Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #61 - Surprise

Episode Date: October 11, 2013

Mark talks about Communication Theory.

Okay, I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so last time I started talking about something called communications theory, which I had done an article on. And for those that might not have listened to the last podcast, go listen to it. This is part two. I was talking about what I had learned in school. I went to communication school, to be accurate, Boston University's College of Communication School. And what I realized is what I learned about communications has lots of applications for game design. And so I'm talking about sort of what I learned, this one particular theory I learned, and then I'm talking about how it affects game design and other aspects of media and such.

Okay, when last we left, there are three major things that communication says that you need for your audience to make them happy, essentially. So one is comfort, and I talked a lot about that last week. Oh, the one thing I did forget last week, let me quickly sum this up,

is I talked a lot about individual game design, but I didn't talk about sets and making magic sets and being that, hey, this is about making magic sets. When we talk about comfort, I forgot to get this in before I get to the next part, is when you're making a set, one of the things that people think a lot about is, and we'll get today to surprise, is the new thing. But another very important part of a magic set is if the magic set doesn't feel enough like magic, the audience will reject it. You know, if we made a set where everything's different and people just go, I can't, I can't connect to this. It's too different. It would be a problem. Now people like new things. I'm going to get to surprise in a second, but it's important when designing a magic set that you have enough comfort. And what that comfort means is enough familiarity. Now, luckily, if you understand how magic is designed, the crux of each magic set is very similar. There is a formula, if you will, to how magic sets are put together.

Now, there's room for variance, but the core essence, you know, common green will have a giant growth spell. Common red will have a bolt of some kind. Common blue will have a counter spell. There's just things that we have. And certain colors do certain things, and that's true. There's constants. The color philosophy is a constant.

The percentage of creatures is roughly a constant. There's a lot of things we do that, even though there's differences, there's lots of similarities. And that's really important because when people come to your game, especially come back to your game, they want to recognize it as the game they love. Yes, they want to see new things, but they also want to see old things. But that's a segue into new things. Okay, so last time I talked about comfort. Next, I'm going to talk about surprise.

So, these two things kind of sound contradictory, don't they? Humans, they fear change, and they really like things they know and are comfortable to them. Also, humans like surprise. Wait a minute, humans, fickle humans. So, let me explain this, because this concept is sometimes confusing people in a vacuum. But luckily, I can explain it to you. What humans like is, once there is a level of comfort, once they're in an area where they feel safe, then they like an element of surprise. So what that means is...

So, for example, I've been using a bunch of different examples here to talk about this. So I used movies last time to talk about, or stories, I mean, not particularly movies, but stories in general. And Act 1, I said, is about comfort. Act 1 is about, let's get you familiar with the people and the place of the movie or of the story. And the reason for that is, you want the character, sorry, the character, you want the audience to bond with the character and with the situation. And so the first act is mostly about getting you to go, hey, this person in some ways is like me. I understand what they're going through.

Wow, I can relate. And then act two is where the surprise comes in. Act two is where something happens that doesn't happen to you. So act one is all about, hey, meet this something happens that doesn't happen to you. You know, so act one is all about, hey, meet this guy. He's kind of like you. And then act two is, watch something happen to him that'll never happen to you. And so once you create a level of comfort, then surprise is something very positive. So why? Why is surprise positive? To the best of my ability, here's what I, here's my theory, what I think is going on.

Humans have curiosity. Why? So I explained last time that built into our genes is this desire to clutch to the known to make sure we stay safe. So if that's the case, why do humans have curiosity? And the answer is that there's different parts of the body doing different things. One part of your body is just part of your brain, the reptilian part, I guess, if you will, is just trying to keep you alive, just trying to keep you safe. It's like, where's food? Where's danger?

It's just trying to keep you alive. Another part of your brain, a little more advanced part of your brain is like, I need to learn things. Knowledge is important. You know, how do I do what I need to do? I need to learn. And so part of your brain is very, very geared toward learning. I talked last time about how pattern recognition is part of your brain's, a tool of your brain to learn. So another thing, another thing that comes in pre-built into the human brain, to use my computer metaphor, is curiosity. And the reason of curiosity is humans naturally have this quality to want to understand things they don't understand, which forces them to kind of leave their comfort zone.

