Adventures in the Forgotten Realms

Opinions about Flavor Words

I just want to say I absolutely adore flavour words, probably my second favourite "mechanic" to come from AFR, after dungeons. (Also a big fan of classes).I love that flavour words can recontextualise the flavour of abilities we see super often, and I definitely think they add flavour

How do others feel about flavor words (italicized words that have new mechanical implications, they just add flavor texture)?

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Dungeons Flavor Flavor Words Mechanics

Critique of Flavor Words

Hey, Mark, I'm not to make another UB-related request. This isn't coming from an anti-UB place, and it's just one Goose's opinion, but I'm sure there are others who feel this way.Can we get rid of flavor words, please? I haven't seen a single upside to them presented, just downsides:

For decades, one of MtG's biggest strengths was capturing the ludonarrative. Having to spell it out makes it seem like you all have lost confidence in your ability to make card design that makes sense with the captured flavor.
If a design is intended to be funny (the Street Fighter cards come to mind), it feels like you're pointing at the "joke" and saying "See? Please laugh." As a person who has a comedy background, I'm sure you understand why killing the frog is bad.
Death of the epithet: The most minor of the criticisms, but I really think "Ian Chester, Science Teacher" reads better than "Ian Chester" and then calling his ability "science teacher." (I may be mixing up the WHO teachers, but this applies to both, luckily.) Epithets also make it easier to depict multiple "moments" of a character without giving a card up as the "definitive" version of that character.
It feels like you don't trust players to get why the card text is what it is. Telling your audience you don't expect them to be smart (or rather, literate) enough to "get" it doesn't really help. I've seen people say they add flavor to the cards, but the flavor isn't diminished by removing the flavor words (flavor is when things are fleshed out and living, not when things are spelled out). If it's for fans of the IP, then they already get it (Oh, the activated ability that grants flying is referencing this character's rocket propulsion). Non-fans of the IP aren't benefited either, as they will sus out said character has rocket propulsion or be left completely in the dark (see Cult of Skaro: These words do nothing to tell me about the ability. If you were to leave them out, I'd still be able to sus out that each ability corresponds to one of the four Daleks depicted).
Lastly, they make cards harder to read. When trying to grok a card, there should be as few words as possible I'm supposed to ignore.

I understand some people will go "I recognize the thing" and a bulb in their brain will light up, but something being easy like this doesn't mean it's better or that we actually like it more.I guess there's the potential upside that you could slot in numerals to power up my Baron von Count deck, but I don't see any real tangible upside to them. Obviously I'm missing something. Can you say what it is?
(Also, even if you don't answer it,thank you for taking the time to answer this book of an ask. These are feelings I've been sitting on since AFR and keeping an open mind on in case I changed how I felt from my initial reaction.)

Flavor words can do some things that we can’t replicate elsewhere. I agree they can be overused, and are not always used optimally, but I don’t think we want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Appreciation Baron Von Count Cult of Skaro Daleks Epithets Epithets Flavor Flavor Words Flying Frogs Humor Replicate

D&D Card Trivia

Hello! Saturday, 18 May is my birthday and I'm requesting a(n early) spot of birthday trivia about any Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, please. It could be about a card from CLB or AFR, or something on the D&D side like the Strixhaven sourcebook. Many thanks!

This is the first Dungeons & Dragons themed Magic card we made. It was designed for Unstable, but first appeared in a special box at Hascon. When I designed the card, it rolled three six-sided dice, but the D&D team asked if we could change it to a twenty-sided die as that was more iconic for D&D.Happy Birthday!

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Birthday Blogatog / Tumblr Conventions Die Rolling Dragon Dungeons Dungeons & Dragons

Clash Mechanic Execution

Hi Mark, I am reading all the cards with Clash. Do you believe part of the problem was the execution? In some cases winning the clash make the card playable, in others winning the clash gives a great bonus, basically and extra card. This seems very different than the payouts of the roll a D20 in AFR, where the bonuses were minor.

