Game Design

Suggestion for Universes Beyond

Just FYI my wife (the one who once called you "the Taylor Swift of game design") is requesting a "Court of Thorns and Roses" Universes Beyond. She says lots of women would play. I'm just the messenger!

I’ll pass it along. It’s the first time I’ve been compared to Taylor Swift. : )

Game Design Humor Universes Beyond

Term for Paw Print Modals

Is there an R&D term we can use to refer to the paw print modal cards?

We don’t currently have term for it, at least that I know of.

Card Printing Game Design

Balancing Flying and Reach Abilities

Is R&D down on flying or high on reach? From Midnight Hunt through Murders at Karlov Manor sets averaged just over 5 creatures with reach, topping out at 7 four times in those 11 sets. In OTJ there were 10 creatures with reach, and Bloomburrow has 13. A rather high number for a set where the theme is small woodland creatures.

Bloomburrow has more reach because two of the ten dedicated animal creature types (Birds and Bats) all have flying.Other than that, I think it’s just an ebb and flow thing.

Bats Birds Bloomburrow Creatures Flying Game Design Murders at Karlov Manor Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Origins of 'Confusion in Ranks'

Hi Mark, do you happen to know who at R&D came up with the card design for "Confusion in the Ranks" way back in Mirrodin?

I believe that was me. I adore effects that swap stuff with the opponent.

Game Design Mirrodin Confusion in the Ranks

Possibilities for Mood Swings

you mention 'mood swings' quite often, and you clearly have a lot of faith that it is a good game despite not being able to get it to production. have you considered doing a kickstarter for it? is that something that you would be allowed to do given your position at wotc? with your game design notoriety and dream-infiltrating levels of popularity it would seem like a pretty viable route to take.

I don’t think Kickstarter is currently a viable option, but I haven’t given up the fight. My plan is to get it to print someday.For those unaware, Mood Swings is my mass market TCG that I’ve been trying to get made for twenty-six years.

Card Printing Fight / Bite Game Design Mass Market Mood Swings Wizards of the Coast

R&D Antipathy Toward Fog

Re: R&D is a bit cold on [fog effects]Can I ask why? Is it just an issue with limited? My friends and I joke about fogs a lot, and because of how often I think about the card fog, it made me realize that a lot of the time in limited, especially in the mid to late game, it is pretty close to just making a player skip their turn

It tends to discourage all-in attacks which slows down games.

Game Design Humor Limited

Exploring 'Bonkers' Design Space

I follow a subreddit called BadMtgCombos and I see a lot of cards that are quite frankly bonkers. Mindslaver is probably a good example.A lot of those bonkers cards are older and I was wondering if bonkers design space has become tapped out?Is R&D deliberately avoiding making bonkers cards?

There are definitely cards we make nowadays that many players think are stronger than they should be. I don;t know if they’d consider them “bonkers”.

Design Space Game Design Mindslaver

Talking Animals and Vegetables

Now that R&D has softened on talking animals what about talking vegetables?

Unglued 2 did it. (Well, they were at least animated. We didn’t get to flavor text.?

Blogatog / Tumblr Flavor Text Game Design

Green's Iconic Hydra Considerations

Is the matter of green's iconic considered settled, or if something more fitting than hydras comes along would R&D be willing to pivot?

We’re not looking for a new one. Hydras do the job well enough. I’m not sure what new would come along (being that iconic creatures are already known things outside of Magic) after 27,000+ cards, but if something did, we’d consider it.

Creatures Game Design Hydras

Pinger Creatures in Standard

Re: Coruscation Mage: I thought you said R&D don't like pingers in standard?

Pingers that hit creatures. The issue is combat complexity. Hitting the opponent (mostly) doesn’t change combat math.

Creatures Game Design Pingers Standard Coruscation Mage

Podcast on Scale Decisions

Do you think there's a podcast to be done on scale decisions in game design? For instance, why does Magic begin with 20 life and have 6 damage be a lot vs beginning at 2000 life and have 600 be a lot?

I’m not sure I have 30 minutes. I’ve talked with Richard about this and his answers tend to be “it felt right”.

Drive to Work Game Design

Supplemental Products' Design Constraints

Is the number of "slots" you have available for supplemental products tied to the number of people in R&D? Could the high bar for supplemental sets be mitigated by expanding the design staff to increase your bandwidth, or are there other factors that make that a no-go?

There are only so many weeks in a year. : )Also, some players have been communicating that they’d like us to make less products.

Game Design Humor

First Set Outside R&D Team

To clarify my earlier question: After you joined Wizards, what was the first premier set that you were not officially on an R&D team for? (I assume you contributed in some way to almost every set.)

