Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #942: Making New Magic Mechanics

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

For this podcast, I walk through all the different issues that have to be addressed when designing a new mechanic from early exploratory design all the way through the end of the design.

I'm pulling in my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about the making of a new mechanic. So there are a lot of steps that one has to go through in making a new mechanic. So I thought today I would talk about the process from the very beginning to the very ending and just sort of go through all the different things we have to care about when making a new mechanic. Okay, so first and foremost, let's start with either exploratory or vision design. So there's one of two ways you tend to get a new mechanic. Number one is you create a mechanic because you get a cool idea for a mechanic or you just have an interesting idea and, you know, you sort of just go,

oh, here's a neat idea. Maybe we could build a set around it. So, for example, modal double-faced cards existed as when we had made transforming double-faced cards, we realized that we could make modal double-faced cards.

And so I was always looking for a place to include them. And originally, the entire plan for Strixhaven was they're going to be built around that mechanic. As we designed, it became apparent that it had enough flexibility that we then extended it and put it in three different sets. But that's an example of the mechanic came first. We had a mechanic and we wanted to figure out where to put it. This is the minority. This like flashback was a mechanic that I made sort of in a vacuum. You know, there's no mechanics

to get made. They're just, here's a neat idea. Usually where these mechanics come from is either you're playing a game of magic or you're watching a game of magic and you go, oh, hey, it would be cool if somebody could do this. Wait, that doesn't exist. Ooh, I can make that. So, so sometimes you just have a new idea. And like I said, occasionally we start with a new idea. That is, there are sets where we're like, oh, this is a neat idea. Could we build around that? Other times, and by much, much more frequently is we are trying to meet the parameters of a set. For example, in exploratory, a lot of what we do is say,

okay, what's the set about? What's the resonance we're trying to capture? What's the essence of the world we're trying to do? And we do a lot of design to match to a certain feel. You know, that is very common, to want to match to the feel of something. So if we were doing Indusrod, we're like, oh, it's gothic horror.

How do I capture the essence of gothic horror? If we're in Theros, just like it's Greek mythology, how do I capture that sense? So there's a lot of design that comes from trying to capture the essence of what things are. The other thing that often happens is we're partly into design. We have some things already.

And then what we're trying to design is to fill in the gaps of what we don't have. For example, Entwine came about because we needed a spell mechanic. And we had a lot of mechanics that were about artifacts. But it's like, oh, well, not everything can be on permanence. Could we have spells that care about, you know, how do I make a mechanic that's more about spells? Sometimes it might be we're trying to make a smoothing mechanic. That's something that helps improve your draws. Sometimes it's a mana sink mechanic. We're trying to give you some means to spend extra mana. Sometimes it's trying to play up a certain card type that's not.

Sometimes, you know, depending on what we're doing, often what happens in Exploratory Envision is we're trying to fill in the gaps of something. So there's a lot of different ways you can make a new mechanic. The origins of a new mechanic can come from all sorts of places. But at some point, and the other thing that's interesting is even though if you make a mechanic, you still need to make sure

there's a place for the mechanic. And so a lot of exploratory design and vision design is, well, exploratory design is more seeing what's out there, experimenting, trying things. And then vision design is more about is it cohesive to the set?

Does it fit in the set? Having a cool new mechanic is great, but if it doesn't fit to what the set is doing, then it's the wrong set for it. And we make mechanics all the time that don't end up going where they originally designed for. Energy is a classic example. Energy was originally made for original Mirrodin, but we didn't end up finding home to it until Kaladesh. originally made for original Mirrodin,

but we didn't end up finding home to it until Kaladesh. Fortel, for example, was the early version of Fortel with a mechanic called Layaway, where you could pay off a spell over time, based on a mechanic, I think, from the original Star Wars trading card game that we made. So the idea is that you get ideas in different places, but the first step in vision design is, okay, this neat idea, if it already exists, does it fit in the set we're doing?

