Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #178 - Tribal

Episode Date: November 26, 2014

Mark talks about Tribal cards.

I'm pulling away from the school. You know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Yeah, my daughter had an orthodontist appointment and then I had to take her to school today. But, for those that are regular listeners know this school is right by my house, so you should get a full drive today. Okay, so today I'm going to kind of finish a series that I thought I had finished, but I actually hadn't. series that I thought I had finished, but I actually hadn't. And I'm going to talk about a failure. Normally when I talk about stuff, I talk about things that we do that are successes. But you know, not everything we do works out. So this is a good example of something where it didn't work out, and I'm going to talk about that. So the topic of the day, so you can figure out from my little clues there, is the tribal card type. I did a whole

series on card types, and I've not done one last one, which is tribal. So real clear, I've got to spell this out because this is confusing, because sometimes in magic, one word means two different things. So we use tribal to mean two distinctively different things, although somewhat connected. Tribal is a theme, much like Onslaught or Lorwyn or a sub-theme of Innistrad. Those are tribal themes. Tribal meaning has to deal with creature types, mechanically deals with creature types.

So we tend to do a tribal component in almost every set. Theros had Minotaurs. Kansa Tarkir has Warriors. It's something we always do. From time to time, like in Innistrad, we ramp it up and make it a sub-theme, and then sometimes, like Lorwyn or Onslaught, it's a major theme. Anyway, that is tribal as a theme. Tribal also is a card type. The tribal card type, whenever we want to put a creature subtype onto a non-creature, for example, have an enchantment that's a goblin or have a sorcery that's an Eldrazi,

we need to use the tribal card type. I'll get into today what exactly it does and why it works the way it does. So I'm talking about the card type. The card type was a failure in fact the car type something that we kind of don't really support anymore um and i'll talk about that today um the theme the tribal themes were up up and running we we do tribal that's every set has some component of tribal some more than others obviously so anyway when i talk about tribal the car type not working that doesn't mean tribal the theme not working. Tribal the theme, doing just fine. Okay, so let's go back

in our Wayback Machine to Lorwyn. Okay, so Lorwyn was the first design, the first lead design by Aaron Forsythe. Back in the day, Aaron was my protege, and he was going to be the next big designer. And I was training him, and he had done some small sets, and finally it was time for him to do a large set. Now, back in the day, we have a lot more structure set in place, so we know what we're doing with our large sets.

We were a little looser back then, so here's what we knew going into Lorwyn. We knew that there were going to be four sets, large, small, large, small. Two of them would be the Lorwyn mini-block. Two of them would be the Shadowmoor mini-block. We knew the theme of the Lorwyn mini-block was going to be a tribal theme, and we knew it's going to be the

light to Shadowmoor's dark. That's what we knew. We didn't even for sure know the theme of Shadowmoor. I kind of, in my head head knew I wanted to be hybrid, but that wasn't even officially signed off of yet. So anyway, we were trying to come up with cool and fun things to do with a tribal theme. So Onslaught had done a... The first thing that was a strong tribal theme would have been Onslaught,

which I just talked about not too long ago. And so we were trying to come back and recapture that and really push it to the limits. In fact, Lorwyn is the most tribal we've ever been and maybe ever will be. I think we pushed it a little too hard. When I get to Lorwyn,

the drafting was a little bit on rails. Some issues we'll get to when I get to my Lorwyn podcast. Anyway, we were trying to just make tribal work. We had agreed with the creative team on eight creature types to focus on can I remember these so see it was goblin, elves

merfolk zombies treefolk, fairies elementals and what was the last one? Oh, Kithkin and Kithkin. So basically, the idea was we had eight creature types, and we were focusing on those eight creature types.

Actually, it was Black. Zombie or Black something else. Anyway, I'm blanking. But the idea was we really, really wanted to focus and make it something that we were putting a lot of energy toward. So one of the things that dawned on us while we were working on this is sometimes you have a card that clearly, flavorfully is one of the creature types. The most obvious example would be something that makes a token. Imagine a card that makes a goblin token.

Well, isn't that pretty goblin-y? I mean, as much goblin as a goblin, right? Or you have stuff like an enchantment that maybe does something super goblin-y or makes tokens or whatever. You know, there are clearly cards that thematically are themed and feel like they're part of that creature type. So we said, well, what if we did that? that thematically are themed and feel like they're part of that creature type. So we said, well, what if we did that? What if we just put a creature subtype, you know, goblin, on things other than creatures?

