Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Is it possible to have a 'normal' champion?

Z Statistic·12/25/2016, 10:26:30 PM·5 votes·1,590 views

And I don't mean boring. Just...not in line with this constant upping of the backstory ante? ... ... Let me explain: Camille One of two surviving children. She and her father were attacked by bandits. Lost her humanity. Ivern Basically Saul to Paul except he's...not exactly right in the head. Kled is fucking insane and a war hero Taliyah is a nomad separated from her tribe who travels alone AurelionSol is essentially a god Jhin do I even need to explain? Illaoi Ditto Kindred COME ON TahmKench SERIOUSLY?? Ekko Oh cool, he's got FUCKING HELL HIS BEST FRIEND DIED AND HE BLAMES HIMSELF Bard Yeah...another god RekSai ...really Kalista OK SERIOUSLY AGAIN Azir HIS ENTIRE EXISTENCE IS BECAUSE HE GOT BACKSTABBED BY HIS FRIENDS/COURT Gnar Ok, finally, pretty 'normal.' Oh wait, he's essentially a time traveller who can't go back home. Shit. Braum FINALLY. This guy is normal. He's happy. He protects people. He's grounded in reality. His personality and character doesn't need some crazy shit to make him more interesting. Everything about him is awesome.

I could keep going. Every other champion between Braum and Nami has some sort of 'boo hoo feel sorry for me' situation and even Nami has to be given some leeway because she's on some generic MacGuffin JRPG journey. It gets old when this is the MO of character design, Riot. When I look at the pattern chronologically, the ones who have a solid personality without some tragic backstory is...Draven

Conflict is where people grow, but conflict before the story starts doesn't. This is why even though MissFortune also falls under this problem of tragic backstory, I'm much more willing to forgive this lore because she got her revenge and she went V for Vendetta on GP's ass. Same thing with Graves and TF. TF betrayed Graves in the backstory, but in the lore they made up.

You know what would be really cool?

Let's release a new champion is a green as hell newbie who is happy-go-lucky optimistic and wants to change the world. We release him on day one of the event. Then day two starts and a war between Demacia and Noxus erupts. Each match with a noxian on one side and demacian on the other influence a counter. If Noxus wins more, we have Day 8 as part two of the lore event where our hero spirals into a depression. If Demacia wins, then we have a celebration of a Demacia victory. EXCEPT WAIT. TREACHERY. Day 9 reveals more lore and spits out our champion as battlebruised and horrifically changed by war in a new skin.

That how you do conflict. You actually do conflict and none of this post hoc exposition about how we should care that so and so's father was beaten to death by a rogue spoon wielded by the sixth cousin of the elder warlord king emperor god.

You guys have made great strides in weaving together character relationships, but you've not done any better since 2012 in terms of character development.

31 Comments

Sharjo12/25/2016, 10:39:04 PM9 votes

How's a champion supposed to be a champion if they haven't gona through any trials or hardship yet? You say "Ok Braum's normal" but Braum's old and storied. He's done A LOT of stuff in his life. Sure his personality is grounded in reality somewhat but the dude is anything but considering I doubt any living human can attest to having punched through a mountain. Braum's a character you can easily root for but it's not like he's incredibly realistic.

Here's my thing: Runeterra's a world of magic. It's a world where humans share their planet with other sentient organisms that aren't human. It's a universe where a fucking dragon made the stars. ALL of the stars. It's a world where death is a bow wielding lamb and a ghost wolf. As such I don't want normallcy. I want Riot to go bonkers and make characters that are interesting, unique and take total advantage of the setting. A normal dude? Sod that. That's boring. Give me characters worth calling "champions", not normal guys who're easy to root for because they're more grounded in reality. I expect my humans in a magical setting to be as bad ass as such a setting would entail. And if they're among the "normal humans" they better have something about them that makes them stand out from the crowd. I don't expect the main characters of a magical world to be "normal". I expect them to be weird.

Basically, for me personally, I don't care for "Johny Normalson". I care for whatever weird and wonderful shit the League of Legends setting can offer me. The closer it is to reality, the more boring it is for me. Let's just go wild and make weird shit, from the weirdly cosmic to the seemingly ordinary but actually remarkable. I expect nothing less of these characters who are denoted as "champions" and "legends".

Fuck normal. I'd like spectacular, magical, remarkable and weird please.

Ebonmaw Dragon12/25/2016, 10:52:16 PM4 votes

Taliyah seems normal to me... at least if we dont count her magic.

SchmidttyGames12/25/2016, 11:35:20 PM4 votes

While I wouldn't mind seeing a champion that simply wanted to be a boss and worked their ass off for it, there is a problem with the foundation of your argument. The words "Hero" and "Champion" exist for a reason. A human doesn't simply "become" one of these things. They earn it through a life of struggle and trials. No one who sits on their ass all day and does almost nothing with their lives is going to have either the skill nor the ability to be a Champion. No one just becomes great.

That's why many champions are gods or otherwise "blessed"/"cursed" somehow. It makes more sense as fiction than a blob of worthless suddenly becoming a ball of fury as some kind of conveyable non-fiction.

reaperteaser12/26/2016, 1:37:35 AM2 votes

so you want helmat bro to be added to the roster?

HalfTangible12/26/2016, 10:01:29 PM1 votes

You forgot best girl Tristana. Also, Braum is a Frejlord myth and it's implied that Draven overacts so that he'll outshine Darius.

The problem is that champions are meant to be exceptional people, people who have driven themselves as hard as they could to be the best in the world. You're not gonna find someone better at time-based Hextech than Ekko. No one's a better fighter than Jax. No one's a stealthier ninja than Zed. etc etc. And while you could make the argument that these particular champions can be beat (Zilean, Fiora and Shen, for example) you couldn't do so outside of the champion roster.

This means that they've got motive to push themselves beyond what an ordinary person would do. This doesn't necessarily mean tragedy, but it always means 'not normal'.

Chamuel8512/25/2016, 10:38:20 PM1 votes

Heroes aren't really forged by normal lives as much. It's the rough shit in ones life that makes us.

RastaBrotha12/28/2016, 10:58:16 AM1 votes

I'm gonna go with noooo

Ralanr12/26/2016, 12:30:36 AM1 votes

League actually does have a couple of "average joes" when you take a look. The top two imo are Graves and Tobias (TF).

Honestly if we had a book series set in Runeterra, I wouldn't be against those two being the main characters.

bad arcade kitty12/26/2016, 1:59:08 AM1 votes

i don't get this thread

what's wrong with illaoi, for instance? she is an ordinary religious lady without any tragic background, except for her break-up with gangplank

GreenLore12/26/2016, 2:01:21 PM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Z Statistic,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=qlOWkJVN,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-12-25T22:26:30.046+0000)

You know what would be really cool?

Let's release a new champion is a green as hell newbie who is happy-go-lucky optimistic and wants to change the world. We release him on day one of the event. Then day two starts and a war between Demacia and Noxus erupts. Each match with a noxian on one side and demacian on the other influence a counter. If Noxus wins more, we have Day 8 as part two of the lore event where our hero spirals into a depression. If Demacia wins, then we have a celebration of a Demacia victory. EXCEPT WAIT. TREACHERY. Day 9 reveals more lore and spits out our champion as battlebruised and horrifically changed by war in a new skin.

Honestly while this might sound fine on paper,there'd be several problems with this. First of all,its basically a new event for a new champion. And while that itself isn't that special,I feel like so much work,just for the introduction of a single champion,would simply feel a bit like the champ would get the "creator's pet" treatment,getting so much more with his release(basically giving him what would be essentially a legendary skin on release,as well as a huge amount of lore just for him)