http://th09.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2011/176/2/8/rin_the_yordle_by_d4n13l_h3n50n-d3jytys.jpg Rin the Yordle: one of the lore community's favorite community-created characters. I am pretty sure that Rin would be tickled pink to give Riot permission to include her in a story. Even if Riot directly copied the character without permission or attribution, I doubt she's any more likely to sue Riot over it than Riot is likely to sue her for making a "yordle" character. This image was itself created by someone other than Rin.

TL;DR: Lately, Narrative's started mentioning "legal concerns" about discussing ideas with the community. If they mean simply that they can't share advance drafts of stories for comment, that's barely even worth mentioning—it's not like the community needs to read drafts to have meaningful input on the future of League's lore. But if they think that the Legal team has warned them that they must take pains to avoid contact with the community's ideas altogether, then—well, then arguably we have an explanation for the past two years or so. But more importantly, if (IF!) they do believe they are so constrained, then we need to take care of that first: so long as they believe they are legally bound to not read our ideas, meaningful community engagement is impossible.

I want to be clear: I'm not saying that Narrative has said they can't look at community ideas because of legal concerns. I'm speculating here. But I think that possibility is just likely enough to warrant a request for clarification. That's what this thread is. Also a chance to make fun of ORIGINAL CHARACTER DO NOT STEAL.

It's an exciting time for the lore community. Narrative has committed to a greater degree of engagement with the community, and it looks like they might be serious about it. However, while I don't mean to come off as cynical, I think we need to have some sober conversations beforehand. Let's not get our hopes up for nothing.

I'll start by summarizing what I think is clearly the most important matter at stake here: meaningful community engagement. With that as a preface, I'll then explain my request for clarification as to some remarks Narrative has recently made about not being at liberty to discuss ideas for "legal" reasons.

Meaningful Community Engagement

TL;DR: Meaningful community engagement is about substantive conversations with the community, not merely to "explain Narrative's choices" but to gather and develop ideas. For instance, if Narrative is planning to totally rework Zaun, then I think they should have at least a discussion thread or two where they talk about the essence of Zaun with the community, share their ideas, and gather some from the community.

It's often enjoyable to chat with members of the Narrative team about work they've put out. I like it when they stop by. But in terms of what's not merely pleasant but truly important for the future development of League's lore, we need more meaningful community engagement. By that phrase, I mean discussions with the community about upcoming major changes to the established lore of League of Legends, at an appropriate point in the design process.

The Great Retcon is the most striking example of a major change (the erasure of Summoners and the League of Legends from League of Legends) made without meaningful community engagement. That was perhaps not Narrative's finest moment. Sure, there was some conversation after the fact, but it was, of course, too little, too late. We were never given a chance to talk this truly radical change over, or make our case against it. It was completely one-directional. The Great Retcon came out of nowhere, already complete, already locked in, and any "discussion" that happened was irrelevant. It was all over but the shouting, as they say.

I for one am concerned that we're in for more such episodes. I honestly don't know if tomorrow I'll log in to find an "exciting" new lore release, with lots of glitzy multimedia, talking about how in the new version of the lore, Ionia was conquered by Noxus and is now a subjugated state, with Shen leading some sneaky ninja resistance. Or to find that those much-demanded backgrounds are finished—and I've always said "be careful what you wish for" about those—and now Veigar is a lizardman from Noxus and Galio is a mini-dragon from Ionia.

To be clear, I'm not saying that I'm afraid Narrative will put out bad lore. They've put out some very good lore lately, and I'm sure they could make Ionian Galio work from a purely literary perspective. The problem is that, when you go and completely rewrite a major element of a lived-in universe like League, you send shockwaves through the entire framework, implicitly erasing or rendering nonsensical years of Riot and community lore, as well as long-developed player immersion. I think Narrative should chat with the community before making such drastic changes, if only to gather some insights and impressions that they can consider when they get down to writing.

Narrative has repeatedly said that it wants to keep the strongest story elements, even when rewriting, and that it seeks to preserve the "essence" of League's characters and settings. I feel that, in keeping with Riot's traditions of community engagement, their decisions about what's "good" and what's "essential" should involve at least some degree of community discussion. Of course, it's up to Narrative in the end, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't pitch ideas or talk about Champions or settings that are coming up for rewrites. Rather than just retreating into a closet and meditating on the inner nature of Demacia for six weeks, then writing something from whole cloth, they should probably go ask the lore community what we feel is important about Demacia's identity, or how we might like to see that identity reworked.

"Legal" concerns

TL;DR: If Riot believes it can't read community ideas for "legal reasons", then we need to take care of that before we can possibly have meaningful community engagement.

I'm not surprised that legal concerns were brought up in this discussion. Riot's a great company, but as we all know, they do suffer from a truly paralyzing fear of borrowing from other sources. LoL's development was seriously delayed because, from the start, they insisted that everything they did had to be one hundred percent original.

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Veigar_1.jpg Rumors that Veigar was a ripoff of Black Mage from Final Fantasy were put to rest with the release of White Mage Veigar.

Both Jaredan and Ant in Oz have mentioned "legal" concerns about discussing lore with the community. So far, this has been largely glossed over, but I think we need some clarification. Read a certain way, Narrative's comments indicate that they believe they cannot consider community ideas for "legal" reasons.

