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The Institute of War is actually a great plot device.

GuiltyGecko··76 votes·3,447 views

I'm writing this from my phone, so bare with me.

So as many of you know, Riot is getting rid of the Institute of War, Summoners, and the League. The reason given, is that these items are constraining. Now, I don't want to insult the Lore writers at Riot, but as a Web comic writer, I have learned a lot about how plots develop and evolve.

I'm incredibly baffled, that Riot would throw away such an incredibly creative trope in favor of a separate story and gameplay experience. What am I talking about? It's called the Obstructive Code of Conduct. Basically, it is a plot device put in place by the author that is supposed to NEVER be broken by characters of the story, but the thing that drives the plot is how the characters deal with, bypass, or ignore the code/plot device.

For example, in Star Trek, there is the Prime Directive. Basically no one is allowed to contact developing species. Did the writers of Star Trek just say "Welp, guess we can never have Captain Kirk crash land on an alien planet." Hell no! The Prime Directive was a rule, a plot device, that was made to be broken! Other examples? Harry Potter: Never say you know who's name. Lord of the Rings: Never wear the ring.

League of Legends? It's supposed to stop war and solve conflicts. That doesn't mean it has to work! That's the story right there! Break your own rules! That's what creates a driven storyline! How did the war start? Why can't the League stop it? Who is involved and why? These are all ways to explore the Lore, and this is just one simple idea!

My point is, the Institute of War isn't constraining at all. It's only constraining IF YOU LET IT BE, but as Jinx probably would say

"The League of Legends, was made to be broken." - Jinx

42 Comments

TwoPacalypse7 votes

The Institute made perfect sense in the context of league. It let you have incredible powerful champions, and gave them reasons to fight.

An equivalent real world situation would be if all the nations of the world gave all their nuclear weapons to the U.N. and gave them the power to regulate world conflict. Any time there was a dispute, it would be settled by an arena style battle between nations in question, with the winner achieving the same result as winning a war without killing innocents or decimating countries.

It let you explain why champions could die over and over in a game.

It explained why the game was held in an enclosed arena, instead of a battlefield.

It let riot implement lore events (The Ionia vs. Noxus game).

It even allowed for champion interaction via lore outside of the league of legends!

DG Ashabel6 votes

I said this on Surrender @ 20 and I'm going to simply copy/paste that comment here, because my thoughts are very in tune with your own.

"I both welcome the change and think they've gone a bit too far with it.

I think taking out the Summoners and Fields of Justice as the core driving force of the story is a good idea. That said, I feel Institute of War had an interesting spot in the narrative as a kind of UN of Valoran, an unwieldy organization cobbled together from representatives of all nations that is desperately trying to keep the continent from not falling apart into yet another Rune War and mostly failing.

I agree that it shouldn't be a godlike presence in champions' lives, but they should've stuck with it existing within the setting."

I'll add that there is plentiful room for nerfing Institute's influence. Last time we heard of continuous lore, Institute suffered a huge blow to their credibility due to the war in Kalamanda. Why not use that incident as an explanation for the Institute losing most of their power and falling back into a more investigative role, with only a few agents who work hard to keep peace between nations but not necessarily succeed. Turn the Institute into S.H.I.E.L.D., pretty much.

It's ironic that they keep mentioning old X-Men comics as "one of those things that are no longer canon but still widely enjoyed", given that all of those comics are still canon. In fact, there is no easier way to lose your fans in comic books than executing large exaggerated retcons like these. Don't believe me? Look at Taskmaster and how he flopped from one of Marvel's most popular super-villains to the rock bottom of their charts when they changed his lore. He was featured in video games like Marvel vs. Capcom 3 back before the retcon. Now it took an April's Fool Gag for Marvel Heroes developers to sneak him in.

Zeta4 votes

EXACTLY. Anything that creates obstacles for characters is potential for a story.

PhoenixSlayer134 votes

There's a slight problem with that though.

The Institute of War was shown to be nigh omnipotent in the Journal of Justice. They actively controlled champions, stopped wars with time magic, and more. People would start to question why the Institute got so impotent if you put your idea into effect.

EnvyDragon17 votes

Why not just nerf the Institute of War?

Make them less omnipotent. Make it so that they're very good at stopping the large-scale conflicts, but they can't really do much to the small-scale, personal stuff - meaning that the champions have to solve their own problems.

Like, the official argument was that the Institute of War made League champions less important in the grand scheme of things, but that's like saying that the Galactic Empire makes Darth Vader less important.

Zeta6 votes

Or that the Federation makes it impossible to tell good Star Trek stories. A large force for order does not necessarily mean story stagnation, anymore than rampant anarchy makes for good stories.

