@Riot's artists & writers. Do you talk about diversity?

Solideus·Jul 28, 2015·8 votes·1,765 views

I'm just curious, do you ever talk internally about representation of different kinds of groups, races, backgrounds and cultures? Do you have discussions about it, and what's your approach to it when creating champions and such? Do you have discussions on how to responsibly tackle cultural appropriation? How do you tackle racial representation? What do you think is appropriate to represent in a game like Leauge of Legends, and what is not? For instance, is sexuality and gender identity off-limits? What about ideologies and social issues?

23 Comments

AhellessJul 28, 20156 votes

Give us an athletic girl with muscles, Riot.

SharjoJul 28, 20153 votes

Or one that's just beefy as hell. You know what, more body types for ladies Riot please and thank you!

ElJanitorFrankJul 29, 20151 votes

RekSai Alistar (not a female, still beefiest champion in game)

SharjoJul 29, 20153 votes

I was more referring to a more strictly humanoid female, but I can't deny that. Alistar will always be League's beefiest champion.

SaltyToplaneGoatJul 29, 20151 votes

A female Braum and we are set ^^

Lost RJul 28, 20153 votes

I think anything related to culture is going to be irrelevant in a fantasy-based game that takes place on another world with its own various established culture (Demacia: Right makes Might; Noxus: Might makes Right; Piltover: Steam/Diesel/Cyberpunk Utopia; Zaun: Science without moral/ethical/legal boundaries; Ionia: East Asia anachronism; Shadow Isles: Land of the Dead; Targon/Shurima: Sun worshipping anachronism of the Middle East, but particularly Ancient Egypt); Bilgewater: Pirate Land; Freljord: Viking land)

Drawing attention to race is always a sensitive issue, and by race I'm guessing more often than not people are referring to portraying blacks. Asians have plenty of representatives (Lee Sin, Xin Zhao, Akali, Shen, Zed, Karma, Master Yi, Ahri, Syndra, Irelia, Kennen to an extent, and Yasuo) and while most of them are no longer humanoid, the Middle East also has representatives (Nasus, Renekton, Azir, Xerath, Sivir, Rek'Sai, Kassadin [maybe], Cassiopeia to an extent, Leona, Pantheon, Diana, and Malzahar). The Spanish don't really have a representation outside of maybe Twisted Fate and anyone associated with Bilgewater who isn't a fish (pirates mostly originated from the British/Spanish empire), but those are not very positive representatives or portrayals in the first place. Blacks so far have only two representatives as of this post: Ekko and Lucian.

When you go down the list, there are honestly not that many verfied white champions, either, and I've heard the argument before that this is a white dominated roster. When you remove champions explicitly from certain race-specific locations like Ionia or Shurima, who are not/no longer entirely human as well as the ones with abnormal skin colors (Soraka, Ryze (Human Ryze skin doesn't count), Brand, Elise, Evelynn, Zyra, etc), the list of verified white as the virgin snow white people is surprisingly small (Annie, Ashe, Braum, Caitlyn, Cassiopeia by origin (her sister is white, so chances are she was probably white as well), Darius, Draven, Ezreal, Fiora, Gangplank, Garen, Gragas, Graves, Janna, Jarvan IV, Jayce, Jinx, Katarina, Leblanc, Lux, Miss Fortune, Nunu, Quinn, Riven, Sejuani, Singed, Sion based on his human concept art, Sona, Swain, Talon, Taric, Tryndamere, Twisted Fate, Udyr, Urgot if he was not a mass of dead flesh, Vayne, Vi, Vladimir, Zilean). Almost 40 champions verified white, which as of this post is just slightly more than 30% of the total champions in the game. I don't really look at race, and I feel that if race dominates design, then it's a bad design, and most people (read: most people who aren't artists or designers and a few who are) won't get that. Lucian's identity isn't dominated by the fact that he was the first black character; his identity is an undead-killing widow who wants revenge for the death of his wife. There was an old post about someone's character concept for a weighty woman; his character design and personality put too much emphasis on her size, so as other summoners pointed out, it was a bad design. Braum's the size of a mountain, but his personality and his lines never really draws attention to it (aside from carrying around a door that probably weighs as much as an SUV).

