Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #295 - Chicken Rabbit Donkey

Episode Date: January 8, 2016

Mark talks about the three times he had to dress up as an animal for work.

I'm pulling up in my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay. So today's podcast, I've dubbed Chicken Rabbit Donkey. And the reason is, I'm going to tell you three stories today that happened to be the three times I dress up like an animal for work. Two of these involve unsets. One involves not an

unset, a story that I don't think I've ever told publicly. Okay, let's start with chicken. Okay, so back in, what is it, 90s, the 90s, the late 90s, I made a set called Unglued. the 90s, the late 90s, I made a set called Unglued. So the idea was we wanted to do some promotion for Unglued. And so we had a meeting in which we had a brainstorming session to go, what cool things can we do

to promote Unglued? And so basically people are spitballing, throwing things out, you know, we're writing things down. And at one point, you know, we're brainstorming. The set, by the way, had a chicken theme

for those that don't know Unglued well. There was a cycle of chickens, one in each color and then there was a, including a chicken lord. So the idea is you could build this chicken deck although it was all spread through colors. It wasn't the easiest deck to build. But anyway, it had a chicken theme and the expansion symbol was an egg. Anyway, we had played up the chicken theme and the the the expansion symbol

was that egg and anyway we had played up the chicken theme and not only was there by the way not only was there a cycle of chickens

there also was chickens and artwork and there was a lot of references to chickens there were a lot of chicken references so anyway we had decided

that the theme of the set was going to have a chicken theme so anyway we're in the meeting we're brainstorming and I said

oh I could head judge the pre-re going to have a chicken theme. So anyway, we're in the meeting, we're brainstorming, and I said, oh, I could head judge the pre-release dressed as a chicken, and then instead of writing down my suggestion to put with the group of things, the group was like, yeah, that's good, we're doing that. And I'm like, oh, okay.

So it became pretty clear that I was going to head judge dressed as a chicken. Now all that was left to be determined was what exactly that meant. So, it turns out Unglued didn't have a wide pre-release. It wasn't the kind of thing where stores had a pre-release. This was way back in the day.

There was one place. If you wanted to go to the Unglued pre-release, you had to go to Gen Con. So, let me tell you a little bit of history about Wizards and Gen Con. So Peter Atkinson, one of the founders of Wizards, Peter loved role-playing. Still to this day, he loves role-playing. And he loved Dungeons & Dragons.

He would later go buy the company. It was because of Peter that Wizards purchased TSR, who owned Dungeons & Dragons. But anyway, now that Peter loved role-playing, he did. He loved Gen Con. In fact, Peter would go on to buy Gen Con later on. Peter owns Gen Con right now. But anyway, so Wizards used to make, what's the word?

We used to travel en masse every year to Gen Con. And I'm not sure exactly. It felt like the entire company went every year back in the day. It probably wasn't everybody, but it was a lot of people. I mean, we would fly out a majority of the company. And just, we would attack it. Like, we would just... Gen Con used to be a really, really giant deal for Magic

because it was a giant deal for Peter. And so anyway, we were trying to figure out what to do with this Gen Con, and we realized that we had Unglued coming out, and we didn't really have anywhere to do anything with Unglued, and we didn't really have a big thing to do at Gen Con, so we decided to do this pre-release. And not just a single pre-release. Basically, all weekend long of Gen Con, every day there were flights. So there wasn't like one pre-release. There was like ongoing pre-releases.

So once we knew they were doing ongoing pre-releases, I said I would head judge. For those who don't know, I have a judging background. I did a podcast on my judging background. So I used to do a lot of judging. And I was the rules manager for the unsets, because the rules manager for normal magic wanted nothing to do with it. In fact, it's funny, I was trying to, normally when we put out a set, the rules manager collects all the rulings of it,

and I had started collecting rulings for the unset, because there's a lot of weird things, and you know, the set does crazy things, and so there's a lot of questions that come up that are very odd. And so I went to the rules manager, who I don't remember who it was at the time. My guess is it was either Tom Wiley or Beth Morrison. Let's imagine it was Tom Wiley. That's a funnier story. You guys don't know Tom Wiley, but I know Tom Wiley, so it's a funnier story if it's Tom Wiley.

So I go up to ask whatever the question is, you know, something about, like, you know, like, what happens if you have the two parts of BFM and blah, blah, blah, you know, just whatever rules questions. And I ask and Tom is like, yeah, I don't have time for that. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, Tom, this is a set. We're releasing the set. He goes, yeah, I don't have time for that.

And I go, come on, we have to answer questions. We're releasing a product. And Tom is like, you can do that. And so I'm like, okay, I don't have time for that. And I go, come on, we have to answer questions. We're releasing a product. And Tom is like, you can do that. And so I'm like, okay, I'll do that. And so I said, I shall be the unrules manager. So anyway, I basically wrote the FAQ. And the FAQ was just me coming up with every question you could possibly imagine. Just because there's lots of quirky, weird questions about all the silver-bordered cards.

