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allhailbolas · 8 years

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What are you looking for?

When thinking about commander's philosophy, we identified that one of the most important things when sitting down for a game is making sure that each player can get the experience they're looking for. For that to work, we have to know what we ourself are looking for. Identifying our goals and the anticipated experience can be quite tricky but we'll try to tackle it here.

There are many motivations for playing magic. To break them down and analyze them, we'll look into the main psychographics, as described by Mark Rosewater here:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-revisited-2006-03-20-2

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/vorthos-and-mel-2015-08-31

The psychographics

The basic breakdown is into Txmmy, Jxnny, and Spike on the motivation side, and Mel and Vorthos on the appreciation side; the three original psychographics are about why you play, and the other two about in which way you enjoy the game's aesthetics.

Txmmys want to experience something, they are looking for fun and enjoyment, which can be found in hilarious and big, swingy plays. They want to see fun interactions in the game and between the players. They embrace variance and randomness, going with the flow of the game and the hands they're dealt.

Jxnnys are looking for a way to express themselves. Expression can be about cleverness, creativity, personality, and uniqueness. Jxnnys love deckbuilding, potentially even more than playing. Their decks can be very thematic and weird, including unusual cards and subtle synergies that (hopefully) no-one has ever thought of before them. Convoluted combos are their jam, as are constraining themes and exploring out-of-the-box ideas.

And then there is Spike. Spikes want to prove themselves, which is mainly done by winning. They are very self-critical and judge their own abilities, which is why others' recognition of their skill is important for Spikes. Spikes can enjoy analytics; figuring out what is good and why it is good. Evaluating cards and decks and tuning lists to make them as efficient as possible. Some are always trying to improve their own play-/deckbuilding skills.

Vorthos enjoys the flavor of the game. Names, types, artwork, flavor text, and characters are what is aesthetically pleasing to Vorthoses. Flavor is beauty to them, beauty which can be found in decks and gameplay.

For Mels, beauty is found in magic's mechanics. Interactions between cards, rules and different lines on the same card are like multiple tiny gears in a big machine. Mels love observing these machines and enjoy its functionality and intricacies. When the machine is running smoothly with all parts fitting together, Mels are happy.

All of these psychographics are compatible. It's best to imagine all of them as traits of a player's personality, with each trait varying in degree of intensity.

Armed with knowledge of these traits, one can now try to identify one's own influences and the goals they lead towards:

Mel and Vorthos are not influential when it comes to gameplay, but rather big factors when building a deck. Remember, commander as a format encourages themes and embraces flavor, and that's an area where Mel&Vorthos's fancies are tickled.

If you enjoy building your deck around characters, stories, artworks and similar, you show strong aspects of Vorthos.

If mechanical interactions and constraining themes based on game elements intrigue you, your Mel trait is showing.

I believe Txmmy and Jxnny are self-explanatory when it comes to figuring out how these traits are influencing you in gameplay and deckbuilding. You just have to ask yourself: What kind of expression am I seeking and what do I find most enjoyable?

But now, let's talk about the elephant in the room, Spike.

Being spiky is a pretty controversial trait when talking about commander. As we concluded last week, commander is, contrary to most other formats, about more than winning. In tournament formats, you can be 100% spiky and this won't be problematic, as this formats' goal is to win the game so you won't be scorned for trying as hard as you can to achieve this goal. But commander is different; it has a social spirit. We described a game in line with this spirit as:

‘All players are actively working together to create a game in which each of them can meaningfully participate and everyone gets to experience what they were looking for so, in the end, each player had fun and can take away a lasting, enjoyable memory’

For this to work, we have to answer the question of which sought-after experiences are compatible and what can take away from compatibility.

Compatibility

The first thing that comes to mind is, that all psychographics need a certain environment to get what they're looking for.

Txmmy can want fun/big plays, swingy games, high variance, huge numbers, crazy turns and similar. These can be enabled by expensive cards, lots of mana, multiple amplifying effects, chaos inducing cards, and large board states. This can only happen if there is enough time to deploy these and the game goes late enough to play expensive spells. Additionally, there need to be enough resources available for Txmmy. Ending the game very early and taking resources away from other players, which can already start in the form of playing lots of removal, prevents Txmmy from calling the game a success. Another thing that Txmmy hates is feeling bored. If you have ONE big combo turn that takes a long time or if you take many turns in a row while others have to watch, Txmmys will be annoyed by the time monopoly you created. The same is true if you prevent Txmmys from doing anything that can advance the game, by locking them out of the game and denying them the ability to participate. On the other hand, if you make plays and play cards that will make the game more fun or chaotic and enable new game states that are unique and interesting, you can make Txmmys at your table happy.