So we went to the rules manager at the time. So the rules manager back then was Mark Gottlieb. And so Mark Gottlieb, we went to him and said, okay, Mark, here's our idea. We want to put goblin subtypes on other cards. Enchantment goblin, sorcery goblin, you know, what do you think? And Mark looked at us and he said, yeah, no, we can't do that. And explained to us that you are not allowed to mix subtypes, card subtypes. So what that means is each subtype has to be unique to a card type. So Goblin, because it's a creature subtype,

cannot be the subtype of anything other than a creature. Likewise, Equipment, which is an artifact subtype, can't be any subtype other than artifacts. You know, Land has Shrines or whatever. Pick your favorite Land subtype. You have to be unique, and you can't mix and match subtypes. shrines or whatever. Pick your favorite land subtype.

You have to be unique and you can't mix and match subtypes. The rules don't allow it. So by the way, let me explain something. Talk about Mark Gottlieb a little bit. So Mark Gottlieb now is the design manager. I actually work very closely. But back in the day he was my arch nemesis, the rules manager. For those

who don't know, I always joke that the rules manager is the arch nemes't know, I always joke that the rules manager is the arch nemesis of a head designer because our goals are very, very different. My goal as head designer is to do things we've never done before. And the goal of the rules manager is to do things as we've done them before.

And so we, from time to time, we'll butt heads. Mostly it's the nature of our roles. I mean, it is my role to try to make things seem new and different, and it is their role to try to make sure things work the way that we've already established them working. And so, you know, I'll come up with a card that says,

Destroy Target Player! And they'll go, That's not how we do it. It says, Target Player loses the game. And I go, Yeah, so that's not as exciting as, Destroy Target Player! And they'll go, Yeah, but we have a rule. That's how we do it. And then we'll argue back and forth. I'm like, this is different and we should do it. Anyway, so the difference between, so our current rules manager is Matt Tabak. So I'm going to, I'm going to use a Star Trek analogy to explain the difference between Mark Gottlieb as rules manager and Matt Tabak as rules manager.

Mark Gottlieb is Scotty and Matt Tabak is Geordi LaForge. So let me explain. There's a great Next Generation episode. So for those that don't know Star Trek, I mean, hopefully you know Star Trek, Scotty and Geordi were the two engineers, Scotty of the original Star Trek and Geordi of the Next Generation Star Trek. And there was an episode where, I won't get into the details, but essentially Scotty ends up on the new Enterprise, the Next Generation Enterprise, and Scotty and Geordi get to compare notes.

So at some point, the captain calls down to talk to Geordi and goes, Geordi, I need this thing done. How long will it take? And Geordi goes, three hours, captain. And then after the captain goes away, Scotty goes, okay, well, how long will it really take? And he goes, three hours. And Scotty's like, you can't tell the captain that. You know, you got to pat it a little bit. You got to say, captain, it'll take six hours. And then when he tells you to do it in three, you get it done in three. So the reason I bring up this metaphor is Mark Gottlieb, basically when you would ask me to do something,

would always go, I don't know if I can do that. I'm not sure. You know, I can't change the laws of physics, Captain. Okay, that's a horrible Scottish accent, but imagine I'm doing Scotty. Where Tabak is, you already said, can you do it? Yeah, I think I can. So like, Matt Tabak, not that he won't tell you he can't do things, but he's pretty straightforward

whether he thinks he can do it or he thinks he can't do it. Where Gottlieb would definitely, would sort of always go hem and haw about how he wasn't sure it could be done, and he had to push him a little bit, and then, you know, he would make it happen. You know, that kind of thing. He'd be the miracle worker that would make it happen.

That's my comparison of the two. Anyway, so we went to him, and he explained to us the rules couldn't do it. And he was being honest. The rules at the time did not allow this. Now, remember, another important thing about the rules manager is that it is their job. We are constantly, like my designers and I, are always making up

brand new stuff that has never had rules before. So the rules manager constantly has to rewrite the rules. It's not like that's not part of their job. We're going to come up with stuff that the rules don't handle

and they've got to handle it. But it's their job to kind of gauge how easy or hard something will be. And Gottlieb is pretty well known for telling us he didn't think he could do it. And then we pushed him on it and then he would find another way to do it. I bring that up because it's relevant to the story. So Gottlieb says, okay, you can't do that.

