War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time® Designer Q&A

For over fifteen years, Mike Mihealsick has been chasing the same dream: a board game that could do justice to The Wheel of Time^® literary series. He and collaborator Ryan Schoon had been pulling on that thread for years when they heard that Dire Wolf had landed the rights to make the first-ever board game adapted from The Wheel of Time. When Dire Wolf signed the game concept, and brought in Andy Clautice to lead additional design and development, it seemed that The Pattern was finally weaving toward something!

The Wheel of Time is massive, clocking in at over 4.4 million words across 15 books, with over 2,700 named characters – a surprising number of whom have a real impact on the story. The series covers an epic existential struggle between the forces of good and evil, an incredible magic system, an all-encompassing conflict, and the personal lives and adventures of a rascally bunch of villagers that get caught up in it all.

War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time® will be launching on Kickstarter on Wednesday, May 27th, so we’re sitting down with the design team to sneak a peek at some of what’s coming, and talk about what goes into adapting one of the most-beloved literary franchises of all time to the tabletop – and what players can expect when they get there.

Mike, you’ve been living with this IP for a long time. How did all of this start, and what did it mean when a real path to publication finally appeared?

Mike: The Wheel of Time is my favorite IP, and if you know me, you know I literally cannot shut up about it — so the idea of making a board game adaptation has been rattling around in my head for a long time. Since 2018, Ryan and I had been collaborating on trying to find “The Wheel of Time in a box” — a complete experience that was epic and weird and absolutely stuffed to the brim with story. Getting there as independent designers wasn’t easy; the venn diagram of publishers who would take a pitch from us and publishers who could actually land the The Wheel of Time IP had a vanishingly small overlap. There were a lot of dead ends. When we heard that Dire Wolf had the rights, we knew we had to reach out — and when the license ended up covering the full literary saga, for the first time it felt like the Wheel was turning in our direction.

Ryan, you’ve been Mike’s collaborator on this since 2018. What did you bring to the design, and what did working together make possible that neither of you could have done alone?

Ryan: As a lifelong fan of The Wheel of Time (I was 10 years old when I read The Eye of the World and my paperbacks don’t even have a spine anymore and my hardcover of A Memory of Light fell apart because I read it so many times! ), I was excited to meet a designer that shared the same passion. The first night Mike and I met, our conversation quickly became focused on the series and it lit a fire in both of us to see this game come to life. By working together we were able to bounce so many more ideas off of each other, and we always had a playtesting partner ready to go. It really was a collaborative process – we spent many long nights playing and discussing the game – what worked, what didn’t, and where we needed to go. It wasn’t just about if the game worked mechanically, it was making sure the game conveyed the epic feeling of The Wheel of Time. I don’t think we could have gotten it to that point without our collaboration.”

Dire Wolf had never published a game that originated with an outside design team before. Andy, you came in as lead designer and developer — what has the last year-plus of development actually looked like?

Andy: From the start, Justin Cohen and I were really impressed by how Mike and Ryan tackled the absolute scale of The Wheel of Time. We’re both big fans, and seeing it all pulled together was just so cool. There were also some real standout experiences in there that we knew we wanted to feature more, so we went to work. We streamlined and tightened and hammered the core flow, making the game as smooth as we could get it while keeping it itself. And along the way, don’t forget that you’re working with The Wheel of Time! We’ve worked on some big licensed products before – there’s Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated and Dune: Imperium – so we know about distilling and focusing, but there’s just so much to this story that you want to cover. We were constantly looking for ways to fit more of it in anywhere we could. Even just a card name is a chance to remember someone’s favorite moment. But you also still need it all to fit in the box! Finding that balance between the existing game, the huge story it’s channeling, and keeping things approachable – that was the real test.

That collaborative process was pretty new territory for everyone. What did it actually look like in practice?

Ryan: Dire Wolf has a great internal design team; we knew that they had notes and there was a lot of development work to be done, but it was clear from their first play of the game that they got it, and they were on board with the vision. We had a real collaborative process, and we were super happy to find that they’d listen to our feedback and treat our opinions with genuine respect. This game is Dire Wolf’s baby every bit as much as it’s ours, and we couldn’t be happier with our experience working alongside them to bring it to life.

Mike: I’ve worked with publishers before that didn’t talk to me at all after signing the contract, so my philosophy going in was pretty much “I’m happy to do whatever will help most, up to and including keeping my mouth shut and minding my own business.” What actually happened was something better than I’d dared hope for. From the beginning it was clear that Dire Wolf wasn’t just interested in making a game out of The Wheel of Time — they were committed to making the right one. Andy and Justin would reach out, share what they’d been working on, and genuinely listen when we had feedback. It felt like a real collaborative process — and for two guys who’d spent years wondering if this thing would ever find a home, we couldn’t be happier with how it’s all come together.