And if it doesn't already exist, you're trying to make something that does fit. So that's the first thing, basically, is what I call the vision design test. Am I making vision design happy? Is what I'm making fit the needs of the set? And usually when we playtest, the first thing we do is I don't worry about, I'm going to start naming all sorts of things we have to care about. Early on, I don't care about any of them. All I care about is, is it fun? You know, well, does it fit the set and is it fun? And so the early playtests are just about, are we enjoying this? Is it something cool? Is it, you know, is it fun? And so the early playtests are just about, are we enjoying this? Is it something cool? Is it enhancing the set? And so the very, very early thing you do with a new mechanic is just kind of see

like I said, does it fit? Is it fun? Those are the first two things we care about. If it doesn't fit, well, okay, this is the wrong place to put the mechanic. If it isn't fun, do we want to make this mechanic? There are mechanics we have come up with that were mechanics. I mean, they mechanically did something, but we played with them and like, eh, this isn't really fun. Like, for example, in original Zendikar, we tried a lot of land mechanics. And what we found was a lot of them weren't fun. Like the precursor to landfall was cards that you could give up a land drop to do something.

And what happened was people were doing it, because that's what mechanics said to do, but then they were sort of causing mana problems for themselves and not, oftentimes not even realizing what they were doing. The game would end up not playing well and they wouldn't have fun and they weren't even aware of the decisions they made necessarily led to not being fun, but we found it just wasn't fun. And then we said, okay, you know, like landfall came about, we're like, well, what, what's the fun thing to do?

Well, instead of rewarding you for not playing land, how about reward you for playing land? And that ended up becoming a much better mechanic. So anyway, early on, there's a, and a big part of vision design is we're going to play the mechanic, understand whether we like it or not. And then once we do like it, what elements of it do we like? What, you know, a lot of early playtesting with a new mechanic is where's the fun in the mechanic? Where's the cool part of the mechanic?

You know, now another thing we have to figure out very early on is design space. And what I mean by that is how many cards can this new mechanic make? Is this going to be on five cards? Ten cards? Twenty cards? Thirty cards? Fifty cards? You know, how many cards can the mechanic support? Now, there is a little bit of looking forward with the new mechanic. For example, when we made transforming double-faced cards, it was clear to us there was more we could do with double-faced cards than just transforming.

But what we said is, okay, we want to figure out how much we can do that gets the job done, and we can save more for the future. It's not important to do everything you can with a mechanic as soon as you make it. Part of what you want to figure out is, what is enough? Like, once you figure out it fits your set and it's fun, then it's what is enough. What's the right volume that you need? How much does it want?

And a lot of the volume has to do with A, how much design space is there? And B, how much space in the set is there? Another common thing sometimes is like, oh, well, I can make a lot of this mechanic, but the set only needs 10 cards or 15 cards or something. So it's a matter of sort of what can the mechanic do and what does the set need? Now, sometimes we come up with mechanics, Cypher is a good example, where we were stretching to fit it in.

We're like, oh, we don't need that much, but even that much is kind of a stretch. And so you do have to figure out whether there's enough that you can make enough for the minimum of what you need. Sometimes mechanics will get tossed because it doesn't meet the minimum. We can't make enough cool designs with the minimum. Having more than we need, sometimes we'll push that off. Like, for example, Suspend got designed originally by Brian Tinsman. And I think Xavier's the Kamigawa. And it was just too big a mechanic for the space he

had for it. Like, oh, that's a much grandiose mechanic. There's a lot of bookkeeping and, you know, it's going to ask you, the player, to really commit to something. Well, that's going to require some space. Like, we don't want to make a mechanic that has a big ask for it and put it in a small space. If the mechanic's really

going to take some concentration and dedication, okay, we want to make sure there's enough space for it. So sometimes we push back a mechanic because it's bigger than the space allotted. Sometimes we push it off because it's not big enough for the space allotted. So anyway, vision design has to figure out those things. The other thing vision design has to look at is what else is being done around us. What are the sets before us? What are the sets before us? What are the sets after us?

Now, normally, the sets prior sort of have, you know, they have precedence in that they can go first if they need to. Like, let's say I'm going to make something and the set after me wants to make the same thing. Well, if my set really needs it, it's going to, the other set has more time, they'll find something else. But if the set before us needs it, then usually the set before us will take it. Now, every once in a while you're doing something, it's really organic to what the set is.

