Simple tips for designing champs

Pollyanna Wright·12/22/2014, 9:52:00 AM·7 votes·671 views

Follow the Three P's

Personality

Purpose

Power

Personality

A very important part is having a defined personality that is multifaceted and interesting. Having one dimensional characters is hard to pull off in interesting ways. Putting foils in to help make each part of their personality pop out helps in defining them. Varus, (old) Trundle, and Yorick all have great lores and personality that can help you understand how to do it.

Purpose

As with everybody, they need a goal in life. It could be world domination to a goal of not having a goal. They need a reason to exist in the world and a reason to fight.

Power

This is important when it comes down to designing the skills the champs gonna have. You want it to be defined as well as you can. The more defined it is, the easier it's going to be when it comes down to the skills. This also helps when defining what role you want them in.

Now the best champions are going to have all 3 interact with each other, and the more the better.

Take Braum.

He has the first P, with his unending cheer and goodwill to everybody. "Today we fight each other. Tomorrow, we may fight together."

His second P is to protect people.

His third P is his strength and his magic door.

Now how do these all interact with each other? The first P helps grant his second P a good explanation. "My shield is here for you." And then in turn his second P influences what skills his third P is going to be about. He could of been anything related to Russian Strongmen but because of his wish to protect it gives him his role and 2 entire skills.

Examples of champs that follow the 3P's well are: Darius Diana Kalista Jinx Vi Azir

Examples of champs that don't : Aatrox Shen Yorick MissFortune Irelia

8 Comments

ModThe Djinn12/22/2014, 10:30:37 PM3 votes

Good advice, although I think you could afford to go more in-depth on how the three elements interact to create a cohesive whole.

I'd also suggest that "power" isn't actually a requirement. A character's "power" is often part and parcel of their purpose and personality.

My personal suggestions for the quick champion creation list would be the following:

PERSONALITY: Roughly what you said. PURPOSE: Again, roughly what you have written. MECHANICS: Mechanics are extremely important to sell a character's idea. Take Darius or Draven, for example: Darius feels like a brutal warrior at close range--his abilities are big, high-impact, and look and sound incredibly violent. Draven, by contrast, feels intense to play: there's a lot of button-pressing and movement control, but, played well, both the player and his opponent get to see how skilled the Draven player is, which fits Draven's "I'm so great" personality and purpose incredibly well. A strong kit will reinforce the ideas behind the champion...a weak one won't help sell their idea. FANTASY FULFILLMENT: How well everything ties together: personality, purpose, mechanics, dialog lines, animations...everything has to come together to sell the champion, and if any single element falls flat the champion's identity will be weakened.

Some of my favorite examples of kits done well include Jinx, Darius, Draven, Braum, Vi and Jarvan. I wouldn't actually put Diana or Azir on the list: I feel Diana suffers from her kit not really feeling unified with her character or personality aside from a half-hearted nod to a moon-shaped projectile, and while Azir comes close, he's got some wonky stuff going on with his E that just doesn't really feel cohesive with his design.

Pollyanna Wright12/22/2014, 10:07:36 PM1 votes

Bump up once since I did put this in at a weird time

Reaper Review12/22/2014, 10:15:10 PM1 votes

I'm curious, do you still do champion reviews? (Asking this here so you'll see it.)

That said, this is sound advice, and well-written.

Krizalid12/22/2014, 11:06:34 PM1 votes

I think that they need to do something with Riven's personality, because she lacks it. Champion can't just whine all the time, except Amumu.