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[DreamerM]

highcastle wrote...

Wish I could use that one in debates. Or in lit classes for that matter.

You're seeing why I always got Bs in Lit.

highcastle wrote...

You're talking to a lit major here. I'm not going to get into whether there's a shortage of great stories out there (there's not), but I do object to your definition of what makes a "good" story.

There's an old saying that there are only a few stories in existence, but infinite ways in which to tell them. The story of DragonAge:Origins was so watertight (give or take a few bugs) that my inner-muse was unable to think of a way to improve it, which it found frustrating but which I understand just means the people telling that particular story are smarter and more creative then I am. I can only admire them for that.

highcastle wrote...

But Hawke doesn't have any more information than you do.

Then Hawke should have the option of saying that he doesn't have enough information to make a call either for or against this choice. He just met this Anders guy, and he doesn't know that many intelligent Abominations either. What's more important is how Anders feels about his choice. Does he regret it, now that he's saddled with a new personality and only partial ownership of his own body? What has being an Abomination really meant for him anyway? Why do his eyes glow sometimes and not at others, if Justice is "always there?" Does this give him abilities normal mages don't have? Does he remember what he was like before the merger? What are his opinions of that person now? What were the circumstances that made him decide to agree to this? Has it been what he expected it would be? He says Justice was his "friend" but how is that possible, how do you befriend a fade spirit? And what is the deal with Vengence? Is Vengence just Angry!Justice or like a split personality of Justice or a whole different thing? Is he Vengence when he's angry and Justice when he's not? Why does he hate templars so much anyway? Just on principle or is there a specific reason? What the oh my pizza rolls is done! 

Do you see my point? We are given no answers. I might as well flip a coin to decide heads or tails, do I think it was good or bad, given how little information I'm given before asked to make a choice that will provide the foundation for Hawke's relationship with Anders for years to come. I'd have appreciated the chance to get to know him better first. That's all I'm saying.

highcastle wrote...

I've written about this before. Anders cares about Hawke the moment Hawke sees him at his worst (when Justice completely assumes control in Tranquility) and doesn't run screaming away or hand him over to the templars. Instead, Hawke still sees him as a person when Anders is starting to think of himself as a monster.

If I'm not mistaken, Hawke CAN call him a monster (or close to it) in the conversation immediately following Justice/Vengence's big reveal.

highcastle wrote...

So he trusts Hawke's judgment and aligns his moral compass in many ways to Hawke's. Anders goes very quickly from ambivalent to all-in.

To his detriment as a character. He's given no reason to immediately trust Hawke so fully: for all he knows Hawke could be just chatting him up in the clinic to keep him in one place long enough for those Templars he summoned to arrive. Hawke has no information on what it actually means to be an Abomination. Anders is lucky he didn't decide to error on the side of caution.

highcastle wrote...

And I'm not sure more conversations would change that.

I am. Show us WHY Anders decides he trusts Hawke. Give Hawke enough information to form an actual opinion, both on Anders's status as an Abomination and Anders, the man standing right in front of him right now. Lets learn Anders's opinions about things besides blood magic, templars, mage oppression, and kittens, assuming he has them. Lets talk to Justice, hear his side of the story, learn what he thinks about his new living arrangement. THEN I'll will have the tools I really need to decide what my!Hawke thinks, and then how my!Hawke will react. THEN I can get into playing my character properly.

highcastle wrote...

Look at it this way: Anders is exhausted from healing. It consumes a lot of his energy. So he's in a weakened state less able to keep Justice at bay.

This does not explain why Justice thought "Person walking into clinic" was a threat when it looked like dozens of people, some probably more heavily armed then I am, walk into his clinic every single day. I can only assume Justice smelled "Player Character" on me, and since he's read the script he knows that's his cue to announce his presense to everyone.



EDIT: Oi, top of page! Give me a moment and I will deliver sketch, I promise.


EDIT EDIT:

Here's the sketch. Anders and Mr. Wiggums have a moment in the tower.

