League of Legends (Old)

[GreyICE]

Eh, league used to be the stereotypical "art direction by white guys for white guys" company. All the women were hypersexualized and played passive roles, whenever they introduced "variety" in design it was always with male characters.

They've made a distinct effort to change that, starting with Leona/Vi, and I respect that. It's hard being handed a shit sandwich that is years in the making and being told "fix this". Despite that, they've made notable strides (like bikini girl in a snowstorm getting armor)

[Oman]

There are many people who are definitely better to talk about this than me. If no one steps in, I'll attack it tomorrow after work.

[quadz08]

Eh, league used to be the stereotypical "art direction by white guys for white guys" company. All the women were hypersexualized and played passive roles, whenever they introduced "variety" in design it was always with male characters.

They've made a distinct effort to change that, starting with Leona/Vi, and I respect that. It's hard being handed a shit sandwich that is years in the making and being told "fix this". Despite that, they've made notable strides (like bikini girl in a snowstorm getting armor)

totally agreed that they're making an effort

[BROseidon]

chinese and/or asian-inspired lore =/= asian champion (see ahri in particular; foxes are not humans)\

also just for the sake or arguing, varus could just as easily be jewish if we're going with the temple thing

But Ahri is literally kumiho, who is a Korean mythological figure the way that Cassiopeia is clearly a Gorgon.

[BROseidon]

It's a massive fucking problem, that racial groups and most women CAN'T find a character that they can roleplay as, with whom they identify. And as I said, my point that Ionia is Asia, that Karma is Indian, isn't offering a counterpoint to that at all.

Alright, this might be a question because I'm white, but is roleplaying as someone that looks like yourself important? I've never ever ever played a character that looks like myself intentionally in any game(intentionally meaning, if I played a big white guy I played it for reasons other than "he's the big white guy"), and any time I'm allowed to make a character, I never ever ever make it look like me.

Yes.

This also applies to other aspects of identity.

[zoraster]

so i was curious and I looked through. I made arbitrary distinctions between who looks human enough and put everyone else in an "Others" category (I mean sure most have a "gender" but one that's largely irrelevant for this). Support+ is the people who have Support as a main or secondary mark. Obviously this isn't about meta, but I think it shows who was designed to do what.



What stands out most to me is that while Support primaries are about the same, even classes that were designed to be played elsewhere were kind of designed as "supporty" (think Morgana, Orianna, Lux, Karma).

[DeathNote]

Yeah I gotta be doing something wrong. I'll give up on ranked league for a bit, I am not able to win my games again. It can't always be my teammates

[Brandi]

Ahri might not be a human but she's not an animal. Her design is absolutely implicit of an asian race.
Just like Warwick isn't categorized as human. Sure he USED to be human, but nothing about the character as he is now portrays that.

The champions in League fall between many different categories an subsets
Humans ( lots )
Half human/creature: Ahri (Kumiho/Gumiho), Soraka (Satyr)*, Cassiopia (Naga)*, Nami* (mermaid), Shyvanna, Elise, Nidalee
Mythical Race or creature: (Trundle (Troll), (All of the Yordles), Morgana (fallen angel), Kayle (Angel), Galio (Gargoyle), Maokai (treant), Malphite (elemental), Aatrox (Darkin), Alistar (Minotaur)
Formerly human turned abomination/ Spirits / Humanoid monsters and magical constructs: (Sion, Zack, Yorick, Xerath, Urgot, Zyra, Brand***, Thresh, Mordekaiser, Lissandra, Hecarim**, Kassadin, Karthus, Fiddlesticks, Kalista, Bard, Azir, )
Anthropomorphic creature (Fizz, Wukong, Warwick, Volibear, Twitch, Anivia, Rengar, Renekton, Skarner, Rammus, Nasus,)
Creature (Kog'Maw, Cho'gath, Rek'Sai, Vel'Koz, Kha' Zix, )
Android/Robot/Mechanical/cyborg: Orianna, Bltizcrank,Viktor
Unknown: Evelynn (possibly vampire), Nocturne, Shaco, Jax


* While these characters are indeed part of an existing mythical race, that mythical race also falls into the half human/half creature category
** = Hecarim is a centaur, but his non horse half is not human.
*** = Brand is an evil firey spirit that overtook a humans body, that body is no longer human but human he overtook is still technically alive, unlike the corpse Zyra took over)


I'm honestly surprised I could find no spreadsheet or document for this anywhere. But most of the time when people do separate male/female they are encompassing all champions, even the grotesque monsters.
Rek'Sai is pretty cool in that she's a complete monster but also female. Something a lot of people have really been wanting for a while in LoL.
I looked through and honestly while there might not be much real world race diversity, there isn't that many pure humans either. My counting can be slightly off for totals but I have rough estimates! There are a few human characters that are so covered or so little is known about them you cannot really account for their race.


Total Champions: 124
Total HUMAN Champions: ~53 (counting nunu)
Total MALE HUMAN Champions: ~31
Definitively non-white male human champions: 9 ~Malzahar, Yasuo, Xin Zhao, Shen, Nunu, Master Yi, Lucian, Lee Sin, Ryze (look at the "human ryze" skin, bronze skin tone and non white facial features)
Definitively non-white female human champions: 3 ~Akali, Irelia, Karma,
non-white non-100% human characters: Ahri, Nidalee (She wears a bindi, implying she might be indian)

[zoraster]

this is how I broke them down fwiw: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... FcLGs/edit

there were some cases that were close... Kassadin and Jax, for example. But interestingly almost all the close cases of "do they go in the "humanish ______ category?" were male. Sure there's Nami and Cassiopeia, but at least for me those weren't particularly close calls.