So it became clear, look, it was my set. I led the design. The unglued design was quirky in that there wasn't really a team. I ran it, but what I did is I asked for input from lots of different people and then collected it. So it wasn't that I designed

it all by myself. I didn't. I organized it by myself. But I had. I organized it by myself. But I had many, many people submitting. And then the idea was the people that submitted enough stuff that got put in, those people got listed as a design team. So you ever see the design team, there's a bunch of people listed. Those are people that got enough percentage of cards in the set that I dubbed them the team, even though the way it actually worked was I was the only person who, there were no meetings or anything. I just would figure out what we needed, and I would send out, you know, requests and stuff.

And then as I started figuring out what we, what, as I started filling in the file, and I realized things we needed, I would then ask for specifics from people. Mostly, mostly the unsaid stuff where people would just go, here's a weird idea. Once I explained to them sort of the goofy humor I was going for and stuff. Anyway, so I had, I had led the set. I did all the flavor text. I mean, I oversaw the flavor text. I oversaw the naming.

I did the card concepting. I wasn't the art director, but I wrote up all the card concepts that did basically the art descriptions. So I was super, super involved. I was about as involved in the set as any human being could be. This is back in the day where R&D didn't have a lot of people. And so it was like me and Bill Rose and Mike Elliott and William Jockish and Henry Stern. Basically, there's like five of us that was doing most of magic. So like, I was the team in charge of overseeing this. So I oversaw every aspect of it. And once again, I really felt that the creative had to be ingrained. So I did all the creative. I did the art descriptions. I was super, super involved in the set. So anyway,

like if there's going to be a pre-release and I was a head judge, like I was the rules manager. I had judging experience. I'm like, if anybody's head judging this, I'm going to head judge it. So the trick was we needed to figure out a cool way. I wanted it to be a fun pre-release, and I wanted it to be a pre-release that didn't discourage people from having a good time. What I did want to do is make this wacky, fun set that people can do crazy things with, and then the pre-release was about beating your opponent. So I came up with the following idea. So my plan was there were prizes.

I got a whole bunch of prizes, all sorts of weird and wacky prizes, including packs of Unglued, but lots of weird and quirky things, really hodgepodge-y things. It's kind of funny, if you think of the prize wall that's become very popular now, a lot of GPs and things, I kind of actually was doing that back in the day, but it wasn't a prize wall, but it had that feel of just lots of different things you could get.

And the way it worked was it was a raffle that every time you won a match, you would get a raffle ticket. Plus, I made a list of wacky and weird things that could happen.

And if any of those happened, you got a ticket. So what happened was you wanted to win. Winning was good. Winning got you tickets. But what really got you tickets were doing lots of wacky things.

So players were more focused on having fun and doing wacky things than necessarily winning. And so it created this fun spirit. Like one of the things that was really fun was, okay, remember, I'm at this event dressed as a chicken. Let me talk about that since that's a key part of today's thing.

So I said, okay, I'm going to be a chicken. I'm going to dress as a chicken. So we said to the people running the event, okay, you know, I need a chicken outfit. And so they had to go and they went to some local store and found a chicken outfit. I think they found an outfit that hadn't been worn in years. It was dusty and it had like, I mean, they weren't real feathers, but had sort of imitation feathers. And it had this big helmet. For those, by the way, who have never actually worn an animal outfit with those helmets, you can't see.

Those helmets, you barely can see. The reason, if you ever go to Disneyland, there's somebody always escorting the people, the handlers that go with the thing. You can't really see when you have those helmets on. So I brought Laura. Laura, who now is my wife at the time, is my girlfriend. I brought her along to help me, and she was my handler when I had the helmet on. So I brought Laura, Laura who now is my wife at the time, my girlfriend, I brought her along to help me and she was my handler when I had the helmet on. I didn't actually, what happened was I wore the helmet a few times. I think I started the event,

I started each, the beginning of each tournament wearing the helmet and I would wear it a couple times and I would wander out in the hall and people would take pictures and probably, there were probably a lot of very weird pictures of me at that Gen Con in my whole element. I have no idea. People would just come up to me and take pictures and I couldn't tell what was going on. So anyway, I now feel for the Disney characters. But anyway, at the parks. So I had this old dusty chicken outfit.

Laura actually got me a hat. So when I wasn't wearing the head, I had a chicken hat that I could wear, which I still own. But anyway, so I was dressing this chicken outfit, and then one of the things we were trying to do is make this feel like a different kind of event. And one of the things that, I mean, as you will see, there's a price to be paid for me wearing my chicken outfit, but I did really appreciate that it set a tone that I really, really liked of which this was not a normal tournament. The head judge was dressed as a chicken. It set a tone from the very beginning of, look, we're here to have fun. And people really did have fun. It was a great series of

pre-releases. A lot of people talked to me afterwards and like, this is the most fun I've had. And like, one of the things I love about the unset, by the way, is there are a lot of fun ways to play Magic and there are a lot of very serious, Magic can get very serious. There are tournaments and there's a whole organized play structure where people are trying to prove they're the best Magic player. And our story, you know, we take this all very seriously. We're telling a serious story. But part of the thing that I wanted to do and I wanted the unset to sort of reinforce

is, you know what? Magic's a fun game. It's fun. It's goofy. It's fun. It's not always dead serious. And it was fun to sort of play up that side of things. Because remember, when it got brought to me to make the unset, I wasn't actually, the assignment I was given is, this set is going to be, have different color borders. I didn't think it was giving me a silver, but different color borders, and it's not going to have different color borders. I didn't think it was giving me a silver, but different color borders and it's not going to be tournament legal. Do whatever you want. Make cards. The idea was to make cards we couldn't make in a normal

set. I came up with the idea of the parody element and the humor element and trying to make fun of it. That was all stuff I brought to the table. So anyway, I was really happy that we managed to do a pre-release and made something that unto itself was very, very fun. And I was happy that we managed to do a pre-release and made something unto itself. It was very, very fun. And I was happy that I head judging as a chicken, I think, did a lot of good.

