Alternate Worlds Podcast

Bill Slavicsek led RPG R&D at Wizards of the Coast for over a decade, watching over Star Wars, D&D, Eberron and many other launches.Before that, Bill helped create the early Star Wars RPG universe, expanding out the IP & the lore, then joined TSR to make Alternity & to continue his adventures in the TTRPG universe, and later became a creative leader on the Elder Scrolls franchise.Fun fact: Bill saw the first Star Wars movie 38 times when it came out. :)Hard to beat that resume if you ever want to make a Star Wars game.Life is good, writing is still fun, and Bill says to keep an eye out, if the moment strikes, for one more RPG system. Get full access to Alternate Worlds at bschneidmtg.substack.com/subscribe

How do you share your love of games while giving your children room to find their own way?Aaron Forsythe, Paul Barclay, Zvi Mowshowitz, Justin Cinicolo, Mark Rosewater, and Cole Medeiros join Brian Schneider to share stories about playing with their children—following their curiosity, making room for different tastes, and discovering what stays with them.Alternate Worlds is a podcast about games and the people who build and support them.Hosted by former Magic: The Gathering R&D lead Brian H. Schneider, each episode features veteran game makers, creators, and Magic legends sharing stories, lessons learned, and what comes next.The Alternate Worlds gaming journey includes:• Behind-the-scenes stories from Magic's history• How great games are designed and built• The evolution & goodness of gaming communities• Creativity, technology, and the future of play• Life lessons from decades in gamesAlternate Worlds began as a book of stories from Magic's early years and has grown into a podcast focused on the people shaping games and culture.Book: Alternate Worlds on Amazon & others -- https://a.co/d/f9O0XduSubstack: bschneidmtg.substack.comAll profits from book sales are donated to nonprofit organizations. Get full access to Alternate Worlds at bschneidmtg.substack.com/subscribe

Ilja Rotelli started out his career making Magic: the Gathering successful in Italy, and later transitioned to steward Organized Play (and then digital gaming) at Wizards of the Coast.Ilja knows more about how important grassroots development is for fanning the flames of a product than just about anyone, as well as the value of giving players incentives to invest in a game &| an interactive experience for the long-term.Real world gaming events are tremendously undervalued in our current climate.Since his time at WotC, Ilja has gone on to lead Organized Play, Community & Business Development at Blizzard, Riot & Amazon.He’s a master chef, and a master storyteller.Enjoy! Get full access to Alternate Worlds at bschneidmtg.substack.com/subscribe

Golden Gate Gamemakers is a non-profit community that brings novice game makers & experienced game makers together to teach game design & to help people improve their designs on the path to publishing them.The community is very large. :)I’m a big fan of communities like these, where people like Jim & Velgus donate their time to helping others, for the betterment of all — so we chat quite a bit about what makes this group unique, and what other communities (or people who want to start IRL communities) should consider when doing so.To learn more about their efforts, try the below!Golden Gate Gamemaker’s website; https://goldengategamemakers.comJim McCollum’s next game, which comes out in 2027: https://www.lonesomestargame.com/ Get full access to Alternate Worlds at bschneidmtg.substack.com/subscribe

Time Spiral was a love letter to longtime players—and a maze for newcomers. Lorwyn gave Magic enduring characters and a punishing draft environment. Urza’s Saga was wildly powerful, deeply flawed, and life-changing.Brian David-Marshall, Devin Low, Mark Rosewater, Aaron Forsythe, Jeremy Jarvis, Mike Elliott, Worth Wollpert, and Randy Buehler join Brian Schneider to explore why loving a Magic set doesn’t mean overlooking its flaws—and why the same set can mean very different things to different people.Which Magic set do you love, flaws and all? Tell us in the comments, and subscribe for more firsthand stories from the people behind the game. Get full access to Alternate Worlds at bschneidmtg.substack.com/subscribe

Robert Gutschera was a visiting math professor at the University of Washington, and connected with his friend William Jockusch & began playing more and more Magic.Robert joined R&D in the mid-90’s, and worked on most of the games Wizards of the Coast made in his twelve years at the company.If you’ve played C23, Netrunner, Battletech, Xena, NBA Showdown, Harry Potter TCG, Star Wars TCG, Magic: the Gathering, D&D and etc., Robert was there first. :)After Wizards of the Coast, Robert logged time at Gazillion Entertainment, Cryptic Studios (on Neverwinter Online) and Stardock.Robert was a joy to talk with here, as he was to work with then. Get full access to Alternate Worlds at bschneidmtg.substack.com/subscribe