So we go, okay. But then Aaron's like, you know, let's not worry about whether the rules allow it or not. Let's see if we like it. Is it even fun? So what we did is we started labeling all our, anything that seemed like it was flavorfully connected to a creature type, we did it. Oh, this sorcery makes you sacrifice a goblin. Oh, it's a goblin sorcery. This enchantment makes merfolk. Okay, it's a merfolk enchantment. And we labeled them all, and we started playing. And what we found was there were some fun moments where

I needed to regrow an elf, and, oh, I can regrow this elf sorcery, or I need to discard a goblin. Like, oh, I can discard this goblin enchantment. And so we played with it, and we had fun. So we went to Gottlieb and said, you know what, we played with this. I know what you're saying

and we know what you're saying that subtypes can't do it, but hey, it's fun. Let's investigate. Let's look into it. And so Gottlieb goes, I really, guys, I recommend against this. I don't think this is a good idea. And we, well, let's

explore it. And he goes, really, guys, I don't think this is a good idea. There's a lot of costs that come with doing this. I'm not saying it can't be done, but there's a lot of costs that come with it. Maybe we shouldn't do it. And we're like, oh, okay. So we went off and we started looking for other things and we explored other avenues. And eventually we're like, we didn't find anything we liked as much. So we came back and said, we really like this. We should do this. And Gatlin's like, I didn't find anything we liked as much. So we came back and said, we really like this. We should do this. And Gatlin's like, I don't even know if we can do it. And

they're like, well, let's, let's, come on, let's, let's do it. Let's try to make it work. So Gatlin's like, okay, okay. So he, he does some investigation, tries some stuff out. And finally he comes back. He goes, okay, okay. I've figured out how to do it. The problem is you can't have creature types, subtypes, that don't match their card type. But, since if the goal is to take creature types and put them on other things, what we'll do is we'll make a brand new card type called Tribal.

And what Tribal does is it allows creature subtypes to be on non-creatures. But you'd have to put Tribal on it. So, it'll have to say tribal sorcery goblin, tribal enchantment goblin. And we're like, oh, that sounds good. Okay, okay. And at the time, it was a little quirky.

I mean, I do know, by the way, people bring this up all the time, which is tribal feels like and sounds like a super type and not a card type. I'm not a rules manager. I do not pretend to know the rules. I don't quite understand why it has to be a card type

and not a super type. It's technical, and I think the answer was in order to have a subtype on a different card type, tribal has a special... Tribal is like, I'm like creatures, and I can have creature subtypes, but I go on other things. And so I'm there as a rule support to say

that if a subtype's on the card, as long as tribal's there and it's not a creature, then it's okay or whatever. Whatever had to happen to make that work. And then, to be clear, Gottlieb said to us, guys, I figured out how to do it.

We can do it. But just because we can guys, I figured out how to do it. We can do it. But just because we can do it doesn't mean we should do it. I recommend against doing this. Don't do it. And we're like, oh, this is awesome. This is fun. We should do it. You know, Lorwyn could use it.

Lorwyn really needs it. We're going to do it. Lorwyn needs it. We're going to do it. And so Lorwyn Block had tribal. And then, during the rise of the Eldrazi, we made use of it again. We wanted to have Eldrazi spells and things, because we wanted to have some interaction with it. The Eye of Ugin, I think, made... Something affected Eldrazi spells. The Eye of Ugin affected Koa spells, I think. Maybe it affected Eldrazi's spells. I guess Ibukun affected Kola's spells, I think.

Maybe it affected Eldrazi's spells. Anyway, there were a few things that cared about things being Eldrazi. We made use of that technology. And then we got to Innistrad. So Innistrad was the next set with... The tribal component of Innistrad was not as high as either

Onslaught or Lorwyn, but it was decent. I mean but it was decent. I mean, it was a significant sub-theme. It was something you could build around. You weren't forced to. It wasn't like if you drafted the set, you had to play one of the creature types. But you could.

