancing the overall goal of the set, you are lessening that overall impact of the set. And that one of the things you've got to think about is, and I think about this all the time, is magic, I always say magic is a hungry monster. We're going to make a lot of magic sets. So if I find a really cool card,

but that really cool card isn't working right now, isn't advancing this set, I got to pull it. Even if I love the card, I got to find the right place for that card. Not any place. Not now because I just made it or not now because I wanted to come out. I got to find the right place for it.

And so, you know, and there's all sorts of mechanics and magic that like, you know, cards and mechanics where I just couldn't do it in the moment, but I saved it. I found the right place for it. You know, energy is a classic example where it was an original Mirrodin. It didn't quite fit. I saved it. Kaladesh comes along. a classic example where it was an original myriad and it didn't quite fit. I saved it. Kaladesh comes along. I'm like, it was a perfect fit for Kaladesh.

Yes, I had to wait many years to get there. But once I got there, we had something that was just super organic to the world. Number five, you don't always get what you want. So from a life lesson, this is trying to teach you that if you're upset if you don't get something and you can't move past it, there are going to be things that you're never going to move past because you're never going to get. You don't always get what you want. And that part of life is accepting the idea that, you know, you'll get what you need,

as they say, the Rolling Stones songs. You can't always get what you want, but you'll find sometimes you get what you need. You'll make use of what you have. And in game design, it's very similar, is there are things that you get what you want, but you'll find sometimes you get what you need. You'll make use of what you have. And in game design, it's very similar. There are things that you try that you want to do that sometimes just don't work out. My classic example is Scars of Mirrodin was originally going to be New Phyrexia. The fall set was New Phyrexia. And you weren't supposed to find out until the end of the block that, oh my gosh, it was actually Mirrodin.

That was the plan. But it just wasn't working. I tried to make it work, and it wasn the plan. But it just wasn't working. It just, I tried to make it work and it wasn't working and it wasn't. And now it wasn't working. What I realized was I didn't have room to move forward. And what I finally figured out was that I was at the end of the story, not the beginning of the story, that this was the last set of the block, not the first set of the block. And once I understood that, once I was able to work with that, you know, it really, it all clicked together. But I first had to realize that the idea we had and where we started wasn't working.

And I think if you sort of aren't willing to give up on stuff, aren't willing to say, oh, this isn't quite doing what I want. Can I find a different way to accomplish what I need? And once I said, oh, New Phyre Frexy is the last set, not the first set, we came up with this cool idea of having a war and an unknown outcome. And we did all these neat things that really made the block into something special. But that came about because I was willing to say, this first thing, we can't do that. That's not working.

I tried. I put energy in. I tried very, very hard. And I finally came to realize that that wasn't what I was able to do. And as a designer, just because you want to do something doesn't always mean it is viable or it's the best option. You have to be willing and sometimes to accept that it's not going to be the thing that you

would originally set out to be. And usually if you work with it, you'll find something better. Number six, it's not all about you. So as a life lesson, one of the things is it's very easy to see the world through the lens of you. You're literally seeing the world through your eyes and hearing it through your ears. You're perceiving the world very much through your perspective. But not everything is about you. And if you make everything about you,

it really can complicate things. And that part of an important life lesson to learn is sometimes things are going on and they're not at all about you. And you have to sort of accept the idea that they are about other things and other people and other things that are going on. And that instead of making it about you,

recognize that it's not. So from a game design standpoint, this sort of ties into my last lesson, which is you, the game designer, is different than you, the game. You are making the best game you can make. And part of doing that is recognizing what is making you happy because it's you and what's making you happy because it's what you're making. And one of the things I've discovered, for example, is there's certain things I like in magic.