The execution did not help the mechanic’s reception.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Clash Mechanics

Humanoid vs Monster Commanders

First, I want to say I really like Thunder Junction more than I thought I would. It could end up being my favorite set this year. Great job to you and the team! Second, back in AFR, the commander precons had a humanoid adventurer face commander and a monster alt commander. I thought that was really cool because I'm a big fan of monsters and weird creatures and love building decks with them as the commander. Magic has some really great monsterous creature types that are underrepresented as legendary creatures. I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I'd love for one humanoid and one beast/monster commander to be the norm for precon design. The Grand Larceny, Desert Bloon, and Quick Draw precons are great examples of this. Having Yuma, Gonti, and Stella Lee as the humanoid face commanders and Kirri Talented Sprout, Felix Five Boots, and Eris Roar of the Storm as the more monstrous alt commanders.
I bring this up because I was really hoping for something a little more monsterous for the Most Wanted precon alt commander. Like a Skeleton or Nightmare or Horror or Minotaur, or Bird. Something along those lines would be really interesting with one of the outlaw creature types. Instead, we got a Dwarf. Vihaan Goldwaker is a great card, don't get me wrong. I just wish that every precon could have alt commanders that are a little more "out there" in terms of creature type usage instead of another human or dwarf or elf, etc. What are your thoughts on this?

My thoughts are there’s some one out there who loves Dwarves who’s super happy because we made a Dwarf card for them. I hear you that you’d like more non-humanoid legendary creatures, and that is something we’re dedicated to doing, as evidenced by the decks you did enjoy, but there’s a lot of player desires to meet, which means we need to spread the love a bit.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Beast Bird Commander Creatures Dwarf Elf Horror Human Larceny Legendary Creatures Minotaur Most Wanted Nightmare Nightmare Quick Draw Skeleton Sprout

Dungeon Mechanic Return

Do you foresee Entering the Dungeon ever making a return in a premier set? I like the idea of Enter the Dungeon, but I feel like it was held back by the complexity of AFR. Checking out The Undercity and Baldur’s Gate Wilderness, the mechanic seems much more exciting. It makes me want to see what an ordinary Limited format with it where it shines.

If we do another D&D set, it would definitely be on the table.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Baldur's Gate Wilderness Enter the Dungeon Gates Limited Mechanics Premier Sets

Mana Fixing Adjustments

You said you are cutting back on common mana fixing to avoid splashing multple play booster bombs. What does this mean for Treasure themes like in AFR? Will you experiment with Treasure that only makes mana of one color? Thanks for answering our questions sir.

There will still be Treasure. I think we’re being a bit more restrictive with it for play design reasons, not play booster reasons. I tried making one color Treasure in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, and it wasn’t internally well received as it adds a lot of tracking issues.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Boosters Colors Ixalan Mana Mana Fixing Play Boosters Play Design The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Treasure

Flavor Text on Basics

How well was flavor text on basics received? I quite liked it in Adventures in the Forgotten Realms.

There’s a minority that really likes it, but the majority prefer the clean version of just the mana symbol. I assume we’ll do it again when the right set comes along.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Basics Flavor Text Mana

Set Design Evolution

Can you give another example besides LCI of a set vision design handed over that ended up radically different once set design was done?

Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance changed a lot from the mechanics handed off from vision design. Adventures in the Forgotten Realms also went through a lot of changes in set design.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Guilds of Ravnica Mechanics Ravnica Allegiance Set Design The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Vision Design

Non-artifact Gnomes

Mark,regarding non-artifact gnomes, we had some of them in Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, and Battle for Baldur's Gate, so there are 10 in Magic in addition to Quarum Trench Gnomes

True. I was talking in-Magic universe.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Baldur's Gate Battles Gates Gnome Quarum Trench Gnomes

Werewolf Mechanics

Re: werewolves, having had a Tovolar EDH deck since he came out, I've always found their day/night mechanic more a hindrance for playing them than a reason to. WOE featured werefoxes both in flavor and art as well as cards that didn't flip, and AFR featured a non-flipping werewolf. I personally don't think their previous mechanical identity needs to prevent them from appearing elsewhere or branching out in how their cards work, especially when they clearly have a fandom going.