SunflowersJul 28, 20153 votes

i really hope a rioter can comment on this thread cause the lack of diversity is pretty painful in game and i'd really love to hear any remote ideas of how they go about broaching this vast subject and if they are willing to learn from their diverse fanbase and give us some more inclusion.

big companies who make stuff for so, SO many people really need to sit down and have long, serious discussions about all the points you've mentioned in your original post. here's hoping the importance of this thread reaches their ears!

SolideusJul 29, 20152 votes

I do think LoL is more diverse than most of its peers; the thread wasn't meant as direct criticism, only curiosity about how they handle those topics.

GreenLoreJul 28, 20152 votes

I think sexuality is kinda hard to really represent because the game is supposed to be played almost everywhere and some countries are rather strict when it comes to non-hetero-sexuality(roughly the same can be applied to gender identity).

SolideusJul 28, 20151 votes

True on sexuality, although maybe one could get around that with romantic attraction or platonic love? Gender identity I'm more curious about though; Riot seem like they want to be fairly progressive, or at least various Rioters do.

GreenLoreJul 28, 20151 votes

I think sexuality might be a possibility if they did it via "word of gay" http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfGay Basically mentioning the characters sexuality in a riot-post,but never mentioning it in the game or lore,I mean this trope is commonly used to avoid restrictions like this.

Not sure how certain countries act about gender identity,but I doubt that this topic is less problematic than sexuality.

Lost RJul 28, 20151 votes

That and it's difficult, borderline impossible, and completely pointless to portray LGBT people in a gameplay-based, Teen-rated game. And yes, there are other countries out there who play the game who don't have such a favorable view on non-straight people.

PyrodiniumJul 28, 20153 votes

I really don't see how it is impossible.

There are pretty easy ways to add diversity to the characters.

For example, Lucian's wife could have been a man named Sennen without changing the game in any significant manner (other than that login screen), achieving representation for gay men.

Another example: You could make Corki a double leg-amputee without demeriting his character.

Somehow there is this idea that if a character is designed with increased diversity in mind that character should revolve around how it is different, but the people is probably fine with those things as lesser parts of the character.

And in relation with being pointless: Increasing diversity in your cast increases its ability to connect with your audience, so it is never pointless.

GreenLoreJul 28, 20151 votes

The problem is that something like this would probably get the game banned in some countries and Riot obviously wants to avoid this.

PyrodiniumJul 28, 20151 votes

I am aware of that.

My comment was in response to the assertion that it was impossible due to LoL being a gameplay-based game, without taking politics into account.

NemeBroJul 29, 20151 votes

{quoted}

The problem is that something like this would probably get the game banned in some countries and Riot obviously wants to avoid this.

Just have it confirmed in the lore. If it doesn't show up in-game (i.e., Vi and Caitlyn don't start kissing during a login screen) it should be fair game.

Not that I'm advocating something like Lucian being made into a gay man for the sake of progress, lol.

GreenLoreJul 29, 20151 votes

I am pretty sure the lore is supposed to be avaliable for every nation as well,so I doubt that is an option.

However they should be able to simply mention this in a riot post.There is nothing preventing a rioter from simply saying it as long as it doesn't get into the lore or game.

Lost RJul 28, 20151 votes

There's a difference between sexual orientation and physical disabilities. We already have physically disabled/deformed characters: Sona's a mute, Swain has a bum leg, Urgot is... well, Urgot, and Sion is missing a foot. It's not a cultural taboo like homosexuality.

SharjoJul 28, 20152 votes

I'd imagine they talk about diversity, but I also recon it's not something like "Hey we've had a bunch of white champions, let's add a black one to make sure we go by our quota!" That'd be dumb as hell. Karma, Lucian and Ekko likely weren't champions they said "Alright let's specifically make them black!" they were envisioned as such from the get go or it naturally happened during the course of their creation.

Sexuality and gender identity is something I feel like they'd rather not enforce because if they do then it makes such things trivial right? What sex you prefer and how you personaly identify are critical character points and just offhandedly having "oh they're bi" or "oh they identify as a man" without any context to back it up or even a story to support it as a character trait makes it a background feature, which it shouldn't be. Remember that while we don't have any confirmed champions who are gay, bisexual or asexual, we have very few champions who're actually documented as straight to begin with.