There's certain kinds of things I enjoy. I like doubling things and tokens and copying. And there's just things I like about magic that I personally like but when I'm making a magic set not that I can't lean into things when they make sense you know obviously a lot of my sets have a very strong token aspect because I like tokens

but if a set I'm making doesn't need tokens if what I'm doing that isn't what it is I have to recognize when my own personal proclivities as a designer don't necessarily match up with the essence of what I'm trying to make. And I have to make sure that I'm not making my set something that makes me, the designer, happy, but that's not serving the greater needs of my design. And that, you know, I do know as a designer, I will lean toward things that I like, and my designs will more naturally lean toward the kind of things I enjoy. That's natural.

But I have to understand, especially someone like me who makes a lot of sets, you know, one of the things I try so hard to do is I make a lot of magic sets. I don't want every magic set to feel like the same set. So I have to kind of fight against some of my base instincts to push in other directions and go, okay, you know, I'm going to make this set about this. So I'm going to make this matter. And that, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's other things that I enjoy doing, but I'm not doing it here. That this set's not about that.

I'm going to make it about something else. And I'm going to push in other directions. And I'm going to follow that set to where that set wants to be. Not where I, the designer, want it to be, where the set wants to be. And that's how you get some of the best work is you craft something, you define something, and then you follow what you have crafted and what you design. And I mean, this is a lot kind of like raising a kid where the goal of the kid is not to make them like you.

The goal of the kid is to make them like themselves, It's for them to be the best that they can be. And you as a parent are trying to help your kid be the best that they can be of who they are. Same is true for design. You're trying to make your game the best it can be of the game that it is. Not of the game you want it to be, but of the game that it is.

Number seven, there's no shame in not knowing. So this life lesson talks about how that sometimes people get upset if they make mistakes or they somehow get in a situation where they don't know something, as if somehow it's their fault. And kind of what they're saying is, look, there's a lot to know in the world. There's a lot that, you know, you have to recognize the idea that you are not the end all be all of everything and that you need to accept that

sometimes you're not going to know things. Now from a magic standpoint what that means is you're not the expert on everything. For example I'm making a magic set. I'm surrounded by people that are better than I am at certain aspects of it. Let's say I want to know whether something can be balanced right. I go to play design to understand whether I'm making a mechanic that has the knobs they need to balance it. If I want to understand templating, I go to editing. If I want to understand rules, I go to the rules manager. If I want to understand the application to digital,

I go to talk to the various digital people. Organized play, I talk to organized play. The things I'm making have so many people that are going to work on it downstream, because I'm the first person to work on it, that I need to know when I need to go and get expertise from somebody that's not me. Like, I'm doing something, and I'm not the person that understands this best. You know, maybe I need to consult the creative team. Whoever I'm consulting, I need to understand when I'm not the expert on it,

and I need to go to the person who is the expert, and then I need to listen to the person that's the expert and make sure that they can help me make the best thing that I can okay number eight love is more than a feeling it's a choice and what they're talking about here is it is very easy to get caught up in your emotions and kind of what they're talking about here is it is very easy to get caught up in your emotions. And kind of what they're saying is while your emotion, you know, you feel things, your emotions are something that gives you impetus, you, the person, have impact and get to choose what you're doing.

And you have to be conscious of your emotions. You can't ignore your emotions. That will cause you problems. But they're saying that, you know, love is you actually making a choice to do something. I think there's this belief, the idea that love will just fall in your lap. And like, just one day, your true love will just bump into you. And there they are. And the reality is, there's a lot of work that goes into it.

And I think in magic design, it's a lot of the same stuff, which is your magic design will not magically come together. It is not just a matter of, I have to wait until the perfect set just sort of appears in front of me. No, you're going to work really hard at it. You know, if you want to make a good magic design, it doesn't just happen. It is not just a, oh, I just have to wait for it to form. You have to work very hard. You have to put a lot of time and energy in. And the reason your set will be a good set is because you make conscious decisions on it.

You iterate it. You playtest it. And you figure out what is and isn't working and then push in that direction. But there's a lot of the idea that something's going to come just because you're around. Your attendance isn't the only thing that matters. It's the work. It's the effort. And the part of doing design is understanding that design is a lot of work. That if you want to make something amazing, it comes from you putting the work in.