My gut is we’ll find a world where they make sense and we’ll probably make them single-faced. Once we do that, we can give them another mechanical focus which will help us making one-ofs.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Art Commander Day/Night Flavor Mechanics Werewolf Wilds of Eldraine

Food Token Utility

In both AFR and WOE you made sure to reward players for using Food tokens for things other than life. Given how you have to keep doing this every time you bring back Food, do you think it was a mistake to have Food grant lifegain? It seems odd to have a token with an in built abilty that you don't wont being used most of the time.

Life gain is universally useful and flavorful. It having limited ramifications just means we have to be careful how we use it in limited formats.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Flavor Food Lifegain Limited Tokens Wilds of Eldraine

Planeswalkers in Middle-earth

If you can tell us, will there be planeswalkers in Tales of Middle Earth? I know for Adventures in the Forgotten Realms the planeswalkers were "characters of tremendous power whose influence extends across many worlds of the D&D Multiverse." Are there any lotr characters the design team considered for planeswalker card status?

There are no planeswalkers in The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons Planeswalkers The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth

Prerelease Gratitude

Hi Mark! I did a prerelease for the first time sins AFR, and had an absolute blast. I achieved my best record in any tournament I’ve been in, 2-1, with my Golgori incubate deck. Thank you so much and please pass along my praise to all those who worked on it, from initial concept to final produce teams!

Will do.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Appreciation Incubate Prerelease Sealed Format

Unfinity's Border Decision

Hey Mark, I wanted to add my 2 cents about Unfinity and why I bought none of it compared to the three boxes of Unstable (which is still one of my favorite sets to draft); the lack of replayability of many cards due to the sticker mechanic (self explanatory) and the black of silver borders.Additionally, the removal of silver borders really turned me off from the set. Not only is it a mechanical change it really blurs the lines between un-sets and other magic cards. Most importantly to me (as someone with a cube) this really causes the cards to have less incentive for me to add them to my cube, as I have cards that care aboutso my question: what drove the team to not have silver borders on cards?

The impetus was die rolling getting added to Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. It seemed wrong that a card printed in an Un-set wasn’t legal in Commander, but the exact same card with the exact same text would be legal if printed in a non-Un set.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Black Card Borders Card Printing Commander Die Rolling Draft Formats Format Legality Mechanics Stickers Un-Magic / Silver Border / Acorn Un-sets

Conflict Scale in Sets

When I brought up AFR earlier, i didn't mean i wanted no combat or conflict. I meant i liked the way it represented smaller, self contained adventures in the setting, instead of interlocking huge battles.Eldraine did something similar, with the fairy tale themes. More "slice of life" conflicts rather then epic movie plots are nice, you can see the plane and setting more.

I think we do a mix of types of conflict. Things get smaller like Throne of Eldraine up to perils of the multiverse like Time Spiral.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Battles Epic Pop Culture Throne of Eldraine Time Spiral

Conflict Angle Reduction Request

Listening to your Top Down podcast, could I request a little less on the Conflict angle? I liked how AFR was just "slice of life adventures" and stuff, rather then "apocalyptic planeswalkers saving the world" stories. It really helps you learn more of the people and feel of the plane when the set is zoomed out a bit more.

The game is literally about conflict.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Drive to Work Planeswalkers Top Down

Art Style Diversity

Hi Mark, just want to share my opinions on something. Jumpstart 2022 has anime art, secret lairs get some specific artist treatments. We also had comic book art in Ikoria. Adventures in the forgotten realms had the throwback art. I think it is awesome the amount of effort put into exploring areas outside of magics traditional high fantasy art. I would like to see it in more products outside of secret lairs, like, I'd personally be happy with it in every set.

Secret Lairs are testing ground. Success there increases the chances of seeing something similar in the booster packs.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Art Boosters Pop Culture Secret Lairs

Card Format Choice

Is there a reason cards like Celebr-8000 don't use the results table formatting that Adventures in the Forgotten Realms introduced?

Yes, that product mimicked the D&D layout. Non-D&D sets don’t use that.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Celebr-8000

Meet & Greet Text

Un-Rules Q: does Meet & Greet "Sisay" count the lines with flavor words/phrases on the modal AFR cards?

No, as it’s not flavor text.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Flavor Text Flavor Words Sisay Un-sets