Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #186 - Portal

Episode Date: December 12, 2014

Mark talks about the design of Portal.

I'm pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to be talking about Portal, Portal Second Age, and Portal Three Kingdom. So what we refer to as the Portal Sets is the topic of today. So I'm going to talk about sort of why we did them, what happened with them, some mistakes made. I'm going to talk all about everything Portal today. Okay, so let's go back in the Wayback Machine, back to the 90s. Okay, so the time was like 1996.

So one of the big challenges of Magic has always been, in fact, what I claim to be its greatest weakness is what we call its barrier to entry, which means it's just a hard game to learn, that Magic has a lot going on. It's fun, it's really fun, but it's complex, and it is hard to learn. And so one of the things we've always struggled with over the years

is how do we get people to learn how to play? Eventually, for those that know more modern times, I think Duel of the Planeswalkers has really been our salvation in that video games do a very, very good job of introducing ideas to people. They're very patient. They let people play by themselves so they're not embarrassed. They play at whatever speed they want to play. And the computer will just let them learn at the rate they want to learn.

And so Duel of the Planeswalkers has proved to be very effective. But that's much more recently. So let's go back to 1996. So, in fact, actually, maybe this is even 1995. So what happened was when I first got to Wizards, I got there in 95, one of the things they were trying to figure out was how to teach people how to play. So they came up with something called the Arc System. So what the Arc System was, was a really, really simplified version of Magic,

where instead of five colors, you had three colors, you just had red, blue, and green, and it was a very, very scaled-down version of a trading card game. And we put out three versions. We put out a version with Hercules, which was a popular TV show at the time. A show called Xena Princess Warrior, which was related to Hercules and also a popular TV show at the time.

And C23, which was a comic book made especially for this product. Jim Lee made it. And, yeah, my favorite thing about C-23. So C-23, I think, represents the number of chromosomes. That's why it's C-23, I think. Anyway, my favorite bit about it is

the main character is friends with a guy named Nemesis. And then his best friend betrays him and goes on to become the villain of the story. But I'm like, really? You have a friend and a guy named Nemesis? Nemesis. Like that, when he betrayed you, you were shocked by that.

I mean, you should have saw that coming. Anyway, so we had Hercules, Xena, C23, and the arc system was a dismal failure. It just didn't work. It didn't do what we wanted it to do. People just, if they were interested, would play magic and they would avoid the arc system. So anyway, go forward about a year. So that was like, we were planning that in 95, came out in 96.

So now it's 96, we're like, oh, the arc system doesn't seem like it's working. What else can we do? So our next idea is today's topic, was Portal. So the idea of Portal was that it would be magic light. It had a magic back, and the cards mostly looked like magic cards, but there would be a few changes. So let's walk through those changes. So number one, it was much, much simplifying what was available in the game. The game had land, had creatures, and had sorceries.

That's it. No artifacts, no enchantments, no instants exactly, although they did cheat a little bit. There were some cards that were labeled sorcery, but then were only usable at times

that for all intents and purposes you could use an instant. But it would label when you could use it, like I can make my creature bigger, but only when they are in the middle of attacking or something. Attacking or blocking. So there are some cards that later in Oracle got eroded

to instant. I guess it's that pseudo kind of cheatily had some instants. But pretty much it was land, creatures, and sorceries. Also, the frame was changed. It looked similar, but it was a little different. The power and toughness, the power had a sword by it, and the toughness had a shield by it.

There was a thick bar separating the rules text from the flavor text. I think all the rules text was also a little darker. There were some terminology changes. So, for example, we didn't say library or graveyard. We said your deck or your discard pile. Also, instead of saying block, you didn't block in the game, you intercepted. I'll get to that.