And we put some uncommon builds around. So, I mean, it was possibly something you could draft. And for sure, for sure, you could build casual decks around it. There were even a few not-so-casual decks built around it. So one of the things that came up, one of my themes was zombies. Zombies had token making. So there were a number of cards that made zombie tokens. It was one of the ways, I was trying to find a way to swarm the opponent with zombies.

And so one of the ways to do that was having cards that made more than one zombie helped to sort of decouple the number of cards versus the number of zombies. Eric, in development, cut it back a little bit. So I had more zombie-making tokens than Eric ended up putting in the file. But anyway, I had some, and some obviously stayed. Or I had a bunch, some stayed.

And zombies' big thing was you could regrow zombies from the graveyard. That was another way to sort of refill your zombies. So, this moment happened where you're like, oh, I can get back zombies. I think we had a card that lets you get back two zombies. One creature or two zombies. And like, this thing

made zombies? It really felt like a zombie. So like, okay, we're going to use our tribal technology. And what we found was other than the zombies, it really felt like a zombie. So like, okay, we're going to use our tribal technology. And what we found was other than the zombies, other than the interaction of getting back zombies, we had all these cards that had tribal on it, but it just didn't come up much. You know, what we found was the vast majority

of things that you want to care about tribally happen on the battlefield. Usually what you're doing is you are either affecting a certain tribe, you're sacrificing the tribe, you're tapping the tribe, you're enchanting, you know, you're doing things that are all based in the board. And there's a few effects that go outside. The two most common is either regrowing something or discarding something. But that was really the cases that most often happened.

And so what we found was like 90%% of the time, we had the words and they didn't matter. On top of that, there was the following scenario, which was, let's say we have a set in which tribal matters and there is a sorcerer that makes goblins. Well, clearly that's a goblin. Now, we have,

let's say we have another set and we want to have a goblin token. Well, if that set doesn't have a tribal theme, then all of a sudden, well, that doesn't say tribal on it. And so it just gets weird that, like, cards that are almost identical cards in some sets are tribal and some sets are not. And what we found was kind of like

either committed to the flavor or you didn't commit to the flavor. And so what we really found was, okay, it was weird that we had spells that were clearly goblin spells and sometimes they were goblin and sometimes they weren't

but if you actually we went through and like if you labeled them what would happen is you would add a bunch of words which causes a little bit of confusion

because you see it for the first time you're like tribal sorcery what's that and most people don't understand that you can't have

a sorcery that's a goblin so when it says tribal sorcery goblin the goblin part doesn't tell them oh it's a goblin sorcery so what the hell does tribal mean and they don't realize that you can't have a sorcery that's a goblin. So when it says tribal sorcery goblin, the goblin part doesn't tell them. They go, oh, it's a goblin sorcery. They're like, what the hell does tribal mean? And they don't realize tribal's on there for the goblin part. So, like, it adds words, it adds complexity, and

it didn't really matter much. Okay, so now let's get into the issue at hand, which is I talk about this during the New World Order podcast, which is one of magic, the biggest, biggest dangers to magic, the thing that will kill magic. It's not design space.

It's not having themes. There's all sorts of things that we can figure out. The real problem is complexity, which is everybody who starts playing magic starts on equal footing, which is they know nothing. We have to get them to a point where they understand what's going on. And what happens over time is your game, little by little, just gets slowly more complicated. It's one of the reasons we started New World Order,

and that we just have to be careful that just as we add things to the game, we've got to be careful to make sure we pull things out that aren't carrying their weight. The way my metaphor describes this is, imagine you're packing for the airport. And you know that if you go over 50 pounds, that you're going to get charged extra money. A lot of extra money. It's like, you know, it's $25 a bag,

but if you're overweight, it's $50 or $100 or whatever. It's a lot more. And you're like, okay, I don't need more than 50 pounds. I want to keep to 50 pounds. So, you know, so let's say, for example, you're packing your bag and you're like, oh, should I bring my bathing suit? And you're like, what's the chance of me going swimming? And if you say to yourself, I never go swimming. You know, it's not the kind of thing I do on, like I'd say I'm packing for a business trip.