Reference? What is this "reference" you speak of?



http://imageshack.us.../mrwiggums.jpg/

Modifié par DreamerM, 21 juin 2011 - 02:26 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

See, I don't have the problems that Dreamer M has... at all. I'm fine with intuiting character relationships and offscreen developments. I don't think we need more information. I just think that Hawke should be more flexible, with a wider range of personality more similar to what he is given in fic.

I just feel it's odd that the hole is more appetizing than the donut, for a lot of people here. Which is a more succinct way of putting my wall of text, last page, I suppose.

[maxernst]

There was a point in DA:O where I thought the lines of dialogue available for my warden were absolutely perfect. Just lucky, I guess, but I loved that I was able to ask Alistair if the rose was his new weapon of choice and then follow it with "Sentiment can be a powerful weapon".  If there had been a paraphrase and that first line had been a sarcastic one (which it is), I probably would have been afraid to make that choice, in case it turned out to be really offensive.

And I still get tripped up by the paraphraser in the ME games and DA2. I inadvertently lied to Merrill when she asked about Bethany and was just floored when my Hawke said "The Qunari are blameless in this matter"...and though my Hawke is snarky, sometimes he goes a little farther than I intend. I did find the line about "boneless women flopping around" funny, but I didn't expect him to be quite that outrageous. And I don't find him charming when he's supposed to be charming.

Modifié par maxernst, 21 juin 2011 - 01:07 .

[LT123]

maxernst wrote...

There was a point in DA:O where I thought the lines of dialogue available for my warden were absolutely perfect. Just lucky, I guess, but I loved that I was able to ask Alistair if the rose was his new weapon of choice and then follow it with "Sentiment can be a powerful weapon".  If there had been a paraphrase and that first line had been a sarcastic one (which it is), I probably would have been afraid to make that choice, in case it turned out to be really offensive.

And I still get tripped up by the paraphraser in the ME games and DA2. I inadvertently lied to Merrill when she asked about Bethany and was just floored when my Hawke said "The Qunari are blameless in this matter"...and though my Hawke is snarky, sometimes he goes a little farther than I intend. I did find the line about "boneless women flopping around" funny, but I didn't expect him to be quite that outrageous. And I don't find him charming when he's supposed to be charming.

On my first playthrough, I picked the sarcastic lines. All the time. I did quite a bit of cringing and going, "Hawke, you can't say that."

[DreamerM]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
 I just think that Hawke should be more flexible, with a wider range of personality more similar to what he is given in fic.

Everything I said, plus this.

If Hawke doesn't "work" then odds are against the rest of the story won't come together.

Also, I must learn to insert images. I tried to deliver top-of-page art and it got removed again...

[ipgd]

What do you do when you want to participate in a discussion but are too lazy to actually write a new wall of text? Open your word documents and harvest a cadaver!!!

The Warden was just a player avatar for me. He had so little presence that none of my choices were really driven by anything but what I, the player, wanted to do, or what outcomes I wanted to see. I had a big kind of metagame detachment.

With Hawke (and to a lesser degree, Shepard, though the paragon/renegade system necessitates a ridiculous amount of metagaming that basically chokes any roleplaying potential), I could actually ascribe decisions and actions to him that would be separate from my own and thus indicative of a kind of character consistency independent from the player. In the end I didn't care about the Warden because he was me.
[...]
I don't dislike having an avatar. I liked DAO. I just can't see the Warden as a character, or care about him in any way, because his sole function in my experience is as an intermediary between me and the game. And because I'm aware I'm not actually in the game, I make metagame choices rather than emotional choices that would make sense in the context of my character's experiences as someone who actually lives in that world.

With Hawke, I have an investment in him as an entity separate from me but with reasons to react to the world in ways that make roleplaying sense. In this respect, I am more immersed than with the detached meta approach I take with nebulous player avatars.
[...]

When making those choices, don't you feel that you are creating a rationale for your Warden and applying it?

I didn't, really. When I was approaching these choices, it wasn't about what the Warden would do, but what I would do. I was scarcely aware of the Warden at all.

