Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1136: Being a Team Lead

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

What exactly is a lead designer responsible for? In this podcast, I walk through what the lead designers do during exploratory design, vision design, set design, and play design.

I'm pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work Okay, so today's topic comes from a blog Somebody asked me. What is the job of a lead designer? So I'm going to answer that today So first let me just clarify what it means a lead designer is the term we use when you lead a design team A lead designer is the term we use when you lead a design team. My job outside of that is I'm the head designer. I'm in charge of design at large, but when I lead a team, then I'm lead designer of that team.

For example, I was lead designer, lead vision designer for Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Sometimes you can co-lead, for example, Murder of the Cartel of Man or I Co-lead the Vision with Mark Gottlieb. So the way I'm gonna approach it today, so there basically are four different design teams that exist. There's exploratory design, there's vision design, there is set design, and there is

play design. So I'm going to talk at large about responsibilities. I'll get a little bit, I mean, there's a little bit of variance between the teams just because what you're responsible changes a little bit. So from time to time, I will touch upon how certain sections might be slightly different. But what I want to do today is just talk about at large the responsibilities of a lead designer. What does a lead designer have to do?

Okay, first and foremost, a lead designer is in charge of the file, the set. When we are making a magic set, that's the end result. We need to make a magic set, that's the end result. We need to make a magic set. And so, every way along the way, we are going toward that. We are trying to, or we are not trying, I guess. We are making a magic set. And a lot of the responsibility of the lead designer

is just making sure the set is where it needs to be. Now, as you go through the process, where the set needs to be is very different. Exploratory, for example, is not even making a file, to be honest. They are mapping out potential mechanics and themes. Exploratory is just looking at what could be. And they often say, when I talk about exploratory,

we go wide, not deep, meaning we're just sort of feeling out all the different areas to get a sense of what exists. Vision design does make a file, although the file for vision design is more about proof of concept. It's not that those cards will necessarily be final, some could be, but more,

you're trying to put together your file, you're making your mechanics and your themes and your just general structure. And then the file is more proof of concept. Like I use my house building metaphor, you're making blueprints. You're saying, hey, this is the kind of house it's going to be. The file in set design is much more, what do we call a real file. The file that setDesign hands over

is going to be the cards that you all play with. And then PlayDesign is just fine tuning the file. They're just making sure the costs are correct, making sure the stuff plays the best it can. They're just sort of field testing, if you will, play testing, to make sure that it does all the things it needs to do and play design is looking at the larger picture of how this set fits in with other sets for standard

there's been a lot of energy on making sure the limited plays correctly but there's a lot of stress testing that happens but all along the way the lead designer is in charge of the file, of the set, of making sure that we are going in the direction we need to go to make the best magic product we can. Okay. So very much they have to think about the product, we're making the product. And as I'll get in today, there's a lot of different aspects to the making of the product. But at the bare minimum, the number one responsibility is you are making a magic set.

You the lead are responsible at that stage for advancing the magic set to get to the point where we can print it. Okay, the next thing you're responsible for are the people, your team members. You are in charge. You are running the meetings. Oh, the other thing I should mention, I was going to mention this upfront. When you lead a team, you have what's called a strong second. That is somebody who's helping you.

Depending on who's leading the team, how much the strong second does can vary. I, for example, tend to use my strong seconds as a learning opportunity. That one of the best ways to sort of lead a set before you lead a set is to work with me. I give them a lot of control of the file. And some of the things I'm talking about, I let my strong second do, I'm overseeing them. I'm making sure they're doing what they need to do. But I like giving my strong second

a lot of responsibility. So some of the stuff I'm talking about today on a team that I run, there's definitely more given to the strong second. There's other people that are like, they want to control things very tightly and the strong second. There's other people that are like, they wanna control things very tightly and their strong second will help, but they don't have,

I give a lot more latitude in my strong second just because I've made a lot of magic sets and I'm trying to use this to help train people to make more magic sets. Okay, as far as the people, you're responsible for A, making sure that all your team members know what is expected of them.

Usually different people on your team have different roles. You want to make sure people understand their roles. For example, usually there's somebody who's connected to the creative team and you want to make sure that that person's aware of creative issues, that if you have questions, there's a lot of back and forth for example with the creative team and you want to make sure that that person's aware of creative issues, that if you have questions, there's a lot of back and forth for example with the creative team. I'll get into co-labs in a second. Sometimes there's people on your team because they're good at making cards.