I don't tend to go swimming on a business trip. You know, maybe with my family I will, but, you know, there really isn't much chance of it happening. I'm going on a business trip. You know, maybe with my family I will, but there really isn't much chance of it happening. Is it worth the wait to bring my bathing suit when I don't think I'm going to go swimming just for the off chance that maybe I will? I mean, in a perfect world,

if they didn't weigh my thing and I can pack as much as I can cram in, sure, maybe I'll go swimming. I should bring my swimming suit. But I have to go, you know what? I don't think I'm going to go swimming. It's just not worth the wait. That you have to look at complexity

and say, is it worth the weight? Because if we go over 50 pounds, there's a penalty to pay, metaphorically. There's a penalty to pay. So we've got to keep things clean. And the problem with the tribal card type was, we weren't sure to carry it. Actually, we came to the conclusion

that it wasn't carrying its weight. You know, that it was adding words and there was upside. Like, one of the things that people always, whenever we make a decision, they get mad at us. They're like, I saw the upside. I can imagine. Here's the upside.

This is upside. Like, it's not a matter of, is there upside? Yes, yes, yes. When we played Innistrad, and I, you know, could regrow two of my token-making sorceries with my regrow two zombie cards, I was happy. I was very happy.

And when I got it and we didn't tribal and I couldn't get them, I was sad. I'm not saying there wasn't benefit to be gained, but you have to weigh the benefit against the loss.

Every time someone reads the card, they got to read the text. Now, I understand a more advanced player learns to ignore it, but a beginning player doesn't do that. And that we have to be careful, how often do we add words to cards?

Are those words doing enough work? And Manor Burn's the other thing. People got really mad about Manor Burn. They're like, I can come up with games where Manor Burn mattered. Yeah, yeah, you can. I wasn't saying that Manaburn wasn't, there was no positive aspects to Manaburn.

The problem was you had to learn this rule and it came up one in a hundred games. You know, it just didn't come up much. And I mean, that's, so one of the things in general about the creative, creative, like the example I'll give here is in writing, but it's in any creative endeavor, which is the, you have to look for the well-being of the whole of the thing you're doing versus

the individual elements of it. For example, I remember I was working on a screenplay, and I wrote a scene between two of the characters that was just awesome. It was funny. It was really revealing. It showed the characters up. I'm like, this is an amazing scene. This is just, it rocks. This is an awesome scene. And then one day, I'm like, I asked myself the question, which you have to always ask yourself,

what happens to this movie if I don't have the scene? Does the movie work without the scene? And the answer was yes. Yes, it does. That my scene didn't advance anything. Yeah, it was fun and it showed some cool character moments, but it didn't advance the plot.

It wasn't necessary. And the correct answer was, I had to pull it out. That my movie was better for taking out this amazing scene. And this happens in magic all the time. You come up with a great mechanic, an awesome mechanic. That's fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.

But it doesn't synergize with the other mechanics in the set. And the correct answer is you pull it and wait for a point in time where that mechanic will shine. And that's hard. One of the things I find with beginning designers is they want everything to be in the next set they do. I made something. It's awesome. I want this in the next set. And what I say to them is you have to prioritize the needs of the set over individual components.

Yes, we want awesome things, but we want awesome things that all work together in the thing we're doing. And if you have an awesome thing that doesn't quite work, save it. There will be a moment in time, magic's a hungry monster, there will be a moment in time where that thing is perfect and will shine and be awesome and enhance the set.

And like I said, there is, one of the things about talking about rewriting or recrafting or fine-tuning or iteration is getting rid of things you don't like is not hard. It's getting rid of things you don't like is not hard. It's getting rid of things you love, you know.

It's easy to get rid of things you hate. It's hard to get rid of things you love. But part of doing any kind of design is looking out for the good of the design as a whole rather than looking out for the good of the pieces. That you can't look out for the good of the pieces. That if your thing is awesome, but it doesn't contribute, then it's got to go. And I think tribal is that, which is,

there is moments in tribal that are awesome. There was moments in Lorwyn that were great, where the fact that, you know, things that non-creatures got to count as creatures, there were moments of true brilliance, of true genius, of just awesome moments. But it didn't happen enough. It wasn't valuable enough.