Granted, there were some moments where I would make actual roleplaying decisions, almost entirely tied to the Origins stories -- with my dwarf noble, for instance, I agreed to help Bhelen and later betrayed him because she wanted to screw him over based on what transpired in her Origin. But with my first playthrough as a human noble, any character-based motivations evaporated and I chose Bhelen because I prefered his politics; this was the same for the elves and the werewolves and the mages and Connor and Isolde because my Wardens had no reason to care. Basically, whenever I departed from the aspects of the game that defined who my Wardens were as people (the Origins and the return), they ceased to be characters and returned to being avatars. My motivations would boil down to a meta desire to do what I would do, or deliberately choose things I wouldn't do because I wanted to see the outcome as a detached player.

With Hawke, I did get the impression that he had some sort of personal stake in nearly everything. He felt like he continuously existed as a character, and that influenced all of the decisions I made in the game. I made my choices based on what he would have done -- and while the character I'd created in him was often very similar to what would have happened if I were just playing a "what would I do" avatar, the thought process involved was extremely different, hence the immersion.
[...]
If you asked me to describe my Wardens' personalities, I really wouldn't know where to start. They just had so little personal stake in anything that I had no reason to think about what they would think about something.

My most developed, independant Warden ended up being, again, my dwarf noble, because there was an entire section of the game where she, as a character, had personal reasons to care about what was going on. Because Orzammar tied into her backstory, I spent a lot of time thinking about her and how she would react to the politics there -- but as soon as she was back on the surface, she ceased to have any reason to care and as such I ceased to have any reason to consider her motivations more important than my desire to metagame. My other Wardens didn't even get that much.

Hawke, on the other hand, does have a reason to care about almost all of the things happening in Kirkwall, so I spent more time thinking about those reasons. Because the reasons why he cared mattered to a greater degree to other characters, I felt like I was accomplishing something relevant to the game by thinking about it.
[...]
I felt building a fully fleshed out character for a Warden is something of an external exercise because I don't think the game provides enough personal rigours and emotional context in order to fully establish the character of the Warden by itself. I mean, I could take the time to plot out the emotional nuances of the character, outside of the game, in the place of the questions Origins just never asks me, but I... don't. It just feels like I'm creating fanfiction at that point.

I still enjoy DAO plenty from a metagame perspective, and I've replayed it many times, but I don't think it had a very good framework with which to build a distinct personal character as you went. Nobody really cared who the Warden was; if I ended up with a defined character by the end of it it would have been entirely through my own external efforts, and if I'm putting that much work into creating a character I might as well be doing something less restrictive like PnP or freeform.

I never particularly felt "restricted" with Hawke, largely because the process in which I build characters is a continuous thing. I pick the dialogue option that's most interesting to me, and if it's not what I wanted -- well, I just amend my conception of the character. I only go in with a very loose idea of what I'm going to do and I allow the direction the game takes to shape that character.

In a way, DAO felt more to me like a playground to exercise characters I'd already developed prior to the game, which is an approach I can't really swing with cRPGs because of the restrictions; when I approached the game as a medium to exert my pre-conceived character, rather than an exploration into the discovery of my character, I would be constantly reminded of my own metagame presence whenever I was not presented with an option that worked with my idea for the character and as such artificially removed from the experience.

With DA2, Hawke had enough personal, emotional definition (or, rather, enough opportunities to establish emotional definition where DAO sorely lacked) for me to actually care about what he wanted over what I wanted, and enough nebulosity for me to feel like I have some ability to direct his characterization. He's not entirely my character, but with this kind of format, I really prefer it that way.

Modifié par ipgd, 21 juin 2011 - 02:56 .

[ademska]

ipgd wrote...

