3/16/14 Episode 104: Meet My Mom (Special guest Lynne Bravo Rosewater)

All podcast content by Mark Rosewater and Lynne Bravo Rosewater

MARK: I’m pulling out of the IHOP parking lot! You all know what that means! It’s another Drive to Work. So it’s a special episode of Drive to Work, which I’m calling “Drive to the Airport!” Because my mom  is in town, in fact we were at breakfast at IHOP, all the grandkids had a last breakfast with grandma, but now I’m driving her to them airport on my way to work. So say hi, Mom.

LYNNE: Hi.

MARK: So I did a podcast with my dad that went over very, very well. And I realized I had to drive my mom to the airport today, on my way to work, so I go, “Wait a minute, here’s the opportunity to have the companion piece to “Meet My Dad!” It is “Meet My Mom!” So Mom, why don’t we introduce you a little bit? So when Dad was on the show, I explained how he was very instrumental in getting me into gaming. But I believe there’s a lot of other aspects of things I do that you were very influential in, although you’re like a social gamer, but you’re not…

LYNNE: Not hardcore.

MARK: Not a hobby gamer, as we say. Okay, so one of the things I’m well-known for at Wizards is I say that when I got there, that R&D was very focused on math. And I brought a shift from math to psychology to R&D. So let’s talk about what you do—I mean, you’re retired now, but what you did for a living.

LYNNE: I was a clinical psychologist and a forensic psychologist, which means I saw clients and I testified in court. And I remember when you were writing a play in college you came to me because you were trying to look for what were defense mechanisms.

MARK: So in college I wrote a play called “Leggo My Ego,” in which all the characters in the play were emotions in the character’s head. Arguing. And I came to you, I was trying to figure out which ones were emotions and which weren’t emotions. And I wanted to use the character “Rationalization.” And you explained to me that it’s a defense mechanism and not an emotion.

LYNNE: That’s correct. I did—

MARK: But I kept her in. She crashes the meeting, and they’re like, “You’re not an emotion! Get out of here.” Okay, so one of the things that’s interesting to me is, one of the big things that I’ve done at Wizards is something that we call the player psychographics, which is trying to explain why the players play. And there’s three main—I’ve done a lot of sort of talking about motivations. And so I’m curious a little bit, what do you remember of my interest in psychology growing up?

LYNNE: Well, I think you were always interested in why things happened and how people felt. And how that impacted decisions that people made, and obviously that’s a very big part of psychology, because psychology is the study of behavior. So certainly one of the things I notice about you as a gamer and as a designer is that you’re very interested in what motivates people to play, what they like, what draws them in, what feels rewarding, what’s the element that makes something enjoyable for people.

MARK: So one of the things I did with Dad is I walked through some of the key things that I’ve had with the game, but from your perspective, to sort of get a sense—a mother’s perspective. So what is your earliest memory of me being involved in Magic in any way?

LYNNE: Well, you were always very creative when you played. You always did very creative things with your toys. And you always were interested in writing. You wrote your first play when you were seven. And one of the things that was always important to me as a mother is that I think creativity is one of the most special things people can have. And I always worked hard so the school didn’t damage that sense of creativity and wanting to look at things. Because you’ve always been creative.

MARK: Now you guys have to go listen to Harry Chapin’s “The Flowers Are Red.” And you can play that in the background. That’s the song about this thing we’re talking about. The school (???) tend to beat out creativity, or some schools tend to try to beat creativity out of the kids. So I’m curious as—the vantage point—people have heard the story of me getting involved with Magic and getting to where I work at Wizards, I’m curious what your take on the story is. What do you remember me getting involved with the game? What is your earliest memory?

LYNNE: Well, the first thing I remember, I remember that you played creatively and you loved to play. And you liked games. And you always wanted to play games. When you were thirteen and you were bar mitzvahed, first grade teacher gave you Dungeons & Dragons. And you loved it. And what I loved about Dungeons & Dragons was that it was so creative. That you could use your mind, you could create characters. And that to me was the beginning of your going off into the play where you had a lot to do with what the quality of the play was.