A good example might be, we're going back to a world, we're going back to Zendikar, and like, Landfall is pretty iconic to Zendikar. You know, maybe if there's a set right before us that wants to do Landfall, but we're going back to Zendikar, maybe we go, well, maybe you should find something else. You know, it's, we ought to have landfall the set right before Zendikar and not in Zendikar. So there is, every once in a while, the later set gets priority, but usually it was like core to the identity of what it is. But anyway, you do have to look around and make sure that you're not doing something too close to something else. And it's not always the exact same mechanic.

Sometimes it's just playing in the same space as that mechanic. It's like, oh, you know, like, for example, maybe one set is doing some graveyard mechanic, flashback, unearth, you know, something. Like, for example, I don't think you would do flashback and une earth in back-to-back sets unless you were very consciously doing it. They're not exactly the same, but they're both kind of like, I get cards in my graveyard and then I can reuse them for my graveyard. So they're similar. And so I don't know if you would use them right next to each other without being purposeful about it. Now, sometimes, you know, we might use the same mechanic in two sets back-to-back because it makes sense in both sets and there's some synergy in standard having both of them.

So it's not that we can't have similar mechanics, but we want to do it with eyes open and meaningful. So vision design has to keep out of, like, what are other sets doing? What are we doing? Is that okay? Okay, so at some point you figure out it's a fun mechanic, it fits your set, it blends with the things around it, and it is of the right size that it fits your needs from a design space standpoint.

Okay. Now, now we start going outside the vision design team. Now we start asking people that aren't on the team. So the first place we normally go when we're doing something new, once we're pretty sure we want it, is we go to the rules manager. Because the next thing we have to figure out is, okay, do the rules support this mechanic? You know, is this something that they can do? And sometimes you have a general sense, usually, for example, if you're extrapolating, like

if we do what I'd call a kicker mechanic, which is I'm spending extra mana for an extra effect. Okay, that's very kicker-like. We have kicker. We understand it. That kind of mechanic usually is not going to be a problem. But you never know. Sometimes what you think is, oh, this won't be a problem at all, the rules manager goes, ooh, that is a problem.

Or sometimes you go, this will be hard, and they go, no, no, no, that's easy. The one that usually is easier than you think is you're messing in a space that's never been messed before. And it's just a matter of, OK, we have to write rules. The rules don't exist. We have to write the rules. And usually the rules manager is like, OK, let's figure out what we want. You know, what's intuitive, what matches how other rules work.

I mean, there's some you want to create synergy with the rules so they work as you think they would work. You want to create synergy through rules so they work as you think they would work. But if you're playing in truly blank space, hey, you got to figure out the rules and you have the freedom to do it. What's a lot trickier for the rules is when you're playing similar to something. We're like, well, we have done this, not exactly like this, but we have to keep in mind these other things. So, for example, when I came up with split cards and I went to the rules manager, the rules manager says, okay, I get it. You have two cards in your hand. It represents one of two cards. You can play it. The rules could handle you playing one of the two cards. It acted like a mode. You know, the rules had things for modes, but it did ask some new

questions that had never been answered before. For example, what color is the card? What mana value is the card? What, you know, like there's these questions that we never had answered before because we never had two cards and one before. So we had to answer those questions. And, you know, because that was playing in new space, there were some brand new things that we had to figure out. And once again, when you're playing in brand new space,

it's not that there aren't answers, but you want to make sure you're consistent. Another area that happens every once in a while is you want to do something and the rules manager says, okay, yeah, we have rules for that, but this one thing you're doing, the rules can't do it that way. And usually when you work with the rules manager, it's about figuring out how to make what you want to do work and I'll say basically there's a couple different things that can happen

number one is we can do it no problem good to go that happens a decent amount of the time and usually like I said that's playing in known space second is what you're doing we've never done before but there's no precedent we can make the rules like you and I will precedent. We can make the rules.

