As you can all see from the title, this discussion is about champion distribution. Specifically, it's about people role playing as several champions at the same time. There will be a poll, and I'd like for this all to be done in a respectful manner. If it's about to slip into the red, I'll be asking any who brought it there to refrain from posting further as nicely as I possibly can. It's my hope that if that becomes an issue, I'll have compliance. I see this as a fairly important issue and one that merits real discussion, not just arguing.
I've talked about this with a few people now, and from what I can see, opinions vary wildly. I've been asked to put forward my opinions as well as compile those of a few individuals, so that's what this is for. I'll be posting my own below, and once those others have posted what they need to say, I'll edit them into the OP as well.
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Originally Posted by SandscourgeSkarn
Let's start with a fictional example. Let's assume I'm currently not playing any champions at all and that my favorites are, say, Talon, Skarner and LeBlanc. I desperately want to role play as at least one of them, yet all of them are taken. I'm fairly shafted, but it seems only fair. Other people got to all of my favorites before I did. That's fine, and I'm okay with that being the case. I'll either find a way to bide my time to wait for one of my favorites or perhaps try my hand at a different champion.
Let's assume in another example that I still like Skarner, Talon and LeBlanc the most. They're all still taken and that's okay initially, as once again I've simply lost the chance to one person a piece. It comes to my attention that Skarner, LeBlanc and Talon are all played by the same person. Not only have I lost my chance to role play as all of my favorites, but I've lost them all to one person's selfishness. Why have I used this as an example? I'll explain. It's impossible to please absolutely everyone, this much is clear to me and I'm not dumb enough to think otherwise. If someone can't get their favorite simply because someone else got there first, that's completely okay, and is kind of an acceptable loss. It becomes pure selfishness when someone can't get their own favorite because there's someone who not only has their absolute favorite champion but also one, two, three, four, etc. additional champions. What's more, I can think of very little functional reason to want more than one champion. With each additional champion someone picks up it removes someone else's ability to join the community as a champion, which, let's face it, is kinda one of the draws toward this particular community. Compounding that problem is that for each additional champion someone picks up, it causes more of their time to be consumed and allows for less time to be devoted to the first, whomever that may have been. This can, and in many cases I've observed, does lead to a a few things happening. Firstly, the quality of someone's portrayal of their champion can slip, which for someone like myself, is worrisome. It doesn't bother me if others think I do a poor job of Skarner nearly as much as it would bother me to think that I'm not proud of my own work. It's indeed important to consider what others think of your own portrayal, but if the problem with it is based upon not having time enough to devote to it, then the problem stems less from their ability and more from their choice of priorities even within the scope of role playing here. Secondly, it can cause a champion to fall into utter disuse. If this fictitious role player who commands Skarner, Talon and LeBlanc suddenly realizes that they're absurdly passionate about LeBlanc, it'll lead to them spending a lot more time caring about how their portrayal of LeBlanc is honed and cause the other two only to be thought of in hind sight. This is a compound problem to my very first point. If someone such as myself really wanted to role play as Skarner, only to find out he's taken by someone who posts only as frequently as is absolutely necessary to keep them, it'll feel rather unpleasant. It's akin to saying "I know I'm not using it and I know you want it, but you're not allowed to have it, even though I'm not using it at all." Finally, role playing multiple champions can lead to something I personally refer to as "blending". I have no idea if that's a legitimate term or not. Regardless, it's fairly straight-forward. It's less of an issue the more talented someone is, though even then it can still be apparent. It refers to writing style and how despite the fact that it's possible to portray various characters distinctly, it's very easy to let their personalities meld together into one homogeneous blob of sameness. This isn't just a problem for those with multiple champions, as it also effects those with multiple characters. I've noticed myself doing it with my OC's and Skarner, though I've personally done everything I can to let it bleed out from Skarner and not into Skarner. |