MARK: Yes. One of the things I always liked about Dungeons & Dragons was, I was the DM, Dungeon Master, and so I would spend all the time like coming up with scenarios and things and traps and places and characters, and I enjoyed that. It’s one of the things that I thought was a lot of fun.

LYNNE: And the other thing when I talk about you were always that way, I think it’s interesting that it’s your first grade teacher, so she knew you when you were six, who picked out that game for you and knew that you would love it.

MARK: Okay, that’s me getting into games. You keep avoiding my question!

LYNNE: Okay.

MARK: I want to know your memory of when I first got involved in Magic.

LYNNE: Oh, when you first got involved in Magic, you were living out in L.A. And you said, “Oh, this neat game came out,” you really liked it a lot. You started playing it. And then I remember you said to me, “They have this magazine. It’s called The Duelist. I’d really like to write for it. I want to go meet those people that made this game.” And I remember you flew to Milwaukee, and your aunt lived there so you said could you crash there? And she said yes, but I don’t think you ever slept at her house, I think you spent all the time at Gen Con.

MARK: I did sleep there. The way it worked was, Aunt Ellen, my mom’s twin sister, lived in Milwaukee, so I went and stayed with her. So what happened was, at the time I had been freelancing—actually I’d been doing the puzzles for The Duelist. And I was trying to get more work. So I decided if I went to Gen Con I could meet Kathryn Haynes, who was the editor of The Duelist, and other people, and so what happened was, I crashed at my aunt’s place, and then every morning she would drop me off, and every evening she’d pick me up. But the last day, I just did an all-nighter. I didn’t go home. So I did one all-nighter for that Gen Con.

And that Gen Con is, for those who care historically, was where the very first World Championship happened. That’s where Zak Dolan beat Bertrand Lestrée. And, as part of me trying to get more work for The Duelist, I ended up covering that event. So if you ever see the historic picture of them playing, I’m there like writing on a pad.

So you remember that I went to Gen Con, so what is your first memory of me saying I wanted to work at Wizards? Do you remember that?

LYNNE: I remember that you used to go out and do special projects for them. And you thought it was very cool there. You liked the people a lot. And you started doing more and more and more things for them, and finally you called home and said, “I’ve got a big decision to make.” And the big decision was, do you leave Hollywood and writing, not writing per se, but you were a screenwriter, and do you move to Seattle? And that’s what you decided to do was move to Seattle. And I remember I came out, I flew out to L.A. so I could drive with you to Seattle so you didn’t have to do it all by yourself. And we were going to do it in three days, but we wound up doing it in two days because you were so excited to get there. And it’s ten o’clock at night, we’re pulling in, we see a sign, “Renton,” and you said, “Mom, do you want to see where I’m going to work?” And I said, “Mark, it’s ten o’clock! Nobody’s going to be there!” And you said, “Well, let’s go see.” And (???) Wizards, where the building was, and it was open, and we went in, and there were people there! And people would open up their desks and you’d look in the bottom drawer and they had a sleeping bag!

MARK: One person had a sleeping bag. That was Skaff. But the story I remember is, yeah, it was like ten o’clock at night, and I said, “Do you want to see work?” And I knew R&D would be there. And you seemed skeptical that they would be there. But I’m like “No, I’m pretty sure they’re going to be there.” Because back in the day, this is not quite true now, the group that was there were all implants, meaning nobody was from Seattle, and so mostly the R&D tended to spend time with R&D, and that they would stay late at work, and sometimes we’d play games, but often we’d sometimes do work, but we were there all hours of the day. Okay, so another question I asked Dad is, I know you have some stories of meeting people and the context by which they find out that I’m your son.

LYNNE: Well, I remember one time I moved from one suburb to another suburb in Cleveland. And so I decided to play tennis in the new suburb that I was moving to. And someone invited me to come and play with them. And after the game one woman had a little boy, and I started talking to him. And I asked him what he liked to do. And he said oh, there was a game he liked to play, and I asked him what kind of game, and he said it was a trading card game, and as he started describing it,  I said, “Oh, you’re talking about Magic.” And he said, “Yeah!” And I said, “Well, I know that game very well.” And he said, “Well, how do you know that?” And I said, “Well, my son works for Wizards of the Coast.” And he knew that my name was Rosewater, and he said, “Are you Mark Rosewater’s mother?” I said, “Yes.”