ALL OF THE WORDS

yes. yes yes yes yes yes.

there's so much talk of hawke's limiting confines while we simultaneously have discussions about metagaming and attempting to avoid it.

to me, getting upset over any kind of decision limitation is indicative of metagaming during gameplay. finding a limitations means you've already constructed hawke's traits in your head instead of adjusting your perceptions of the character as you progress.  this comes back to what i was saying before, that hawke is a character, albeit a subjective one, and the warden is an avatar.


and to CGG re: fanfic and OOC hawkes and whatnot... this is a difficult discussion, because it gets into the subjectivity of character interpretation, especially on an already subjective character.  sure, there are a few objective standards for determining what is or isn't out of character, most of them largely dependent on the quality of the writing itself, but eventually as quality increases we come to an apex where it's all interpretation, abstract argument. there's probably some apt physics analogy that i'm too far out of school to remember.

the point is, you can't firmly say a hawke is behaving in or out of character in a well-written, closely adherent fic, it's fanfiction.

your specific point of contention is that you prefer to read hawkes who can deal with anders is a less conciliatory (or, alternatively, antagonistic) manner and more, idk, supportive and crazy but with an understanding that neither of them is actually crazy.  for the record, i also like this. if someone writes a hawke this way with blatant disregard for dialogue and scene and tone, blah blah, then i will concede it's out of character.  however, there's no reason a good enough writer can't work within the constraints of what's presented on-screen to create a hawke more to your liking.  with true adherence to canon and high enough quality, i can't see how a hawke could be classified "out of character"

ramble ramble

[CulturalGeekGirl]

ipgd wrote...

I never particularly felt "restricted" with Hawke, largely because the process in which I build characters is a continuous thing. I pick the dialogue option that's most interesting to me, and if it's not what I wanted -- well, I just amend my conception of the character. I only go in with a very loose idea of what I'm going to do and I allow the direction the game takes to shape that character.

In a way, DAO felt more to me like a playground to exercise characters I'd already developed prior to the game, which is an approach I can't really swing with cRPGs because of the restrictions; when I approached the game as a medium to exert my pre-conceived character, rather than an exploration into the discovery of my character, I would be constantly reminded of my own metagame presence whenever I was not presented with an option that worked with my idea for the character and as such artificially removed from the experience.

With DA2, Hawke had enough personal, emotional definition (or, rather, enough opportunities to establish emotional definition where DAO sorely lacked) for me to actually care about what he wanted over what I wanted, and enough nebulosity for me to feel like I have some ability to direct his characterization. He's not entirely my character, but with this kind of format, I really prefer it that way.

See I feel that way with Shepard, and NOT with Hawke. Which is my problem...  I love Shepard. Femshep is literally my favorite video game protagonist of all time. She may is one of my top ten favorite female characters of all time in any media.

I have to try to play through DA2 again, because I'm just not seeing the same consistent, reliable, logical development with Hawke that I do with Shepard. 98% of the time that I chose a response for Shepard, it is a response that can be logically consistent with her character so far. Like, no matter what random assemblage of choices I choose, I can come up with a coherent reason why the same person would make these different choices. Also, only a grand total of, I think, 3 - 4 times has Femshep acted in a way that I thought actually contradicted what the story so far had indicated about her, rather than adding a new development.

Or maybe it's just that i don't like the kind of person Hawke is... that is to say, someone fundamentally incurious about many, many things, and either markedly cruel or completely, unthinkingly devoted in relationships.

To give a specific example of something that narrows Hawke's personality: there is no way that Hawke can be in a relationship with Anders without saying the line "I want you right here, 'til the day that I die, (with the exact, hyperenthusiastic intonation used in game)" or cold dumping him. There are only two kinds of Hawke in that situation: the kind of Hawke who would sincerely say the line about 'til the day that I die with that unthinking level of enthusiasm, or the kind who would completely cruelly kick him to the curb after sex.

All possible Hawkes must fit within those two personality types, and all Hawkes who romance Anders and don't dump him must fit into that one personality type. And it's not a personality type that I feel is logically compatible with many, many of Hawke's possible actions up until then. I can't imagine my Rivalmancing Hawke saying that with that level of sincerity in that voice. It just doesn't follow from the "Want a sadwich?" line.

