Magic: The Gathering and the Art of World Building

If you’ve never played the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering, then this blog entry might sound like gibberish to you. Magic: The Gathering is a quasi-role playing card game where you and your opponent play as dueling wizards, with the cards representing the spells you fling at one another. But that’s just the broad explanation of the game.

The story behind it is that each player is a powerful mage
with the ability to travel to different worlds, each with its own culture and
identity, and the spells are things the player has learned or picked up from
observing life on that world. There have been alien worlds made entirely of
metal, Scandanavian/Norse themed worlds encased in ice and snow,
Japanese-themed worlds full of Spirits, samurai and ninjas, Greek
mythology-themed worlds, classic horror-themed worlds, and even a
Mongolian-styled world where everyone is at war all of the time. Fascinating
stuff.

Of course, now the question is “what the heck does all of
this have to do with writing a story?”

The answer? “Everything.”

The thing that sets MTG apart from every other board/card
game is the extensive amount of worldbuilding that goes into every set of
cards. Through the cards, as well as the tie in e-books, website articles and
videogames, you get immersed in a given world that has its own ecosystem, its
own bestiary, its own heroes and legends, and its own struggle. And if you’re a
story buff, it’s easy to get drawn in and really feel like you are a part of
this world.

That is the feeling every writer of fiction should strive
for in his or her stories. You want your settings to be living, breathing
extensions of your story because it adds more weight and believability to your
characters. In fact, some of the greatest stories in fantasy and science
fiction were just about the central character exploring his or her world, with
hijinks ensuing. (Pratchett’s The Color of Magic and Asimov’s Prelude To
Foundation come to mind). This is where
the whole “City is a character” motif comes from, and BTW my buddy Anne Mallory
does an excellent job of it in her steamy historical romances.

I thought I’d take a novel approach to said worldbuilding
utilizing my passion for MTG. As an excersize for a competition to get a design
internship at Wizards of the Coast (makers of Dungeons and Dragons, Duel
Masters, and you guessed it, Magic The Gathering), I was given the task of
creating an entire set of Magic The Gathering cards, along with the world those
cards were set in. there were specific problems I had to solve to flesh out my
world, which really stretched my creative muscles. So for this exercise, I
decided to use a world I had been planning on telling a high fantasy epic on: a
world so ravaged by constant wars, cataclysms and tragedy that it had
collectively given up its will to live. (This is actually the world my book
“Return of the Tyrant” Is based in). The themes were failure, despair and
extinction, with a ragtag band of heroes and former villains fighting to give
their world a reason to live, against a mammoth monstrosity poised to destroy
them all…and the people actually welcoming the annihilation.

Through this exercise I was able to really flesh out my
world and give it its identity, to add layers of myth and lore and create
backstories I could explore endlessly if I so chose. I created unique creatures
and events specific to my world, and new mysteries, like why the Goblins,
Elves, and Merfolk that are fantasy staples are only found via ancient ruins in
my world.

I didn’t win the contest (made it to the second round though). But I enjoyed the exercise so much I continued developing my set of Magic cards long after the contest ended, adding new wrinkles and twists. I used as a guide some of the articles written by MTG head of R&D Mark Rosewater which cover the process of designing a set of cards (fascinating stuff. You can read the articles here). As a result, I have a nice toybox to play in for follow-up books and spinoffs to “Return of the Tyrant”.

I also plan on using this technique for an old story idea I
was working on in college with a few buddies of mine. We were looking at doing
an epic high fantasy adventure set in a world similar to feudal China,
and loosely based on the legends of Shaolin and Wu-Tang (and yes, inspired by
the rap group). But if I’m going to effectively tell this story, I need to
create a believable world.

See where I’m going with this?

Whether I actually start writing the story or not, I think
it would be an interesting exercise to see if I can build this world the same
way I build the other one. I wouldn’t involve any big creatures, but it would
be nice to know if there are any in this world. Also, I’d have to do some more
research into feudal China
and Shaolin mythology to make sure stuff was reasonably accurate — it doesn’t
have to be an exact match to the stuff you see in kung-fu movies, but it has to
be close enough for you to recognize the source material. Also there’s the
little issue of writing believable kung-fu action when kung-fu works best as a
visual. I think that’s the biggest hurdle. But hey, I was able to effectively
write video game action, so I think it’s a challenge worth undertaking.

In any case, if you are having any struggles with
worldbuilding, I strongly recommend giving this a try. And while you’re at it,
give the game itself a try. MTG has been my hobby for over 20 years, and I
think you’ll like it too.