Well, I'll get to it now. So what happened was, so one of the things that goes on in R&D is there always at any one time is one or two R&D members who is assigned to the beginners. What that means is there's somebody, and the person rotates over time, but there's always somebody in R&D who's kind of focused on what exactly do beginners need to be able to learn how to play. And at the time, that man was a guy named Jonathan Tweet. So, by the way, I should have mentioned

Jonathan when I did my second wave of R&D podcast. I forgot. I realized later he was the one person I forgot. So Jonathan's history is, he was a role-playing game guy. He had invented a bunch of role-playing games. He got hired by Wizards of the Coast. He made a game called EverQuest

for Wizards of the Coast, which was a role-playing game. So Jonathan was very, very into role-playing. But on Black Wednesday, Wizards did away with role-playing. We were no longer doing any role-playing. But we really liked Jonathan, so Jonathan came over to the trading card game side

of R&D, since the role-playing side went away. And so for a over to the trading card game side of R&D since the role-playing side went away. And so for a number of years, eventually we would buy TSR and get Dungeon Dragons, and then Jonathan would work on Dungeon Dragons. But before that happened, he spent some years working on trading card games. And so during this period of time,

when Portal was being made, he was the beginner guy. So one of the things the beginner guy does is we do focus groups where we go and we watch people who have never learned how to play before and we give them the stuff and we watch them read it. You're watching through a two-way mirror. And watching people try to learn how to play the game, there are few things that are more frustrating.

Focus groups in general are frustrating, but they're valuable. You learn stuff. Because you can't say anything. You can't help them. You just have to watch them struggle to try to learn your game. And Magic is a hard game to learn. Anyway, from all this, Jonathan had it in his head

that players got confused by the term blocking, so he changed it. That's why it got changed. Anyway, so Portal was put together. Bill Rose. So at the time, magic was being done by five people back in 97, which were myself, Bill Rose, Mike Elliott, William Jockish, and Henry Stern.

There were other people in R&D, and from time to time, they would peek their head into magic. But we were the five who our primary responsibility was working on Magic. And that was it. We were the five. You know, there weren't I talk about development teams. Who's on the development team? Back then, we all were on the development team. Every development team

was the five of us because we were the only people working on Magic at the time or full time on Magic. There were other people like Richard Garfield or Scaffolias or Jim Lynn who did a little bit of work on Magic. But we're not making the card sets nearly as directly as the five of us. So anyway, during that time period, whenever we had side projects, one person would be assigned the side project.

So for example, I was being given Unglute. Unglute was my baby. I worked on it. I had other people contribute, but there was no team. It's just other people contributed designs. I used some of them. I would ask people for stuff, but there was no team. Portal, same way. There was no team.

Portal was put together by Bill Rose. And Bill was really, at the time, an advocate of trying to figure out how to simplify magic. Bill would later go on to be the person who spearheaded 6th edition rules, for those who don't know what that is. During the 6th edition, the course that called 6th edition, we did a major re-read of the rules. It's the biggest change in rules we've ever done. It introduced a stack.

It did a whole bunch of different things. And a lot of what you know is modern magic rules. A bunch of that happened during that time. Okay, so Bill set out to make an intro-level product. So Portal had, I believe the English version had 228 cards. It went down to as low as 221 in some other languages. So it came out May 1st, 1997. So to give you a little bit of context, fall of 1996 was Mirage. Fall of 1997 was Tempest. And so this portal came out in between Mirage coming out. Is that right?

96 was Mirage. Yes, 96 was Mirage, 97 was Tempest. And 98 would be Urza's Saga, right? So in between Mirage coming out and Tempest coming out, Portal came out. And Portal... So the other thing that we did was not only did we simplify some of the rules,

but we were trying to go for a little more simple flavor. The magic, kind of the violence was turned a little bit down. The art was made a little more just generally friendly with the idea that Portal might appeal to a larger group. So the idea behind Portal was some people would play Portal and that's it. They would never leave the Portal ecosystem. They would just have fun some people would play Portal and that's it. They would never leave the Portal ecosystem. They would just have fun. They would play Portal.

But the people who wanted more, they could transition to Magic. This was the idea. And so the people that really got into it and Portal wasn't enough for them, well, now there's a place they could go. They could go into Magic. So the idea of Portal was twofold. First, it would be some place that people that might not ever play Magic could play, because it's simpler,

and it would be a stepping stone for people to learn Magic as a way in. Okay, so a year later, so in between Portal and Portal Second Age, Tempest happened, and really what happened is the Weatherlight Saga happened. So for those that don't know, I and a man named Mike Bryan, who was the editor at the time, went to the brand managers and pitched the idea of a story that would span multiple blocks, what would be known as the Weatherlight Saga. The story that Mike and I pitched got, it sort of got taken over about a year in.