And this is an issue that a lot of people have with the Anders relationship: if Hawke can ONLY be the kind of person who completely unabashedly says "I want you right here 'til the day that I die," then the fundamental relationship is profoundly more unhealthy than it otherwise would have to be.

Edit: this critique may not seem to make sense in the light of the fact that I love Shepard, and enjoy her romances, which are pretty much exactly the same every time and have no choice associated with them. Well, I like them because they don't tend to break character in the same way. A lot of different girls with a lot of different perceptions of their Shepard can see her in the words she says to Garrus... from my completely gormless white knight character to someone else's paranoid, trust-no-one lunatic. Shepard's dialogue in all her love scenes usually hews close to the parts of the character that all Shepards hold in common.

Shepard's "I want that too." Is different than Hawke's "I want you right here, til the day I die" because it can sound in-character for more different personality types.

I don't feel that Hawkes with Anders play on the common qualities shared by all versions of Hawke in the same way. There's much more leeway with Fenris in determining what you say to him, how you describe your feelings to him. There aren't any sudden, unthinking expressions of lifelong devotion. I don't know how to reconcile the breadth of different emotions Hawke can express when resolving her relationship with Fenris to the single, solitary, one-pitch emotion upon which she must end her scene with Anders. Unless you are arguing that all Hawkes who primarily romance Fenris are fundamentally different in emotion and personality than Hawkes who romance Anders, even before they make that choice.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 21 juin 2011 - 04:00 .

[Evilnor]

Honestly, I ascribe some of the over-dramatization of lines like "I want you here till the day we die" in the romance scenes to Varric's poetic license, since he wasn't actually there at the time, and the two involved likely wouldn't *ahem* kiss and tell, so he's putting his "hero" version of Hawke in there instead. Still painful, and I often wish we had a different option (or options for aggro!Hawke to spout during romance scenes, period).

[SurelyForth]

@CulturalGeekGirl I sorta love you.

I feel like ipgd's assessment that the Anders' relationship is a mass of romantic tropes and cliches that get deconstructed by the end of the game is pretty on the money.

And I know that Hepler was inspired in no small part by the Buffy/Angel relationship when she wrote it.

That being said, I am less than thrilled at the way it's handled and the narrowness of moments like the one you described, or even the kiss scene. My Hawke wants to kiss him, but she also wants to be able to say that she helps mages because it's a cause that she believes in. There's no way to really convey that and continue the romance. Why is there no way to convey that? Isn't that a logical way to roleplay Hawke? Isn't that something that Anders would appreciate more than "I'm doing it for you" or "I have a thing for scrappy underdogs?"

So...yeah. I feel like, on paper, parts of the Anders romance is almost farcical in a way because Hawke is playing a role within it. S/he might love Anders, and Anders might love Hawke, but it's so over the top in places that it doesn't feel realistic to me unless I write in lots and lots of other conversations where their interactions are more...normal. I mean, you can be incredibly passionate and not speak in romantic cliches and you can express deep sooooooooulmate type love without making breathless, lifelong commitments minutes after getting it on for the first time. I wish there was just a single shade of grey in there. Just one.

@evilnor That might very well be, but it's like CGG said...Fenris' isn't like that. Isabela's isn't either, that I know of. I feel like they were Trying Something with Anders and I wish they would have played it a little more loose. Anders can fall in love with a mostly sarcastic Hawke who says things like "want a sandwich?" after sex, but Hawke can't always be that person in the relationship. I mean, Varric has to know that a Hawke who jokes about boneless women and trolls the Viscount while he holds his dead son in his arms isn't going to go from "Way to kill the romance!" to "Until the day we die!" without a major head injury happening somewhere in there. 

Modifié par SurelyForth, 21 juin 2011 - 04:33 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

SurelyForth wrote...

@CulturalGeekGirl I sorta love you.

UNTIL THE DAY WE DIE!

[ipgd]

It's not perfect, for sure. I kinda hate the UNTIL THE DAY I DIE line, and that was one of the instances where I think they missed an opportunity. It is very jarring, especially with the inclusion of the wonderfully deflective sandwich line, so I can't help but feel that was an oversight rather than an intentional romance trope railroading.

