Figuring out who's going to do what before a League of Legends battle officially begins is as crucial a process as it is a rushed one. Tensions can run very high as a result. Three players had a wonderful way to pre-empt any name-calling when a potential conflict suddenly reared its head recently: with rock, paper, scissors.
Donquixote and Todoke both wanted to play the role of the "AD Carry" in the game that was about to begin. For the uninitiated: the AD Carry is one of several specialized roles that players take on in any given League battle. I don't need to get into the specifics of what it does, because that's not what's important here. What is important is that two different people wanted the same thing. In a match of League of Legends, a game that has a notorious problem with the toxicity of its gigantic online community.
Though Todoke and Donquixote were both being generally polite, things could have easily taken a quick, nasty turn in the chat. But then SRLegacy came in with the amazing rock, paper, scissors idea:
SRLegacy eventually showed up in a Reddit thread about the incident to confirm that everyone was equally awesome during the match itself:
Of course, there were other players just around the corner to remind him that the chance social encounters that unfold in League of Legends don't always work out so well—even after they get off to a good start:
You can't win them all, sadly. But that just makes appreciating the legitimate "you guys were awesome in game" all the more important, if you ask me.
Stay classy, League. I'll see you again soon. And hopefully, I'll meet people like SRLegacy, Todoke, and Donquixote.
To contact the author of this post, write to yannick.lejacq@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq.