Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #731: Aaron Forsythe

Episode Date: April 17, 2020

In this podcast, I'm interviewing my boss and longtime Magic collaborator, Aaron Forsythe.

I'm not pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. So what I'm trying to do with these is do some stuff I can't do in my car, and that is talking to people on the phone, which is surprisingly hard to do in the car. So today I have a very special guest, Aaron Forsythe. So say hi, Aaron. Hey, everybody. So Aaron and I go way back. We've actually worked together for 20 years now. So I wanted to start talking about sort of how you came to Wizards. Since I was involved in the story, I know.

But how did it happen? Well, so like many players who came off the Pro Tour, I put up a few good results and was writing articles I copied the two team pro tours I copied it US Nationals I then went on to win the world team championship in the year 2000 and I was writing articles on Star City and a couple other websites and I had been doing some editing on a aggregator website called Meridian magic at the time. So I was trying to keep my hand in the game as much as I could. And I think it was that combination of working on websites and creating content and being a high-profile player that got my name on the list of people that you had been putting together to be the first content manager for what would become Daily MTG.

And I remember you called me at home one day. I was watching the All-Star Game in July of 2000. And you called me at home and said, hey, we have a job you might be interested in. And that's how it all started. Yeah, so the story's a little more complex. It didn't, it wasn't quite as simple as, hey, do you want this job?

But, you did eventually get the job. Yeah, well, it's definitely like, we have a job you might be interested in if you want to come interview. Yeah.

That was, sorry, that was year 2001, not 2000. Right, right. July of 2001. Yeah, you had a list of names of different, I had a list of names of different...

I had a list of three names, and the other two said they weren't interested. You were the only one of my list that said you were interested, so I pushed very hard for you because I thought you would be good at it, which you were, actually. You were good. I appreciate that.

I had a college degree. I had gotten a chemistry degree, but I was just kind of kicking around various other jobs. I had not found a career that I liked yet. I was still playing Magic a lot, professionally as much as I could. And I was hoping to turn that into something. Randy Bueller was from the playgroup I was in in Pittsburgh. And he had turned his pro tour success into a job at Wizards. And I was like, wow, that's an actual path you could take.

I don't know if they're going to take more guys from Pittsburgh, but I would love for that opportunity. And lo and behold, it made itself available through you asking me for that job. And my wife was more than happy to take a flyer and move across the country if it worked out so yeah i remember flying out um for an interview shortly after 9-11 um like we we weren't sure we were actually going to be able to do the interview or i was going to be able to come out there because they grounded all the planes for a while after 9-11 but i made it out there interviewed i think you told me like no i wasn't going to be able to come out there because they had grounded all the planes for a while after 9-11. But I made it out there, interviewed.

I think you told me, like, no, I wasn't going to get the job. And a couple weeks later, I was like, oh, actually, we do want to offer you the job. I'm not sure all the politics behind all that. Well, the behind-the-scenes story, I can tell you a little bit about the behind-the-scenes story, is I was tasked by Bill Rose

to put together the website, to sort of organize the website. And so I was working in conjunction with the technical people that were like technically put it, like I was in charge of content and they were in charge of all the backend, you know, all the tech, making it work. And I really wanted to hire you, but they wanted to hire somebody that they had chosen, not that I had chosen and so there's this little bit of tension and so you came into the interview and went really well

but we wanted to interview other people and so they interviewed other people and then they just couldn't get somebody else and finally they're like begrudgingly goes, okay, I guess we'll take Mark's guy and that's why it took so long because they wanted to hire their guy and not my guy was kind of the thing.

Yeah, right. The team that I ended up working for was the web team. They were not part of R&D or anything like that. They were their own department. And yeah, I think they were probably looking for someone that had more technical website experience or something like that, which I didn't have at all. But you had the magic content.

Like, I cared about the content. So I'm like, I need a guy that knows magic. Somebody who knows the technical side but doesn't know magic didn't mean no good. Yeah, I remember my interview. I think it was just, like, three people. It was an HR guy that's no longer at the company, you, and Doug Byer. That's funny. Yeah.

Like, Doug was on the web team with me. He was more of the HTML, the kind of code guy. He actually designed the first version of Gatherer. He wrote a lot of the stuff. Oh, he – The HTML code and whatnot for the website. And I was the one that was kind of editing and dumping articles into the content management tool.

So, yeah, we can talk more about the website in its early days. Yeah, so real quickly, a story that I don't know if you know, but I would go to meetings with these other people for interviews, and I would just ask lots of magic questions. And then I would say, they don't know magic.

I need someone that knows magic. And that's why they couldn't find somebody because they couldn't find someone that had the technical side that knew magic. Yeah, I've definitely been in plenty of interviews since I've been at Wizards with people that are trying to fake how much magic they know. It's so easy to call people out.

It's hard to fool me if you think you know magic and you don't. That's right. Okay, so we started on the website. So it started in 2002. I mean, you started in work in 2001. But the website started in January of 2002. And how long did you work on the website? I think like two years, something like that.

Yeah, so I would work on the website. I would contact on the website. I would contact the authors and get them to write articles. Remember, Torment was the first set. We ended up putting up content for preview articles and whatnot. So I would do all that, edit all the articles. I would make some of the graphics of the articles, figure out what articles we wanted to write,

and get all that done. Make the magic arcanas and the card of the days and the ask wizards and things like that. Bug R&D to answer the questions, right? That's right. If I had any free time, I would go down to the R&D pit and playtest FFL for a couple hours a week

just to keep my eyes on how that was going and immerse myself a little bit more in that. So I always had, like, you know, an idea that card design would be a cool thing to do. It certainly wasn't why I was hired, and it wasn't really a goal of mine when I got, when I walked in the door.

But the more I hung out down there, the more I'm like, oh, I really enjoyed this. I think I might be good at it. So, so the next stage is, so what's your memory of how you ended up on Future Sight? Not Future Sight. Oh, not Future Sight. Sorry. Fifth Dawn.

Right. So there were, I ended up being put on the Fifth Dawn design team, even though I wasn't in R and D. And I believe it was some arrangement that by embedding me on the design team, I'd be like an embedded reporter in a war zone. Like I would, I would be able to generate a bunch of good stories, articles,

content about how the design process works. And that would be entertaining stuff to end up on the website. Yeah. So, um, right, we brought you on. I mean, you had expressed to me interest in doing design, and then I think you and I, I pitched the, this would be a great opportunity for Aaron to write about stuff and have an insider thing, and Randy went for it. So we got you on the team. And then you kicked butt.

You did a really good job. Yeah. Was Sunburst and Scry both yours, I think? Both of the keywords. Yeah, Scry is one of my longest impacting individual design contributions to the game, so I'm happy I came up with that. And you did Sunburst too, right? Yep, I did.

Yeah. So what happened, well, here's my memory. So what's your memory of what happened after that? You were on Fifth On. We did Fifth On, and then I remember this was around the time my first daughter was born. I was also doing work with Robert Kutcher, who's leading 8th edition. I had been looking through that file and offering him card ideas, and he was super happy to hear some of the reprints I'd come up with for that.

So I've been working with other people on stuff in that department. But I remember I was home on paternity leave in 2003, and Randy stopped by my house. Randy Buehler was the director of R&D at that time and said, Hey, we've got an open designer position. Do you think you want it? So that's my memorable milestone for what happened next. I'm not sure if you have something else you remember.

Yeah, my memory of it was we had an opening and I was just blown away. I thought you did an amazing job on Fifth Dawn and I just remember talking with Randy and saying I was trying to express how much potential I saw in you as a designer.

I mean, I've had a lot of people on design teams. You, you, you probably had one of the best, like first design teams ever I'd ever seen. Like, like you made two of the major mechanics in the, in the set and your contributions were just through the roof. So, um, I was just very impressed. I thought your design skills were great. And in fact, so the plan was, I'm always kind of trained, like, trained the next me, essentially. Trained the next designer. And so you were my protege for a little while. Yeah, so I came to R&D when Randy gave me the offer.

I was super happy to be able to do that. But then I wasn't actually, I came in, I wasn't working that much on Magic when I first started to R&D. I got put on the G.I. Joe TCG, which I really enjoyed working on as a lifelong fan of the G.I. Joe cartoons and the toys and whatnot.

That was kind of fun. We used to do a whole bunch of different games, besides just Magic and Duel Masters. A lot of trading card games. The TCG team did a lot of stuff. We had a Harry Potter game, and there was a baseball and of different games, besides just Magic and Duel Masters. A lot of trading card games. The TCG team did a lot of stuff. We had a Harry Potter game, and there was a baseball and a football game. So there was always tons of other card games.

I also spent a lot of time working on Axis and Allies miniatures early on, and I worked on Hecatomb and Dreamblade and all these other weirdo games that never lasted. But they were fun, and they certainly taught me a lot working with all these other weirdo games that never lasted. But they were fun, and they certainly taught me a lot working with all these other designers.

Then I ended up coming back to Magic pretty much full-time when you kicked off the Ravnica team. Right, right. Yeah, you were in Ravnica. Yeah, I was actually one of your bigger allies when it came to... Oh, trying to do the guild model? The guild model, split the colors up in a strange way. Yeah.

Yeah, right, so I think what was going on was I was trying to train you, so I was trying to get you on as many design teams as I could. And that's around the time of Ravnica. Yeah, so I skipped, I mean I worked on Trifton and I skipped working on all of Kamigawa block. And then I came back and started working on Ravnica. Interesting, me too.

I didn't work much on Kamigawa block. I was on the development team for Kamigawa. That's the only thing I did on Kamigawa block. I played a bunch of FFL with it but I didn't have much contribution on the development team for Kamigawa. That's the only thing I did on Kamigawa blog. I played a bunch of FFL with it, but I didn't have much contribution on the design side. Okay, so you're on Ravnica team. So when... So the next step was

you got promoted to head developer. Is that the next step? So I ended up... I was on Ravnica design. I was on Guild Pack design. And then I got to lead Dissension design. And then... I mean, I had to eventually lead Lorwyn.

The next year I was on Time Spiral design. I didn't touch the next two sets, but then, yeah, I started leading Lorwyn. And then it was sometime in that time, between leading the design of Lorne and leading the development of Shadowmoor that I got promoted to the development manager

position I guess was what it was at that time who's in charge of all the playtesting and what not I didn't keep that job for very long because it wasn't that too long thereafter that I got promoted to director. Yeah.

Yeah, that was Randy. Randy left and you took Randy's position. Right. Randy had moved off to do some digital stuff, start up another department. And then there's just kind of this vacuum with no director for several months in the department. Bill was kind of trying to lead everything himself. And then a bunch of us interviewed for the director position.

I remember interviewing for that with Randy and Bill. And I got that around 2000. This is when my second daughter was born so to be about 2007 when I found out that I got that job and that's more having children's good for your uh your uh your my career yeah that's basically the job I've been in since then uh I got I got promoted just you know titularly to uh vice president of design just this past year, but it's the same role. I still report to Bill.

I still have all the designers in my work chart. So explain what do you do? As the average person might not know, what do you do? Yeah, the average person might not know, I'm your boss. Yes, you are my boss. That is true. You used to be my boss. That's kind of a funny twist. I oversee, generally, the design of every Magic card that comes out of the department.

And sometimes that means being very tactical and leading sets and teams myself, but often it is just a constant review process, thumbs-upping a bunch of things, helping decide direction on which settings and worlds and mechanics and what we want to use, and then letting people go and do their thing. Oversee the play design team as well to make sure that they're

churning out awesome play formats. And then we've since moved the editors back into my org as well. So pretty much anyone who's touching Magic Cards or the creation of them from a gameplay perspective is my responsibility. Sure. Right now I'm leading a team.

That's a lot of fun. Oftentimes it's just a lot of more business meetings, which is not as fun um try to sneak in and do a couple drafts a week or something like that to keep my hands on stuff but mostly it's you know find good designers let them loose keep an eye on them to make sure they're doing the right things and uh let the magic happen. So, okay, so, and you just celebrated, when's your 20th? My 20th is 2021.

Oh, 2021, okay. Yeah, I've been learning for... Almost 20 years. October 2001 was when I started, so almost 20 years. All right. So, what do you think is your biggest influence on magic? So I think it stemmed from when I got put in charge of designing M10. And I was trying to figure out where I think magic may have deviated a little bit from why I fell in love with it.

And I think my biggest contribution has been a doubling down on resonant top-down design everywhere we can do it. It started in the core set with individual cards. It kind of ended up bleeding into set flakes in the card in the start that we did shortly thereafter. But that is why magic is enjoyable. It's not about complex rules interactions.

It's not about the zone-changing effects, two-for-ones or whatnot. It's about bringing fantasy to life through the interactions of these cards and things like that. And this has been kind of my M.O. You know, that's how we can keep the game fresh and fun and inviting for players. So that's been my, I think, my biggest contribution to keeping the game going as long as it has. So, by the way, when you said M10, just for those who don't know, Magic 2010 is the set he's talking about.

Yeah, so Magic 2010, the corsets were all reprints for years and years and their sales have been kind of tailing off over time. So our brand manager for the expansion before that,

which was 10th edition, decided, oh, we're just going to make it blackboarded. So they'd all been whiteboarded ever since Revive back in, like, 94. And they were all, you know, they just felt like second-rate citizens, all these whiteboarded reprints that no one was that interested in. They decided, okay, we're going to make it blackboarded in 10th edition. Then when I got in charge of putting charges in, the set that was going to come after that, 11th edition, it was like, how are we going to one-up that?

And so just the idea of throwing that out. We don't need all reprints. That's not how this set should be built. We should be able to make new things to do the things we want better than any existing cards do. So that was kind of a big paradigm shift in how we made those sets. And it went over super well. And at the same time, we revamped a lot of the rules, changed the terminology, introduced things like Battlefield and Exile,

things that kind of just play into that same philosophy for me, just make the game evocative. Use words that help you tell stories while you're playing. And that way the game just feels more alive and more fun. Good philosophy. Yes, you've been an awesome partner at bringing that to life. I do like resonance. Okay, so

of all the things you've worked on, let's say other than Magic 2010, because you just talked about Magic 2010, of all the other projects you've worked on, what emotionally has the warmest spot in your heart? Hmm.

Can you do a quick rundown what are sets you've led just so they're aware like fifth um Descension was my first design lead I haven't led that many

sets honestly Descension Magic 2010 Magic 2011 um Morwen I led the development of Shadowmoor

I led the development of New Phyrexia and I led the design of M Phyrexia, and I led the design of M15. That's about it. And a set in the future!

Right, a set in the future. I mean, that's the one I am currently most enamored with and have the highest level of emotional attachment to. We can talk about that. Yes, in the future we can talk about that so yes in the future we can talk about that um i mean more when there are things i love about it and things that you know make me cringe looking at it now the same is true of shadow more it seems true of most of that stuff new phyrexia as well

yeah i mean i do i mean i do regret phyrexia mana sure, which is just one of the all-time easiest mechanics to pick on, for sure. But I think otherwise, I love a lot about that set. The mandate from Eric Lauer at the time, who was the development lead, was, you know, while I'm developing this, don't worry about making cards that play into themes all that much. Just try to make independently powerful cards. So I did, you know, cards like Karn and the Praetors and whatnot.

They're just kind of all-time greats. Batter Skull, these cards are memorable and powerful. And that set did really, really well. By the way, you've been on a lot of sets. You were naming sets you've led. Yeah, I've been in a lot of them. I worked on M19, I worked on M20, I worked on Eldraine. I love stepping out of the meeting rooms and getting back into the card design discussions.

I still have a passion for that. I still play a lot of Magic on Arena, and I even reinstalled Mitko since we've been stuck at home. So, I mean, I am often impressed at how much I enjoy the things we are making, despite me having played this game as much as I have for 20 years. So I know we're continuing to do a good job. Even I, who is living and breathing this almost 24-7, can't wait to play with the next set or the next thing we've made.

Okay, so I'll tell you one of my favorite things that you had done is so you were on the Time Spiral team. Yep. And so one of the things on the Time Spiral team

is I came up with this crazy idea to have the bonus sheet, which was, there was, you know, a sheet of just cards from the past because the flavor

of Time Spiral Block was past, present, future. And so the first set, Time Spiral, was about the past. So Aaron, you got put in charge of the Time Spiral sheet, which was 121 cards, I think? Yep. And you spent so much time on that, just like trying to build like the perfect sort of sheet of old cards? sort of sheet of old cards? Yeah, I have.

And once it got published, Bill Rose gave me a framed copy of it that I still have in my den at home. Yeah, it was a labor of love for sure. And it encapsulates a lot of my experiences with the game. Just when I started playing, I would play with my roommates in college. I would play with guys at the pick-up duty. And I would play with the game. When I started playing, I would play with my roommates in college. I would play with guys at the pick-a-doodling union. I would play with my brother.

A lot of these people were not at all tournament players. I hadn't really gotten exposed to the spiky, min-maxing tournament crowd until the guys from CMU, Andrew Cunio and Eric Lauer and Mike Curie and Randy started coming by the Pitt Student Union.