With any cRPG there will be times when you get lines that just don't fit anything your character would say, and that's unfortunately the nature of prewritten dialogue. With Hawke, though, I felt it was much less prevalent -- because in DAO, I'd either be working off a preconceived independent character that is inevitably detached from the voice of the writers and as such assaulted by those kinds of jarring road blocks all of the time, or I'd go in without an idea and end up with a non-character, because the game simply does not interact with the player in a way that makes it seem like what the Warden thinks or feels matters. While Hawke wasn't immune to that, I did end up with a character that jived much better with the game's own writers, and my character fit more organically within the available options than he would otherwise.

Shepard is a bit of a special case because of the paragon/renegade system. For me, I do absolutely no roleplaying whatsoever with Shepard and I do not care about his character because 9/10 of my choices are motivated at least in part by "I need to do X to make sure I have enough paragon points to do Y later". I absolutely abhor the paragon/renegade system. Maybe if it were more of a background element ala the personality tones in DA2, it would be different, but as it is I just end up so mired in the metagame that roleplaying just... doesn't really happen. That I'd need to save edit to actually be able to direct conversations naturally according to the character I want to play sort of irritates me.

Modifié par ipgd, 21 juin 2011 - 04:40 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

ademska wrote...

ipgd wrote...

ALL OF THE WORDS

yes. yes yes yes yes yes.

there's so much talk of hawke's limiting confines while we simultaneously have discussions about metagaming and attempting to avoid it.

to me, getting upset over any kind of decision limitation is indicative of metagaming during gameplay. finding a limitations means you've already constructed hawke's traits in your head instead of adjusting your perceptions of the character as you progress.  this comes back to what i was saying before, that hawke is a character, albeit a subjective one, and the warden is an avatar.


and to CGG re: fanfic and OOC hawkes and whatnot... this is a difficult discussion, because it gets into the subjectivity of character interpretation, especially on an already subjective character.  sure, there are a few objective standards for determining what is or isn't out of character, most of them largely dependent on the quality of the writing itself, but eventually as quality increases we come to an apex where it's all interpretation, abstract argument. there's probably some apt physics analogy that i'm too far out of school to remember.

the point is, you can't firmly say a hawke is behaving in or out of character in a well-written, closely adherent fic, it's fanfiction.

your specific point of contention is that you prefer to read hawkes who can deal with anders is a less conciliatory (or, alternatively, antagonistic) manner and more, idk, supportive and crazy but with an understanding that neither of them is actually crazy.  for the record, i also like this. if someone writes a hawke this way with blatant disregard for dialogue and scene and tone, blah blah, then i will concede it's out of character.  however, there's no reason a good enough writer can't work within the constraints of what's presented on-screen to create a hawke more to your liking.  with true adherence to canon and high enough quality, i can't see how a hawke could be classified "out of character"

ramble ramble

I want to clarify this a bit.

This is probably a side effect of me having been a writer who had to write characters in a licensed IP and adhere to established tone. Basically, when you're writing like that, you have to consider everything else a character has ever said, (or how they tend to speak) and say "based on my consideration of everything else I've seen from them, how likely would it be that they would utter this line in this circumstance?"

This is why, if Batman his holding a guy over the edge of a rooftop he'll say something like "Maybe I should just let you go." rather than "If I drop you, you'll explode like a hefty bag full of soup."  Because while they are both threats a vigilante would make, the former sounds more like Batman. If I had to rate both lines on 'chance batman would say it, based on everything I know about batman,' I'd give the former a 70% and the latter a 20%. You can have some 20% moments in a story, but if all the lines are 20 percenters, the character starts to sound inconsistent with the development revealed before.

This "inner IP editor" I've picked up is what has pretty much prevented me from ever enjoying any fanfic prior to now (with notable exceptions - fan comics with sparse, well-written dialogue and accurate facial expressions have traditionally worked for me.) 