So the Tempest part of the story was our story, but all the stuff back that really changed radically from what we originally had done. But, so anyway, when we first pitched the Weatherlight Saga, Rick Ahrens was the brand manager at the time. He was all excited by the idea, and he went and he hired a whole team. So before this point, before we had done this, there was what we call the continuity team,

which was the people that were in charge of names and flavor text and made sure that Magic kind of did what, that was, it was consistent. Now be aware that at the time, our design was done freelance, and most of our designers would make a stab at names, and sometimes even a stab at flavor text. So that's why there are a lot of in-jokes and names, because the design team would make a lot of the name. So if you know... Anyway, Talimtor, which is from Mirage

is an anagram for Mr. Toilet, which was a nickname for Elliot, which is one of the designers of Mirage. The reason they could do stuff like that was the designers did do a lot of the naming of the sets. But when we got to Tempest it moved over and we started having a more dedicated I would say it's the first almost creative team

I mean, the continuity did a lot of, some of the creative work. But there's a team of artists, and the first time we did any real world building, if you will, Wrath was built. Wrath was a defined place that had a certain look and feel to it. Which worlds before that,

it was more before that, it was more like we're doing an icy world. We're doing a tropical world. And so they would pick sort of a climate or a general sense, but there wasn't actual world building done. You know, Terrasier or Jamora didn't have a distinctive look other than mimicking real world influences. So anyway, this team got put together, and this team,

now Mike and I were not working on this project, but this team decided that for Portal, they were going to give it a look and a feel, give it a world. So Portal Second Age had a defined world to it. It was definitely a world that was, I would call it Camelot-y. It had definitely a lot of influence on high fantasy. There were knights and dragons and such.

Portal Second Age is also famous. It's the first set that really ever used guns. The technology they said at the time was kind of flintlock rifles, and so there were a lot of rifles and stuff in it. We tend to shy away from guns and magic for two main reasons. One is that we try to keep a technology, in order to feel like fantasy, we try to go back far enough technologically that if you get too modern, it starts feeling more science fiction and less fantasy.

So we tend to shy away from, I use more modern technology in quotes, in that we go back a couple centuries. The second thing is that in our game, magic is very much the weapon of choice. Our planeswalkers are dueling with magic. And having weapons that are too powerful, especially ranged weapons like a gun, it's like, well, why would I fight with magic if I could just shoot them with my gun? And so we tend to steer away from guns. But if you like guns, Portal Second Age is your set.

Because it's one of the few magic sets. Well, I mean, there might be individual cases of things that kind of look something. But this is a case where it was built into the world. There were flintlock rifles. It was just part of the world. So Portal Second Age came out June 24, 1998. So about a year later. So one of the things that was different is it had 165 cards,

so a few less cards, or more than a few. The previous one had 228, this one down to 165. And the terminology went back. Instead of saying deck in discard pile and intercept, it said library and graveyard and block. So it went back to normal magic terminology. And I think Portal Second Age, they were willing, they pushed the envelope a little bit more

than what they were willing to do mechanically. Although, still remember, by the way, when I say land creatures and sorceries, what I mean is land, obviously, basic land, nothing but basic land. Creatures were vanilla creatures, a few French vanilla creatures, but not even that many, and a few creatures that have either

come into play effects or leave play effects. Or actually, they might be death triggers, technically. But things that really worked, mostly in play, they just were either a vanilla creature or a very simple French vanilla creature. And as I said,

there was flying, I think there was first strike. There weren't a lot of abilities. It didn't use trample or protection or things that were slightly more complicated. And it didn't have a lot of triggers. There were some rares, I guess, that had attack triggers, but it was very simple in what they did. Okay, so then in 1999,

so a year after that, July 6, 1999, was released Portal 3 Kingdoms. So Portal 3 Kingdoms, what happened, it's funny, you can see portals kind of reflect what was going on at the time. What happened at the time was we started opening up into what we call the APAC region, Asia, including China and Japan and Australia. The game had come to Japan a little earlier, and I guess Australia just because it was in English. And then we had started to get into the Chinese market, which is obviously a very big market. And so one of our, at the time, all the offices that dealt with the foreign things were positioned in Wizards.