CupcakeTrap12 votes

That's pretty much the Factions approach. The League doesn't prevent all strife and conflict. Its mission is simply to referee when the big factions go at each other, to prevent the sort of world-destroying mayhem that we saw in the Rune Wars. Over time, it's also become a forum for trade disputes and other such matters.

It's also Factions canon that Summoners don't exactly mind-control Champions: it's more like they watch their back and help them with magic while they fight on the Fields.

It's a great excuse plot, and one of the few genuinely unique aspects of LoL's lore, which is (let's be honest) mostly a mishmash of old fantasy tropes.

EnvyDragon9 votes

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I like factions so much - it takes this concept that WAS just a paper-thin excuse to make the MOBA formula work, and makes it into something that's actually original, different, and relevant.

MrBuffington2 votes

I think Factions has done a really great job inventing new lore while keeping most of the aspects of the institute of war intact

(cue the downvotes)

The difference I see is that Factions operates within the game that is already created; Riot is working to expand the game further. Even Factions saw it fit to nerf the institute; it was restrictive in some sense. I can definitely see their take on the institute, but really, the lore of the game seems to naturally revolve around the institute. What lore we get is only lore that relates to the institute of war and the fields of justice, we don't get to hear about what Ashe does in her days off or how Braum's goats are doing, because what does that have to do with the fields of justice? With every bit of plot or conflict, the question comes up "can this be resolved by the institute of war?" If the answer is "no", they can't include it in the game. Breaking, or at least severely weakening, the ties to the institute of war allows players to become more invested in their characters, not just how they relate to the institute.

There is a difference between just nerfing the institute and removing it completely; but to allow non-institute related stories to come up requires the institute to be sort of a side-thing in the universe, and at that point, why keep it? It's sort of an old plot element that hardly seems relevant anymore.

Godwyn5 votes

Except, in the old Journals of Justice, we did used to hear about those things. It was a wonderful in world newspaper, following the champions as the stars of the world that they are.

GuiltyGecko4 votes

This! Instead of getting rid of the Institute of War, you just make them weaker so others can potentially exploit it's flaws. You can retcon things like the second proxy war at the crystal scar so that the League can't just auto win, maybe the Institute itself could be slightly corrupted, or like you said, they don't stop personal matters, and/or don't care about none Runeterra ending conflicts (Riots, revolutions, tribal conflicts such as frejrlord, domestic terrorism such as jinx.)

333lom6 votes

You're right, the Institute has a major role, and the way I see it, it doesn't have to restrict everything in the Runeterra. It's just a part of it, has its own stories but doesn't prevent others from forming. The Champions aren't on the Fields all the time. They are fighting when there's a conflict, but in the mean time, they lead their own lives. I don't see how the Institute is preventing Riot from thinking up Champions' stories outside of the Fields. Heck, they already did something similar in the JoJ! And that Journal was awesome.

TenSlashTen1 votes

That was really well written, I enjoyed that comment. Lol ty.

PhailRaptor10 votes

They actively controlled champions

I keep seeing this, and I don't know where it's coming from. I've read every inch of every champion bio, I've read every issue of the JoJ, I've read every single League Judgement, I even read all the various explain pages on the original LoL website back when it still had them.

The Summoning process was a cooperation between the Summoner and the Champion. The 2 worked together to make the process function. The only ones who were forced into it were those individuals who were prisoners of the Institute of War (Brand, Cho'Gath, Noct, Fiddle sort of) who, if left to their own devices, would cause untold chaos and destruction. All others were willing volunteers.

Zeta4 votes

Not even Cho'Gath, the JoJ hinted that he let himself be caught to further the Void's goals.

So they actively controlled 2 Champions - Brand and Nocturne. Who just want to kill everyone anyways.

Yeah, really couldn't tell stories about those 2 murdering people for funsies. That's why we had to ditch the game's premise.

Arinax8 votes

This was exactly how I saw it all along. It was more of a symbiotic relationship between the two, where the summoner amplified or if nothing else, supported the champion as they fought out in the field. The institute really also helped make a lot of characters feel whole. The days of League Judgements were honestly the days were I had the most connection to the characters themselves. If I recall, the summoner was supposed to be someone who was able to connect with the champion on a deep level of their desires and through that was able to help them achieve those goals through the league. Removing the Institute as a whole just feels so wrong as all in all it really helped tie together why some of these champions were even fighting in the first place.

VardenSalad4 votes

This discussion boils down to this:

How does Riot fund their game? Money from players.

What does the absolute lowest common denominator player like more than anything? Winning.

What does the absolute lowest common denominator player dislike more than anything? Losing.

