Just to clarify, I'm the Narrative Lead for League of Legends and some stuff I can't talk about. Foundations is a product team that is part of the Creative Development initiative, not a discipline (like Narrative), though it includes members of Narrative, as well as artists, etc. I know that seems a bit complicated compared to 'lore team' but that term has always been a bit of a misnomer. There are a variety of teams that contribute to what you would call 'lore,' such as Champion, ChampUp, Foundations and so on. Members of Narrative are included on those teams.
I hope that clarifies the basic difference between a product team (Champion, ChampUp, Foundations, Promo) and a discipline (Narrative, Art, Game Design, Dev Management).
I'm perfectly happy to answer your questions. There's no secret or need for obfuscation, except in cases where I would be pre-empting the work being done by teams.
- Champions are created by Champion Team. The Narrative folks on that team partner with other disciplines to create the archetype, personality, attitude, motivation and voice of the Champ. Those aspects are expressed through the physical appearance (Art) and how the Champ plays (Games Design). Each element inspires and influences the other (Game Design and Art inspire and help mold the Narrative aspects of the Champ, but it is the Narrative Writer who is responsible for the quality of their individual area of subject matter expertise. The same can be said in reverse about the other disciplines.
It's a highly collaborative, iterative process. One of the things used to express that Champion beyond the in-game experience is the new character introduction. It's a short summation paragraph (who and what is this?), a longer biographical entry (how did they get to who they are now?), and some color text (show you the Champion being the Champion). The Editorial Team does QA on the quality of story, clarity of expression and grammatical accuracy of all text (VO scripts, Story Sketches, which are the narrative version of concept art, and the final characters introductions) Champion Update has a similar process. Foundations is focused on supplying internal documents and alignment on the identity and characteristics of Runeterra to inspire and empower product teams to make stuff that feels part of the whole. Foundations is also working on updating Champion texts that are not being handled by Champion Team or Champion Update. Foundations, for example, was responsible for the recent Targon update.
As a discipline, Narrative shares the work among all its members, across teams, and delivers feedback to support the work being done on each team.
- I'm not going to give you a full staff list, partly as some of the folks on Narrative work on things that aren't directly League related, but you'll see folks like FauxSchizzle, WaaargBobo, Loping Cinder, Ant in Oz, and myself pop by to talk about aspects of Champions and other stuff we're working on from time to time. We're adding more writers to the discipline, so you'll be seeing new names as the months roll on. One member of the discipline is working on her first Champion right now. I'm very much looking forward to when she introduces herself once things are finished baking. She's awesome.
The structure of the development process is very much dependent on the individual team. It varies to a degree, but basically it involves pitching out an idea, working with the team on honing it down through a rigorous, open feedback process, and then writing various drafts, getting feedback, rewriting rinse and repeat. Sorry that's so vague, but, the way we work as a discipline depends on the team we are working on. As a discipline though, our fundamental way of working together is sharing our work and being unabashedly critical with our notes.
- Riot doesn't stop people working on teams from talking about their projects, unless it's hush hush stuff that you usually haven't seen or heard of yet. Most of the writers spend the majority of their time in ideation, pre-production, and production on projects - not an ideal time to chat about things that would automatically be spoilers, or can most likely shift greatly from the point of production to release. You'll pretty much always see the writer, among folks from other disicplines, talking about the Champ, for example, when it is released. As a case in point, check out the podcast that Ant and Graham were on after the work they contributed to on Targon was released.
Personally, as I'm not working particularly on any individual team (I manage Narrative on League of Legends and fulfill the product role of stakeholder on Champion, Champion Update, and Promo). I try to bridge the gap between content releases and answer any pressing questions when I can as my role isn't completely focused on any individual release so it's a little easier for me to stop by and chat. I don't get to as much as I'd like, and that's purely just down to being rather busy.
I hope that answers your questions. Thanks for asking them.