And the reason that is important is if you study learning, which forces them to kind of leave their comfort zone. And the reason that is important is if you study learning, one of the things about the human brain is that the human brain, essentially you create pathways. Every time you use your brain, you create neural pathways. And the idea is that the human brain is constantly evolving and changing and every time you learn something, you're affecting your brain and changing your brain. Now, when you're real little, when you're young, your brain has even more placidity than it will later. But even throughout your

life, even later in life, your brain still has the ability to change. And it's interesting because I had a real talk, I had talked to a neurologist one day just about somebody I had met on a plane and we got to talking about our careers and I talked a little bit about game design and what he said that he loves as a neurologist is that

like scientists understand so much, doctors understand so much about the human body but that the brain is like not that they don't understand some stuff about it, they do, but that it is really in some levels still a mystery. There's so many things the brain does that they're still just trying to understand because the brain is this amazing thing that just, you know, and one of the things that's interesting is each person's brain is unique. And as you get experiences, your brain does different things. But one of the things is the brain craves new experiences because new experiences create new neural pathways.

And so one of the things I talk about when you have a kid, how exposing a lot of different things is good, letting try out different things, because you want the brain to sort of have the opportunity to test out different areas. And curiosity is kind of the brain going, give me more stuff, give me more stuff, I need more stuff. That is the brain kind of seeking out more information. Now, another part of the brain, which is a different part of the brain,

is definitely going, be careful, be careful, be careful. But this part of the brain, you know, which is a different part of the brain, is definitely going, be careful, be careful, be careful. But this part of the brain is like, no, no, no. Learn. I want to learn. Show me new things. And so, the way the compromise the brain came to is one part of the brain goes, that's dangerous. And the other part of the brain goes, I need to learn.

So, what they've come to grips with is the brain says, okay, okay, okay. need to learn. So what they've come to grips with is the brain says, okay, okay, okay. You know, as long as something is deemed safe, you know, then can we explore? And the brain goes, okay, okay, okay. So humans are happiest when they're in an area that they have some understanding of and some sense of safety. Now, there are obviously people who push to the danger edge and there's a lot of risk-taking that goes on in humanity. But we're talking about the crux of humanity. They're most comfortable learning in an environment which is comfortable. So, for example, in media, like, let's take the website.

So we want to create a structure to create comfort. How do we do that? We create daily content. Every day you come, there is Magic Arcana, there's Card of the Day, there's certain things, you know, deck lists, and there's things there every day. And then we have a weekly thing. There's columns.

Every Monday is my column. There's people that show up at the exact same time every week. So we create a comfort, a pattern for you. If you show up in any one day, you know exactly what to expect. You know the columns that time every week. So we create a comfort, a pattern for you. If you show up in any one day, you know exactly what to expect. You know the columns that'll be there. You know the daily content that's going to be there. But we have feature articles.

Sometimes we have articles that just go up on a random day. We don't tell you when they're going up. They just go up. So why do we do that? And the reason we do that is we want an element of surprise. Because if you know exactly what's going to be there every day, it can get a little more routine. And it's comfortable and people like the routine, but if you just throw a little bit of surprise in there,

it makes people even more eager to come. Because not only will they get the things they already know and love, but maybe, maybe there'll be a little treat for them. Maybe there'll be a little surprise. they already know and love, but maybe, maybe there'll be a little treat for them. Maybe there'll be a little surprise. And the way the human brain works is that you do not need to give it a surprise all the time. You need to give it a surprise some of the time. They've done a lot of testing. So, for example, this is a classic science experiment with monkeys, I think. And I think it's a monkey. It's some kind of animal. So the idea is,

or maybe it was guinea pigs. Anyway, some kind of animal. What they did is, they had a tube where if you pushed a button, food would come out of the tube. So you push the button, food pellet comes out,