But the story I like the best about my being Mark Rosewater’s mother is I had a client whose husband had committed suicide. And her son was having a hard time. And so I asked her what did her son like? And she said, “Oh, all he does is he goes out and he buys those cards and he loves this game, and that’s all he does.” And I said, “Is the name of the game Magic?” And she said, “How did you know that?” And I said, “Well, my son helps create that game.” So I said, “You know, when you go home tonight, tell them that your shrink is Mark Rosewater’s mother.” And she came back the  next week and she said, “Ohh, he was so impressed!” And then he was having a very hard time in French class. So I called you, and I said, “Mark, could you get me some Magic cards in French?” And you said yeah. So you sent me the cards and I gave them to his mother. And the deal was that if he got an A that week in French, he’d get the deck of cards. And that year he got an A in French.”

MARK: That’s good. Yeah, Dad had some similar stories, sort of sharing, of… because one of the things I say that I talked about in my podcast with Dad is that I know you have a lot of fun when you see people play Magic. Of letting them know you’re my mom. And I said good for you, since you raised me and so you earned all bragging rights available to you. So here’s an interesting question. When you meet somebody that doesn’t know Magic, what do you tell them I do?

LYNNE: I tell them that my son is a game designer. That he designs the card game that’s the best-selling game in the world, and it’s printed in nine languages.

MARK: We’re up to 11 languages.

LYNNE: Ooh, up to 11 languages.

MARK: Yep.

LYNNE: Okay, well I’ll say 11 languages. And I describe it as if you took rock paper scissors, and you took it to a whole new level, way way way way way way up there. That different colors have different powers, so like rock can beat paper…

MARK: Rock doesn’t beat paper!

LYNNE: Rock doesn’t beat paper! Paper covers rock! Rock can crush the scissors that can cut the paper.

MARK: But maybe if rock sideboards correctly, it can beat paper.

LYNNE: So, that’s how I describe the game. To someone that has no idea.

MARK: So how often, when you talk to somebody, what percentage of the time do people have any idea what you’re talking about?

LYNNE: Well, they either know it and they know who you are, or they know nothing about the game.

MARK: There’s no middle ground.

LYNNE: And pretty much (???) is that if they know the game, they pretty much know that you’re involved with it.

MARK: Mmm-hmm. So here’s an interesting perspective you’ve gotten recently, is so I have a sister named Alysse, your daughter, obviously, you know Alysse.

LYNNE: I do know Alysse!

MARK: So Alysse has a son named Josh. Who’s my nephew. And Josh has started getting really into Magic. For the last maybe year and a half, he’s been playing, and he goes to FNM, and so you have a chance to actually watch somebody, one of your relatives get into Magic but not from my end, but from the other end, of someone who plays. So what has that been like?

LYNNE: Well, it’s been very neat to watch two things. How excited he is. How much the more he gets into it, the more he loves it. And then for him to realize how famous you are in that game. And in fact, he started reading things and he said to me one day, “Boy, some people say mean things about Uncle Mark!”

MARK: Some people do say mean things about Uncle Mark. That is very true.

LYNNE: But I think what he also realized was that lots of people knew who you were, and he loves talking to you because most people that he knows don’t know it to the depth that obviously you know it. So he loves that. But last year, I came to Salt Lake where he lives, and he was playing on a Friday night and he doesn’t allow his mom and dad to come, they have to drop him off and then pick him up. They can’t come in. So he says, “But grandma, you can come in.” So I’m feeling really good, like “I’m cool! I’m cool grandma!” And when I get to the store, Josh sees me come in, and he rushes over, and he grabs me and he takes me over to the people that own the store, and I expect he’s going to say “This is my grandma,” and he says, “This is Mark Rosewater’s mother!”

MARK: Showing you off.