What happens when only a very, very small segment of your playerbase actually gives a shit about the direction of your game enough to make a way-too-fucking-long post in the comment section of a thread with no likes, upvotes, bumps, whatever? That group has no power. Because group size is power. And power is money.

So, to sum up, you have a very, very large fanbase you're currently pandering to that wasn't around in the beginning of your game to watch the current lore be put in place and integrate into the community. You want their money, but they don't like that they don't understand what's going on: why is X champ Y blah-League-blah-Darius-blah-Swain? They're confused and reactionary, fickle and quick to spurn novel ideas or concepts. But you need to keep them; they're already here, correct? What's the easiest way to not stop the hype-train? Do absolutely nothing different. Welcome to the past 3 years of League.

You also have an intensely rabid, but small segment that puts in the effort and cares about your game, why people do what they do in it, why the design looks a certain way; basically, why you built the game in the first place. This group has a voice out of proportion with its size. However, your game is large. These people were your lifeblood for the early times, but you no longer need them to sustain growth. "I will not be cowed by faithful since-beta lore nerds!" you cry triumphantly. "I can do whatever I wish; I have the money. I have the power. I can make it so that this group will never leave, because they never have before. These faithful beta-nerds will still be here."

You press go, and the machine prints money. You used to remember that there was a reason outside of just making money that the game existed, but you shrug and conclude that you must have made the product to make a buck, there can be no other reason to make a game, right?

Right?

PhailRaptor3 votes

So... are you saying that Riot is making the biggest mistake of their existence?

I know there's plenty of sarcasm there, but I can't tell which direction it's pointing.

@_@

EnvyDragon4 votes

Can you stop copy/pasting this into every thread you see? Kthx

HailFire Dragon3 votes

funny.......if the didnt care about the small minority fans and only about the money they wouldnt even attempt to fix the lore and revamp it in the first place.......

sp4413 votes

They planned this for two years guys, doesn't matter how much you squirm, the IoW is gone.

I highly suggest you take a break, go make some tea, take in deep breaths, and come back with a clear mind and come to terms with it. It sucks, I know it, but there isn't much else that can be done.

I just hope that Riot actually follows through with it for once, and actually start cranking out lore at a rapid rate.

...But let's be realistic here, they're only exploring the lore through yearly regional events that retcon beloved characters.

Zeta9 votes

"What's that? We have a new map based on the Plague Jungles? Um, OK - Kayle was born in the plague jungles! And her wings are actually palm trees, and her helmet is a coconut!"

sp4415 votes

Actually, that does sound like a pretty funny idea for a skin.

PhailRaptor8 votes

There's no point in doing that. Retconning the IoW out of the game is the last in a long line of abuses to the true fans of this game that have been around since day 1. If this change sticks, I'm out.

sp4416 votes

I understand and respect your decision. I'm a relatively late comer, but I'm still pretty upset about it. I'd probably be just as pissed as you if I was here from the beginning.

Maganar4 votes

Same boat. I'm just over 1 yr a player by now, not one of the oldies, but this is insulting by Riot. I'll have to do a serious reassessment of my priorities and I see two likely outcomes:

  1. Like PhailRaptor, I might just be out. I can find other things to do with my time where I DO feel connected to what I am doing - Mass Effect series, looking at you for immersing myself for countless hours again.

  2. I could actually escalate my degree of fandom by becoming deeply connected in stuff like this "Factions" thing that I've only just learned about through the protests of the people who run it and finding ways to contribute to these fan communities that are only interested in observing the old lore and reconciling it with the game as it continues to exist, but rejecting these changes and future Riot canon.

In short, if I keep playing this game, it will only be because I find a way to maintain my connection with it that I currently feel despite Riot's attempts to do away with that connection in favor of some "liberating separation between game and story."

sp4411 votes

I'll take route C and pretend that the game still happens in Runeterra albeit in a different way that is not directly observable, like it being merely representative of actual conflicts, or being a game by the gods where they use replicas of their creations to decide the destiny that Runeterra should take.

kiloechoesp2 votes

My problem with the plot? The ending is spoiled. Every plotline leads to the same thing: the fields of Justice.

You know exactly how it goes: the champion joins the fields of justice and stays there for the rest of their life. The end.

Zeta7 votes

Except smart people always know the ending to every work of fiction already.

The bad guy fights (either metaphorically or literally) the good guy.

One wins.

The end.

That doesn't mean we stop telling stories.

dialMARK4acti0n2 votes

Why I do respect your opinion, the League's story was never about "the League" it was about the characters. Story can't progress unless the League is non-canon. Otherwise, it's like: "Oh I joined League, so I guess I'll never find about who killed my master! Oh Riven? Naaaaah..."

