Week 3: Playing League of Legends, and taking notes while you do

How to get usable notes out of a game you are also trying to win, and the three observations you have to come back from the Lab with

8 March 2027

Open the deck

This week you play, and the Lab is the playing. This hour is only about how to come back with something usable, because attentive play is a different activity from play and it does not happen by accident.

You are not here to climb

The instinct in a ranked match is to evaluate yourself. Resist it. “I played badly” is an opinion about you and it is worth nothing here. “From the first back until the dragon spawned I had no idea what I was doing” is an observation about the machine, and it is exactly what we want.

The distinction matters because self-evaluation is the thing you are already good at and it has never helped you.

The three notes

After every match, before the next queue, write three lines. Thirty seconds, not three minutes — a protocol you have to psych yourself up for is a protocol you will stop running by game four.

  1. The last moment I knew exactly what I should be doing. Timestamp it roughly. What made it obvious?
  2. The longest stretch I had no goal. Roughly how long, and what ended it?
  3. What told me I was winning. Not whether you were — what told you.

By game eight a pattern shows up in line 2 that you would never have predicted, and it is almost always the same pattern that shows up in your study.

What counts

Eight matches minimum, and they have to be games where the result mattered to you — ranked, or draft with people who are trying. A mode where nobody minds losing does not produce the thing we are looking at.

If you have never played, play anyway. Being bad is not a problem for this exercise; being bored is. Kelsen runs a queue in the Lab for people starting from zero.

Afterwards

Bring the notes to week 4. You will build the paper mechanism directly out of line 2 — the dead stretches are the thing we are trying to design away.

The slides, as text

Every slide in order, with a description of each figure. Generated from the deck source, so it cannot fall behind it.

  1. Playing League of Legends, and taking notes while you do

    SLOP3733 · Week 3

    FigureOfficial League of Legends splash art: a blind monk mid-leap, kicking through falling debris. Desaturated and duotoned into the deck's palette, under a scrim. Splash art © Riot Games, via Data Dragon. Not endorsed by Riot Games.

  2. This hour is only about how to come back with something usable

    Attentive play is a different activity from play, and it does not happen by accident.

    You will be trying to win and trying to notice, at the same time, for three hours.

  3. You are not here to climb

  4. An observation about the machine beats an opinion about yourself

    I played badly is an opinion about you. It is worth nothing here.

    From the first back until the dragon spawned I had no idea what I was doing is an observation about the machine, and it is exactly what we want.

    Self-evaluation is the thing you are already good at, and it has never helped you.

  5. Three lines, after every match, before the next queue

    1. The last moment I knew exactly what I should be doing. Roughly when, and what made it obvious? 2. The longest stretch I had no goal. Roughly how long, and what ended it? 3. What told me I was winning. Not whether you were — what told you.

  6. Thirty seconds, not three minutes.

    A protocol you have to psych yourself up for is a protocol you will stop running by game four.

  7. Line 2, across eight matches

    FigureAn example log of eight ranked matches, one bar per game along a thirty-eight minute axis. Each bar is lit where the player had a goal and dark where they did not. Every game has three dark stretches and in all eight the longest one falls in the middle third, just after something ended. The longest stretches run from three and a half to eight minutes, and they are bracketed and labelled. The caption reads: the dead stretches are not scattered. They hang off the moment something finished.

  8. By game eight there is a pattern in line 2

    One you would not have predicted.

    And it is almost always the same pattern that shows up in your studying, which is the reason we are doing this at all.

  9. What counts

    Eight matches minimum, and the result has to have mattered to you — ranked, or draft with people who are trying.

    A mode where nobody minds losing does not produce the thing we are looking at.

    If you have never played, play anyway. Being bad is not a problem for this exercise. Being bored is.

  10. This week you play

    Eight matches. Three lines between each pair.

    FigureEight tally marks scratched into dark stone, a group of five and then three, counting matches played. A ninth mark is started but broken, waiting on the next queue.

  11. What to bring to week 4

    The notes. All of them, including the games you would rather not discuss.

    You will build the paper mechanism directly out of line 2 — the dead stretches are the thing we are trying to design away, and you cannot design away a stretch you never measured.

Teaching team