Technically, Onslaught, although I was responsible for morph being in the set, cycling returning, and pushing the typal theme. : )

Cycling Game Design Humor Kindred / Typal Morph Onslaught Premier Sets

First Non-Involvement in Set Development

After you joined Wizards, what was the first premier set that you were not on an R&D team for?

The first set that I didn’t work on or wasn’t officially on the team?

Game Design Premier Sets

Keywording Bloomburrow mechanic

Has R&D ever considered keywording the Bloomburrow "Season of" cycle type of modal mechanic like Spree? If not, is there an official name or r&d slang for these spells?

We don’t really have a name for that style of mechanic and didn’t try to keyword it to the best of my knowledge.

Bloomburrow Game Design Keywords Mechanics Spells Spree

Balancing Player Desires

Huge thanks for reading the selection from Cunningham I agree that player desire needs to be part of design The 3 psychographics might be the most important design factor since the golden trifecta But it seems recently that Mtg has veered too much towards "give the players what they want" and the question 'how does this make the game better?' doesn't get asked enough I saw an ask for UB play doh, your response was 'do people want it?' not 'how does this improve MtG?' I know that's subjective

I, as well as all of R&D, are constantly asking “is this good for the game”. There are plenty of things the players want that aren’t necessarily good for the game. If we listened to the players every card would cost 1 less and could be cast whenever you could cast an instant. : )A great example of this is “once per turn” restrictions. Players generally dislike them (at least when it’s written out), but they make the game play better. Knowing what players want is a useful tool, but we’re but no means beholden to it when it gets in the way of good game design.

Game Design Game Play Humor Instants Once Per Turn Psychographics

Understanding Power Creep

Why do you use "power creep" on the level of the set? 99.9% of players would say that if a deck or card is no longer usable because a stronger deck or card has come along, that strategy has been power crept. Surely that means that our definition of "power creep" isn't wrong, since that's just how language works (things mean what people mean when they say them)

People are free to use whatever language they like out in the world. On my blog on game design, I’m using the terminology we use when designing Magic.

Game Design Power Level

Balancing Player Wants and Design

"The issue is many players enjoy the higher powered designs of the straight to modern sets." I think there is a larger issue, but its impossible to capture given the character limit. There is an article from 2019 by Jeff Cunningham called "Lands and Spells" I would love if you could read just the section that starts with "I asked Randy Buehler once.." and ends with "Taking in the big picture.." ...Does the game designer have any business designing beyond what the most customers want? I think yes

I went and read the section in the article you mentioned. My primary goal as Head Designer is to make Magic the best game it can be. Market research (along with talking with all of you here) helps inform our choices, by giving us a better understanding of what the players want.Good game design isn’t just doing what the players want though. We need to surprise you and push the game in directions you don’t expect, but I am, and the rest of R&D, are negligent in our duties as game designers if we don’t have a good understanding of what the players interests in the game are when we plan out future designs.

Game Design Head Designer Lands Modern Primary Spells

Understanding Power Creep

Would you mind defining power creep? I thought I knew what it was, specifically in the context of Magic R&D, but some answers lately make me question that. Thanks.

Power creep is a continual raising of power level set to set. Let’s talk about Sets A through Z. The average power level of B is higher than A, B than C, C than D, etc. Power creep is the continual rise of power through a product line where each new set obsoletes the previous set. Let me try to put the current complaint in context. Magic used to have a unified target for products. Everything was aimed at Standard. That allowed us to have a single power level target. When we started making products for larger formats, we had to pick a new power target because the larger format, by the nature of it having more cards, was higher. The problem with Modern “rotating” is because we increased the card influx for the format. What happened would have happened with time. Let’s say the churn is the introduction of 50 relevant cards. That would have naturally happened with time, but much slower through products aimed at Standard. I hear that people that are frustrated by the impact of the increased flow of power-relevant Modern cards. That’s a valid complaint. I’m not trying to dismiss it or say it’s not a real thing that’s happening. I’m just quibbling over what actually is happening vocabulary wise. That’s all.

Game Design Modern Power Level Standard

Designing Cool Mechanics

I'm trying to find a source for the following sentiment but it's hard to google. Could you rate the truthiness/falesness of the following statement out of 100%?"Recently, R&D has come up with lines of text that would be cool to have on a Magic card, then created mechanics to make that happen." For example, 'If it's suspected, exile it. Otherwise, suspect it.'

We have definitely taken the approach of finding words we like when doing early design and using that as an impetus to find mechanics that work with those words.

Game Design Mechanics Suspect The Exile Zone