It didn't, it just, it can't carry its weight. And so we came to the conclusion, I mean, Innistrad's where I figured it out. Innistrad, it had a tribal theme that was pretty big. I mean, it wasn't as big as Onslaught or Lorwyn but it was a significant theme if we were going to care, that's the kind of set we do care on and it just wasn't carrying its weight

it just didn't matter most of the time and we don't have the luxury of adding words on cards because some small portion of the time it can matter and remember that. You don't judge things based on their best case scenario. You have to judge things based on day to day what happened. It's funny because one of the things people want to do, and this is very human of people, is

to look at the best case scenario and go that best case scenario was awesome. And they just gloss over the worst case scenario. And the answer is you have to be aware of how often something happens, good versus bad. That if your awesome, awesome thing happens really infrequently

and your not awesome thing happens all the time, you have to think about that. You know? Now, there are times and reasons where you want things maybe that aren't as awesome, and I'm not saying sometimes those can't work, but you have to be careful. And this is a good

example of something which had its moments of genius and moments of awesomeness, but the vast majority of the time wasn't pulling, it wasn't, it was not contributing. It was just adding complexity for the sake of complexity without doing anything. And

it was heavy-hearted. I mean, the real lesson here is Gottlieb was right. We should have listened to Gottlieb. That when he understood at the time, oh, so here's another cost that people don't even realize. It's a cost we had to pay.

Before we added tribal, you would say all goblins get plus one, plus one. But now, because there exists the possibility that the goblins you're referring to might not be creatures, you now have to say all goblin creatures get plus one plus one. Now, you might say, oh, whatever, it's a word, but, you know, complexity nibbles at you. You know, it's very, very easy to avoid the super complicated individual thing. The way complexity gets you is by nibbling

you to death. It's like, oh, it's just a word. It's just a word here, just a word there, maybe a couple words there. And before you know it, you've added a lot of complexity without even realizing it. And, I mean, it's funny. I know some people think, like, I'm paranoid about complexity. That, you know, I worry too much. And the answer is, magic is a complex game. A very complex game. I find it funny that people feel like I'm going to take all the complexity out of magic.

I'm like, as if something is possible. I mean, I talk about this, I talk about this in other podcasts. My metaphor sometimes is, I compare complexity to a fire. And then I feel like some people compare it to kindling, like we're trying to start a campfire, and oh no, if you're not careful

the wind will blow it out and then you'll have no fire. And I'm like, no, it's a little bit more like a raging five-alarm fire where R&D is like, how do we keep this from burning down the building? You know, magic has plenty of complexity. There is no lack of complexity in magic. Nobody's ever going to go,

oh, this game's just too easy. There's just nothing to think about. And so when I'm being cautious about complexity, it's not because the game can't and shouldn't have complexity. I'm just trying to cap how much, especially how much of a certain type of complexity. I'm meticulous in design.

There's lots of ways to add complexity and that's not going to cause a problem for beginners, and those are the kind of things we need to put more energy on. But things like just excess words, look, that hits beginners where it counts, and that's really important, and you've got to be careful on it.

One of these days I'll talk about word count. That's one of our metrics. Anyway, but, my point of today is that the tribal mechanic was something we tried it was a noble experiment looking back on it

it was a failed experiment and I want you to understand that not everything we do works, it's not like we try something and go man that was awesome, sometimes we try things and they fail and that part of this job is understanding and recognizing when things work and when things don't. And tribal, while noble

and has its moments of brilliance, was utterly a failure. And that, my friends, is the final, um, I now have finished my series on the card types. That is until we make a new card type one these days. Um, but, uh,

my final caveat in this is that I I mean I don't regret when we try things. I'm a little sad that we changed some language that can't get changed back. That we forever have to say goblin creatures. That to me is a big loss that we can't

that's not easily undone. But I'm not against trying things. Like, one of the things that I truly believe is if you never make mistakes, you are not trying hard enough. That part of pushing the envelope and part of taking risks is not every risk can work out.

And if you only take risks that work out, you're really not trying enough risks. And so I'm not upset that we did tribal. I do like the philosophy behind that gets us to do what we did. I mean, in this particular case, maybe we should have listened to Gottlieb. I mean, he did spell out the problems ahead of time

and they all came to be. So anyway, that, my friends, is everything there is to know about the tribal mechanic. But, I just parked my car, which means, yes, my friends, this is the end of Drive to Work. So thank you very much for joining me, and I'll talk to you next time.