and you can eat the food pellet. And they tried two experiments. Experiment number one, food pellet came every time. Experiment number two, food pellet came some of the time. And what they found was if the food comes every time, then they grow laxatives. It's always there. The food is there. They know it. And so they kind of only press the button when they need the food. But if the food comes some of the time, they push the button more often. And from a media standpoint, you kind

of want your media people pushing the button. You want them checking in, you know. And so one of the fun things about having some variety is it makes people check in. Okay, now let's switch goals and go back to the storytelling. So in storytelling, the reason that you want surprises, part of going to a movie is I sit down. I'm in a comfort zone because I'm in a movie. I understand that nothing in the movie is honestly going to emotionally affect me, but it is not going to physically affect me. So, for example, if I go to a horror film,

well, yes, I open myself up to saying scary things are going to happen, but it's in a very safe way. Nothing really is going to happen to me. I mean, I might get scared, but it's scared in a fun way where there's no actual threat, you know, where if you were, it'd be a lot worse to go, hey, why don't you go out in the dark and maybe something will happen. Like, that's really scary because you don't understand the comfort. But here, look, I'm in a dark theater and I'm in my chair. Nothing's going to come through the screen at me. It's much safer. And once you have the confines of storytelling, that's also comfortable.

Okay, something's going to happen and it is fun. The thing about it is once you feel safe, humans love surprise. It is a lot of fun. Surprise is fun. So in magic sets, basically what we do is we say, okay, we create a layer of comfort for you, okay? So, okay, you know, the color wheel has a very consistency, and the percentage of creatures, and we do a lot of things in certain type of spells, and there's just certain things that always happen that, you know, any magics that you play has a certain basics you understand.

But what makes magic fun is, on top of that known quality, it's magic, we throw curveballs at you. We do different things. You know, you come to Zendikar, and all of a sudden, land has a... Land means something that it doesn't normally mean. Drawing land late game

or sometimes you want to save land. You don't just want to play land. It's a, ooh, don't be wasteful. Hold on to your land and play it carefully and, you know, a land drop means something. You know, and you get to Scars of Mirrodin and all of a sudden, you know, an effect exists and like you know, you're making

sacrifices that you wouldn't normally make. Like a 1-1 creature comes at you. Does it have an effect? I might want to block that thing. I might be at 20 life. I'm still scared of it. You get to Innistrad, and Innistrad, there's tribal components, or death matters. Morbid said, hey, my opponent's attacking. Maybe he wants me to

block and kill the thing. Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't kill it. Each of these environments, different things happen. Return of Ravnica is all about the guilds and the colors and thinking about in terms of the colors and how you play things.

And each of those environments is different. Magic is magic and Zendikar and Scars of Mirrodin and Innistrad and Return of Ravnica, that's all magic. And there's still a giant growth and the colors still have, you know, everything is true about the core basis of magic,

yet each one, there are things that are different. You have to think about it in a different way. And that is where the surprise to magic adds in the value. Okay, so now let me walk through sort of good surprise and bad surprise. Okay, because surprise isn't necessarily, any surprise isn't good. I don't want to walk away going, well, once they're comfortable, you can do whatever you want. So the important thing about the surprise is there's two different types of surprise.

One surprise is where, well, I guess you're going to have two bad outcomes, but that's just who likes two bad outcomes. So let's talk about the other ones, which is good outcome, bad outcome, and good outcome, different good outcome. So in the first, good outcome, bad outcome, the idea is sometimes I get something good, and sometimes I get something bad.

That is a high variance, and there are certain style of people that enjoy that. There are definitely Timmy's who get a kick out of it, who are like, woohoo, I'm rolling the dice, you know. And there are people that enjoy that kind of risk factor, you know, within confines of, you know, comfort. But not a lot of people, that is, you have to use that kind of surprise much more carefully because a lot of people don't like that. It creates anxiety in them because I like the good thing. I don't like the bad thing. And to be honest, the worse the bad thing is, the more anxiety you create. An example I gave in my article, which is, so let's say you're going to flip a coin.