LYNNE: Yeah, showing me off.

MARK: Yeah, it’s funny because Josh has gotten very competitive, and he definitely—it’s interesting to me because like I said, I spent a lot of time and energy from the vantage point of making the game, but it’s interesting to have someone who I’m very close to, watching them play, and that’s always neat to me.

LYNNE: Yes, it’s very fun to watch, and he just for the first time last year started to build his own deck because the way he got into it was that you gave him his first deck. That was his birthday present.

MARK: Well, actually, his first deck he got—so my sister did a semester at sea. She’s a professor. And so she took her whole family. You went with them, right?

LYNNE: Yeah.

MARK: And how many countries did you guys visit?

LYNNE: 10. 11.

MARK: I mean, you went to almost every continent, right?

LYNNE: We went to Africa, we went to Asia.

MARK: Went to South America.

LYNNE: We went to South America. We didn’t go to Europe.

MARK: Did you go to Australia?

LYNNE: No.

MARK: Okay. But yeah, so you guys were like, I know in Brazil, and in South Africa.

LYNNE: (???)

MARK: And India and China.

LYNNE: And Vietnam and Cambodia and China and Ghana. Ghana earlier on.

MARK: And so anyway, so the story for this point is that Alysse took her son and daughter, Lindsay and Josh with them, but mostly it was college students, because semester at sea is a semester for college students. And so a couple college students taught Josh how to play Magic. And they gave him his very first deck.

LYNNE: But that was really at the end of the trip. It was really at the end of the trip he started playing. Maybe the last two weeks.

MARK: And then what happened was, for his birthday, I got him a deck. I made a deck for him. He told me what he wanted and I had him pick a color, and then he picked green so I made him a green deck. But anyway, so what else—I mean, here’s your chance to be on my podcast. Is there anything else, a story or something you want to tell that you think demonstrates something about the early game designer you saw in me as a kid?

LYNNE: Well, one of the things about you is that when you think something is important, you hold your ground.

MARK: Okay. Is there a story for that?

LYNNE: A story that goes to that. You are… how old were you when the superintendent wrote you the letter? Was that first grade?

MARK: I was in first grade. Yeah.

LYNNE: All right. So you’re in first grade.

MARK: I’m six, seven.

LYNNE: And you wrote something about people in the school should be nicer to each other. And I guess the principal, superintendent had come down on the teachers that they weren’t getting that across, so the teacher gave it to the principal, and the principal passed it on to the superintendent.

MARK: We had to write letters or something. And I wrote about how I thought people should be nicer. Okay. So this got passed along.

LYNNE: You used to call the principal “the boss.” And you called the superintendent “the big boss.” And we were out at some school event, I think it was the Apple Festival, and the superintendent was there. And he was a very tall man. And you went and probably came up to between his knee and his waist, and you were pulling on his pant leg, and you said, “Dr. Fox, Dr. Fox,” and so someone who knew who Dr. Fox  was and knew that he had sent you a letter said, “Oh, Dr. Fox, you remember Mark Rosewater. You sent him a letter.”

MARK: Oh, real quickly. What happened was, we had sent him letters, the teacher sent it in, he had given some speech in which he referenced the letter. And then in the paper they talked about how he referenced a student’s letter, and I thought I was in the paper…

LYNNE: “Mommy, I need the paper today!”

MARK: Okay, so anyway… sorry, I interrupted. So I go up to him, and he doesn’t know  who I am, and a friend, a mother of one of my friends says to him, “Oh, you remember Mark Rosewater.”

LYNNE: “You sent him a letter.” And Dr. Fox said, “Nice poem you wrote.” And you were really, really, really angry. And when you walked away…

MARK: Because I wrote a letter, not a poem.

LYNNE: And I said to you, “Well, you know, Mark, Dr. Fox is a very busy man.” And you said, “Not that busy!” So you always had that attitude that things were very important for you, you were expecting people to be aware. And I think these are very important attributes for what you do now. And that when you think something’s very important, you go in there and you really fight for it. And the other thing I love is that you always are online listening to what people say. And I remember you came to Cleveland once, and you went to play at a comic book store, and you never told anybody who you were, you walked in.

