Online Deck Game Design Interview

I'm not sure that Richard Garfield needs any introduction – but here it goes. He's most famous for designing the collectible card gameMagic: the Gathering, one of the most important hobby games in history. Recently, he has released the dice gameKing of Tokyo,his collectible card gameNetRunnerhas been re-released in Fantasy Flight's Living Card Game format, and he has co-authored a digital collectible card game calledSolForge,appearing from Gary Games. Thanks to Richard for taking the time to answer these questions, and to Stephan Brissaud from IELLO for setting up the interview!

The projects you currently have going – King of Tokyo, Netrunner, SolForge – have got people rather excited and it seems like a return to form in some ways. Have you been more focused on designing recently, or have you been doing the same work as always, and 2011 and 2012 have just been particularly good to you?

I have been doing the same work as usual. I generally have some games looking for a home with the right publisher, and I never know how it is going to pan out. This is particularly true for computer games – I have invested an enormous amount of time into projects that have failed to complete; it is satisfying seeing a game like SolForge breaking that pattern.

How did you first come up with the idea for King of Tokyo? What about the gameplay convinced you that the game was good enough to be published? Were there previous incarnations of the game that you can talk about? And then, how did it end up with IELLO?

King of Tokyo was the result of my admiring the design of Yahtzee, but wishing that it was more interactive. It began its life as a generic fantasy themed game but got moved to a giant monster themed game. I really felt like I had something special with the king of the hill style interaction – I am not a fan of choosing who you will attack, because it leads to a game that is too political for my taste. Making the person in Tokyo everyone's target really did something special.

King of Tokyo ended up with IELLO fairly randomly, they requested a particular design from me and I never got around to doing that design. That started my relationship with them, and I asked them if they would be interested in looking at this new design I had and they jumped on it. They did such a marvelous job with it that I hope to publish many more games with them in the future.

In your discussions on the King of Tokyo expansion, you talk a bit about the high level of combinatorics involved with the game, which make it remain interesting after many plays. At what point do you think combinations in a game or high enough to guarantee "enough" replayability? In other interviews, you've talked about your broad definition of luck and that luck and skill can both exist in a game in high quantities. Needing a high level of combinatorics certainly increases luck; how does it affect skill, if at all?

It is hard to quantify "enough replayability", but I look for players having several strategies they can choose between and that they can pursue those strategies in many ways. In King of Tokyo, the three fundamental strategies are gaining victory points, doing damage, and gaining energy to buy cards. In general if there is room for skill, there is the possibility of replayability (the converse is not necessarily true; there are games with low skill that have replayability – just consider Bingo). There is a lot of luck in King of Tokyo but there is a great deal of skill as well – the difference between a player that hopes for a result and fights the dice when it doesn't come, and the player that sees what the dice offers and follows the dice's lead is large.

King of Tokyo's Energy cards have some powerful "Wow" moments, such as Extra Head (which gives an extra die). Magic also had cards like Mindtwister and Time Walk that just amazed you with how impressive the effect was, the very first time you read them. Those cards proved to be too powerful but even today there are appropriately balanced cards that just immediately amaze you with their text. How do you design a game system where you are able to accomplish this "excitement" over effects? Is this a specific design goal you have in mind from the outset? Is this more easily done with cards with short, impressive text, or cards with many or long abilities?

I think there would be near universal belief that short impressive text is preferable to other abilities – but designers will draw the line differently for how far they are willing to go as new simple abilities are exhausted. Also, with a game that has a strong flavorful theme like King of Tokyo, longer text may be necessary to get the flavor of a particular card to shine through. The less a designer pays attention to this, the more abstract the game will seem – and we have all seen games that look like they have a theme but then the cards don't really reflect that theme in a convincing way. In the end I try to live in both worlds – making cards with simple effects (gain an extra die) and making the name as flavorful as possible (Extra Head) – and making cards with flavorful names (Shrink Ray), and coming up with a power that carries that as well as possible (text too long to be repeated here!).

We know Powered Up! will include a unique deck for each character, as well as a new character. Will it include anything else, such as new Energy cards? Are there plans for further King of Tokyo expansions?

I believe that the contents of the expansion are a unique deck for each character and a new character, along with some counters for the new cards. I have designed many new and, I think, exciting mechanics and energy cards – but they will be held for future expansions.

It looks like Fantasy Flight's reworking of Netrunner is going to be a big success, judging by Gen Con. What do you think went wrong with Netrunner to keep it from being continually successful, and what has changed since 1996 to make it such an exciting prospect now?