This was before we got bought by Hasbro. And so there was a man named Jackson, I believe, if I remember correctly. I forget Jackson's last name. But he believed that if we were going to make inroads in China, we needed to bring Toril to China. And to do that, he wanted us to talk in a language that they understood. And so he suggested, there's a Chinese mythology called the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Well, it was a mythology, and there was a book written by a guy named Luan Guangzong called The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Well, it was a mythology and there was a book written by a guy named Lu Wan Guangzong called The Romance

of Three Kingdoms and it was very, very popular, very well known in China and so he wanted to base the portal on that. He also had a very interesting idea of having all the art done by Chinese artists

and so if you ever take a look at it, it has a very distinctive look to it and the idea was that we would present the game using stories that people would be familiar with and using art, an art style they'd be familiar with. And so Portal 3 Kingdoms, remember I explained that back in the day, one person would do stuff? Henry Stern did Portal 3 Kingdoms.

Oh, by the way, Portal 3 Kingdoms wasn't called Portal 3 Kingdoms because it was the third one. Three Kingdoms was the thing they were trying to resonate. So it was, Portal Three Kingdoms wasn't called Portal Three Kingdoms because it was the third one. Three Kingdoms was the thing they were trying to resonate. So it was just Portal Three Kingdoms. But ironically, it's kind of like Portal, Portal Second Age, Portal Three Kingdoms. So it does feel like one, two, three, even though the name actually was just referring to that. So Henry worked on it. Henry made one change because when he was trying to do the story, what he realized was there just weren't a lot of flying creatures in the story

but magic needs evasion. So he changed flying to something called horsemanship. And horsemanship is essentially flying except it only cares about horsemanship. So a horsemanship creature

can block anything. Well, it can block a normal creature or block a creature in horsemanship creature can block anything, well, can block a normal creature or block a creature in horsemanship, but a creature that doesn't have horsemanship can't block a horsemanship creature. So it's essentially flying. Although once horsemanship got added to real magic, flying and horsemanship can't see each other.

So a flyer can't block a horsemanship creature and a horsemanship can't block a flying creature. We talked a little bit about, I'll get to it in a second, when we brought it in. We thought about just a rodding horsemanship to flying, but it just didn't make a lot of flavor sense, and we decided

it wouldn't hurt vintage, so I'll get there in a minute. Anyway, so Portal 3 Kingdoms was made in Chinese. Two different, Chinese traditional and Chinese simplified. We actually printed two different Chinese versions. Japanese and just a little tiny bit in English. And the reason there was a little bit of English was because of the Australian and New Zealand market.

Notice that Portal for Kingdoms was not sold anywhere except the APEC region, which means it is very, very hard to come by. In fact, there are a bunch of cards, the most famous one being Imperial Seal, that went on. So what happened was, in October of 2005, I talked about this during my 20 years and 20 podcasts, we made the decision that, you know, here's these magic cards, they have a magic back, there was nowhere they were allowed to be played, and we said, you know what, you know, here's these magic cards, they have a magic back, there was nowhere they were allowed to be played, and we said you know what? You know what? We should

let people play them. Fine, you can play them in vintage. And once we did that, it really created a rekindling. So the thing I need to explain is, Portal was a failure. Portal Second Age was a failure. Portal 3 Kingdom was a little more successful, but still not particularly successful. Enough, obviously,

that we stopped doing Portal after these three. After we brought them back and we said you can use them, there was a bunch of rekindling, especially in Portal 3 Kingdom, which is just super, super rare. Okay, so let's talk about

why did they fail. So, I believe there was a couple major problems. So here's the first problem. So there's something in game design, and not just the first problem. So there's something in game design, and not just game design, actually, there's something

that when you make anything, I guess it doesn't even necessarily need to be games, this is true of TV and entertainment, I know, and other properties as well, is you have to be careful of making what you call exit points. So what an exit point is, is

