Twenty lessons learned over twenty years of designing Magic: the Gathering

Magic: the Gathering: Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons Learned

Magic the Gathering head designer Mark Rosewater shares twenty lessons learned over twenty years of designing one of the world’s most popular collectible card games.

The lessons

1. Fighting against human nature is a losing battle
2. Aesthetics matter
3. Resonance is important
4. Make use of piggybacking
5. Don’t confuse “interesting” with “fun”
6. Understand what emotion your game is trying to evoke
7. Allow the player to make the game personal
8. The details are where the players fall in love with the game
9. Allow your players to have a sense of ownership
10. Leave room for the player to explore
11. If everyone likes your game, but no one loves it, it will fail
12. Don’t design to prove you can do something
13. Make the fun part also the correct strategy to win
14. Don’t be afraid to be blunt
15. Design the component for the audience it’s intended for
16. Be more afraid of boring your players than challenging them
17. You don’t have to change much to change everything
18. Restrictions breed creativity
19. Your audience is good at recognising problems and bad at solving them
20. All the lessons connect

See also

• Making Magic — Mark Rosewater’s Magic design blog, which includes the written version of this talk (part 2, part 3).
• Blogatog — And Mark’s Tumblr blog where he answers questions.
• The Mystical Universe of Magic: The Gathering