You and I will figure out how to make the rules, but we can do that. It's just figuring out how we want the rules to work. The third category is, okay, we can do it, but we can't quite do it the way you want it. And so we have to figure out how to do it. There's something you want or multiple things you want that, and so we have to figure out how to do it. There's something you want, or multiple things you want, that conflict how other rules work, or would cause conflict with other rules, or would cause weird interactions, or whatever. It would cause a problem. I can do some of what you want, but I have to change things. And then the final category, which happens very infrequently,

but it does happen, is we just can't do that. The rules don't support that. They're just, it just, the rules don't support that. And a lot of those things, like we talk about getting into un-territory. I did a whole podcast on this. Oh, I want to care about something like expansion symbol or watermark or, you know, there's things that I want to care about that the rules can't care about, you know, because in the normal rules, all cards are equivalent to the English version of the card. So if we were to print a card, it might have a different artist or a different rarity

or expansion symbol or watermark. So all those things you can't care about. And a lot of times, for example, I will try to come up and care about something, and there are reasons why, okay, I think we can do this, and you can't. So if you look at a lot of cards, you know, Grusilda smashes cards together. There's some elements of that that the rules have problems with. You know, I have cards that sort of make effects staying power, makes effects last forever. There's some problems there. What happens often case is what I'll call

the corner case problem. Well, sometimes it just can't do it. Sometimes it can do it, but it would cause a problem with another rule in a way that they don't know how to address. And there's no answer for those two things interacting. Anyway, so you go to rules manager. Yay, we're great. We have to write new rules. We need to make some changes or it can't be done. You get one of those feedbacks. Except it can't be done. Okay, we're

still going on. We're just figuring out how it happens. One of the things that also happens early on, and this is usually in vision, is we have the rules manager just do what we call a dirty pass at sort of what we think it'll look like. How do you think it'll work? Also, at the same time, sometimes you get into templating. So templating is how is the card officially written, right? What are the words for the card? How do you do that? And so in order for that to happen,

usually you'll get your editor involved. Sometimes the rules manager and the editor get involved. And it's just a matter of like, can we say this in a way that's understandable on cards and whether it works in the rules and whether it works in templating are connected, but are separate issues. It might, it might, it might work perfectly well in the rules, but there's no good way to template it. Or there is a way to template it,

but not short enough to fit on a magic card. Like you have restrictions. There are, you know, like there are printing restrictions. And I'll get to printing in a second. But anyway, so you have to figure out sort of, I want to make this work. And how you template it and how it works in the rules are often intertwined.

Oh, you want it to work this way. Well, we have text for that. That's how you write it. So sometimes it's like, I want it to work this way, but the wording of that, the templating of that is so unwieldy, you're like, oh, I guess I'll do this other thing because it's half the words. So when you're working with the rules and templating to try to figure out kind of the practicality of how to make your new mechanic work, there's a lot of different factors there.

And sometimes rule begets things, sometimes templating begets things, sometimes they each do, but you sort of have to tackle each of those. Now, normally what happens is, in vision design we will have we will go to the rules manager to understand how we want the rules to work, and then we'll go to our editor usually we have an editor assigned, I mean the set has an editor assigned, you usually know that vision and then the editor will make a

what we call a dirty pass, which is here's a rough idea of the template it's not perfect, it's not exact it's not answering all the corner cases, but it's good enough to get a general sense of what it will look like and the reason that the rules and the templating is really important is

as you have to start designing cards with the new mechanic you have to understand what it can do because how it functions has a lot to do with how you design it like you need to understand those things to make a new mechanic to make cards for the new mechanic so you need to understand the rules, you need to understand those things to make a new mechanic. Or, sorry, to make cards for the new mechanic. So you need to understand the rules,

you need to understand the templating. And like I say, rules can kill mechanics, templating can kill mechanics. Now, usually with a mechanic, you can get a general sense early on of can the rules support it, and is it templatable? Not that you'll have the final rules, not that you'll have the final