Sometimes people are on the team because they're good at balancing. There's just different reasons people can be on your team. And what you want to do is understand what the strength of team is. And the lead usually has a lot of say on who is on their team. Not complete say, their schedules and stuff, but the lead usually has some input on who they want on their team. Ideally what you want when you put together a team

is you want people that are enthusiastic about what you're making. If you're making a universes beyond product, you need a certain number of people that are well-versed and you know, that are subject matter experts. There's a lot of roles that people can fill, but you want to make sure that your team, A, that you have the right team, B, that your team understands the expectations of them and understands their individual role, what they are doing. And also you generally, you want your team invested.

This is actually a really important part of leading a team. The idea is not you do whatever you want and your team just has to follow. You want to guide your set such that your team is all on board. And if someone on your team has an issue, understand that issue, talk through that issue. The goal of a team lead is not to just do whatever you want. The goal of a team lead is to use your team and all the members of the team, all the strengths of the team to make the best that you can. And so a team is very valuable and that a lot of correctly I think leading a team is

getting your whole team altogether moving in the right direction. That it's and when you have like for example it is fine for people that issues it is fine for there to be people like could we do this or that or I wouldn't do that like you want conversation between the team that part of what makes an idea good is that it gets tested and that you know it's fine if somebody that's at first maybe skeptic has is skeptic about um there's some skepticism about the idea but you want to win them over you want your team on board when you hand over your file at the end whether or not it's a print or whether you're earlier on your handing off to another team You want your whole team proud of what they made you want them invested in what they made a good team lead

Makes their whole team feel as if they the team have made it not that they just followed along But they were integrally involved and that's a lot of team leading is getting your team invested and listening to your team Understanding issues of your team the reason you have a team in the first place is they are experts in different areas Listen to them understand them You know if you're making a universe is beyond set and your subject matter expert has an issue You better listen to them You want to make sure that you understand what their issue is. If you're a balanced person, whoever it is, whatever their expertise is,

if they have issues, listen to them. And a lot of times good ideas come from working through things with your team. Okay, next, you are in charge of your meetings. So it depends, let's see. Exploratory design meets twice a week for an hour. Vision design meets three times a week, twice for an hour and once for two hours. And I think set design mirrors vision design. Set design ebbs and flows, so there's times when the team doesn't meet,

there's times when you're sort of in limbo and how much you meet can go up and down a little bit but generally there are some number of meetings usually at minimum two per week maybe one I guess in certain circumstances and at most maybe a four meetings per week and the idea is it's your job to know what you're doing at the meetings it's your job to figure what you're doing at the meetings. It's your job to figure what are we working on today? What do you know? And you want to make sure that, like when you start a meeting, you want your team to

know what you're doing. What are we doing today? If there's things people have to do ahead of time, we'll get into homework in a second, but yet make sure that you clarify what people need to do. How the meeting is run, what happens at the meetings, and even simple things like knowing when to take breaks. For example, in the two hour meeting, normally we meet for an hour, but on a two hour meeting,

we'll take a break in the middle because it's a longer meeting. You wanna figure out when you're playtesting. For example, a lot of making a game is playtesting the game. Now the farther you get into the process, the more you play test. And there are resources outside the meetings

as you get farther along. We do have morning play tests that happen that are outside of team meetings. So it's a resource that if you want your team, sorry, if you want your set tested by people, especially people not on your team, there are opportunities to do that. And there's a schedule you can sign up and stuff like that.

But anyway, you are in charge of making sure that your meetings go smoothly. And then an offshoot of that is your play test goes smoothly. Some of your play tests are during your meeting. Some of your play tests might be off, outside of your meeting, sometimes with other people. If you're running a play test that's not with your team, you have to make sure that you work with,

we have people that help us set up, people, producers that help us run those things. But you need to make sure they have the resources, your files in place. Basically, if you're gonna do a play test, you need to print cards. And in order to do that, you have to lock down the file at a point where they have time to print the cards,

and the cards have to get printed. You have to know how many people are playing. Anyway, there's definitely work to do that, you have to lock down the file at a point where they have time to print the cards and the cards have to get printed. You have to know how many people are playing. Anyway, there's definitely work to do that. And there also is, when I talked about the file, I actually, I said, not only do you have to monitor the file in a larger sense, you have to literally do the file. You have to input the material. You have to track what's going on, you have to make changes. Sometimes other people can help with that. I have my strong second, do a lot of the control of the file. There's a lot of busy work in the file.