Now, for those who don't understand, the cost that comes with head judging as a chicken. So this outfit was old. I mean, not old. It was unused. It hadn't been cleaned in a while. It was dusty, I guess I should say that. And during the course of the weekend, I breathed in a lot of dust. So much so that I, before the weekend was over, I had lost my voice. And I actually ended up with bronchitis. In fact, I had lung issues for months, for months, which I attribute to this costume. I was sick for quite a while because I had judged as a chicken.

Now that said, I was happy I did it. It is definitely, there are pictures somewhere on the internet of me dressed as a chicken. And it was a cool event. And I do think me dressing as a chicken definitely created the right tone.

So I was happy for that. But anyway, so number one, chicken. Okay, so let was happy for that. But anyway, so number one, chicken. Okay, so let's move into number two where I got addressed as a rabbit. Okay, so the unsets people are familiar with, the first and the last

are me head judging. We'll get to unhinged soon enough. But let me talk a little bit about being dressed as a rabbit. One of the things to understand about Wizards is Wizards has a lot of very creative people in it. It also has a lot of people that love puzzles. And one of the things back in the day, we still do a little of this, but one of the things

that Peter, Peter Atkinson, was a big believer is he believed that every once in a while it was okay to stop work and just have a good time. I mean, we still do that today. To this day, we still do that. But we went to Peter with a night, a bunch of us got together and said, we think we can make a cool event, a cool kind of surprise party slash puzzle event was the idea. And so we went to Peter and said, could we do this? You know, the idea was in the middle of the day,

we would just stop everything, stop all the work, and have a surprise party. And then built into it was this little puzzle event that we had made. We got Peter's blessing. I think we talked,

the managers were all aware, and so everyone knew that kind of there was going to be a party. But the rank and file employees had no idea. This truly was a surprise party, in which no one saw it coming. So what happened was, this team got together, and we were planning the party. Super, super secret.

No one knew about it. And we knew we wanted a puzzle theme, so we were trying to figure out a cool theme that would go along with puzzles. And so we ended up with Alice in Wonderland. So for those who don't know, Lewis Carroll, who was the creator of Alice in Wonderland, really loved puzzles, and there's a lot of puzzles woven into Alice in Wonderland,

and then a lot of people since then have embraced it, and there's a lot of different puzzles that have used Alice in Wonderland as a theme to do puzzles. There's a nice synergy there. And anyway, we felt like, okay, Alice in Wonderland, that's a pretty cool theme. Early Wizards definitely, there was a lot of flamboyant dressing up and stuff. There's a lot of people that really enjoyed. One of the stories I used to tell is, we used to go to conventions.

I can explain this going to Gen Con. one of the stories I used to tell is we used to go to conventions. I can explain this going to Gen Con. And early Wizards had a lot of there were a lot of people that really had a lot of panache and just like a lot of our early employees were people who

liked to dress in a very flamboyant way and just, that's how they dressed. And I remember once we tried to have Wizards decided they were going to have for conventions they were going to say,, here's the work outfit for conventions. And you would have to wear jeans or khakis or some sort of solid pants. You'd wear a t-shirt that had some Wizards product on it. And then, you know, like tennis shoes.

And too restrictive. No. That didn't allow people to be themselves and was struck down. So early wizard definitely had a very flamboyant element to it. So Allison wanted to let it fit into, just fit the aesthetic of early wizards. And so what we did is,

one of the people in our secret cabal was in charge of doing all the bulletin boards and all the interconnection. So we had a new employee that started going on the boards and talking with people named Alice Liddell. I think it's L-I-D-D-E-L,

which is Alice's name in Alice in Wonderland. But because it's Alice in Wonderland, kind of like we say Dorothy Gale. If you ask people who Dorothy Gale is, they have no idea. But if you say, who's Dorothy? They go, Wizard of Oz? Yeah, see, Dorothy Gale is Wizard of Oz.

Gale is a hurricane. Anyway, so Alice came on the thing and just did a lot of innocuous things. It wasn't that we were trying to draw attention to ourselves. She just sort of came on and said some peculiar things. No one actually caught on, even though it was a big tell, since if you just happen to know Alice in Wonderland, uh, but a lot of people don't know that. Anyway, um, so what we did is we planned a whole bunch of puzzles.

Um, I remember Richard Garfield was involved, and just, we have a lot of puzzle people. Um, Mike Schellinker, who now makes puzzles for a living, has always been a real big puzzle guy. Uh, Mike was involved, I'm pretty sure. But anyway, we had a bunch of different people. And so the idea was that there were different stations where there were different puzzles.