template, but our editors and the rules manager understand well enough to get a ballpark of, hey, we do think this is possible. It doesn't mean that they'll solve everything. It doesn't mean there's not a lot of work down the road, but it's more like you can get a general sense of a sign-off like, I think the rules can work for this. I think this is templatable. And in vision, you want to figure out both those things are possible. Like I said, it's not that the rules all get figured out. It's not the template all gets figured out. That gets done in set design. But you want to understand, like, am I asking

the impossible? And that those things can require you to make changes. And you want a lot of visions, proof of concepts. You want to make sure your things are viable. Okay. The next team we have to talk to is play design because are we making something that's balanceable? Are we making something that can be made and push for constructed? And so play design has a lot of experience pushing mechanics. And so what happens usually in play design has a lot of experience pushing mechanics. And so what happens usually in play design is a couple of feedbacks. Number one is, hey, we've done this before,

or it's close enough to something we've done. You know, a kicker like mechanics is a good example. Hey, we've done that infinite times. We got it. We understand it. We know how to make that happen. Sometimes it's, wow, this will be a real stretch. We really are skeptical we can make this work. And then the third category is we don't know.

You are playing in space we've never done before. We're not sure. And when you're playing in new space, they'll do the best they can to extrapolate, to think about comparable things. But sometimes you're asking play design something that is going to be challenging. Usually the rule nowadays is we try to give them no more than one

sort of challenging mechanic. Meaning, hey, we're going to make new things. We're going to do things we've never done before. It's okay to challenge play design. But let's not do multiple things. Like one of the problems

we had in Ikoria was we gave them two different things. Both Mutate and Companion were very, very complex. And one of the problems we had in Ikoria was we gave them two different things. Both Mutate and Companion were very, very complex. And one of the problems with Companion was they kind of ran out of time. We just gave them too much. And the takeaway from that is, okay, we really should give Play Design one sort of really challenging thing. And not that it has to have any challenging things, but it shouldn't have more than one.

Another big thing that comes up in play design is what we call knobbiness, which is how many things are there that they can tweak. Numbers are the best. So for example, if you're doing mechanic, let's say you're doing a kicker like mechanic. Well, that has a main cost and has the additive cost, right? Well, that's two different costs. That helps a lot. Sometimes, you know, something that, like, oftentimes we make a mechanic, there can be a number. Like, one of the feedbacks we get sometimes is, you know,

we'll suggest something and like, okay, well, could there be a number? You know, could there be a number there so that we could change what that is? You know, if we could change the number, that makes it easier for us to design it. If it's locked to one number, that is harder. And so play design will give you some feedback. We have what we call a go-no-go meeting where we get a lot of feedback from a bunch of people. Play design is the biggest piece of feedback,

and it's kind of like, can we work with this? Are you making something? And the go, no-go usually happens near the end of the third month in a four-month design. So that you have a month to adapt if there's problems. But anyway, that's another thing. Okay, can this thing be balanced? Can it be made?

Now, sometimes we'll make something and say, you know what, this is just going to be for limited. We don't expect this to be for constructed. But usually we'd like all the mechanics to at least have a shot at being something constructed. There are sort of every once in a while what I'll call workhorse limited things that we make that are just good for limited and casual play type stuff. But, oh, and the other thing, okay, so the next thing we have to talk to after play design is casual design. Because not only are we making this for competitive, we're also making it for casual play.

So they'll also look at it and say, okay, hey, is it like, for example, play design might go, this is really hard to make for competitive play, but casual play might go, ooh, this is really fun. People are really going to enjoy this. Commander players will love this. Other casual players will love this. So we also want to make sure that casual play says, like, kind of how much fun is this? And, you know, they also want to look for their purposes.