Jxnnys are about expressing themselves and want an environment where that is possible. In general, that can be similar to Txmmys’ needs, as Jxnnys who like convoluted combos with many pieces need time to have a chance of assembling them. But mostly, they want you to notice and recognize what they're expressing. The smart synergies in their deck, the constraining theme that they could make work, the unusual card that had a surprisingly high impact on the game. What they need is other players who are interested in more than their own deck and plays and are open to new things and weird choices. It's devastating to them if you tell them that their choices are bad and that they should be playing other things, because by saying such things you show them that you didn't notice what they were expressing, or even worse, don't care. Jxnnys are happy if you ask them about their choices and reasons, appreciate and acknowledge when their deck works, and it's very satisfying for them if they can show you something new and you show your appreciation for that. The tricky thing is, that it is very unusual for magic players to not care about winning at all. Most players want to at least have a realistic chance to win the game. Jxnnys can handicap their ability to win the game by a lot, because for them expression comes first. So for them to still have a shot they need others to play decks which are not too strong, too consistent or have a focus that is on something else than winning as well.

And Spikes? What Spikes need is players who have at least a similar degree of spikyness, so that the competition is tough for them and they won't get handed an easy win. If your main, and highly dominant, trait is spikyness, you want to win, at any cost. This can be problematic when playing with people who are less spiky than you are because they have different motivations which make them make decisions that are at odds with maximizing the ability to win the game. If your only focus is on winning, you'll make decisions in deckbuilding and playing which will destroy the environment that Txmmy and Jxnny need.

Therefore, the experience’s characteristics that players are looking for can be:

variety

entertainment

social interaction

participation

competition

With the premise, that every player has aspects of all the psychographics' traits, but with different degrees of intensity, everyone is at least a little bit of a Txmmy, Jxnny, Mel, Vorthos and also Spike. The intensity of the Txmmy, Jxnny, Mel, and Vorthos traits can be ignored, as their goals are compatible without much trouble; in the end, the one thing we need to focus on when trying to achieve compatibility is the degree of spikyness in a player.

The less spiky you are, the more willing you'll be to make decisions that'll make you lose win-percentage to enable other goals, and the more you will agree with the statement:

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do it.

At the top of spikyness are players who are unwilling to compromise and try to win above all else. Descending from there, more and more other factors and motivations are added, and players are freely giving away more and more percentage points because winning matters less to them.

This can be in many ways:

-Including cards in your deck because they are fun or you personally like them (pet cards) although more efficient or powerful options are available

-Constraining your deckbuilding by sticking to a theme that you enjoy building around rather than just optimizing your deck to be as powerful as possible

-Avoiding certain cards because they are too good and make winning 'too easy' or 'too boring' and could lead to repetitive gameplay

-Making a play that is not the best one available, but one you find fun and enjoyable

These, along with similar things, are all decisions based on personal factors that decrease win-percentage. But thinking of the format's spirit that we established, one can freely give away win percentage as well, because one is empathic and cares about the other players. You might avoid certain cards because they don't lead to the environment that other players need or are actively unfun to play against. You might not play certain styles of decks because you know that others won't enjoy playing against them. You might not make a specific play because it will make someone unhappy, although it might be the best play available. Understanding these interpersonal reasons to give away win-percentage is the secret to successfully embracing the format's spirit.

You have to be willing to diminish your own ability to win the game, to enable others to enjoy the game. That’s what the pre-game communication is for. It's for figuring out if all players are willing to lessen their own ability to win the game by a similar amount, to enable the other players' enjoyment, to avoid an imbalance of experiences.

So if someone asks 'What is your deck's power level?' or 'How long do you want this game to go?' or 'How competitive is your deck?' what they are actually looking for is the answer to the question 'How much do you want to win, and to what degree will you be able to compromise about that?'. If that is the question that we're actually trying to get an answer to, maybe we should change how we approach pre-game communication. Why not actively ask others how strongly they want to win and if they are willing and able to adjust that based on how you and the other players answer this question. The big problem here is that the abstract concept of degree of spikyness is hard to put into words or numbers. I would advocate for a different approach. Try to explain, what needs to happen for you to enjoy the game and see it as a success. For example, do you want to: Make as many tokens as possible? Cast an X-spell for a large amount? Surprise someone with an unusual effect? Assemble a specific synergy? Draw lots of cards? Use a particular card in your deck? Show of some flavorful cards? Make political deals, maybe betray someone? Or would you just like to win?

The thing is, that empathy is really hard and so is figuring out what others really want, so make it easier for everyone and just tell them what you're looking for.

I hope we all are now able to identify our own motivations and sought-after experience, are aware of potential problems with compatibility and know how to communicate these motivations before a game.

#mtg #magic the gathering #mtgcommander #edh #social contract #spirit

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