Top 10 Things From My First Week At Wizards Of The Coast

Hello from Renton! For those of you who aren’t aware, last week I started a two-month contract to work inside R&D at Wizards of the Coast helping on some Magic design projects. You can imagine that Commander is what got me into the building, but it’s not the only thing that I might be working on.

The whole thing sprung from a brief conversation with Gavin Verhey back at Gen Con while we were discussing the future of the format. The possibility of me coming out here came up and Gavin took it back to the office. I’m told that the idea generated some excitement within the building, and some dedicated folks made it happen in relatively short order.

I’m not moving out to Renton full-time to do this. I still have to return to Tampa every other week in order to get immuno-therapy treatments. It’ll usually play out that I get on a red-eye Thursday night and head straight from the airport to the treatment center, where I’ll meet up with my wife Gretchyn, and then she’ll take me home to rest up for the weekend and put me back on a plane for the West Coast on Sunday.

I have no illusions that it’s going to be anything other than a grueling two months (and I’m not getting any younger). With a side trip to SCG CON in November, extending one of my weekends here so that I can do CommandFest Seattle, and then going to CommandFest DC right after I’m done up here, I’m going to need to pretty much sleep through Christmas, maybe New Year’s.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This already has been an amazing experience, and I’m betting that it’s only going to get better. Let me share some of the things that I can in my observations from the first week.

10. The Mood of the Room

Working on the third floor, where Studio X resides (that’s what we call R&D these days), is unlike any office or professional environment I’ve ever been in. It’s basically a cube farm encircled by conference rooms and offices for managers, but what strikes me most is the feel. I’ve been in the Pit any number of times in the past, but it’s only when you have a desk and get settled in that it washes over you. It’s mostly quiet. I’d even say peaceful.

Tranquil is actually a better word, because it’s not just the low noise, it’s that there’s a feeling of common purpose and satisfaction. It’s clear that the people in the room feel like it’s a good place to work. Humming over top of that, however, is a delicious and positive tension. The creative vibe is palpable. All you want to do is tap into it and become part of this Jungian collective spirit and find some of that magic for yourself. Finally, the sound that does permeate the room isn’t the clack of keyboards. It’s the constant sound of cards being shuffled. From this direction and from that, it’s the familiar sound of our game getting played.

9. Playing Games Is Work

You know how there’s that kid that gets hired at the game shop and thinks that they’re just going to play games all the time instead of work a job? This is the opposite of that. The folks that get hired here are professionals. They know that they’re going to work—and part of their work is playing games so that they can make better games. It’s not just playtesting, but theory-crafting, getting into the nuts and bolts of what and why. It’s more meta than asking whether the card in question will work in Limited or is it correctly costed for Constructed. “Is this fun for our players?” is a question and concern I’ve already heard multiple times, followed by a delve into exactly how they’re going to make that the case. I can’t tell you how surreal it is to have a meeting on your calendar, go to the meeting—and then the purpose of that meeting is drafting.

8. There Are Similarities to Grad School

I Tweeted about this because it’s true. In a Master’s Degree program in English Literature, the rhythm is basically reading a novel a week plus somewhere between 25-200 pages of criticism about that literature. You need to be prepared to make cogent arguments about what you’ve read, then discuss and defend them, maybe even write 500-1,000 words. This might only be because it’s my first week and I have lots to catch up on, but when I’m not meeting, I’m reading. That reading is fun and exhilarating, eye-opening and breath-taking, but it’s still a great deal of text to get through.

7. There’s a Hybrid Mana Jar on My Desk

You know how some people have a swear jar? Me too, kind of. You want to talk hybrid mana, you have to put a dollar in the jar. (Before anyone gets upset, if it’s legitimately within the context of my job, they don’t have to feed the jar. If they just want to harangue someone on the RC about it, they can either pony up or I’ll tell them where Scott’s desk is; he doesn’t as far as I know have a jar.) I’ll donate the proceeds to a local charity at the end. I bet we’ll have a nice contribution.

6. There’s Always Someone in the Room Smarter Than You Are

I’ll attribute this one to Adam Prosak (who lives right by where I’m staying and has been gracious enough to offer me a few rides). There are so many giant brains running around the place that your head will spin. It’s not just that there’s a legion of brilliant people here, it’s that they’re smart on many different axes and in different ways. Their backgrounds are even more diverse than you might imagine. Sure, we all came together over the game, and that’s one place where our interests intersect, but it would be foolish to dismiss anyone as “just a gamer.”