And then each puzzle you put together, like there was a meta-puzzle, where if you could solve the individual puzzle pieces, then you could solve the meta-puzzle of what was going on. And also, it wasn't just puzzles. It also was a party. So, like, I remember we had drinks and we had cake. It was cute.

The little drinks had little drink. We made little drink me notes to put in every single drink and little eat me things to put in every piece of cake. We were very exacting in this. This is very well done. But anyway, while we were meeting, we talked about what we needed to do to start the event. What we wanted some—because remember, no one knew the event was coming. It wasn't like, oh, at noon we're going to have a party.

Nobody knew it was coming. And so we needed something to sort of get attention and then draw people out to realize there's something going on. And so the idea we had, or my suggestion, was what if we use the White Rabbit? So if you remember Alice in Wonderland, for those who don't, Alice in Wonderland ends up falling down the hole of the Wonderland because he's chasing the White Rabbit, which is, in the story, the White Rabbit's late for a very important date. I'm not sure whether the book says that.

In the movie, it's like, I'm late. I'm late for a very important date. Maybe that's from the book. I know he's late for a date whether the book says that in the movie. It's like, I'm late, I'm late for a very important date. Maybe that's from the book. I know he's late for a date in the book. Anyway, so we decided, what if we had... So I said, okay, we have somebody dressed as a white rabbit running around the building screaming, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. And everybody would...

It'd be a very dynamic thing because normally you don't see a man dressed as a person, dressed as a rabbit running around. Somehow, my suggesting as somebody running around as a rabbit was heard by everybody else as, Mark says he's willing to run around dressed as the White Rabbit. But, I'd done the chicken. I'm like, okay, I'll step up. I'll do it. I'll be the White Rabbit. Okay, so here was the issue. So at the time, Wizards, we were back in our old building. So Wizards has been in three different, well, four type things.

When Wizards first started, the early, early, early days, it was in Richard's basement because they couldn't afford actually being in a building. Eventually, they were able to afford to get in a natural, they were getting rent in. And that's the building I first, when I first started working Wizards, where I went to, although we quickly moved away from there. Like, I was only there for maybe six, six weeks, eight weeks before we moved. Anyway, then we moved into the old building, which is the one I'm talking about now. And then we moved across the street to our new building, which actually we've been in for 10 years, but it's the new building in the sense of not the old building or the old, old building. Okay, so the old building had four buildings,

a first floor and a second floor, and they were, it was like in a square. In the middle was what we call the, there was a giant fountain we called the Manipool. And anyway, they were northeast, south, and west. They were just named on the directions of the compass. And we had they were north, east, south, and west. They were just named on the directions of the compass. And we had both of south, I think both of east, the top of north, and the top of west, my memory. So we had six of the eight of the buildings. You know, think of like top and bottom of four different buildings.

There were six sections we had. So my job was to run through. We had all the top and two of the bottom. I had to run through all the tops and two of the bottoms screaming, you know, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. Now also I was dressed as a rabbit, which is a very thick,

it's a very fuzzy, warm costume. And it wasn't, I don't remember whether it was spring or summer, but it was relatively warm. It was not cold at all. So I'm dressed in a very warm bunny suit running around. And I got into it. I'm like, I'm late, I'm dressed in a very warm bunny suit, running around.

And I got into it. I'm like, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. I'm running around. And I'm not just running the straight line. I'm zigzagging. I'm trying to make sure every single person, like I'm trying, literally, I'm trying to make sure that every single employee

sees me running by going, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. And, you know, I had my bunny ears on, and I don't think I had the head on. I think I might have had some makeup on, and I had bunny ears on. I think the problem was I needed to talk, and if I had the actual suit on, A, I couldn't see, and B, I wouldn't be able to talk, or no one could hear me. So anyway, I ran at top speed. Now, for those who don't know much about me, I try to stay in shape. I work out during lunch. I run on the treadmill. Back in the day, though, that's more recent.

Like, back in the day, I was not doing that. And I wasn't in the greatest of shape. I've gotten a little bit better shape. Even now, I'm not in great shape. I've never been in wonderful shape. But back then, I was in less good shape. Never been in wonderful shape. But back then, I was in less good shape.

And so I was running around in this super hot suit. Like, literally, I probably ran multiple miles doing this. And I was not in shape to do that. So at the end of it, I finished. And I remember Laura was there for the finish part. And I said to her, I go, I don't feel well. And I fall over. I collapse.

And I'm, like, on the ground. I literally, I could not stand up. I was so dizzy. Like, I so overexerted myself. And I remember Laura helped me get out of the suit. And I'm literally, like, collapsed on the ground. And there's a party going on. I wanted to go to the party, but I'm collapsed on the ground. So let's run through it so far.

I dress up as a chicken, and I get bronchitis. I dress up as a rabbit, and I have heat exhaustion, and I'm near collapse. Would I have done both of them again? Yes, I would. Maybe I would have been a little more careful as the rabbit. But anyway, the party was a huge success. Luckily, my part was just the beginning. So when I disappeared, no one questioned. In fact, I was supposed to go get dressed and come to the party. I was supposed to come to the party as a huge success. Luckily, my part was just the beginning. So when I disappeared, no one questioned.

