Lorwyn, artistic license, and the State of Design 2008
September 2nd 2008 04:23
Mark Rosewater isn’t the president of Magic. In fact, he’s not even the president of Wizards of the Coast. He does, however, write an annual column on the state of Magic design. Check it out, if you like. I’ll wait.
Done? All right. I’m not the opposition party of Magic; in fact, I usually agree with quite a lot of what Mr. Rosewater writes. But I do have a response to the State of Design address, and it relates to the last year’s flavor decisions. Why am I responding to the State of Design address with a discussion of flavor? Because in this year's article, he wrote:
This is an encouraging statement to hear from the head designer, seeing as the highest points in Magic’s history have come when there was the most harmony between flavor and mechanics.
But card art is another element of flavor. Since it is the first thing people generally notice about a card and the primary way cards are distinguished from one another by observers, it is fundamentally important in determining a set’s appeal, helping to explain the popularity (or lack thereof) of sets which otherwise seemed flawed (or perfect) in terms of card function and power level. I don’t imagine many people pick a card for a deck or cut it from a deck based solely on its art, but the picture provides a visual hook for new players and an additional layer of appeal for every player, making them more comfortable when playing with a deck full of attractive or interesting images.
And it is also one reason why I cannot give Mr. Rosewater and the rest of the company full marks for the last year, especially for Lorwyn. Of course, he doesn’t have control over card art – there’s a whole creative department’s worth of people who decide each block’s visual style and assign cards to artists. The last year could have used a little more awareness of how those decisions affect a set’s impact.
The very first look we got at Lorwyn was the art from this card:
Did it suggest an idyllic world of British midsummer populated by races of fable? It sure did. But neither of the characters in it is particularly appealing or impressive-looking. An art preview should leave you with the feeling that you want to get to know the character it portrays. This was why the Lorwyn marketing campaigns that featured planeswalkers were very successful – people hadn’t seen Magic characters with that kind of charisma since 2001.
But the rest of Lorwyn turned out to be more Goldmeadow Stalwart than Liliana Vess. I for one was puzzled as to how the lush green countryside came to be inhabited by such unpleasant (and sometimes downright annoying) little creatures; I understand that Celtic mythology is populated by ugly and misshapen faerie-beings, but it also has its share of more pleasant or attractive races. Why, for instance, were the set’s elves not more appealing? Don't get me wrong: the art was extremely well-made, and showed the same care and attention to detail that has always characterized Magic art, but its visual style made a lot of Lorwyn’s cards more difficult to look at than those that came before or after it.
Note that while Shadowmoor was also based on British folklore, it had a different focus from Lorwyn that seems to have allowed its artists to create a more interesting world. And here we come back to a pure design issue: while the Lorwyn block focused on tribal interactions (decks where all their creatures have the same type), Shadowmoor’s overarching theme was “color matters.” Lorwyn’s art was required to depict creatures from the seven races of interest, no other sentient humanoids, and almost no animals or nonsentient creatures, but Shadowmoor was able to explore the full range of Celtic and northern European mythology. As such, it was a more vibrant and well-rounded setting in spite of also containing significant numbers of kithkin, elves, and faeries.
My final conclusion is that the last year was a success in many ways, including providing an emphatic rebuttal to the notion, based largely on the shortcomings of the Kamigawa block, that real-world mythology cannot be part of Magic without detracting from the game’s identity. But the synthesis of flavor and design that Mr. Rosewater mentioned is not yet complete. Some players would buy new cards based on their power alone, even if their art was drawn in crayon. But others remember that the introduction to the rulebook promised a world of ever-increasing depth and ever-changing mysteries. Keeping those players interested requires keeping the Magic multiverse deep and mysterious. And what better place to start than the first thing people notice about a card?
Done? All right. I’m not the opposition party of Magic; in fact, I usually agree with quite a lot of what Mr. Rosewater writes. But I do have a response to the State of Design address, and it relates to the last year’s flavor decisions. Why am I responding to the State of Design address with a discussion of flavor? Because in this year's article, he wrote:
As the years go by, I become more and more entrenched in the idea that design and flavor are not separate entities. Yes, we have different teams working on each part, but the key to making a block shine is to have a design that begets flavor and a flavor that begets design.
This is an encouraging statement to hear from the head designer, seeing as the highest points in Magic’s history have come when there was the most harmony between flavor and mechanics.
Block theme: “The world unites against a common threat.”
Block theme: “The apocalypse has come and gone, but its shadow still hangs over us.”
But card art is another element of flavor. Since it is the first thing people generally notice about a card and the primary way cards are distinguished from one another by observers, it is fundamentally important in determining a set’s appeal, helping to explain the popularity (or lack thereof) of sets which otherwise seemed flawed (or perfect) in terms of card function and power level. I don’t imagine many people pick a card for a deck or cut it from a deck based solely on its art, but the picture provides a visual hook for new players and an additional layer of appeal for every player, making them more comfortable when playing with a deck full of attractive or interesting images.
And it is also one reason why I cannot give Mr. Rosewater and the rest of the company full marks for the last year, especially for Lorwyn. Of course, he doesn’t have control over card art – there’s a whole creative department’s worth of people who decide each block’s visual style and assign cards to artists. The last year could have used a little more awareness of how those decisions affect a set’s impact.
The very first look we got at Lorwyn was the art from this card:
Did it suggest an idyllic world of British midsummer populated by races of fable? It sure did. But neither of the characters in it is particularly appealing or impressive-looking. An art preview should leave you with the feeling that you want to get to know the character it portrays. This was why the Lorwyn marketing campaigns that featured planeswalkers were very successful – people hadn’t seen Magic characters with that kind of charisma since 2001.
But the rest of Lorwyn turned out to be more Goldmeadow Stalwart than Liliana Vess. I for one was puzzled as to how the lush green countryside came to be inhabited by such unpleasant (and sometimes downright annoying) little creatures; I understand that Celtic mythology is populated by ugly and misshapen faerie-beings, but it also has its share of more pleasant or attractive races. Why, for instance, were the set’s elves not more appealing? Don't get me wrong: the art was extremely well-made, and showed the same care and attention to detail that has always characterized Magic art, but its visual style made a lot of Lorwyn’s cards more difficult to look at than those that came before or after it.
Note that while Shadowmoor was also based on British folklore, it had a different focus from Lorwyn that seems to have allowed its artists to create a more interesting world. And here we come back to a pure design issue: while the Lorwyn block focused on tribal interactions (decks where all their creatures have the same type), Shadowmoor’s overarching theme was “color matters.” Lorwyn’s art was required to depict creatures from the seven races of interest, no other sentient humanoids, and almost no animals or nonsentient creatures, but Shadowmoor was able to explore the full range of Celtic and northern European mythology. As such, it was a more vibrant and well-rounded setting in spite of also containing significant numbers of kithkin, elves, and faeries.
My final conclusion is that the last year was a success in many ways, including providing an emphatic rebuttal to the notion, based largely on the shortcomings of the Kamigawa block, that real-world mythology cannot be part of Magic without detracting from the game’s identity. But the synthesis of flavor and design that Mr. Rosewater mentioned is not yet complete. Some players would buy new cards based on their power alone, even if their art was drawn in crayon. But others remember that the introduction to the rulebook promised a world of ever-increasing depth and ever-changing mysteries. Keeping those players interested requires keeping the Magic multiverse deep and mysterious. And what better place to start than the first thing people notice about a card?
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