An Alpha-card paycheck. A $500 box of Beta. A Black Lotus covered in signatures.Cathy Nicoloff, Frank Kusumoto, Gary Wise, Brian Weissman, Henry Stern, Sol Malka, and Brian Schneider share the stories behind the cards they bought, traded, sold, and kept—and what those cards came to mean.Alternate Worlds is a podcast about games and the people who build and support them.Hosted by former Magic: The Gathering R&D lead Brian H. Schneider, each episode features veteran game makers, creators, and Magic legends sharing stories, lessons learned, and what comes next.The Alternate Worlds gaming journey includes:• Behind-the-scenes stories from Magic's history• How great games are designed and built• The evolution & goodness of gaming communities• Creativity, technology, and the future of play• Life lessons from decades in gamesAlternate Worlds began as a book of stories from Magic's early years and has grown into a podcast focused on the people shaping games and culture.Book: Alternate Worlds on Amazon & others -- https://a.co/d/f9O0XduSubstack: bschneidmtg.substack.comAll profits from book sales are donated to nonprofit organizations. Get full access to Alternate Worlds at bschneidmtg.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve recorded over a hundred podcasts at this point, and recently was asked to start thinking about “the Principles” one should take away from Alternate Worlds, about making great games, about building great cultures, so I began building tools to that end this weekend.It’s pretty wild what one can do in this day and age.Which ties into the subject matter here — what’s good for kids, what’s not good for kids, and how do we think about the right environmental setup — from a digital perspective — to help the group find a “compounding setup” where everyone benefits.Technology use is wide-spanning in our school — some families forbid it outside of school, some are weekends only, some have daily caps, and others let their kids run free.The impact of this on the student body is wild to witness — and it’ll only get wilder with the advent of AI.Tomorrow night, we’ll discuss how we think about navigating the future as a parenting cohort, and I want to compile stories from other amazing parents & professionals anticipating the conversation.How do we get all kids to the end of their schooling, reaching their fullest potential?What role should AI & technology play in this?To what extent?And how should the cohort think about access, social media, cyber bullying, callousness, and all the other challenges of our age?I’ll follow up with further thoughts after the session.But I thought many might appreciate the video.Hope it has value for you.-b Get full access to Alternate Worlds at bschneidmtg.substack.com/subscribe

Simon Armstrong is a gamer, game maker, gamesman, and so on and so forth.Early on, Simon knew he enjoyed coding & making games, so he explored that path & became an early Flash developer at Zynga.Since then, he worked at Warner Bros on Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, and logged a stint at Captain.tv helping to get Stream Pirates ready for launch.Today, Simon is part of a 2-man shop making Sol Mates, which will launch on Steam in 2026.Indie dev is a strange beast, may Simon navigate the terrain well and emerge victorious. :) Get full access to Alternate Worlds at bschneidmtg.substack.com/subscribe

It is quite fortunate to get to record the Alternate Worlds podcast, and today especially did not disappoint — here we have Bing Gordon, the legendary CMO/CCO from the first decades at Electronic Arts (and legendary VC in Silicon Valley thereafter), Skaff Elias, who helped spearhead Magic: the Gathering through its initial design into eSports, and Mike Turian, current Sr. Executive Producer of Magic: the Gathering today.A lot of wisdom dropped in this one. :)Bing’s interests are in systems where Everybody Wins, or in designs & communities that figure out how to build value for all who engage with them.He has a book coming out to that end in the next week or two (see: the link above), and he’s been curious to learn more about ecosystems like Magic: the Gathering’s, which have figured out how to provide “outsized good” to “outsized many.”It’s hard not to appreciate the benefits Magic has added to many of our lives, and it was a joy to revisit the principles that helped TCGs & other great games find a long-term home in the world of entertainment.My microphone breaks about halfway through this recording, but fortunately, the guests were so fun to listen to it wasn’t such a bad thing.Alternate Worlds, Alternate Hosts.A fine one to sit back and just take in the conversation.A special session, is this one — enjoy! Get full access to Alternate Worlds at bschneidmtg.substack.com/subscribe