In fact, I was supposed to go get dressed and come to the party. I was supposed to come and dress the party as a rabbit. So I just took a while to get to the party because I was collapsed on the floor. But anyway, that is my rabbit day. So the thing before I wrap up the rabbit that I just want to stress is one of the things I love about Wizards that's really fun is it is a place that embraces the sense of fun.

We make games, we make fun for a living, that I love that from the very day I started 20 years ago up till modern day, the company understands that we are in the business of fun and that means it needs to be a fun place to work. And I love the fact that we'll take days off and do cool things and have

employee appreciation days or you know, Nerf War, surprise parties, all sorts of things over the years that we've done. It is a fun place to work, and I do appreciate that. It was also fun, by the way, planning a puzzle. I actually had a few other puzzle planning things. That's not for today's thing, but Wizards has definitely introduced me to a bunch of people who are in the puzzle planning business. So that's cool. Okay. Third story.

So it is time. I make Unglued six years later. So I think Unglued came out in 98. So in 2004 is when Unhinged came out, if I remember correctly. So it took six years. We finally got to make up. I had made an Unglued So it took six years. We finally got it made. I had made an Unglue 2 that got put in a hiatus and never got made.

And so finally I got a chance to make Unhinged, which I was very excited by. I do love me my Unsets. And so anyway, Unhinged was coming out. So like, okay, we got to do something. I think the plan was there was in-store events. So there was pre-releases, not pre-releases, there were release events

for Unhinged. Meaning when it came out, we sent stuff, we had set things up so that people could run in-stores release day events. But I still wanted to do all pre-release. We weren't doing pre-releases at all the stores. Stores weren't doing pre-releases yet. We weren't going to do regional pre-release. We weren't doing pre-releases at all the stores. Stores weren't doing pre-releases yet,

and we weren't going to do regional pre-releases. So basically what I said is, okay, I liked the structure, how Unglued worked. Let's have a big pre-release, and I'll run it in flights again. And I basically used the same, I mean, I changed how you got the tickets, meaning the silly things you had to do was customized to Unhinge,

but it was the same basic thing. We had a lot of prizes. There was a raffle. You got a ticket for winning, but you got a ticket for doing cool and fun things. Also, by the way, the way we ran the release events was the same thing. I gave them the same system. I gave them a thing, and they could do tickets. Anyway, I left it up to the stores how to run it exactly,

but I gave them this proposal of how they could run it, which was I had given them the idea of how to do the tickets and things like that. And I actually went to a release event for Unhinged in Seattle. It was very fun. But anyway, let's get to the pre-release. So, turned out, from a timing standpoint, Gen Con didn't work, but SoCal Gen Con worked. So, I don't think they still do this, but back in the day,

SoCal Gen Con work. So I don't think they still do this. But back in the day, Gen Con did a satellite convention in California called SoCal Gen Con. Or Gen Con SoCal, I think it was. But anyway, I volunteered to do it. The funny thing is, in 2004, when my twins were born, I way, way, way pulled back on my travel. In fact, when they were born in 2004, I vowed, or not vowed, I promised my wife that I would only travel

two times a year for Magic. And at the time, that was, I went to the World Championship and I went to the Magic Invitational back in 2004. And what happened was, this pre-release came up and I went to Laura and I said, okay, Laura, I know, I know, I know I promised only twice a year. Um, but there's a pre-release for Unhinged and she's like, say no more.

You know, I, I know how much you love the unsets. That's a special thing. They don't happen very often. Okay. You go judge the pre-release. Um, so now it was, it was a given. It was a given that I was going to dress up in costume. Like no one said, nobody said, I mean, everyone said, given that I was going to dress up in costume. Like, no one said,

nobody said, I mean, everyone said, okay, Mark's going to head judge. What should Mark dress up as? Now, it turns out there's a pretty strong theme to unhinge, for those that don't unhinge. There was a donkey theme. Or an ass theme, if you will. There was, uh, we made a cycle of donkeys.

Let's see if I can remember this. There was cheap ass in white, Smart Ass in blue, Bad Ass in black, Dumb Ass in red, and Fat Ass in green. And then there was the City of Ass, and there was Assquatch,

and there was Ass Whoopin'. So there was a bunch of donkey-related cards. And then we also had a fraction-themed, which was... I use Hass, so we don't normally use fractions in magic. So creatures could have a half power or half toughness or fractional power or, you know, you could get half a red mana or little girl costs half a white mana and she was a half, half creature. And one of the schticks of the donkeys was all of them had fractions worked into either their power and or their toughness. So we, one of the schticks of the donkeys was all of them had fractions worked into either their power and or their toughness. So one of the ways we refer to the block on the box, for example,

was it was set one of the half-assed block. But anyway, okay, there's a donkey theme. Okay, I was going to dress as a donkey. I did make sure to get a costume that was not so dusty. And I also, even though we got a head, I actually bought donkey ears. So most of the time I wore my donkey ears.

It's very hard to actually head judge with a real head. The way I tended to do it, both in how I did on Gluten and on Hinge, was I always would start with, I would, I go,

welcome, whenever I had my little microphone. And I would introduce with the helmet and then I would take the helmet off. And I always would start trying to get the idea of, this is not a normal tournament.