It's an important question. Now, I don't know what kind of legal liability they might encounter for directly stealing a full character like Rin, but that's not the issue here. The issue here is whether they believe they cannot discuss ideas (e.g. "I think Demacia and Noxus should have been at peace for hundreds of years before Jarvan I was killed") for fear of legal consequences. That sounds pretty bizarre, but people get very, very anxious about "getting sued", thanks to our insane media portrayals of the legal profession and all the conservative scare-mongering that goes on, so I don't think it's out of the question that Narrative has misunderstood Legal's directives.

http://i.imgur.com/BUKXW.gif ORIGINAL CHARACTER. DO NOT STEAL.

Let's start with Jaredan's comments. (It bears note that he was rather ill when writing this, and I certainly don't mean to take anything out of context, but it was genuinely unclear to me precisely what he meant.) In the same post, he mentioned that he'd read the entire of Factions lore, so I don't think he meant this in a strong sense, but honestly I'm just not sure what Narrative means in this case.

{quoted}

It's hard to give you the crux of a thematic change to character in advance that would appear in any way positive without the context of the story to go along with it. If we tease parts of a story to give an idea of what it will be, then it's easy to misconstrue the intent and impossible to include all of the aspects of the character. Then we're giving answers of "Wait for the full story." If we give you a rough version of the story (I'm sorry, this will never happen for many reasons, including legal ones), then we've essentially released the story, just in an incredibly unsatisfying way for most players.

Let me use a hypothetical example of a movie I'm looking forward to this year. I can't ask J.J. Abrams for an advance copy of the script, or the outline, or the treatment for Episode VII without pretty much destroying the experience for myself. If I was to ask this in public, then anyone else who reads it is equally in spoiler territory. Also, if I made suggestions and they were then used in the script and the resulting movie, I could sue JJ's arse off for using my ideas without proper credit or compensation.

To me, that just sounds like him saying that he believes he can't go sharing actual drafts of new lore and soliciting comments. That sounds pretty reasonable. But that's no problem for meaningful community engagement; actually sharing drafts would be rather too micro. (Though hey, remember when the community criticized Jayce's background for making Viktor look stupid, and it was rewritten with that feedback in mind? I thought that was a good thing.) This isn't about the community pointing out "I think the word you're looking for on page three is 'lugubrious'"; it's about Narrative pausing to check the pulse of the community before it rewrites Shyvana into Jarvan's most hated nemesis, or deletes the Mothership from Bandle City.

Indeed, he went on to say:

{quoted}

I've read all of Factions and had a good time doing so.

I was delighted to read that Jaredan enjoyed reading Factions Lore, and I think that indicates that he does not believe he has to avoid all community ideas. But I'd like him to clarify that. Certainly, Ant in Oz believes there's some "legal" reason why they have to avoid community-written fiction.

http://lolwp.com/wp-content/uploads/Masteryi_Splash_2.jpg Fortunately, it turns out that no one at Riot has ever seen a movie called "Star Wars". They don't watch fantasy or sci-fi movies—it's a can of worms from a legal POV.

More recently, Ant in Oz wrote:

Please don’t offer up specific story ideas – legally, we just can’t use them (the same reason I don’t read fan-fic – it’s a can of worms from a legal POV).

Again, "specific story ideas" sounds like a reference to outlines of actual stories: not general ideas (like "I think Noxians should all get their first spiked axe for their sixteenth birthday") but actual plots ("here is my story about Teemo infiltrating an Ionian ninja clan and getting in a scrap with Kennen"). But I think this needs clarification, so we know what they think is okay and what isn't.

If it turns out—and this sounds crazy, but yet I have this sinking suspicion it might be so—that Narrative believes it cannot even discuss ideas with the community for "legal reasons", then we need to take care of that before we can even begin to have meaningful community engagement.

Of course, if that were so, then it seems like Riot's entire community-driven model is in jeopardy: Angus and Braum, Surprise Party Fiddlesticks, countless mechanics and gameplay ideas…Riot has drawn many ideas from the community, and that's I think part of why the community is so active and energetic.

http://www.mobafire.com/images/champion/skins/portrait/kennen-swamp-master.jpg Swamp Master Kennen was created because Riot's design team felt that Ionia, from a climatological perspective, should realistically have swamps, and they would naturally need a master.

I've heard good things about Riot's legal team. I'd be disappointed if they had issued a company-wide directive to "never look at community ideas". That sounds like very poor "tell your client not to do anything because there might be a risk if all the courts in the country went mad at the same time" lawyering. (What, are you afraid that if you read a thread about the Solari, someone is going to be able to convince twelve jurors that they are entitled to 20% of all Leona skin sales because they posted a comment saying that they thought Leona should be friends with Kayle?) I know IP law is broken, but I don't think it's that broken. Even if it is, perhaps I have a higher opinion of their legal team than they do, but surely they can put together a solution: a disclaimer, for instance, or more narrowly defined rules as to what's okay and what isn't.

So let's not put the cart before the horse. Narrative, can you please clarify your current understanding of what you can and cannot do for "legal" reasons?