But it's important learning how to control a file and learning how to adapt things. It really, really is the best way to learn how to put a set together. Anyway, so there's a lot of innovation in the file and there's a lot of busy work of making the meetings happen. Just knowing what's happening. Sometimes people will put out here's what we're doing today, stuff like that. And like I said, getting play tests and making sure you have the resources to play test is important. Okay, next up is homework. One of the jobs of any design team is you're making magic cards. So you need to say, in between meetings, there's an expectation that people need to work on things. Usually, usually, the number one thing is making cards.

Sometimes if you're early in the process, it's making mechanics or working on themes and such. In exploratory, usually you have a prompt. So the way our homework works in exploratory is this week, you know, we're making the villains western set. Okay, we're going to play into villain tropes. Okay, are there mechanics that make sense as villains or today we're looking at the weft turns. Are there things that really play up a weft turn

And your team in exploratory are going to go usually make their own little decks usually the 40 card decks Some number of the cards are new whatever you're testing mechanic you're testing and the rest of the cards don't need to be new They can just be existing cards You don't need to reinvent things if car you know you can just fill it out with existing magic cards And then the idea for that is we do play, like usually an exploratory, well, it varies based on how we run the exploratory, but usually at least once a week there's play testing.

Sometimes twice a week, sometimes once a week. The way I like to run exploratory is I like one meeting every time to walk through it, to get feedback from the last playtest and walk through your new issue, whatever you're designing for that week. And then the other meeting is a playtest. But the homework is when you, before the playtest, you have to make your cards a playtest with, and then after the playtest, you have to put feedback about how the playtest went so then

we can talk about it. In vision design, a lot of the homework is just making the cards that go in the file. You're starting to design an actual file. So a lot of the homework in vision design is making the cards. The homework in set design, some of which is making cards because that still continues on. And like I said, a majority of the cards get made in set design. I mean, vision design makes cards, but a lot of that is proof of concept more so than final design. So there's a lot of design in set design.

There's some amount of play testing. There are points in which people like sometimes play testing is limited play testing where just show up and we'll give you cards and play. Sometimes there are some pre-constructed decks, meaning we're going to test. So you take this theme and build a deck out of it, kind of like exploratory does. Once you get to play design, that's hardcore testing. They're doing the future future league. You are building a competitive deck

in the context of the format you are playing, which is sort of the future standard. And they will have off sites where they do drafts and they will do draft after draft after draft to try to understand. The other thing that goes on in set design is there are a lot of metrics. That is something that Vision doesn't do nearly as much of.

Set design does a lot of, which is sort of, and plate design, looking at your color balance, looking at your curve, and just doing a lot of things to make sure the file is in the right shape. And when I say metrics there is definitely stuff that goes on in set design where you're sort of grading things and understanding the balance. Power level doesn't get set to set design. Vision design is just testing things so we kind of put everything at a flat power level. So when you get to set design that's when you're figuring out what the fun things

are and then pushing the things. And set design, working with play design are setting numbers and understanding costs and sort of doing all the finalizing crystallization of that. But anyway, there's constant homework, there's constant things that need to be done. So not only are you responsible for what happens within the meetings, you're responsible for the work people do between meetings, and a big part of being a lead is communicating that to your team so they know what it is they need to work with. Another thing that you want to do is, I'll call it direction.

You wanna make sure that your team are all moving in the same direction. You wanna make sure that whatever it is you're doing, that you're not at odds, you're not fighting. The direction early on in design, direction is a lot like if vision does its job, set design has a vision for the set. So hopefully vision has sort of set the direction for the set.

So set design and play design have a direction they have to follow, but a lot of that gets set in vision. Now, maybe they tried, it doesn't work, they have to set a new direction. So set design sometimes can, the vision can change and the direction can change in set design. But one of the jobs of the lead is understand where you're going and make sure that your team understands where you're going. You always want everybody to working not against each other, meaning you don't

want people's energies fighting each other. You want the whole team as a team to understand where what direction you are heading in, where the file is going, what what you are doing and that a lot of I mean in some ways you want to think about this is from exploratory all this to play design, you're making a magic set. Each step of the magic set wants to think about where it is going, what is the next step? And that one of the things that I think is really important

is we are, when you make a magic set, you are part of a larger process. Magic is not a solitary design process. It is a group design process. And so you have to think about how your group functions, and then you've got to think about every group that's past you. That a lot of what you're doing,

especially if you're working earlier in the process, is setting up people later in the process. For example, if I'm gonna make a mechanic in exploratory or vision design, I wanna make sure the mechanic I'm making is balanceable by play design later in the process. I wanna make sure that I'm making the things that are needed for set design. For example, there's a lot of structure that goes in. There's draft archetypes.