One of the reasons I love dressing up is, when your head judge is dressed as a giant animal, it really, really conveys that this is not a normal tournament. So Gen Con SoCal was a lot of fun. One of the interesting things there, so this is 2004, so this is, I was nine years in, so 2005 would have been my tenure at Wizards. So I think I was nine years. One of the neat things about it was, I was going around looking. So 2005 would have been my tenure at Wizards. So I think I was nine years. One of the neat things about it was I was going around looking at other booths, dressed as a donkey. And I was amazed how many people I knew.

And I remember in 1995, my first job in the game industry was at Wizards of the Coast. Like, I started. That's my first gaming job. And thus far, my only gaming job. So it was interesting how many people I knew at all these different companies, and the reason is, Wizards, a lot of people have gone through Wizards. There are a lot of former Wizards employees, and most people who left Wizards go and work at other game companies.

That's what they do. And so I just know a lot of people at a lot of game companies because I know them through Wizards. I have a significant network of gaming contacts having never, ever, ever left this company just because so many people who work in the gaming industry at one point or another worked at Wizards, and so I know them. So anyway, so one of the interesting things that was going on at this event was there was a large tournament, a competitive tournament for another

game, not our game. And so we were not the pre-release was not the biggest thing. This other event had giant signs and there were all these competitors there. But one of the things that was really fun was as the days went on, that the competitors

from the big event kept coming to play in my pre-release event because they were playing in that event because there was money on the line and they were trying to make money. But they all said to me that they really, that Magic was fun, especially the unsets were fun. And so they all sort of snuck away, or not all of them, but a lot of them from the Magic players at least,

snuck away to play in the pre-release. In fact, one of my favorite stories from it, one of my favorite rulings, actually, one of my probably top ten favorite rulings ever made was at this event. So I'm going to talk about it because I don't have a lot of, not a lot of unrulings. I don't get a chance to make a lot of live unrulings. So this was a cool one. So what happened was there was a pro player who, I don't have to out the pro player, but there was a pro player who was playing in the big event of this other game

and came and said, look, we have a lunch break or something. Can we squeeze in a couple rounds? And I said, sure, sure. So I get them in. So they're playing, and so there's a card in on Hinge called Enter the Dungeon. Enter the Dungeon says you have to play a sub game, but you have to play under the table. So I'm called to head judge, and they're playing under the table. So I, being a good unjudge, I get under the table with them.

And so there's a card called Mother of Goons, which is a parody of Mother of Runes. And as an upkeep cost, I think it's an upkeep cost, you have to insult your opponent's creatures every turn. Otherwise, Mother of Goons goes away, because she's not very nice. Meanwhile, there's another card called Goblin Mime, and Goblin Mime says if you ever speak, Goblin Mime goes away. So the pro player had Goblin Mime and Mother of Goons, and something else that cared about the Goblin Mime being in play. But anyway, here's the situation. They really, really needed the Goblin Mime to stay in play.

But they also needed the Mother of Runes to stay in play. And so the question was, Mother of Runes says you have to insult the opponent's creatures every turn. And so the question was, do you have to insult the opponent's creatures every turn. And so the question was, do you have to verbally abuse the creatures, or could you use gestures? And so the person who had the Goblin Mime and another runes

wanted to insult the creatures using hand gestures, obscene hand gestures. And so the question was, was that okay? Could you insult through hand gestures? Now, the funny thing about this is, remember, the person who had the goblin mind couldn't speak. So this entire judging incident was them, through hand gestures, trying to communicate to me what they wanted to do.

Now, luckily, I'm pretty good. I picked up on it. I understood what he was saying. And so my ruling was that the card does not say you have to verbally insult them. It merely says you have to insult them. So I looked at the hand gestures. I said, those are very insulting hand gestures. It's clearly you're directing it toward the creatures. I vowed that you are, in fact, insulting those creatures in a way that's discernible.

So you are meeting the requirements of Mother of Goons without having to sacrifice the Goblin Mime, and I ruled he was okay. I believe he went on to win both the sub-game and the game. Because he was able to keep them in play. That's the kind of ruling you get when you come to a man dressed as a donkey, so just be aware.

So another really cool thing about the event is one of the things, I was trying so another really cool thing about the event is one of the things I was trying Unglue had a lot of fun prizes but because Unhinged the only thing I was doing there was running this event

and I was by myself my wife, Laura had come with me to the Unglue event but we had all these kids at home so Laura was obviously home with the kids my mom actually came to help her out while I was gone. And so I said, you know what would be cool? I had brought some unglued to the event. So what we did is, one of the prizes you could win was you could get entrance into an eight-person,

of which one of them was me, so there were seven slots, a special unhinged, unglued, unglued drafting event. And there was one, I think there were two nights of this event. We had, I think there were two nights. It was like, I'm not sure, it was Friday, Saturday, Saturday, Sunday. And then every night we had this booster draft. Remember, by the way, that unglued had 10 card packs, not 15. So if you drafted unhinged, unhinged, Unglued, Unglued you ended up with 50 cards

a little more than 45 but pretty close to a normal draft and so we did it Unhinged, Unhinged, Unglued, Unglued is extra silly because the unsets were kind of made at the time to be mixed in the idea was I knew I didn't get to make a lot of the set silly because the unsets were kind of made at the time to be mixed in like there was so much

the idea was i i knew i didn't get to make a lot of the set so it's just the uh amount of craziness squished into the set was high and so one of the recommendations i made is play you know mix it in with normal magic because the concentration of goofiness is so high but when you're playing unhinge unhinge unglued unglued it's like the ultimate of goofiness it is high, but when you're playing unhinged, unhinged, unglued, unglued, it's like the ultimate of goofiness. It is high concentration. Anyway, I've played in many formats

in my day, but the one thing I can say about the unhinged, unhinged, unglued, unglued format is I am undefeated. I won both. We did, I think we did, well, we did single elimination, but the losers got to play other people. So there was, I mean, it was sort of Swiss in which the winner was decided by,