So we were all just goofing around all the time, all making casual, ridiculous decks, humongous decks with way too many cards in them, trying to pull off absurd combos, trying to figure out how to use bad cards in decks or cards no one else liked. So I do think that experience, those few years I spent playing that way before I got into the tournament scene, have been really informative to how I view the game

now. That stuff is still fun and important to get right. It's not just about can we balance a mini-game, can we tune numbers on a card to make sure it's showing up at the right percentages in standard or whatever. It's like, are we making stuff that just captivates you and wants you to try it and wants you to laugh while you're playing

and stuff like that. So, yeah, the time-shifted sheet, you see the Goblin Snowman and the Spitting Slugs, all these goofy cars, Uncle István. It's all the stuff that we remember laughing about and having a good time with back in 1995 or whatever i wanted to put that back in booster packs yes squire oh yeah squire i don't think anyone ever enjoyed playing with squire that one was always there to raise the hackles a little bit

squire was there mostly as like a, hey, the good old days weren't all good, you know? A lot of people are very, very wistful for how awesome magic sets used to be. And I'm like, yeah, they used to put these cards in there. No one remembers those. Did you put Oratog on the sheet

just to sort of like, just to make Squire that much worse? No. I don't even think I drew the connection that those two were almost one was strictly better than the

other yeah or a Todd was just a car with a funny illustration that I can remember people trying to

build decks around stuff like ranker or whatever we sacrifice all the it was always just a funny little guy so no that was not that

that uh i don't think squire needed the direct comparison for people to get it so that was just coincidence um so we don't have too much time left so i'm is there any fun magic stories that you would like to share of from your your 20 almost 20, 20 plus if you count Outside Wizards? A couple other things that I'm proud of having a hand in. One is Planeswalkers. I'm sure you've told this story several times, but... Well, let's hear your version of the story. Oh, I don't, I mean, I just remember having to,

they were going to be in Future Sight. Yeah. I think they were too hard to pull off, even for that set. So we bumped them to Lorwyn, so they suddenly became kind of my purview to help get right. And just you and me and a bunch of other people,

Devin Lowe springs to mind as the guy who was developing that set. Eric was there too. Just how much work it was and how fortunate we were to get that first batch as correct as we did. Those cards are at a power level

that is almost exactly right. There's just so many knobs and numbers and words that are on them that kind of paved the way for those cards to be a successful and important part of our game and our IP ever since. We could have easily screwed those up a hundred different ways. And I just, I mean, I remember we had ones that played like robots

where they just kind of kicked through like a saga almost, but it started back at the beginning whenever we got done. There was a bunch of different other things we tried. I remember the initial batch was all like named after characters from Midsummer Night's Dream

or something like that from Shakespeare. It was like over on it. Yeah, Fendari or something? But yeah, that was that was an exciting seminal moment in magic

to be a part of. And the other one was kind of when we fell into New World Order. I distinctly remember going to the employees. We have employee pre-releases for every set where hundreds of people get together on a Friday afternoon. I think back then they were kind of after hours, but we get have our own preview release we have a giant space where there's you know two or three hundred people playing with new cards went to the morning tide employee preview release and Lorwyn on the heels of time spirals kind of when we were at our worst of like how many onboard tricks we were willing to put on

cards how complicated we were willing to make board states. And I remember a guy from the organized play team opening up his pack and fanning out his cards and he gets the Elvish Warrior, which is a 2-3 vanilla. And he has finally a card with no text on it. It was just draining for people to play through these games. And they would play one game and leave, or play one match and leave

because they got wrecked by a Meboy Kingling turning their something else into something else. And it was just, you know, they were just not enjoying the burden that all this stuff. And I think we as designers were kind of immune to, we actively enjoyed it.

You know, like, look at all these cool things all my cards can do. But we came back right after that and sat down and said, we need to do something

different here. Like, this is not working for the Graveyard audience. We need to tone it down. And that led to the several meetings we had about

whether it became New World Order where we kind of did turn it down. And it's a great success. Figured out the right level of that stuff to have in any given game. So anyway, I'm approaching work, as it will. Say hi to everyone for me. I will, I'm approaching work, as it will. Say hi to everyone for me. I will, I will. So anyway, I want to thank you for having me on, and it's always fun. One thing for me that's fun about calling people on is just talking about these stories that, like, for a long time, they go, yeah, I remember that.

Yeah. It's been quite a while. I remember that. Yeah. But anyway, I just want to thank you for having me on. And for everybody else, I'm at my den. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work.

So instead of talking with Aaron and talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So thanks for joining me, guys, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.