There are themes. You want to figure out what themes and what mechanics go into what colors, and that informs what the draft archetypes are. And Jess sort of says, it starts talking about what your ASFAN are, certain themes and stuff. All that has to get figured out. Once again, Vision is going to do the first swipe at it, but they're trying to set it up so that Set Design and Play Design

have the tools that they can continue that process. Another big thing, and this is sort of an offshoot of thinking downstream, is it is the lead's job to communicate with other teams. Early in the process for exploratory and vision, especially exploratory, the main team that you're interacting with is the creative team. The creative team is doing exploratory world building and the design team is doing exploratory design. You want to work with each other because things you do in design could change the creative. Things they do in creative could change the design.

There's a lot of back and forth. As you get later in the process more teams start getting involved. In vision design you're going to start talking with the rules manager to make sure that the mechanics you're making work. You're going to want to talk with your editor to make sure that there's at least rough templates. The final templates will happen in set design and later but in vision you want to make sure if you're making something that it can be done. And so working with rules and working with editing just to make sure that you're not

doing something that is going to inherently cause problems. Also we work with play design and vision design to make sure that we're making things that can be balanced, that have the knobs in them to adjust them. The other thing that Vision does at the end of Vision, we talk to digital. We wanna make sure that the digital team, the things we're doing are doable on digital. And then as you get into set design,

they have to start talking with the art team, because you have to start commissioning art. You gotta make sure, like, the set design will choose what cards they're ready for, there are waves of art. So it might be like, okay, I have to commission a hundred cards, well let me figure out the hundred cards I'm happiest with, because once you commit to art that locks down the card to a certain extent, what am I happy

doing the art on? Maybe it's cards that I know I want the card to stay, maybe it's legendary creatures or things that I know what the art's gonna be, even if I'm not a hammer and a shard of mechanics, that the art has to be a very consistent thing so we know what that is. There is, I mean, during the whole process,

there is the product architect. That's the person who, there's one product architect assigned to each set, and they work from the very, very beginning all the way to the very, very end. And so you're checking in with them, they're making decisions there's like financial decisions that got to be made. Let's say you want to do double-faced cards or do a punch-out sheet or or I want to do something different with how the pre-release works. All those things cost money and so you need to talk with the production assistant outside with a product architect

to make sure that the budget is there to do what you want. Every magic set has a budget. So it's not that you can't do things, but you have to make sure that what you're doing is viable and doable. Sometimes you have to interact with printing. When we were doing double-faced cards, could we do double-faced cards? Like dual masters had done them, but that was a much smaller set. We had to make a lot more cards, involves different printers. Was it viable and if so are there rules about what we can do? You know in each stage when you're making something you need, but when I was doing stickers I had it like we had never done stickers before on a magic card. What do we need to do to make that work? There's a lot of working with

different teams. Also we have to work with marketing. We have what's, so one of the things you're responsible for when you lead a team is what we call KSP's. That stands for Key Selling Points. And from a marketing standpoint, it's like, why would someone want this set? What about this set is exciting? Are there exciting mechanics, brand new mechanics? Are we doing something, you know, are we doing something we've never done before?

Or are we hitting a theme that people like? Are we, you know, are we bringing back something that people enjoy? Is there a really cool creative treatment? Are we doing something that we've never done before? Like what exactly is going to sell the set? What makes people stand up and listen? And obviously with Universes Beyond, how are we representing that? Like what are the things that will most excite people who are fans of that property? So there's a lot of interacting with other teams that's key to leading a set.

And the other thing that you find when you're leading sets is you get problems that you just like, part of your job when you're leading sets is you get problems that you just like Part of your job when you're leading a set is you have to deal with the other teams and then they will let you know When something pops up that's a problem and there's a lot of problem-solving that happens And the later you get in the process the more problems like early on for example If I'm in vision and I have to cut a card or even a mechanic, not that big a deal. We got time to adapt.

If we're in editing after pencil's down and something has to change, that's a big deal. So the later you get in the process, the more restrictions you have on you and the trickier it is to make changes. And that's when you gotta get creative. That's when a card falls through, but you have the art and you have to adapt to the art.

Or, you know, you're dealing, like another thing you have to deal with is we make different frames. So you have to deal with graphic design to figure out your frames. Maybe you're making a new symbol. I mean, normally there's a symbol for the expansion symbol, but maybe there's a new mechanical symbol. You're doing something like energy or something and you's a symbol for the expansion symbol, but maybe there's a new mechanical symbol. You're doing something like energy or something and you need a symbol for it.