GuiltyGecko6 votes

I agree that the League should have a smaller influence, and that it shouldn't be about the League itself, but it doesn't need to be totally written out. In a world where the League is weaker, you will have to rewrite some stories, but that's okay because you can keep the heart of most of them while opening up new conflict points because you don't have a godlike organization above your head.

I'm sure you can think of many stories where all the characters are connected to a plot point in some way, (an easy example would be an story involving any type of school), but that plot point is used to drive the characters and not to be the focus. That's what I am saying League should be.

dialMARK4acti0n3 votes

Oh. I see your point. I think that's a nice approach! Turn League into a side-thing these characters do, not as a main focus. Right? I always envisioned it that way so I'd be down for that

Maganar1 votes

AW YISSSS!

Agreement of reasonable people on the Internet! :D

But yeah, most hardcore lore enthusiasts (I'm gathering based on posts, not prior knowledge so could be a little off) feel the League was necessary, but had been given an overbearing amount of power in the original lore segments. All they had to do was tone it down to keep things in line and open up infinite storytelling options, but they completely excised it, leading to this debacle and all the ensuing vitriol.

I'm down with you. I'd want to see the League's power nerfed a tad. But I want to be a "summoner." I want to feel that I have a near-symbiotic connection to my champion. I want to find myself striving for a win as much for my champion as myself. I just can't stand to see that straight-up get flushed down the toilet.

IMTOOJUICY2 votes

The Institute itself is a feasible concept, imo. However, I think the summoner concept is flawed for a video game universe, especially if Riot aims to flesh out the LoL verse in the form of a full-length movie (this is a major driving factor, I bet). You can only learn about prominent summoner characters like Reginald by reading about them, not playing as them in-game. If Reginald was introduced in some LoL movie, this would create confusion for people who only play the game and never bothered to read any lore addenda.

I mean, if you could play as Reginald on SR (Reginald, the Summoner Champion!), then he's no longer... a summoner... he's a champ now.

Korazul3 votes

Well Lee Sin technically was a Summoner...

So when people talk about making a game universe into a movie why do you need to start at the same point as a game plot?

My thinking is that if they really wanted to make a movie in the vein of the last 2 cinematics then you don't really need to start on the point that it's based on the Institute and Summoners and so on. You can make it based on the Charterers that you present. You can make it like the Lego Movie where even though it was in the Lego universe all it explained was the necessary parts and the added technicality added to flush the story out.

So all you need to to do is introduce 5 main characters over the course of 30-40 minutes have a plot point of betrayal or no return at around and hour and 30- 1hr 50 then introduce like 2-3 bad guys with the reveal of the Institute or a part of the game at the end as an Easter egg then have the last scene be the other bad guys making the group into a 10 man movie later on. Or if this was their big plan make the point of no return or the reveal Baron like they did in Twisted Fate clip and then pan to future fights I mean it's not that hard to make a movie out of a real roster of 130+ (I Think) Your no going to fit all of them into 1 movie so why don't you try to make the really amazing ones into it like, the Ionian vs Noxian war.

I mean eventually after the movie gets green light and before it's released people are going to know what League of Legends is. So why do you need to tell them that summoners exist, they are going to find out eventually. And even if you have the Summoner be like this extinct way to look at Players you will still find people that remember the old way that lore was. They are called Historians and let me tell you, you can't stop them. And they never go away cause the love the game too much.

IMTOOJUICY2 votes

Huh, one of the biggest complaints about this retcon is that Riot is allegedly turning the LoLverse into some simplified hackeneyed fantasy world. Your suggested movie would field the same exact complaints from the same naysayers, imo, unless the naysayers don't hold movies to the same standards as they do to video games. Myself, I feel like a movie should be a complete story within itself, and not some trailer or commercial leading up to something else. YMMV.

I dunno, so long as summoners exist as they currently do in the lore, I feel like they are incomplete characters at best since you can't play as them in-game. Lee Sin used to be a summoner, yes, I know, and the tinfoil says Jax might be Reginald Ashram. So, at most, two out of 110+ playable champs are summoners? Such unequal representation doesn't do justice to the prominent role which summoners currently play in LoL's lore. And I'm not sure if there really is a way to achieve fair representation in the context of the game right now without totally ignoring the distinction between summoner and champion.

Korazul2 votes

Yes a movie should be complete onto itself but that ignores the fact the modern movies are part of a universe now.

That ignores the fact that if it is a success of 1 Million or more dollars it gets a sequel.

