Some player types are more likely to engage with the lore than others

Blood Magicks·12/29/2017, 12:21:25 AM·16 votes·1,658 views

The boards are a bit dead so might as well share my thoughts, no matter how wrong I might be.

It is no secret that the Story, Art and Sound board here is the only place where one can have an in-depth lore discussion* . On reddit almost all lore discussion gets drowned out by talk of LCS, highlights and streamers, and some users are downright hostile to story posting. The redditors truly interested have either isolated themselves in smaller, often champ-centric communities or made their way here.

Having spent six years on reddit (as an admin of a 60 000 strong community at that) and two years here I have some observations about the League community I would like to discuss.

But first, a few questions:

  • Why is reddit full of Ahri mains, and yet barely any Ahri lore discussion takes place here and anywhere?

  • Why does Swain have a tiny playerbase and yet is overrepresented in lore boards?

  • Do you think Draven fans are more likely to read and think about a complex, compelling story than Malzahar fans (fans, not just freelo train passengers)?

My answers to these questions somewhat overlap and can be summarized as:

##Just because the playerbase enjoys playing or looking at a champion doesn't mean they want to read about them. Some champions have themes which attract book and story lovers, and some don't. Giving too much lore to the latter is wasted effort and giving too little to the former will leave the narrative fanbase very dissatisfied. Lore, like skins, is a product, but predicting potential lore impact by a champ's popularity may not be the most correct approach.

This is by no means a perfect and exhaustive or completely correct answer. Giving too much story interaction to high pickrate champs is not always wasted effort: trying to get lots of people into the lore by writing about their favorite champion is worthy of applause, but the fact remains that the majority just doesn't play League for the lore. So making a broad champion such as Ezreal important to so many stories recently is strange, IMO.

How can we predict which champions will attract more readers than others? I have some clues which are by no means set in stone:

  • Does the champion already have major and long-lasting influence on existing lore, possibly cut short by the retcon? Diana Leona

  • Does the champion resonate overly with nerdy types? AurelionSol Viktor Malzahar Kassadin (Lovecraft and Star Wars)Mordekaiser (LotR references where???) and many more

  • Is the champion visibly topical in a political sense? Taliyah. The massive Varus controversy might fall here, not sure.

  • Is the champion fangirl bait? (laugh all you want here but the fanfiction and RP communities are fangirl town) Jhin Vayne Talon MissFortune

  • Does the champion have glaringly obvious influences from famous books, maybe classical literature? No big surprise, booklovers will want to read about their champions.

  • If you tag a champion as some cool, mysterious, intellectual, maybe a bit insane and inwardly torn 2deep character readership may rise as well. Zed Lissandra Jhin Leblanc Azir

  • Feel free to add any, in your experience as writers and readers.

https://imgur.com/t8vzF3M

##And voilà, we can see why people have been dying for Swain lore and begging for it for so long since the retcon: he covers all of the above points, completely blowing away competition. Maybe almost no one plays Swain, but everyone mildly interested in the narrative will show at least some interest in his in-universe exploits.

*[It is no secret that the Story, Art and Sound board here is the only place where one can have an in-depth lore discussion] I would love to be proven wrong about this one.

23 Comments

HonestJohnTheCon12/29/2017, 3:31:42 PM5 votes

The reason why I main Jhin is because I can resonate with some of his lore (ignoring the insane and evil overtones), particularly that art is subjective and you will have to deal with people who dislike your work, despite how much time and effort you put into every meticulous detail. Plus, his lore is just fantastic. It's dark in the best possible way and makes you feel like Jhin's "audience"; horrified and intrigued at the same time.

No wonder he gets so much love from both the fanbase and Riot.

I feel like lore should definitely be about trying to please lore fans and mains rather than the masses who only look into things occasionally. I feel like Varus was focused to the mass audience, which is why there was outcry from his mains and some notable lore nerds but Riot got overall positive feedback from it (though you wouldn't know it from these boards).

I'm hyped for Swain though. Based on the little we have, I think his rework is going to be Warwick-tier.

Ebonmaw Dragon12/29/2017, 12:44:23 AM3 votes

I think that the answer about why people who cares about lore wants lore about Swain is more simple than that...

Swain is a mayor character in the lore, He is the leader of Noxus, one of the oldest and biggest factions of the game. There arent a lot of champions that are leaders of factions, only him and Azir are trully leaders of their factions... the rest of the champions dont have such role, yeah, Ashe and Tryndamere are queen and king of Freljord, but there are other 2 champions that want to fight for that role, so, there is no leader who rules ALL the Freljord. Jarvan 4 is prince not king of Demacia. Karma is only 1 of many Elders of Ionia. Bilgewater has no head. Piltover and Zaun are ruled by many people. And Bandle... the last time that something about a "leader" of Bandle (the Mayor) was mentioned was in the JOJ.