There's a lot of different moving pieces. And the other thing that's important is it's not as if every set is the same. It's not as if, you know, I've led, I don't know, 40 some vision design teams or design slash vision design teams. What is important and what like when I was making Innistrad I was doing double face cards so that there was a whole big thing about dealing with printing. I don't normally have to go talk to the printers. That's not or are people that deal with the printers.

That's not something I you know that's not something I normally have to worry about but you know there are sets where I do, or maybe there's a set where collation matters and I have to worry about collation, or there's a set where there's some weird creative element that I have to deal with, or maybe there's a rules issue that we have to work through. Each set is different. Each set is going to have different challenges, but it is the job of the lead to make sure that you're interacting with everybody else. You are considered the expert on your set. You're

the one that understands, and from a mechanical standpoint. And so we have what we call gate meetings. They start at gate zero, I think they go to gate 10. And those are meetings in which different groups of people gather together and you're talking through sets at different stages of their evolution. And the major, you know, people in R&D, what I like to call the powers that be, you know, there are people that have to green light things. And so there's a lot of process where you talk things through and you get feedback and, you know, there's a constant checking process where you talk things through and you get feedback and there's a constant checking in and making sure that things are working and that when things aren't

working, hey, you're doing the trouble spotting and making sure that you can solve those problems. Once again, a lot of leading a team is customized to that particular product, but it's understanding what's going on with that product. It's making sure that you are staying on top of the issues. Now, there's people you're working with. For one, you have your architect. They're the one through line through the whole process. And the teams, like with a few exceptions,

I think Infinity is the only one I can think of on top of my head The people who are leading Exploratory and vision and set and play design are not the same people. They're different people Exploratory and vision can be the same person often that happens But vision and set design are normally not the same people although We definitely have done times where there are certain people who are very good in the middle part of the process Gottlieb is one of them where sometimes he will lead Vision or the late part of vision and then the early part of set but then hand off the later part of set to somebody else

When things break can vary on the people and so there's always a lead but when you change leads is not as set in stone. Different people excel at different parts of the process. Usually for me, for example, I'm once vision's done, I got to get onto the next vision. So I'm handing it off. There are some people that, and I got this good example where he will stick around and lead the set into set design.

Usually not all the way through. He'll hand it off at some point. One of the things, by the way, we like about how we do set design in general is usually it's good to have a second pair of eyes. That's why we like to change teams. That's why the vast majority of teams do change. Just so there's a different team

with a different perspective of looking at it. And maybe it's very easy sometimes when you make something that you can get blind to things. That's why most of the time you want to have a second set of eyes. Okay what else? Yeah I guess the fine I'm almost I'm at work here so let me wrap wrap up here. Basically the job of a lead is overseeing the product overseeing the team and overseeing the product, overseeing the team,

and overseeing the interconnectivity between your team and other teams. Those are the three main things. And that one of the challenges of being a team lead is there's no such thing as just the normal thing. There's things you always do. I mean, there's things that every lead has to do and those happen, but every set is very unique.

I talk about how in some ways, magic is mini games, right? That each set is kind of its own game. Yeah, it has a shared rule set. It has shared components, but each set is its own thing. And one of the, I mean, this is part of the fun for me is, you know, this is my 29th year of making magic. Aren't I bored yet? Aren't I bored of making magic?

And the answer is no, because every set is very unlike every other set. That you know, one of the fun things about making a magic set is each set has its own challenges. And you as the leader of that set have to figure out those challenges. Have to figure out what are the issues for my set, what are the problems for my set, and how do I solve them? And each set will have unique problems to deal with. We'll have things that you've never dealt with before.

We'll have interactions that might be different. And so that's what keeps it fresh and keeps it fun. And so I love leading magic sets. I think it's super fun. I mean I really I call it a dream job. It is in fact a dream job. I like being creatively challenged. I like you know solving problems. I like interacting with people and being a team lead lets you do all those things and it's a very fun part of the process and the other fun thing that I didn't really get into is working in a group, doing group design.

There's frustrations at time when you want to do something, but other people don't want to do something, there can be frustrations. But there's a lot of really fun things that come with working together. And the best is, is that you make something better than any one of you could have made in isolation. That the great thing about a team is that different people have different strengths

and that's part of what you do as a team lead is learn to let people's strengths shine and lean into where your team members shine. And that when you do that we end up making something that no one person could have made and that's really cool. So anyway guys that is what a team lead does. So I hope this informative and I guess that's it for today because I am at work. So that means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to make magic. Hope you enjoyed today's talk and I'll see you next time.

Bye bye.