So yeah the example I gave is common and not really that interesting it is like you say, the Hackneyed version of League and the Hackneyed version at least breaks 1 Million and that's all studios and audiences care about. I'm not saying all the successes follow this formula I'm saying Riot doesn't have to take such a gamble to make their IP movie friendly/adaptable.

So Summoners from this day forward are no longer part of the Lore of League cause the Dev blog didn't really understand that Lore is instantaneous, the moment the Dev blog comment section confirmed that going forward the Institute and Summoners were no longer part of the Lore is the moment it became fact. And the problem here is that you don't really have to mention that League is a game to anybody that doesn't play the game. It's like people from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart used to do... tell people your from a cable division, that maybe you don't get their cable company but when push comes to shove and they ask exactly where you are from say Daily Show and Comedy Central and then see yourself out.

That's what I mean you don't have to destroy the whole governing body in a moment's notice to prepare for the possibility of Toys, Comics, and movies because it's awkward to mention it. So now you get your world with no summoners enjoy it cause for me there is this great big hole that no toy, comic or movie is going to fill.

And yeah a summoner was pretty much dues ex machina so what the writers had to do is change it. Yeah they can eliminate it but they didn't have to do it so suddenly or with out reason. A champion now to me is this thing that has no purpose. It could be this flag/symbol for their faction/lifestyle and that is fine. Just give me a reason in the story as to why Jax no longer wields a real Weapon.

PhailRaptor4 votes

Assuming for a moment that Riot does want to make a movie out of LoL (which would by far the the dumbest thing in the world, but...)...

Why would "Summoners" as a whole even need to be characters in this movie? They don't. The Champions are the primary characters. If the specific Summoner is not related to the plot, why would they be named in the first place? Someone would walk in the backstory at the very very beginning of the movie, informing the viewer what Summoners are, and what their function is in the world.

The fact of the matter is that LoL Lore has never been about the Summoners. It's never even been about the IoW directly. It's about the Champions. There are only a few specific situations in which the IoW "gets in the way" of following Champions through with their various goals and motivations -- "can't kill anyone" (J4/Swain, Kass/Malz, Lucian/Thresh), and the "prisoner Champions" (Brand, Cho'Gath, Noct, Fiddle to an extent). That's really the only limitations the IoW places on Champion storybuilding.

Let's face it. The only reason Riot "can't" write stories with all the room they have around the IoW is because they haven't tried.

Earl Eulrich3 votes

THough I think this would be one of the points they really could address...telling more stories about the actual summoners. That´s probably the only thing holding them back from having really great story involving the institute of war - if they would only be willing to invest some time in shaping the fundament they layed years ago.

If they´d just imagine the Summoners as mortal mages, incredible powerfull but certainly not invincible and not free from human failures...there would be soo much to work with.

Zeta3 votes

Magic the Gathering gives players the options of playing as famous Plainswalkers that they market or simply considering themselves one of them, which is what Riot should have done with Summoners. All they'd need to do is fashion a non-combatant figurehead for each faction.

IMTOOJUICY1 votes

I've played 2 games of MTG in my life, so I'm not really familiar with the Plainswalkers concept. I do agree that Riot could have tweaked the summoner concept or reduced their role. However, the tweaking would have to be pretty heavy handed, since I don't think the summoner concept, as depicted in JoJ and current lore, is viable for seamless story telling.

CupcakeTrap2 votes

Runaan's recent post again fails to address the central problem: that the game League of Legends no longer has any backstory.

The first task of a game's backstory is to explain the game. That can be simple, e.g. Street Fighter II with "they have a giant tournament to find out who's the most awesome fighter", or it can be complex, e.g. Mass Effect. Wherever it falls along that spectrum, it performs the same basic function: it explains what's going on when the game is played.

Riot's narrative team seems fixated on running off in some other direction to write a bunch of fiction about characters from the game, which has absolutely nothing to do with the game itself. Say what you will about the original plot: it added some flavor to the game. I enjoyed the in-universe feel of Riot beginning emails and such with "Greetings, Summoners!" It seems the Narrative team does not find that kind of immersion valuable.

They wring their hands and agonize about how it's just impossible to write good stories with the League (I happen to disagree) … but don't seem at all troubled with saying, "yeah, we'll keep calling you Summoners, and, uh, I guess the Champions will keep their lines for now, but no, we don't have any idea what that's supposed to mean."

Something as trivial as "the League is now an arena where Champions come to hone their skills" would at least fill that crucial gap.

I do not want to hear any Rioter making snarky comments about the old lore being "an excuse plot". That is the first layer of every game's backstory, and the greater embarrassment is not getting a little too enthusiastic about explaining every detail of gameplay, as the old lore did, but in completely failing to establish this primary layer, as is the case with the new lore.

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