a point where somebody can go, oh, I'm not interested. This would be a good time for me to bow out. So for example, I'm going to use my example of TV as an example of this. So let's say you're doing a TV show and it's a brand new TV show. Well, there's a really good chance of people not to watch your brand new TV show. So how do you get people to watch it? I mean, you do a lot of marketing and stuff, but here's one of the tricks you also do. You put it right after a popular show. And then the end of a show is what they call a tag, which is usually a little tiny clip at the end. If it's a sitcom, it's a little joke. If it's a drama, maybe it's something that will hint at some future thing or a little capper to the story. And

at the end of the tag, normally you would have commercials, and then you would start the new show. And the new show has what's called the teaser, which is the beginning of the show, which is the part that goes before the credits that's a little sort of gets you in the story. So when it's a brand new show, what they'll do is they'll run the tag for the popular show

and then run the teaser immediately, that they won't run a commercial. And the reason is that commercial is an exit point. There's an opportunity to go, eh, okay, it's done, I'm going to leave. And one of the important things you have to be very careful with with new things, and this is very true with games as well, is you have to minimize the exit points. That when you make an opportunity for someone to go, wow, that is a good chance for me to leave, that's how you get people to leave. So the problem with Portal is Portal had

a gaping wide exit. And let me explain. The thought process was we'd make this little thing that you could play in. Some people would never leave that ecosystem, but then people who wanted to would go to Magic. But we made the Portal cards not Magic legal,

not tournament legal. So what that meant is, and remember, Portal came in, you would buy a starter, and then you would buy boosters. It was just like Magic, but, you know,

a little simpler. But you spent time and energy in that ecosystem. You know? And all of a sudden, it's like all that time you spent, all the value, everything you collected,

it's like worthless. I mean, there was one that wasn't worthless, which was, there were three types of cards in the product. Type number one were cards that were actual magic cards that had the same name. We would just usually do new art. But those cards were usable

because if you have the same name as a normal magic card, you have a magic back, those are legal. So those were legal. And one of the reasons Portal was at all popular with established player base was, there were some cards like Wrath of God and Armageddon that had fun art that people wanted to get that version of it.

Second, there were cards that were identical to cards in Magic, but we thought the flavor did not fit what we wanted to do with Portal, so we changed the name. Third, there were brand new cards for Portal. So, the second and third category, you could not play in Magic.

So if you had your deck and you went to play, you'd say, oh, I'm going to play at Friday night at the local store. You, a judge would have called and you had an illegal deck and you weren't allowed to play those cards. So we made this crazy exit strategy where people would go,

oh, I want to play more, and they would have this horrible experience and go, I have to start all over and they would have this horrible experience and go, I have to start all over again? All the equity I've built up? None of my cards are useful anymore? And that was really, that was a big, big problem. Number two, and this was worse with Portal,

we tried to correct as we went along, was the disconnect between the two. That the terminology was different. There were little subtle things about the rules that were different that it wasn't quite exactly magic you know that um and this led into the third problem which was there created a schism that um the experienced players looked at um portal as kind of you know baby magic and so it started getting a stigma like you know why do you just play magic what do you know, baby magic. And so it started getting a stigma, like, you know, why do you just play magic? What do you know? So someone would come to Portal, and rather

than have what you want when a new player comes in, is you want the experienced players to bond with them, to help them. Because experienced players are the teachers they need. And the problem with Portal is, because of the way it sort of got played out, and it was

viewed more as rather than just being part of Magic, it was viewed as being separate from Magic, and some players looked down on it, and so it caused that problem. Also, we made this decision to sort of change the general flavor.

Like, for example, in Magic, you had grizzly bears. Well, in Portal for the Kingdom, you had Bear Cub. And Ron Spencer, by the way, the artist who did Terror and Hypnotic Specter, an early artist in Magic, his background actually was doing, I think, more stuff for greeting cards

or maybe children's books. He had an art style that he could do, which was very cute. And so if you ever saw Bear Cub, it was this cute little Bear Cub. And so Portal was ever saw a bear cub, it was this cute little bear cub. And so the portal was kind of like full of that. It was like this really beautiful art, but it wasn't... I mean, magic had a little more edge to it, and so a lot of the edge got taken off. So a lot of the visceral feel of magic had changed quite a bit.

