BY THE EDITORS |

Photos: Gamers Unite at Tribeca Games' THE CRAFT AND CREATIVE OF LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

Tribeca Games invited Riot Games to showcase the creative process behind League of Legends at an exclusive kick-off event in New York in November. Stay tuned for more Tribeca Games events at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.

Photos: Gamers Unite at Tribeca Games' THE CRAFT AND CREATIVE OF LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
Illustration by Carly Sloane and Photos by Craig Barritt for Getty Images and Kara Baker.

Worlds collided November 13th, as fans of Riot Games' hugely popular League of Legends convened at Spring Studios in Tribeca for Tribeca Games' inaugural event, The Craft and Creative of League of Legends.

Tribeca invited Riot craftsmen and artists to showcase the diverse creative processes behind the online competitive game that challenges, entertains, and inspires more than 67 million players worldwide each month. The day-long event offered aspiring game designers, veteran industry professionals, and burgeoning game craft enthusiasts the rare opportunity to go behind the curtain of Riot Games and explore Riot developers' unique approaches to building their characters, art, design, music, and stories, an invaluable, one-of-a-kind experience for any die-hard Rioter.

Through a series of five diverse and insightful panels, the event intersected the vast League of Legends universe with the film, music, and visual arts industries. Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal kicked the day off with a keynote speech by explaining the connection between her company and Riot. "You may be wondering why Tribeca is presenting this event," said Rosenthal. "At Tribeca, we have a passion for stories and the creators telling them. As a producer, I've always known that some of the most creative people come from the gaming world."

The first panel, "Champion Design: Gangplank," embodied that. Three of Riot's designers—Moby Francke, Mark Yetter, and Curtis Churn—were joined on stage by Riot brand manager Janelle Jimenez and lead story writer George Krstic to break down how they've updated the muscular pirate Gangplank, a popular League of Legends character, or "champion," whose physical look and costuming were recently upgraded. He's evolved from your typical Blackbeard wannabe into an imposing and uniquely striking champ. "The reality was, Gangplank was largely forgotten, he wasn't played much, and he was a stereotype," said Jimenez. "While archetypes are good, we try to avoid stereotypes. It's the same as, you like to watch movies about gangsters, right, but not ones about gangster stereotypes. You want to watch Goodfellas because it's a great movie; it's not about gangster stereotypes."

Follow our channels to see more from The Craft and Creative of League of Legends. We are @Tribeca on Instagram, Periscope, Snapchat, and Twitter. (You can find us on Facebook here.)

Now, get a glimpse of the day's many visual highlights in the slideshow above.

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