Putting the lore in the hands of players

Mppqlmd··3 votes·1,007 views

Hello everyone. I've been playing roughly since late season 3, and i have always been passionate with the League of Legends Lore. I have absolutly been thrilled when Riot decided to use that lore and put it in the front scene (like the Shurima event, or the Bilgewater one), and i have for some time been having an idea that i thought i'd share with you, and eventually with riot. Even thought the Summoners and all that part of the Lore (the Institute of War) isn't really canon anymore (i've read that somewhere), i enjoyed the idea that players (aka summoners) where part of the universe and could control champions to achieve something in Runeterra. Here is my suggestion to make the Lore evolve, dynamic, and a little bit more involving for the players :

Riot would, through articles, images, videos, whatever, narrate events involving differents factions, champions, of the LoL universe. Events like that battle where Singed drowned in poison the army that Garen was leading against Swain, or the assault Zed lead against the temple of Shen's father, ... you get the idea. All those events would be at first open-ended : the result of battles would be unknown. Then, for a week or two, the players would have to decide the issue of that battle. How ? By playing. Every Garen, Lux, Poppy, Jarvan, Galio player winning a game would score a point for Team Demacia, and every Swain, Darius, Draven, Singed, etc. player would score a point for Team Noxus. Thus we would see the lore evolving, let's say, every month, but the community would be forced to take part in it, because picking any Noxian champion would automatically transform you into a Noxus Defender. And that would be kind of awesome :)

Feel free to give your opinion ! Have a wonderfull day ! (There might be grammar mistakes, greetings from Belgium).

9 Comments

Ebonmaw Dragon4 votes

The closest thing that we had was the Bilgewater event, where players could choose to support "sides"... however, it did not affect the story of the event.

After all, making the thing that you say, would require to write at least two different stories and one of those stories would be wasted since it would not be canon.

And if you consider it... it doesnt make sense in the lore. Why whould X faction win only because it has the most popular champions (or the better icon etc)? Imagine a canon battle between Xerath and Zed (even if such thing is ridiculous) and the comunity decides that Zed wins the Battle because he is more popular...

Mppqlmd2 votes

Well when i started playing, the Institute of War was described like this : a place where political matters were decided with champions representing their interests and valors and letting summoners use them in battle. So it would make sense to actually have a gameplay feature that does that. The preparation problem is interesting. I think the most effective way would be for Riot to stop collecting "points" after a while, then take a week or 2 to describe the issue of the battle. No need to prepare 2 different things. Thanks for the reply !

Skelenth4 votes

The Institute of War isn't there anymore. The lore got 99% disconnected from the gameplay (1% being the Gankplank event where he was unplayable because of death)

Ebonmaw Dragon1 votes

{quoted}

Well when i started playing, the Institute of War was described like this : a place where political matters were decided with champions representing their interests and valors and letting summoners use them in battle. So it would make sense to actually have a gameplay feature that does that. The preparation problem is interesting. I think the most effective way would be for Riot to stop collecting "points" after a while, then take a week or 2 to describe the issue of the battle. No need to prepare 2 different things. Thanks for the reply !

There is no need to explain the IoW, i play since the season 1, so i know about the old lore as well... After all, my name is not Ebonmaw for cointidence.

I can only remember 2 times in the old lore where the players actually affected the lore, the Battle between Noxus and Ionia item 3158 and a roleplaying event in the Twisted Treeline that was actually mentioned in the JoJ (When Maokai appeared for first time)

However, I guess that the "points" idea could work like the Poolparty event or the mascarade event.

CrimsonCobra31 votes

You're Belgian? Your English is quite good.

As far as the idea goes, I think its an awesome idea. However, I think it would be even better as a type of rotating gamemode with a limited champ select depending on your side. But that's my opinion.

~CrimsonCobra3

Ethereal3111 votes

That's not putting the lore in the hands of the players. That's keeping Riot's grasp on their IP while we just wait around for content that only serves as content. Putting the lore in the hands of the players is a horrible idea because I've seen the shit you people make on fanfiction.net Yet even that is not far off from the stuff that Riot puts out so you might have a point. A point that's been echoed in this community since it began.

Mppqlmd1 votes

Well the main problem was pointed out : the logic (Institude of war) that's behind the idea is not cannon anymore. But the birth of this idea in my head points out the fact that Riot is very gameplay focused, and is a little bit letting the Lore die, which is a shame. The promised Lore update with the Shurima event, and started rewriting stuff like Rammus', only to give us a transition from a 2 pages Lore to a 3 lines Lore. So, since Riot is much more concerned with gameplay features and new game modes than with the Lore (wich i'm fine with), i wanted to suggest to include the Lore inside of a gameplay element, so that it would get a little more attention :)

CrimsonCobra31 votes

{quoted}

Well the main problem was pointed out : the logic (Institude of war) that's behind the idea is not cannon anymore. But the birth of this idea in my head points out the fact that Riot is very gameplay focused, and is a little bit letting the Lore die, which is a shame. The promised Lore update with the Shurima event, and started rewriting stuff like Rammus', only to give us a transition from a 2 pages Lore to a 3 lines Lore. So, since Riot is much more concerned with gameplay features and new game modes than with the Lore (wich i'm fine with), i wanted to suggest to include the Lore inside of a gameplay element, so that it would get a little more attention :)

Special Events like Gangplank's rework felt kind of like that, but there is a certain level that they could improve on even for events like that: making the actual gameplay feel like the lore. We play the game to play the game, but we want to play the lore.

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