I mean, essentially it was single elimination, but we let the losers play. I don't even want to refer to that as. But anyway, I went undefeated. I actually did quite well. So what I've learned is there's actually a lot of skill to the unsets because there are a lot of tricks to all the different things. And just having the experience of playing so much,

I played a lot of Silver Border Magic. And so, and just, I was also unhinged. I was more familiar with anybody else because the set had just come out. And so I was very good at it. I definitely have some skills when it comes to the Silver Border cards. So anyway, that was... It was a neat event also.

I also, I believe I played the most events dressed as a donkey. I think I was dressed as a donkey the whole day long. Although, is there any chance I took the donkey costume? I might have taken it off. I don't remember. I think I played in those events dressed as a donkey. I think I was dressed as a donkey the whole day long. Although, is there any chance I took the donkey costume? I might have taken it off. I don't remember. I think I dressed as it. It was a long day. But anyway, the Unhinged tournaments was a lot of fun. It was definitely

neat. The thing about SoCal, this little different original Gen Con was no one knew quite what to expect in the original Gen Con, the original Unglued. We were premiering and no one had ever seen it before. Where Unhinged,

the difference between Unglued and Unhinged pre-releases is, the Unglued pre-release, I was the only one who was dressed oddly. Because nobody really knew what was going on. People might have pre-released, signed up ahead of time, but no one quite knew what it was. Unhinged, people, but no one quite knew what it was. On Hinge, people were on board. They knew what it was.

A bunch of people came dressed in costume. So I was not the only person in costume. I was the only person dressed as a donkey because they didn't know I was a donkey feet. But I was not the only person in costume. And I had a lot of people. One of the things that I've enjoyed, and this is not just the live pre-releases,

but one of the reasons that I really, really want to do a third unset is I see how much people enjoy it. You know, I went to the pre-releases. I went to the release event for Unhinged at a store here. I played in a bunch of different Silver Border things, and it's just fun. It's fun to see people have a good time

and enjoy the, enjoy magic. It's just a fun game of people having fun, having fun, goofing around. But anyway, so I'm pretty close to work.

So that is my, that's my three times dressing up in costume. I, I have dressed up in costume. I have dressed up in costume. I mean, I... Clearly there were, like, Halloweens where I dressed in costume.

There are a few other times in which I was, I guess, technically at work in costume. But these are the three times where I dressed up in costume, where I... I guess I'll say volunteered in each case. It's funny if you know a trend, by the way.

In each of the three cases, while I was happy to do it, in each of the three cases, long before I volunteered, it was kind of assumed I was going to do it. Like, I make a brainstorm about dressing as chicken, I'm dressing as chicken.

It's a done deal. We're not brainstorming anymore. You know, I suggest we have a white rabbit run around. Hey, Mark's going to run around with a white rabbit. You know, it's like, we're going to do an unhinged free release. Okay, Mark, what are you dressing up as? How about a donkey? But anyway, one of the things that is

definitely neat and definitely something that I have embraced with my time here at Wizards is I like being one of the people that really embodies the idea of magic

being a game for many different people. It's not that I don't like tournament play. I do. I had Judge for many, many years. I did the Pro Tour for eight years, and I appreciate the competitive side of the game. I do, and I do a lot of my work is helping make sure

that we make cards and mechanics and things for that. But equally important is I want to be a voice to say, hey, there are so many ways to play Magic. And no way to play Magic, you know, if you are enjoying yourself, that's a fine way to play. That, you know, that you don't have to necessarily play the way that other people play. You can create your own format. You can do your own thing. You can find your own way to play, that, you know, that you don't have to necessarily play the way that other people play. You can create your own format. You can do your own thing. You can find your own way to play the game. And that one of the things that really, one of the things that I find endearing about