[Brandi]

Well that certainly generalizes it and I guess you could do it that way.
Some yordles are more humanish than others, and it's weird separating them into different categories
Like Corki could be counted as a white male, but he's not even human. He's technically as white as Teemo is. But I think if you go completely technical and then go completely based off of looks, you will get different results. It feels like it's actually very difficult to draw definitive lines for every champion.

When I went through the wiki on every single character and there are a lot that are simply listed as "formerly human"
There are a lot of races that exist from historical mythos and some created by Riot themselves
And some it's just kinda awkward

[GreyICE]

Your list more or less assumes that any champion with feminine characteristics is female, and any champion that doesn't have them and isn't obviously human is "other". Frankly it's hilarious how extremely obvious the unconscious bias is.

EG:
Tristana,Lulu = female; Rumble,Teemo,Heimerdinger = Other (come on Zoraster, you serious?)
Kalista = Female; Nasus, Aatrox = Other (Aatrox vs. Kalista is nearly a direct comparison in how human they are)
Evelynn = Female;Mordekaiser = Other;

Frankly this is more amusing in how sociological bias works. I find noticeable parallels in your list to how the idea that a gender ratio higher than 3:1 male:female has "a lot of women" for TV shows. Male is a default in your list, and variations from the default bump you into either "female" or "other"

[zoraster]

I am making no statement based on lore or whatever. I frankly don't care about that, and I think it actually makes the exercise muddier to buy into the lore. I'm entirely focused on the character model/splash screens and what I think they're intended to be read as or what I read them as. I'll readily accept that my biases are at work.

I understand all these Yordles are the same race, but some are human analogues and some are more of the creature variety (Teemo looks like a squirrel to me. Fizz looks way more like a fish than nami does. Tristana is less humanish than she used to be, but I'm pretty used to the old model. Lulu, corki, poppy, ziggs are all clearly modeled on humans).

[Brandi]

I just realized I just spent a couple hours categorizing and reading in depth lore about League champions and didn't even do a very great job of it
It's amazing that people do this sort of thing as a job, like holy crap is it time consuming but also kinda fun

[GreyICE]

I am making no statement based on lore or whatever. I frankly don't care about that, and I think it actually makes the exercise muddier to buy into the lore. I'm entirely focused on the character model/splash screens and what I think they're intended to be read as or what I read them as. I don't even have to admit to bias, I'll readily accept that.

I understand all these Yordles are the same race, but some are human analogues and some are more of the creature variety (Teemo looks like a squirrel to me. Fizz looks way more like a fish than nami does. Tristana is less humanish than she used to be, but I'm pretty used to the old model. Lulu, corki, poppy, kennen, ziggs are all clearly modeled on humans).

Kalista v. Aatrox? Pull those two up

[zoraster]

Oh you're right, Aatrox is pretty human looking. My memory had him more demon looking. Changed

[theelkspeaks]

Why is Vi not crosslisted Fighter/Tank?

[Kise]

Aatrox and the Darkin are supposed to be demon, just as Kayle & Morg are supposed to be angels--or are they ACTUAL Angels? Haven't read their lores in a while but I remember they come from heaven.

If they ever do a movie, I hope they get Roman Reigns to play Trynd and Channing Tatum as Garen. Talon ,Gangplank and Udyr can easily be played by minorities for diversity purposes. Lucian needs a better hairdo for film. Give him the soccer hair and he's good.

[mykonian]

Last worlds they got stats out about the supports in the group stage, including their warding behaviour. Now the numbers called were amazing, but otoh, I can buy a sightstone and drop wards, no problem. So that seemed something I could easily improve on.

http://wardscore.loltools.net/?name=mykonian&region=na

Progress has been made. Got to invest something to get back into gold (won the first two of this promo, looking good).

Now, comparing. I have had one game where I hit 1.38 wards per min and that was really an outlier (long game as well, on soraka so really nothing better to do). More usual when I'm trying, 1/min. Less even when I'm not focussed on playing. Mata hit an

average

over those worlds group phase games of 1.78 wards per min. That's excluding the pinks, of which he got 3 down every 8 minutes. The pinks I figured out by now. You use them as portable instant sweepers and you get closer to those kind of numbers. But even, then, so many wards... I don't know how to do that.

EDIT: and even more depressing: http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends. ... icipant=10

84 wards in 43 minutes. HOW.

[Kise]

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/bo ... ?t=2485782

She black

[Brandi]

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/bo ... ?t=2485782

She black

This was in 2012, before her rework.
She may have previously been black but it has not been confirmed that her reworked model is intended to be the same in that regard.
She might still be black, she might be something else. Still definitely not white at least.

[Kise]

But both of her voice actresses are black tho. I'll bet you $35 worth of Riot points she black. I'll email riot support.

[Brandi]

I'm not betting any monies! >:C

[quadz08]

for reals, people were criticizing her for dressing up as a champion as a different race?

ffs, why do you care if somebody dresses up as Leona but is also black, god damn

[Oman]

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/bo ... ?t=2485782

She black

The problem is the usage of the term "black". Literally anyone kinda brown could be thrown into the "black champion" box.

If by black you mean "imitating or symbolising African-American descent and culture" that's a really different thing to "non-white skinned". Lucian is definitely a "black" champion. Karma is definitely a "non-white" champion.

[JasonWazza]

Can we just stop this and realize one thing

VIDEO GAMES ARE SEXIST, RACIST, ETC. NO ONE REALLY GIVES THIS MUCH OF A FUCK.