Great sets don't just happen. It's not just like, oh, well, just, you know, I was around and it sort of happened. No. Every set that I have worked on, everybody who worked on the set has put a lot of time and energy to make it the best that it can be. Like, one of the things that I really enjoy about my job is

everybody I work with really feels strongly about magic and wants it to be the best that they can be and works really hard, spends a lot of time and energy on it. And one of the cool things is different people are working on different parts of it. So, you know, we get a field test and we get to kick the tires and we get to make sure that every component of the game really is being something that we're seriously considering and looking through

and spending the time and energy on. But part of the thing is, you know, if you want to be a good game designer, whether it's magic design or anything, or really an artist, it takes time and energy and dedication and effort. Amazing things don't happen just because you're there. Amazing things happen because you put the time and work in to make amazing things happen. Okay, number nine, perspective is a beautiful thing. So from a life lesson, what they're trying to say is that it's very easy to get caught up in the moment and lose a sense of perspective. The advice I always give when you're trying to make a major decision, or even a minor, but mostly a major decision,

is think about your life as if you're lying on your deathbed looking back. And what about your current thing is going to matter to you? What are the decisions that are going to matter? Because one of the things I, when you think of the perspective of your life, you look back, like little tiny things, things that people spend a lot of energy on really aren't going to be the big thing. And it's the relationships and the interactions and the memories, the things that you're going to remember that you're going to carry with you at the end of your life are sort of the larger picture things and not,

you know, on your deathbed, you're not going to worry that I, oh, I spent $5 and not $4 on whatever you're like, the little details wash out of the end, you know what I'm saying? But the, the people you met and the experiences you had and what you did, that is what matters. and the experiences you had and what you did, that is what matters. So from a magic standpoint, it's the same sort of thing of, it is very easy to get caught up sometimes in the minutia of making a magic set that you don't step back a little bit. One of the things that I like to do is, sometimes I like to sort of pull back to have a big picture look at what I'm doing

and get away from something, because you get very caught up in the tiny details. One of the things about making a magic set is there's so many little tiny details that you can and often have to consider yourself with that it's so easy to get caught up in those. And that's why sometimes it's important to step back. If you have the

time to do this, one of the reasons in art in general, it's good to sort of do something and step away from it a little while, to give yourself a little distance, a little harder in magic sense, just because we're constantly making magic sense, but one of the things I do get to do, though, is I hand the set off to somebody else, which lets me step away from it a little

bit, and then I can go back and look at it, and sometimes when I give notes to people down the thing, it's interesting to have some perspective in that I've been working on it for a little while and then I come back to it. But the important part of this lesson is that you

need to step back and not always look at everything in the minutia. The macro is as important as the micro. Yes, you've got to care about the micro, but if your micro is perfect but your macro is off, the people won't perceive the overall thing correctly.

And a lot of the things that happens when you step back and you take a macro view on things is you realize, oh, I've drifted a little bit or some aspect, two different aspects aren't lining up with each other. You know, if you start sort of pulling back a little bit, you start seeing the inner workings of how things happen. And sometimes when you get focused on the minutia, right, things will drift or things drift apart and that you can catch that when you pull back and get a larger perspective. Okay, the 10th and final lesson is don't take anything for granted. And the idea of the life lesson here is it's so easy to do something

and then just go, that's the way it is, and move on and not realize that that thing that you have took time and energy to get and needs to be respected. Other relationships are a classic example in that, oh, I'm with somebody and then I'm with them long enough, like, hey, yeah, we're together. But no, relationships take time and energy in that if you don't show that person, like, obviously when you first get together,

there's lots of time and energy spent towards someone. But later on, there still needs to be the time and energy spent with that person. And the idea that, oh, they're there, oh, we're together, I can just think less about them, that's problematic. And that you have to really think about the things that matter to you and make sure you demonstrate to them that they matter to you. Now, from a magic standpoint, it's the same sort of thing, which is sometimes you will work on something

and it works perfectly. You then will go through iterations. You always have to look back and make sure that things that worked at one point still work for you. That a lot of times you'll work on something and go, oh, as the set changes, I now realize this aspect that once upon a time worked very well, no longer works.