Magic, that I love about Magic, is it is so many different games to so many different people. It's adaptability. It's ability to be different things. And that's one of the things about, I think, all three of my stories today is, I mean, the unsets are really about capturing the player's sense of goofiness in the game. And the story about Alice in Wonderland and the party

was really showing how even a wizard is just trying to capture the sense of fun at work. And I do think that in some ways, one of the secret sauces of our success, if you will, is that wizards really embrace this and try to make the act of making the game fun. Like, one of the secrets is, like I said, I'm 20 years in here, is making magic is a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. I mean, it's a lot of work. I'm not saying it's not stressful or not

things that have to be done that aren't fun. But it is fun. Making magic is fun. I will pull no punches. Magic is a very fun job. I mean, I obviously say that. And it is and not only is making magic fun the fact that I have

the privilege of making something that I then get to see my audience enjoy and then directly talk with that audience it's really really cool to me and that the reason I'll dress up like

an animal and run around or head judge or do whatever is I want people seeing I want people seeing the lighthearted part of the game, the lighthearted part of me. It's why I do a comic strip every day. I want you to see that the game,

you don't have to take it so seriously, that there's a lot of fun in it. Even our story, one of the things, my little Sparks comic I do where I take the little figures, I take the little Funko figures, and I have a little sitcom I'm doing, is just to say that, yeah, our characters can be serious and, you know, there definitely is a serious story we're telling, but they can be goofy too and there's a fun side of them and, you know, I don't know, I get endless fun of having

Chandra and Jace fight, you know, and squabble and that's just funny to me. I just, I don't know. Maybe in my heart of hearts, I'm a sitcom writer. You know, I enjoy seeing the fun side of life. And I enjoy, even when things are serious, even when things are, you know, I always try to find the humor side of things. So, like, it is fun. And the, for those out there, I guess let me finish up here as I'm getting to work.

If you've never had the opportunity to dress in a, like a, when I say a costume, I don't mean like, you know, whatever. I threw on a t-shirt and wore some ears or something. I mean, like, a real, like, go to the store, rent the costume. You know, it's a full body costume. There's a head on it. If you've never had a chance to do that, I recommend once in your life, it's a bucket list.

You have to do it. Because here's the thing I learned, especially in my chicken and my donkey. Because the rabbit, I kind of ran around the building and so no one really interacted with me in the same way. But when I was a chicken, so when I was,

when I, both when I did the chicken and I did the donkey, I made sure to do some laps where I walked around, like, especially the chickens. This is my member of the chicken, is,

Laura's with me, she's my handler, I have the helmet on, so I can't, I barely can see, I'm barely likely to walk in a straight line. I mean,

I can, the way it works, you have a helmet, you have little tiny eye holes to sort of see out of, but it's very, it's hard to sort of, you have no helmet, you have little tiny eye holes to sort of see out of, but it's very it's hard to sort of you have no peripheral vision and it's very tunnel focused and

so you can't really see what's around you. Until you lose your peripheral vision, you don't realize how much you use your peripheral vision. So Laura's helping me, so pretty much she's making sure I don't walk into things. And then people are just coming up from everywhere. And here's the thing, when you're in costume, by the way, people will hug you. I don't know if you know this,

if you've never done it. People will come up, they're all friendly with you, they'll hug you, everyone in the world will want to take a picture with you. And this is back in 1998, I think, where, like, cell phones having cameras wasn't even a thing yet. Like, these are people who just went to Gen Con and brought a camera

and, you know, I'm sure if I did it today, I'd stop every two seconds because everyone has a camera now. But anyway, people are so friendly to you when you're dressed up in costume. A little too friendly at times. Like I said, I know there's lots of, there are a lot of pictures of people posing with a chicken at 98 Gen Con. If you ever see one of those pictures, odds are, I think I might have been the chicken. I don't think there's chicken at 98 Gen Con. If you ever see one of those pictures, odds are, I think I might have been the chicken.

I don't think there's multiple chickens at Gen Con. It is me. So people, look through your old Gen Con pictures and one day you'll realize, hey, it's me and Mauro at Gen Con 98.

Sandwiched with a donkey. There's something about wearing a costume. I don't know if it's the Disneyland effect. I don't know. There's something where people are just super friendly to people in costume. They come up and if it's the Disneyland effect. I don't know. There's something where people are just super friendly

to people in costume. They come up and they hug you and they pose with you and they talk to you. People love talking. I mean, usually when I'm in costume,

when I have the helmet on, I wouldn't talk because you couldn't really hear me. I would talk when the helmet was off, but when the helmet was on, I sort of get in character

and, you know. I apparently was a very wacky chicken slash donkey, so probably a rabbit, too. I guess I was a wacky rabbit. But anyway, I'm coming up to wizards now. So that, my friends, is the tale of Chicken Rabbit

Donkey. And so I hope you guys enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed like, one of the things I hope about this podcast is I want to do a lot of different kinds of stories. And I know I want to do design stories and get into the nitty gritty of how we design things. And sometimes I like to tell historical stories

and talk about how things were. And sometimes I just want light. I don't know. Today it's just a storytelling podcast where here's some goofy things I did. I dressed up as a chicken and a rabbit and a donkey. All in the name of good fun. In each case, two out of the three, I had some medical issues.

But I still had fun and I'm glad I did it. And, you know, part of my takeaway from today's podcast is, hey, sometimes in life, you got to do the silly things. You got to step up. And, you know, there's never a time in my life where I said, hey, you know what? Let me try. Let me do this fun thing. It's a little off the beaten path, a little silly.

But I did in the end be very glad I did. And so even though I got sick of two of the three times I did this today, I was happy that I did one in each case. So that is my story on Chicken Rabbit Duck. Thank you guys for joining me. Oh, I had a long podcast today because I had traffic. But anyway, I will talk to you guys next time. And I parked my parking space,

which I don't know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. See you guys next time.