I had very little to do with the new NetRunner and the decisions that went into it. I am happy with the project because Fantasy Flight changed the mechanics very little, and it is great to have my design available again. NetRunner was hampered, as all Wizards trading card games were hampered, with not being Magic. That is an easy excuse to make for its petering out despite the quality design that I think it is. However, I have for a while also suspected that NetRunner was a game that would have been better in a different form – a stand alone product, a deck building game, a 'living card game' – something other than full blown TCG. I am optimistic that this may help it find its audience!

What do you think of the LCG model for Netrunner? Is this better or worse than the CCG model, or does the right model to use really depend on the game? Do you think Magic would have succeeded as an LCG, or has the secondary market been important for the success of the game?

I think the LCG model is better for some games and worse for others. In particular, I think Magic would be weaker with that model (although I could see some spin off products with the Magic mechanics working quite well with that approach). The key is often, but not always, size of player base. If your player base is high enough you get much more flexibility and variety with a TCG, but if your player base is not expected to be everywhere it is vital that all players have access to enough cards to play a good game, and not so many as to make it perpetually unfair. The LCG approach is perfect for that problem.

Can you tell us a bit about the design of SolForge? I get the impression that the cards will be collectable and tradable, as with Magic Online? What makes this game exciting enough to sink money into over a physical CCG?

Since Magic first came out, and certainly since Magic was first put online, I have been thinking about what the best customizable card game for online would be. I certainly wouldn't design Magic as it is for online play! Online play will never be strictly better than face to face play – being with your friends physically and dealing with tangible objects is a great aspect of these games that is lost. However, the possibility of designing something that can't be done with paper, or at least easily with paper, has tantalizing possibilities. The fact that computers can handle hidden information, calculation, game setup, matching, timing, and so many of the aspects of play that are not adding to the experience gives a lot of potential to the games for this medium. A game like Ascension really illustrates this well – the physical card game is great fun, but the iPad version has an enormous amount going for it, and many players prefer it. And this was not even a game designed for the iPad!

One particular area we are going to work with is the changing of cards during the course of play. We can do this with paper games but it is a pain (as the many hours of playtest have proven), but it is painless on computer, and cards that change and evolve over time are interesting and flavorful.

In another interview on the Opinionated Gamers site, you talk about the importance of publishers and the dangers of self-publication via Kickstarter. Yet here we have you collaborating with a startup publisher on a Kickstarter project. What gave you the confidence in Gary Games to do work with them on SolForge?

My point was that bypassing the publishers is not without risks, because publishers provide more than just money and distribution. For a more elaborate explanation of this point of view, see my blog post.

I think that this risk is mitigated by the fact that Gary Games HAS published games, so they are not bypassing a publisher, but are looking for funding for a project. In any case I see in Justin Gary and his team a group of designers and developers who are very mindful of exactly the sort of problems a publisher can keep a project from succumbing to – such as designing for the designer rather than the player.

What area of math is your PhD in? Have you used your mathematical knowledge to balance the numbers in games during design? What mathematical advice for playtesting and game balance would you have for other designers?

My doctorate is in Combinatorial Mathematics. I use my general knowledge of math in game design and balancing but not much specific – despite the fact that combinatorial mathematics is relevant to the study of games. I still find balancing and designing good game systems to be more of an art than a science. My most given advice on balancing is to not lose track of beginner and intermediate levels of player – that is – a game can be perfectly balanced for the top level player, but if the beginners don't have fun with it there will be no top level players. This is in fact a pretty common problem, and is illustrated by a game with a strategy we will call strategy A, which at the top level is beaten by several other strategies, and beats several other strategies. But if strategy A can only be beaten by a top player, then beginners at the game will find the game boring because they have only one strategy they can use and when their opponent uses it they have no answer. Experts showing them it can be beaten with other strategies won't actually make the game fun for them, it just shows that it may become fun after they become experts. And there are a lot of games out there – many of which you can have fun while becoming an expert – so why should they stick with this game which is unbalanced for intermediate and beginning players?

What have you been enjoying lately – games other than your own, books, movies, television?

For board games I am playing Ascension and Last Will (a fun Czech game). For computer games I am playing Diablo III, Minecraft, and Terraria. For books I am reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, as well as rereading all my old Larry Niven science fiction. For movies I am crossing my fingers that Looper is going to be good – I love me a time travel yarn. For television I have been watching Legend of Korra, Breaking Bad, and Downton Abbey.