We changed the names, and kind of what we did is we took magic and kind of we made it less magic. And so that created more of a schism between the experienced players. It made it a little bit harder to transition. In general, I mean, the biggest problem with Portal was it was meant to be the stepping stone, but we didn't make, like, it was like, okay, we'll give you a little tiny step, and then there's this big step in between the game you learn and this game we want you to play now some people played Portal and never left the ecosystem of Portal

but most people who were interested like would quickly learn that magic existed and then they wanted to make this step but we did not make it easy to make this step so Portal I mean it failed on multiple levels it didn't end up being the greatest of stepping stones.

It kind of got somewhat rejected by the players. I mean, it's funny. Once we made the cards tournament legal, all of a sudden, in Vintage, there's all these cards, especially in Portal 3 Kingdoms, that, like, become sought after and became these really valuable cards because people wanted them, you know?

And like I said, the only really overlap between Portal and Experience Plays early on is there was a few high-profile cards that just had different versions that people, just because Magic players like having different versions of things, we sought after. And so, I mean, I think so, yeah,

so to recap here, we made transitioning from Portal to Magic have a huge exit. We made some fundamental changes between the two that really put a schism between the two, both making it harder to transition and making experienced players think less of it, which was a big problem. One of the things

that's crucial to getting players to play, one of the things we've learned is that the best asset we have, the number one way that a player that doesn't know how to play learns how to play is through an existing player. And that we need the

players to be allies to help us get new players playing. Because new players playing is good for everybody. It gets new blood in the game, it ensures that magic is growing, which ensures we have the resources we need, which allows us to not only have extra people

for the quality of the game, but just do extra things and make supplemental products. And, you know, the more people playing, the more we're able to do. And Portal really made that schism, which was a problem. Portal also, like I said, the final problem was

that it really kind of... I think if you look back in early Magic, we were a little... I'll be blunt. We were a little ashamed, I think, that we... I don't know, ashamed might be the wrong word. We were worried that what we were presenting

might be perceived badly by some subsection of the audience. And, I, for example, remember, I did an article about this,

about why demons went away from magic for a while. There was just this concern that, like, we'd upset people. And I think over time we finally said,

you know, this is what we are. People accept us for what we are. You know, and that, I think over time we finally said, you know, this is what we are. People will accept us for what we are. And I think Portal took away a lot of the edge that is one of the things that really makes Magic

the game it is. And that Portal was us kind of going, oh, maybe new players might not like what we are. Maybe we should pretty ourselves up a little bit.

And in the end, it's like, no, no, we are what we are. Look, if you're going to play Magic, this is what Magic is. And, look, the players that really play the game enjoy what we are. And that, you know, I think we had to stop being embarrassed by what we were and embrace it and say, it's awesome what we are. What we are is awesome.

And stop worrying about, you know, look, if people don't like what we are, then they don't have to play. But, you know, Magic should be what it should be. So, I mean, I look back at Portal as being a very important step in that we learned a lot from it. One of the things I like to say is that failure breeds change. That when you do something and it doesn't work, it makes you be introspective and figure out what you were doing wrong. And Portal really was that for us.

I mean, Portal introspective and figure out what you were doing wrong. And Portal really was that for us. That, um, I mean, Portal didn't directly lead into Duel of the Planeswalkers, but it led down the path that eventually got us there. And that with each thing we tried, we learned a new thing about what we needed to do for our audience. And so, um,

anyway, I think I look at Portal as being an important learning lesson for us, an important stepping stone to getting where we needed to get. But anyway, I am now at work, and I am, as we speak, parking my car. So, we all know what that means, guys. It means it's time for me to end my drive to work.

So, I hope you liked learning about Portal today. Quick aside, which is, I really believe that one of the roles of this podcast, one of the roles, is being, I'm one of the historians of the game. And so, I think it's important from time to time to learn the history of the game, our successes, and as of today, some of our failures. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed learning about all about Portal. So anyway, guys,

thank you very much for joining me, and it's time for me to be making magic. Talk to you next time.