I liken it to playing baseball in the Major Leagues. Everyone here was the equivalent of the best player in their high school and college. Now they’re surrounded by a bunch of people who were also the best player. It’s a dizzying array of talent, and I’m sure that I haven’t seen the half of it.

5. You Don’t Just Work on What You Work On

Studio X is a big place and lots of stuff on many games is happening at any one time. Unlike, say, a classified military environment, in which what goes on in any particular area is sectioned off, you’re welcome to take a look at anything that’s happening in the cubes around you. It’s almost impossible to avoid cross-team conversation.

In fact, you just might get dragged into other projects. The other day, some folks were playtesting a product a few cubes over, and it sounded like that they were having a good time. I wandered over to see what was going on. Moments later, I was sitting down, immersed in the game, and eventually offering up my feedback on it. Half an hour after that, I was back to working on my team’s stuff. Drive-by playtesting happens.

4. Corporate Culture

Maybe it’s because my only real exposure to a large-scale work climate is from the military (not to mention fifteen years old), but the corporate culture here is refreshing. There’s a “whatever you need” vibe from management. Things are very loose so long as you show up to your meetings on time and meet your deadlines. No one is watching the clock, because they generally don’t have to.

It’s a place where many people obviously want to spend their time (although I confess that my experience is so far limited to the third floor, where people do lots of creative things as opposed to administrative ones). There’s the cafe on the first floor that makes a decent cup of coffee and serves lunch if you need. The break room has free drinks in it. There are multiple spots with comfortable sofas so you can just sit with colleagues and talk. They brought in someone last week (and they’re returning this week) for flu shots so that folks didn’t have to leave the building for them if they didn’t want to.

There’s simply this very clear vision that well cared-for employees are productive employees. One of the ways they’re cared for is by giving them plenty of agency. Although there’s a hierarchy when it comes to management, the structure is relatively flat. If people want to do the job for the sake of the job in an environment that suits them, they’re going to do a better job.

3. Holistic Thinking

Most people work around me work on more than one project and there’s an awareness of how each individual project and the combinations exist in a greater ecosystem. The simplest example is if a mechanic, theme, or card ends up not working in one set, it can be recycled for use elsewhere. There’s also a keen sense of not stepping on the toes of sets that will be released around the set in question.

I didn’t pick up the deeper part until the third or fourth day, and it’s the one that stuck me most, since most often, lower-level workers don’t consider this angle at all. I’ve heard nearly everyone around me talk about the things they’re doing from both a creative point of view and a business one—and more importantly, how the two fit together. This kind of multi-dimensional thinking from people demonstrates a full involvement in the bigger picture process. It’s not a jaundiced “just make as much money as possible” angle, nor one that completely surrenders the creative process to the fiscal, but one that understands that everything is part of a greater whole.

It’s a business, and it’s certainly designed to be profitable, but it’s profitable because (and I know some people are going to disagree here) it understands and respects its customers. That mostly comes from the fact that most of the people that produce things here, even into upper management, are also part of the customer base. They make things that the fans will think are cool, and they know it because they think they’re cool.

2. The First Person to Visit Me Regarding Work Was Mark Rosewater

It’s fun to have sport via social media with MaRo regarding hybrid mana, but the truth is that I have tremendous respect for him. Add to that the fact that we have we have overlapping interests, the difference being that I want it mostly for Commander and he wants it mostly for Magic in general. We want there to be space for clever and cool Magic designs that players love. Where we disagree, and mostly on this one issue, is implementation.

In fact, both of the ground truths on which we base our arguments are accurate. The original design intent of hybrid mana was to allow two-color cards into monocolored decks and make them playable. Fact. By all the rules of Magic, hybrid cards are both colors. Fact. The question is, and which Mark and I and no doubt others will talk about over the next two months, how can we get these two facts, which are at loggerheads in Commander, into a space that fosters the goal of creating cool and clever cards? There’s no easy solution, but we’re not here to do easy things.

1. If You Think Magic Is Exciting Right Now, Hang On to Your Hat

I made that note to myself after looking just at a few future sets. Then I went to an hour-long briefing about the direction Magic is going to take over the next several years. Holy cow. I swear to you, if I told you even a quarter of what was in that briefing, you’d need a cigarette. Possibly eight hours of sleep and a bowl of Wheaties. Magic is in a pretty amazing place right now, and it’s only getting better. Pulse-poundingly, skin-tinglingly better. Stay tuned.

If you’d like to follow the adventures of my Monday Night RPG group (in a campaign that’s been alive since 1987) which is just beginning the saga The Lost Cities of Nevinor, ask for an invitation to the Facebook group “Sheldon Menery Monday Night Gamers.”