MARK: It was back in the days when people didn’t know what I looked like.

LYNNE: Yes. They did not know what you looked like. And you never said anything. And at the end of the night you introduced yourself to the comic book store owner, and he did know who you were. But what I loved is that you always wanted to know how people felt. And you wanted their honest opinion. And I remember the guy that owned the comic book store being very pleased that you did that. That you really talked to people. And I think that’s—you talked about psychology and always being interested in the psychology of things. I think  that’s something you—I’m your mother, but I think it’s something you do (???). That you always have a pulse on what the players want and what they like. And what you could do that would kind of (???) their interest.

MARK: This just in, my mommy’s proud of me! (both laugh) So… now one of the things that I find very interesting—like I said, when Dad was on the podcast, I was talking about how a lot of my love of games came from my dad. But I think a lot of my creativity, obviously my interest in psychology came from you. And my love of writing. I mean, you’re also a writer. And so I think there’s a lot of other attributes that are part of what I am that strongly came from you. And like I said, I definitely got a sense of—one of the things that’s very important in R&D is kind of learning how to stick up for your ideas, and you did a good job of teaching me how to fight for my ideas. So I think that there’s a lot of good stuff.

LYNNE: I think you’re a wonderful kid. I am a proud mother.

MARK: Yes.

LYNNE: And actually very interesting because when I started writing novels, we role-reversed, that’s what I do in my retirement, I’ve been writing novels, and so it’s very interesting to go to you and ask you for advice.

MARK: Yes.

LYNNE: So it’s kind of come full circle. And that’s a really great thing.

MARK: Well, I mean growing up you did a lot of poetry and a lot of articles and a lot of nonfiction writing.

LYNNE: Well, I published two books. That were nonfiction.

MARK: And then as you got more into fiction, then I started getting to narrative, like “Yeah, get the narrative, Mom! Where’s your character arc?” So that’s been fun. And I enjoy working with you on your writing. That’s a hoot. I’m trying to think of anything else. So we’re at the airport, but we have a little extra time because what I realized is I feel I owe you guys about a half an hour, so we’re  not quite there yet, so we’re actually sitting at the airport so we can—normally my drive to work takes half an hour, but the drive to the airport took a little less time. A special edition. So we have a few more minutes. So anything else? Any stories you think that you—when I told you that we were going to do this, that you wanted to tell, or any sort of enlightening stories of Mark in his childhood?

LYNNE: Well, what I loved about you as a child is you were always your own person.

MARK: Mmm-hmm.

LYNNE: And so one of my favorite stories about you is you went to kindergarten, and it was a day that your dad and I were both off, so we happened to be at home. And you didn’t come home. And you look across the street and you see all the other kids have come home, and you haven’t come home, and it’s about an hour.

MARK: So I walked. I walked from school to home. We lived in…

LYNNE: The olden days.

MARK: Yes.

LYNNE: You walked home. And I had—we had practiced walking to school, and the first day he walked to school I drove behind him and I didn’t know that I did that to make sure that he got there. So we started calling parents, and then we decided, you know, we’re going to go out and look for you because we’re really worried. And all of a sudden we see you walking down the driveway. So you come in the house and we say, “Mark, everybody’s been home for a long time. We were very worried about you. Where were you?” And you said, “Well, I was walking home and I saw this leaf, and it was so beautiful, I picked it up to look at it. And then I found another leaf. And another leaf. And another leaf.” And that’s how you walked home, picking up the leaves and looking at them. That would describe you. You were always curious, that you walked your own path. And I loved that about you. That you—if you thought something was right, you didn’t care what other people thought. And I think that’s a wonderful quality. So that would be a story that I would tell about you. Now I have to think for a minute.

MARK: Yeah, I’m trying to think if there’s any interesting stories of…

LYNNE: Oh, and you actually were a magician as a child.

MARK: I did magic.

LYNNE: The Wiz Kid. And you did magic, and you did at birthday parties.

MARK: I did. I wrote an article about that, actually.