And on heads, I give you $15. And on tails, I'll punch you in the face. Well, I don't want to get punched in the face. You know, hey, $15 sounds like a lot of fun. But then you go, oh, well, is the chance to get $15 worth of a punch in the face? No, at some point, I'm giving you enough. Let's say, you know, you get $1,000. Maybe you go, well, $50, $50 for $1,000? Okay, I guess I'm going to be punched in the face. No, at some point, I'm giving you enough. Let's say, you know, you get $1,000.

Maybe you go, well, 50-50 for $1,000? Okay, I guess I'm going to be punching the face once or twice for those odds, you know. Now, the example of good, now, usually in good, there's a variance.

It could be two equally good things, but different, or it could be like, hey, heads, you get $10, and tails, you get $5. Now, in that version, I want heads over tails. There's a little bit of anxiety in that there's something I want. But if you say to me, hey, do you want to flip a coin?

Heads you get $10 and tails you get $5? I'm a yes-sir-y Bob. There's nothing going wrong there. Because the worst case scenario is I get $5. Hey, I didn't have $5. That's good. Hey, best case scenario is I get $10. But the anxiety is low because how bad can it go? The worst case scenario, it's not bad. And the best case scenario is great, assuming getting $10 is great. I'll say it's great. So when you are using your surprise, be careful in how you surprise them.

So first off, one of the surprises has to do with variance. In general, people do not like having to worry about bad outcome. So you have to be very careful when you use that. Now, in a game, and games are different than media, in a game

people are more willing to take a bad outcome because the nature of games is overcoming obstacles. You know, that part of what makes a game fun is that there are obstacles in the way. So in a game setting, if you say reward or obstacle, the obstacle is not as much a negative as it would be in media or some other form

because in a game, an obstacle is kind of a bonus in the sense that, you know, I want challenges. When you play a game, you want the obstacles because you want to overcome them. So when you have an opportunity to go, ooh, I couldn't get a reward, but there's an obstacle, well, that obstacle just means, okay, I'll overcome that too.

Then the scene is less of a negative than it would be in other places. You know? So if you have a magic thing where it's positive or negative, people are much more willing to go into that because they're playing a game. In a game, you're much more willing to have some negative outcomes because the negative outcomes aren't as negative because there's some expectation

of them in the first place. Now, in stories, the way surprise tends to work is one of the things that the audience likes is the audience likes a level of comfort to the story meaning archetypes are very popular in stories and the reason for that is I want to have a general gist of what is going on

you know and what people don't realize is how archetypal most storytelling is you know like if I see a movie, I use this one all the time but the romantic comedy like if I go see a movie or read a book whatever

I'll talk about movies I guess if I go see a movie and the movie's about two people getting together odds are I mean maybe it's a drama but odds are

it's a romantic comedy you know and there are just certain things that are going to happen now one of the fun things about telling a story

and this is where surprise comes in, is once you have the base formula, the base story, you are then allowed to surprise the audience by saying, like, you can play into expectations. One of the fun things to do is go, well, this normally happens. Well, I'm going to turn that on its ear. I'm going to play with that. So one of the fun things to do in storytelling is take the formula and then mess with it a little.

You know, that you use people's expectations of what's going to happen to have some fun with them. Because, you know, they're in their little comfort shell. You can now have some fun and play with them. So the big thing about storytelling and where surprise comes from storytelling is is humans like humans while they want to have some level of comfort to understand the premise of the story they do like to not know exactly where things are going

just because it changes things up to make it different you know so let me talk about variety because surprise and variety are related which is there is in game playing in general a variety, because surprise and variety are related. Which is, there is, in game playing in general, there's two sides. One is consistency

and one is variety. Consistency says the same thing will happen every time. And what some players like about consistency is it rewards skill, it rewards knowledge, like if I understand how it works. So let's say I'm playing a game and I go, when I come up against thing X, oh, well,

thing Y solves thing X. Well, that's good, and I now learned. And if I come up against thing X and thing Y doesn't always work, well, okay, now I have to figure out what does work, and that, if that doesn't have a pattern to it, if I can't figure it out, then it feels random to me, the game player. Now, some players love that. Some players really enjoy the, ooh, what's next? But some players like to have some sense of control. So this schism is what I'll call the Spike-to-me schism, which is Spike plays games to prove something.