Andy: At first, it was all about study.  Before we could do much else, we had to understand everything that Mike and Ryan had made! They were incredibly helpful and gracious, fielding constant questions as we ramped up on all the little nooks and crannies of the game – and not just where it was, but where it had already been, so that we knew the whole terrain. Then while we were shaping things up, they were a constant source of good advice (and sometimes harsh truths!) that helped keep us on the right path. It’s been a very rewarding experience.

We’ll be talking more about gameplay as the campaign gets closer, but we already know that War of the Dragon combines tableau building, action selection, and area control. Can you give us a general sense of what that means and how it fits together?

Andy: Your main characters – Rand and pals, or some of the Shadow’s big heavies – will be the movers and shakers out in the world, helping you wrangle the nations of the Westlands better than your opponent. Meanwhile, you’ll be grabbing up side characters as your allies in a tableau, and they stack up to give you better actions and support. Better actions make you better at conquering the map, and holding all those nations together puts you in a better position to win. Easy, right?

Ryan: The world of The Wheel of Time is massive. You’ve got scale that expands from personal drama to army clashes to the political maneuvers of entire nations. Each action you take interacts with the world at a different scale – moving your characters and gaining allies, positioning armies and fighting battles – every mechanic serves a purpose in tying the theme together.

Awesome! So there are some big ideas going on there mechanically. And we know that there are two different ways to play: Hero Mode and Epic Mode. Can you tell us about some of how that works?

Andy: Hero Mode is really focused on only what we just described – you build your support base and jockey for the map, and that’s about all you have to worry about. It’s easy to get into and fast to play, so it’s a great place to start. Then Epic Mode adds all the fixin’s. You have story beats to accomplish, armies to raise and battles to fight, and you have to prepare for a huge endgame where everything is on the line – The Last Battle. There’s still some work left to make sure the modes fit together perfectly (and final development is ongoing altogether), but the idea is that you can choose the right experience for you.

Ryan: The Wheel of Time has fans of all ages with different experiences in the board game hobby. Dire Wolf made clear through the development process that they wanted to try to meet fans of the series where they are. Experienced gamers will have a lot to chew on with the Epic Game Mode, but having Hero Mode available for fans that are starting to dip their toes was an important consideration.

There’s a huge cast of characters from The Wheel of Time; how did your personal favorites show up in gameplay in War of the Dragon?

Andy: I know I’m not alone out there in the Thom Merrilin fan club. Thom has a lot of cool facets – he’s a showman, a mentor, a deft political operative – and at various points in development, he did all these things. He ultimately ended up with an effect based on his storytelling, which is very hopeful and fun, and so it’s always exciting when Thom turns up – which he totally deserves.

Ryan: My favorite character has always been Perrin. Our goal with the game design is to let you create new what-if moments and let the narrative unfold YOUR way, but sometimes you accidentally re-create moments from the books, like my using Perrin to retake the Two Rivers and hold it against the Shadow as I rebuilt my army.

Mike: On my first read through, my favorite character was hands-down Rand al’Thor. I don’t know if I found him personally the most relatable, but I found his story arc to be so captivating and interesting that I was desperate to know what happened next. I was sprinting through the pages, eager to get back to Rand’s point-of-view chapters. I still think most of the jaw-dropping moments in the story are told from Rand’s perspective.

When I came back to the series later and stopped to smell the many many flowers, I started to appreciate the rest of the cast a bit more–especially Egwene. She has such an incredible journey and goes through so much, but then takes that and uses it to point the Westlands in the exact direction I always hoped they’d go.

War of the Dragon is a pretty big game and there’s a lot going on when you get it on the table. What are some other board games that inspired you here, or that provide context for what players might expect?

Andy: A constant inspiration for me in themed games is Battlestar Galactica. BSG distilled the essence of its source so well! That game is close, tight, paranoid – which exactly fits that story. The Wheel of Time has a much different feel, of course, and I hope we’re evoking it with that same resonance. Mechanically, War of the Ring is kind of the big dog here. It’s the benchmark for the grand style, and it really makes that epic, shared experience between you and your opponent. (Plus conquering a continent is just very satisfying.)

Ryan: Our first touch points for this game were War of the Ring and Star Wars: Rebellion. We loved the way that both of these games approached their IP and gave you a sandbox where moments from the stories may or may not unfold the same way. Even though it’s very mechanically different, I think fans of those games will find a lot to enjoy in War of the Dragon.

Exciting stuff! We’ll be going deeper on gameplay and systems and what’s in store in the coming weeks, but thanks for sharing a first-look under the hood of how War of the Dragon has come together.

That’s all for now! If you haven’t signed up yet, fans who follow the campaign before the Kickstarter launch will get two free promo cards with their pledge, so be sure to stay connected in the lead up to the campaign.

There will be more on the way as War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time gets ready for launch on Kickstarter on May 27th!  Until then, connect with other fans of The Wheel of Time on Board Game Geek!