Like, for example, in Ravnica, a lot of the early time was spent on trying to figure out how to make two-color work, and I spent a lot of time on doing some stuff, but then we got the guild model, and then when I followed the guild model and looked back at some of the earlier things, some of the things I'd done early on,

like, were just going in different directions, and once I realized, oh, that doesn't line up with what the guild model is doing, and I could pull things out and change things, you know, it made me realize when I went back that I made decisions early on that from the information I had at the time made sense. But now that I, you know,

we had found something better to make it work, it required me going back and taking the things I had done early on and reworking those things. And that's something that you always have to be very cautious of is that just because something worked at one moment in your design doesn't mean it always works.

Because part of designs is they change and they evolve and they grow and some things will grow with it and some things won't grow with it. And so don't ever take for granted that just because something did work that it's all, you know, you have to constantly be working with things. You have to constantly be working with your panics, evolving them to make sure that they're staying up with what the design is doing. Just like you have to evolve your relationships, you've got to evolve your mechanics. So anyway, let me recap here of a life lesson. So once again, this is 10 life lessons people should

learn before they turn 30 by Royal Scootery. So thank you Royal. Royal, I think is your name. From Lifehack. Like I said, I love taking offbeat things. Actually, I like this list. I thought this list was a good list. Life lessons. But, you know, I enjoy sort of one of the neat things about this whole series is it's neat to say, let me take a different vantage point

of someone giving different lessons to a different thing and taking holistically and showing how, hey, you can look and just look at things in a different way. It just allows me to give lessons to you guys that aren't ones that I might come up with off my own, and that's kind of cool. So anyway, the 10 lessons are money will never solve your real problems, or in game design, resources and mechanics won't always solve your problems. Just because, you can't always fix it

later. You have to build things such that they can be worked on. Number two, pace yourself. In game design, that means understand what you have to do and be realistic in your time frame of what you have to get so you're not giving yourself false expectations. Number three, you can't please everyone. Not every aspect of your game is for every game player. Understand who you're designing for and maximize it for that player. Four, your health is your most valuable asset. This is all about thinking long term. That making short decisions to help you right now but hurt you long term, especially in game design, are going to cause you problems down the road. Number five, you don't

always get what you want. Just because you want to do something in design doesn't mean it will always happen. Sometimes you have to accept that what you want isn't working and you have to find an alternative to make it work. Number six, it's not all about you. You, the game designer, while you're important, your game is your game. The metaphor I use as being a parent is you're trying to make your game the best game that it can be. You're not trying to make it what you want it to be.

Just like your kids, you want them to be the best version of what they can be. Number seven, there's no shame in not knowing. Hey, get help. Seek experts. Just because you're unaware, you don't have to know everything. That part of good game design is seeking help and finding people who have expertise that you don't and using their expertise to make your game better. Number eight, love is more than a feeling. It's a choice. This is talking all about the idea that there's a lot of hard work that goes into things, that things don't just happen by accident. You're not just going to, the game's not just going to make itself. You have to put a lot of work into it. There's a lot of energy that happens and that things happen because you put the time and energy into them. Number nine, perspective is a beautiful thing. You got to step back sometimes from your game and look

big picture and not get caught up in the minutia. You have to make sure that your game hasn't drifted, that the components are coming together. That is very important to step back and get perspective on your game. And number ten, don't take anything for granted. Just because something works at one point in your game, you have to keep evolving things and work with

them. And that sometimes something that worked perfectly early on might not work as the game evolves and does something different so anyway guys I hope you enjoyed that I enjoy these podcasts they're a little different vantage point on life or sorry today was on life lessons but on game design

but anyway I'm now at work so we all know what that means it means it's the end of my drive to work so instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic I'll see you guys next time