Spike wants to be able to use the game to show something about himself. So it's very important for Spike that he understands and has control. Timmy is in it for the experience. And so what Timmy wants is fun. Timmy wants something that he can, you know, wants something visceral

and something exciting and something to happen. So for a lot of Timmy's, not all Timmy's, for a lot of Timmy's, the variance is exciting to Timmy. Oh my God, I don't know what's something to happen. So for a lot of Timmy's, not all Timmy's, for a lot of Timmy's, the variance is exciting to Timmy. Oh my god, I don't know what's going to happen. So for example, let's take coin flipping,

which is, to Spike, coin flipping cards are frustrating. I'm going to lose because I flipped the wrong thing. That it's very frustrating because they're like, I need something and I can't depend upon it. But to Timmy, once again, I'm generalizing here,

but to Timmy it's like, oh goodness, yay, a quench look, that's an awesome thing. Something neat's going to happen. I had this great moment of suspense, of drama. What's going to happen? And the idea is that Spike likes a

more predictable game, and Tim Spike likes a more predictable game and Timmy likes a more variant game. Now, that's not to say Spike doesn't enjoy variants, and I talked about this in my randomization podcast. Spike likes adapting the things and showing that they can, you know, whatever you throw at them, which means that for Spike,

if you put the variants earlier, it makes him happier, and that you build the variants into the thing they know they're doing, meaning Spike doesn't like the game hinging on variance, but they don't mind variance setting up the parameters for the challenge. And so hopefully what you'll see today is I'm kind of hopping around a little bit to show you that there's a lot of different ways to use surprise. You know, surprise could just be something you never expected, but surprise could be variance.

Surprise could be twisting of expectations so that what the audience gets isn't quite what they always know. Now, in games, the idea in games is, when I first teach someone a game, so this is a general game, not magic specifically, but, I mean, it applies to magic, is when you first sit down with somebody with a someone a game, so this is a general game, not magic specifically, but I mean, it applies to magic, is when you first sit down with somebody with a brand new game,

the first thing you want them to do is you want them to feel comfortable. Okay? So the reason, by the way, that these are the order I'm saying, comfort, then surprise, then completion, is there is an order to them. You want them to happen in an order.

You do not want to surprise somebody before they are comfortable because then they are on edge. Then it becomes a scary thing and not a fun thing. And that's really important. So when you're teaching someone a game, first thing you want to do as a game designer is make a game that has enough components that they get that it's comfortable. Now, how do you do that? One might be your flavor. You know, you're throwing them something that's so familiar to them that right away it leads to them understanding parts about what the game's going to be about. It might be using game components from games that people know.

Like a real popular thing that I've seen in gaming in the last 10 years is saying, oh, here's something that became famous from some, usually a game that's been around forever, something that became famous from some usually a game that's been around forever you know, gin or chess or whatever but anyway, you take a game that's been around for a long time, maybe not hundreds of years, but maybe

50 years and you take a component that people have learned, it's become part of the zeitgeist that people kind of understand that game mechanic people know it. And then build your game around it but doing new things. But your core of your

game mechanic is a known quantity that people can pick up easily. You know? And that like I said, the very first thing you want when you are making a game is the audience the first thing you want the audience to go is that's what you want to do first.

Okay, I get it. Now, the more hardcore gamer they are, the more willing they are to do the uncomfortable thing to learn what's going on. And so, the more advanced the game player, the more willingness there is to experience

discomfort in trying to understand the game. But, in general, you want to create some comfort so people understand what's going on. Now, once you create comfort, once they're like, okay, I got it, I got the basics of the game, then now you've got to add your surprise. So every game, look, you have to do something that other people haven't done. If you make a game in which every single thing you've done has been done by somebody else, then why don't they go play that game? Why are they playing your game?