LYNNE: And it’s interesting, because you always loved mythology. You were very into mythology.

MARK: Yep.

LYNNE: And here’s another good story about you, you came home one day from school, or I got home from work, and you said, “Mom, I got my test back. We had a mythology test.” And they’d asked you about some character. Do you remember what character?

MARK: Yes, I’ve talked about this in my column. They asked what Mars was the god of. Ares or Mars was the god of.

LYNNE: And you gave two answers.

MARK: There was two blanks. So like, “What is Zeus the god of? Name two things. What is Mercury the god of? Name two things.” So it was “What is Ares the god of?” And you had to name two things.

LYNNE: And you did.

MARK: So he was god of war. And for the second thing, I’m like, “Oh, I know the warriors, the soldiers prayed to him. Okay, he was also god of the soldiers.” And then I got the second part marked wrong. And so I went to talk to the teacher, and I said, “Well, I’m confused, I know the soldiers prayed to him. He was god of soldiers. I can bring a book in or something.” And she goes, “Well, that’s wrong.” And I go, “Well, what was it supposed to be?” And she’s like, “Well, you’re supposed to leave it blank. We only learned war.” And I lost it.

LYNNE: Yes. And I totally agreed with him. I mean, what a terrible message for a teacher to give a student. “You learned more, and that’s a bad thing. You should only know this one fact.”

MARK: Yeah. “We didn’t learn that fact. You can’t take credit for that fact. We didn’t learn it.”

LYNNE: But the other thing about Mark that I think really was very much a part of who you were as a child, that I would the flavor text shows a bit of it, you were a punster. And I remember…

MARK: All my column titles.

LYNNE: You were maybe seven years old, eight years old, and I bought you a book of puns for one of your Hanukkah presents, and then I really wound up regretting it…

MARK: So now you know, my mom admits guilt! Admits—takes credit for my love of puns.

LYNNE: And you just loved puns. And I remember in high school there was a special person that came in to talk to AP English students.

MARK: Well, now, what happened was there’s a speaker that came in that talked to the kids in the advanced classes… go ahead, let’s hear your version of the story.

LYNNE: Okay, my version of the story is that he said that the pun was one of the highest levels of creativity.

MARK: What he actually said, I’ll correct slightly here, is he was talking about things that smart kids do, and he said one of the signs of high intelligence was the use of puns. And I was very excited, like “Ooh!”

LYNNE: And you came home and said, “Hey! The puns (???) and that’s me!”

MARK: But anyway, we are about wrapping up here. I realized—so we’ll keep talking as I get to your gate to get to your thing. So any final wrap-up? I’m trying to think of stuff that I talked about with Dad that I didn’t ask you about. Okay, here’s this question, which is—how surprised are you that I ended up a game designer?

LYNNE: Well, when you went to do that, I thought “Oh, he’s leaving his writing, his screenwriting skills behind.” But the more I see what you do, I feel that what you brought to Wizards was your screenwriter’s sense of things. Your story arcs. Your sense of looking at the big picture and the long-term picture. And so I think that it’s a really perfect match for you. That I wouldn’t have said when you were a kid, what were you going to grow up and be, I wouldn’t have said game designer. And I think you always wanted to be a writer. So I think that this is just a great blend of your writing skills and all your creativity, and your love of gaming and it’s all in one thing. And I think that’s kind of when you came here, that was your goal. You said, “Someday, I’d like to be the creative head.”

MARK: Well, I’m not in charge of… I mean for a while I was, but I’m not actually in charge of the creative part of it. But I do use my writing and I do take all the skills I’ve learned and apply them. So anyway, we are now here, we are now at your gate, or at your door. So thank you very much for joining me on this podcast.

LYNNE: Well, thank you. I had a lot of fun.

MARK: Thank you for all that you’ve done. And hope you guys enjoyed meeting my mom. So, as much as I like talking with my mom and talking about Magic, I also like—well, I’m dropping her off at the airport, so I’m not sure this ending makes any sense. But as much as I like talking about Magic and talking with my mom, I also enjoy making Magic. I’ll talk to you guys next time.