How easy is it to balance? Because casual play has to do something to balance it for stuff like Commander. So both play design and casual play are going to look at it and give feedback. Play design is a little more caring about the nuance of numbers. play design is a little more caring about the nuance of numbers and casual play is looking a little bit more about how fun is it in a more general sense. But anyway, you get feedback from both of those. Next, we need to talk to well, we might need to talk to the frame people. So are we making a

mechanic that requires a new symbol? A new frame? So for example, if we're making level up, okay, well, level up needs something. We have to communicate that there's three different stages. How do we do that? So that has to be figured out. Energy required a symbol. So if you're making a mechanic that requires any new component that has to be designed, symbol and frames being the major things,

we've got to talk about that. We've got to say that early enough to say, okay, we're going to need a new frame or a new symbol or whatever. Each of those comes with resources. And, for example, you only get so many new frames in a set. If you want to have a mechanic that has a brand new frame, usually your other mechanics aren't supposed to have a brand new frame. You don't want every mechanic you're making to require all this work

because it's a work on a team that has to produce the new frames and our new symbols. So you have to sort of bring those up. Often what happens if you need a new frame, the person who does frames will have to start designing some things to get at the ballpark. Usually with frames, there's some early work to say, is it possible? And then after that, it's more about, okay, the execution of it. But early on, if you want to do a new frame, you have to sort of talk and say, what do you want to do and what would it entail and get a sense of what the new frame might require. Because that also can impact

mechanic. You know, sometimes it's like, okay, you get this much space. Okay, I'm going to make a split card. Okay, well, here's what split cards look like. You get this much space. So the frames can dictate things. When we made Planeswalkers, sort of we realized, okay, we can only have so many loyalty abilities based on the nature of Planeswalkers. When we made Sagas, okay, there's certain limitations for what Sagas can do based on how we made the frames for Sagas.

So whenever you do something new, you have to figure out, does it need that? Usually symbols are a little bit easier. So like, for example, if I require a symbol, okay, we can make a symbol. You know, can we make the right symbol? Or sometimes it's questions like with energy, how to communicate when there's multiple, you know, multiple symbols. You have to figure that out. But usually symbols are doable.

It's a matter of, is it worth it? Do we need the symbol? There's a little bit of talk of like, is the symbol carrying weight? Because there's a certain amount of complexity that comes with a symbol. And so you want to make sure that the symbol is easing things and helping things

and not making things more complex. In general, we tend not to add multiple symbols at once. There's a few exceptions, like when we did the hybrid manicas, while they were technically different. Once you understood one, you understood them all. But anyway, you need to do that. Now, sometimes it's not just a frame

thing, it's a printing thing. For example, when we did double-faced cards for the first time, it's not just a matter of do we have a frame for that, and can it work in the set? It's that requires some printing knowledge like we have to print on the back can we print on the back it's not often that new mechanic requires printing but it has and usually I need to sort of commit early on and this is usually in vision where I go to like Aaron and say okay Aaron we want to

do this thing and we need to get printing involved. It impacts printing. And there are sets that do that. And, you know, the key whenever you're doing that is you got to sort of commit pretty early because it takes a lot of time. There's testing that has to be done. They'll do print tests and they have to talk to vendors.

And there's a lot of complicated stuff that can come when you're asking a new printing demand. And sometimes, DoubleSidefaced card is a great example. Originally, we wanted a double-faced card to come with a single-faced card and appear in the same pack. And one of the feedbacks we got from the printer was we could only do that 90% of the time. Oh, well, that wasn't good enough for us. So it changed how the mechanic got executed. So sometimes printing, the reason you talk to printing is you have to understand what can and can't be done so that you're able to do it. Next up is digital. We're going to take this mechanic and put it into a digital form. What problems are you causing? And the things that cause problems in other sections, like digital is very interesting and something that might be

very easy for everybody else could be a huge problem for digital. For example, limiting what the mana can be spent on or where the mana can come from. That's a really big ask for digital. It might not be that big for rules or that big for play design, but it's a big ask for digital. And so usually this happens end of vision, early set design. We'll go before digital. Usually the first one is in vision and then it happens again, but in set design, where we talk to digital. And digital might say, okay, you know, like, once again,

this is no problem for us. This is something we can do, but it requires some amount of resources. And there's some give and take of how much resources and how important is it to the set. And, you know, if you make this slight tweak, it's easy for us. Could you make this slight tweak? Stuff like that will come up.

And then sometimes they say, we can't do it. Like, Future Sight was messing around with a cycle of cards that did something this game and then in the next game of the same match, kind of playing off something we had done in Unglued, the double cycle. And what Digital said to us is, there's no connection between games. We can't have one game affect another game. Like, that's not how the code is written. There's no way to communicate between games.