Now, let me be clear. It is not important that any one component be new. You can take old components and combine them in ways that have never been combined before. That's also true of storytelling. I don't have to make up something new, but part of what makes me surprising you is taking components and mixing them in a new way. You know, maybe I'm going to tell a romantic

comedy, but I'm going to subvert it. I'm going to tell it backwards. I'm going to, you know, you know, it's one person's an alien. Whatever, whatever you're subverting it with that, you know, you're throwing something in the mix that's like, well, normally this is not true, but in my story it is true. But, like, you set up the confines of this is the kind of thing I'm doing.

This is the kind of story I'm telling. This is the kind of game I'm running. So once you set up the comfort, you then get to surprise them. But, and once again, remember that the way you surprise them and how you surprise them, all surprise is not equal.

And, I talk about this all the time in my column, surprise for the sake of surprise, meaning surprise has to have value beyond the surprise. You don't surprise them just to surprise them. You surprise them because you want to do something new and have them experience something new, and the surprise is a means to do that. But, for example, if I'm making a game, I don't want to do something new and have them experience something new, and the surprise is a means to do that. But, for example, if I'm making a game, I don't want to say, I'm going to add this component just because it's never been done. Well, does it make sense in your game?

Does it tie into your game? Is it organic from your game? So part of layering down comfort first means that the surprise will come out of the comfort. For example, on the website, we set up, we're going to do articles. We're going to have columns. We're going to have daily stuff. So when we do a feature article, that's coming out of what we're doing. It's not like, whoa, whoa, I wasn't expecting articles out of this website. No, no, no. We have articles. We have daily and weekly articles. And this says, okay, well, these articles are not as planned as the others.

But, and even then, we do actually, there is a planned feature on Mondays. So Monday has, like, you know there's a feature but don't know what it is. That's a little bit of surprise. And then every once in a while we throw extra features in that you don't even know what day they are, right? So notice, once again, surprise can be layered. That it's not like surprise is not an on-off switch. There's an amount of surprise, and you want to make sure that you... In fact, what you

normally tend to do is you slowly build in the surprise. So when the website started, the first thing we did is we had Monday feature articles in which you didn't know what they were until that Monday, so you were a little surprised today. And then eventually, we started saying, okay, now here's other feature articles that show up at special times.

And part of it is sort of ramping up the surprise. And in magic, one of the things there is you'll notice that at Common, we tend to pick one or two things. Whatever the new thing is, we focus that in Common. We do not do lots and lots of different things. And in fact, even if we do a new mechanic, what normally happens is

we figure out one way we like to do it in common, all the commons do it that way, and then at higher rarities we branch out. We start doing other things. But the idea is, when we present to you this new thing, we sort of trickle the surprise slowly. Because remember, in

trading card games, common is your introductory. You don't know what order people will see things in, but you know they will experience more common before they experience higher rarity cards. So if you want to educate them, what you do is you make common, this is what New World Order is all about, make common the

entry-level experience you want, and then allow the higher rarities to be the flavoring. You know, that the common is sort of the base experience, and that you then use the higher rarities to let people have other experiences, but you do it in such a way that the common experience, ironically, is common. I guess that's not ironic at all. That's English language. So, once again, when you're using surprise,

you want to make sure that you establish comfort first, you want to make sure that you're slowly ramping into the surprise, and you want to make sure that the surprise comes out of the comfort, that it is not out of nowhere, but that it's core to what is going on. Okay. Well, what is no surprise, I hope, is that it's 30 minutes and I've got to work and so

I hope today has taught you a little bit more about how surprise works I'll deal a little more about comfort so that means that the last podcast on my

my communications theory will be completion because how could I not complete the series anyway I'm now at work and it's time for me to go. So thank you guys very much for joining me

for part two of my communications theory. And it's time for me to go make the magic.