WestTiger12/29/2017, 8:09:17 AM3 votes

I mean, for me personally, Swain is obviously going to have a lot more lore questions simply because there is a lot more lore actually written about him. Take a look at the old-lore, meaning the old League Judgements and the Journal of Justice, only Swain ever had any narrative movement from Point A to Point B, and it took several IRL years.

Point A: His original League Judgement where we figure he's got a masterplan. The Summoners knew it. LeBlanc's League Judgement shows she knew it and was in on it. Heck, even Du Couteau and by extension his daughters were slightly influenced by his start-point.

All the many incidences in-between, showcasing Swain's actual actions on the overarching narrative of Runeterra, including being part of the reason the original Dominion map (aka Kalamanda) came about

Point B: Final Journal. He did it. He's Grand General, he got rid of Boram, maybe something happened with J4 we don't know and it doesn't matter anymore. Basically, he had a goal, and he got his goal.

It's the only complete story arc of any kind in LoL for a single champion!

Every other champion, especially the old members of the original 2 year roster, only has the bare minimum of a story attached to them. A lot of stuff ends up being inferred. Their characters on a basic level are understood, but the rest is fanwank.

And I agree about the fangirl-bait bit, but it's opposite effects. Swain and LeBlanc, out of all the champs, has the most actual in-lore interaction of any two champions. And not just innocuous conversations, for her League Judgement which is suppose to showcase an important memory, hers was a conversation with Swain and it was clear they had a history. She was his date at his High Command promotion ball; she pretended to be J4 to set-up the Kalamanda incident and then was even his body-double for his duel with Kieran at least at the start of the fight. She even got a bit huffy at him for being more distant since his promotion to Grand General in the Sion 'Reborn' page, but that's gone now.

If it was any other male champ with LeBlanc, I guarantee you we would see _sooooo _ much fanwank for them as a couple. But Swain, despite Riot insisting otherwise, looks and sounds and acts like a much older man than LeBlanc, and that freaks the fangirls out. (Personally, I go for it but that's just me and very few others).

So you get this really devoted and yet niche sub-group of fans, who know Swain is important to the lore, or are really really into his lore because it's already richer than normal compared to other champs. They not the usual type of fans who are usually in it for the fanart/fanfiction alone, because frankly there isn't all that many.

And then these niche groups congregate only in certain places. The subreddits are usually much more receptive. The general LoL subreddit actually likes lore stuff, it's just that it's tough to slot it in. I remember my old-lore summary of Swain being well-received way back when Tyrant was released and there was renewed interest. Nowdays I stay on the /r/swainmains subreddit but already we're seeing the effects of renewed interest with Swain's rework.

But I also think there were some concessions to human nature that Riot had to concede for the rework. By that I mean, I think Swain is more traditionally hot now. Like, 'daddy tier' to quote Spideraxe, and overall taller and bigger from the teaser art.

If it means I can finally get more Swain x LeBlanc fanwank, I don't mind too much.

HalcyonDweller12/29/2017, 7:08:39 PM2 votes

Hey OP this was a solid analysis and an enjoyable read, and I'm beginning to think you are right! Thank you for sharing these thoughts, I think at least some of us have grown and benefited from seeing them.

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Epicurus12/29/2017, 5:16:03 AM2 votes

Well I can confirm that I, for one, have never played Swain outside of ARURF, yet still am keen as fuck for his lore.

But even though I am a fan of the nerdy champions you are describing, I still want to see more lore for the popular fellows like Ahri and Draven. Runeterra can't reach it's full potential unless all the champions are fleshed out.

Fairyfleur12/29/2017, 9:51:50 PM2 votes

It's unfortunate that Reddit doesn't have many lore discussions. The only time lore reaches the front page is when it's newly released, and even then some of the comments are from people just shitting on it, and not any actual discussion.

I also hate that whenever lore is mentioned there, people make a point to call it garbage when they've probably only read the small snippets in the client.

######also taliyah and orianna have the best lore in the game :>

HalfTangible12/29/2017, 9:23:07 PM1 votes

Short answer: Swain is a major political figure in charge of the most expansionist Empire in the entire lore. Shurima, Demacia, Piltover and Zaun, even far away Ionia; there isn't a city on Runeterra that hasn't at least heard rumor of Noxus. This is why people are so hungry for lore for him.

Ifneth1/3/2018, 7:54:03 AM1 votes

OP, I have a question that might sound dumb. Why is Taliyah's lore "visibly topical in a political sense"?

LunSeiSleidee1/2/2018, 12:16:42 PM1 votes

Riot actively pulled me away from the lore, by ruining their own lore again and again. They didn't learn that more complicated does not always mean better; they didn't figure out that turning a years-old character's origin story completely upside-down is never acceptable.

WubbaLubbaDubDab12/29/2017, 7:04:10 PM1 votes

who cares about ahri's lore when u have that sexy anime girl