That is, if you make those cards, we cannot make them in digital. Now, that doesn't happen very often. What's much more happened is, we can do it. It's a lot of work. Is there ways to tweak it so it's less work for us, but you get what you need out of the mechanic? And that happens a lot where, you know, if you just made this tiny tweak,

it would make things much, much easier for us, and we have to go, oh, okay, that's not that different for us, and that would save you a lot of work. But anyway, we have to talk to digital and understand that. Next is organized play. Organized play doesn't come you a lot of work. But anyway, we have to talk to digital and understand that. Next is organized play. Organized play doesn't come up a lot. A good example might be miracles. Okay, we're doing a mechanic where how you drop matters.

So that might matter in tournament play. Or we're making double-faced cards. And for the first time ever, you have to draft and there's not a back to the card. How will that affect drafting? So whenever we do something that kind of has a say in how tournaments might be run, not just high-level tournaments, but even just random

tournaments in the store, we go to Organized Play to understand the ramifications of that, and understand what we need to do. And once again, it's not always, Organized Play isn't really a yes or no. It's more like here are the problems that this will cause. We need to have some answers. And sometimes that might change how we do that.

Sometimes we might work with them to figure out how to explain that to them or what are the rules we want to do. Okay, we're doing double-faced cards. How are we going to draft them? We will work with organized play to figure that out. Finally, the last thing we'd have to talk to is marketing. And once again, it is not... Marketing is not something with a new mechanic where it's necessarily, can we do it or can't we do it? Marketing is going to market it. But

a lot of times thinking about, and this talk, we have what's called a product architect. And a lot of times early on, you'll talk to the product architect and they are very conscious of thinking about stuff like marketing, of saying, okay, we're we're selling the set okay you have a new mechanic is this a feature of the set is this something we're going to play is this the number one thing oh there's a brand new mechanic and this is why you want to buy the set because of this new thing or is it there's some other theme and it's just a part of that theme or hey this just makes the set work but it's not the thing that's going to entice people to buy it. It might be what we call a workhorse mechanic, meaning it makes the set work, but it's not splashy. Normally, if you're going to sell a set on a mechanic, it's because the mechanic's very splashy.

Oh, for the first time ever, double-faced cards. That's very splashy. That's something that makes people go, what? Whereas something that might just be, you know, it's a combat mechanic that just makes combat more interesting, but it's just not dynamic and it's just sort of a tweak. That's not necessarily going to sell the set. So when you deal with marketing, you don't have to worry about that. But anyway, you do want to talk with your product architect and on some level talk with marketing is, what am I doing? What are the ramifications on the road? With marketing, like a lot of these other ones is like, can we change things?

This is more like, can we think about how it would be used? How, when we sell the set, what people are going to think about it? And that sometimes

might make decisions about how we treat it or how we think about it or how, you know, like there are decisions in how it gets treated that just,

are you thinking ahead to some other uses of it? Like, oh, when selling the product. But anyway, guys, that is, like I said, when you make a new mechanic, there's lots and lots to think about. Does it meet the design needs? Does it meet the rules? Does it meet the templating? Does it meet play design needs? Does it meet frame needs? Does it meet printing needs?

Does it meet digital needs? Does it meet organized play needs? Does it meet marketing needs? All these things have to be thought about. So when you make a brand new mechanic, there's lots and lots of different people doing different things with your set that you have to think about because they have to think about it. And so when you're making something, all that has to go in. And there's a lot of tweaking that goes on. There's a lot of adjusting your mechanic because the mechanic has to serve the set. And by serving the set, it means it has to serve all aspects of the set. It has to serve the rules and the templating and the game balance and the way it's printed and the way it looks and the way it's played and the way on digital. Like all that stuff matters because all that is part of the game. So when you make something new and make a new mechanic, you have to think about all those things.

Okay, guys, I hope this was interesting. This is sort of my daily, my day-to-day, but a different way to think about new mechanics, I hope you guys might find it interesting. But anyway, I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. It means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to make it magic. See you guys next time.