When I say "ooc" I probably don't mean it in the traditional sense that fandom uses it. Forgive me, I'm new to this undiscovered country. I mean in the sense that if I were an IP editor looking at existing dialogue and trying to determine whether or not the lines uttered in some of the better fanfic I've read logically proceed from the dialogue I've heard in-game from Hawke, I'd probably say no. I'd send 'em back with some red pen and "more melodramatic" scrawled in the margins. (I essentially had "more evil, less funny" scrawled in my digital margins once, when I tried to make a member of an unrepentant evil race hate his job, and complain about it like a person, rather than just hate everything in the world with equal venom.)

So when I say "ooc" I don't mean "breaking with the established cannon personality in a radical way," rather I'm indicating that the dialogue in question breaks from the tone I've grown to expect based on the information I've gathered from the source IP.

This is why I said above "the hole is tastier than the donut here." The supporting details in fanfic that people have come up with to justify some of the more ridiculous-seeming Hawke and Anders dialogue convey a more interesting character than I would imagine if I extrapolated from in-game dialogue alone. The thing is, the changes in fic that I enjoy involve departures from the expected logical conclusion for Hawke, but usually feature dialogue from Anders that is logically consistent with everything I know about Anders. That is to say, Hawke acts in ways that diverge from what I would naturally assume given the game script, while Anders acts in ways that logically follow the assumptions established in the game script (esp when Awakenings is also taken into account.)

* * * * 
It's also funny that I find no need to metagame in ME, but if I didn't metagame at least a tiny bit in DA2 (in the form of not taking Fenris to free mages, etc) I'd probably end up with everyone but Varric and Anders stuck in "neutral" for most of the game. I don't think that either the F/R or P/R systems are the best solution to whatever problem they solve, but they are both interesting prototypes. I hope they continue to creatively iterate.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 21 juin 2011 - 05:00 .

[ipgd]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

It's also funny that I find no need to metagame in ME, but if I didn't metagame at least a tiny bit in DA2 (in the form of not taking Fenris to free mages, etc) I'd probably end up with everyone but Varric and Anders stuck in "neutral" for most of the game. I don't think that either the F/R or P/R systems are the best solution to whatever problem they solve, but they are both interesting prototypes. I hope they continue to creatively iterate.

The F/R system does facilitate metagaming, but it's usually just in the "I'm going to bring X to Y for more points" manner (which is usually what I would do anyway, because I always like to bring companions I think would be relevant/have something interesting to say to select quests, therefor not really conflicting with roleplaying choices) rather than "I MUST CONSISTENTLY PICK Z OPTION OR I WILL BE PENALIZED LATER", which bothers me much less. It helps that it's also extremely easy to get points.

[Maaia]

What do you do when you want to participate in a discussion but are too lazy to actually write a new wall of text?

I go back to lurking, apparently.

I wish I had the ability to express my thoughts as clearly as so many of you do. All I can say is no game has ever captivated me as much as DA2. I love voiced Hawke. I actually like the character and don't have much trouble playing in character. While I wish there was more dialogue with everyone (because there could never be too much), I enjoy the spaced out interactions. Despite its flaws, I am completely hooked.

[ademska]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I want to clarify this a bit.

This is probably a side effect of me having been a writer who had to write characters in a licensed IP and adhere to established tone. Basically, when you're writing like that, you have to consider everything else a character has ever said, (or how they tend to speak) and say "based on my consideration of everything else I've seen from them, how likely would it be that they would utter this line in this circumstance?"

This is why, if Batman his holding a guy over the edge of a rooftop he'll say something like "Maybe I should just let you go." rather than "If I drop you, you'll explode like a hefty bag full of soup."  Because while they are both threats a vigilante would make, the former sounds more like Batman. If I had to rate both lines on 'chance batman would say it, based on everything I know about batman,' I'd give the former a 70% and the latter a 20%. You can have some 20% moments in a story, but if all the lines are 20 percenters, the character starts to sound inconsistent with the development revealed before.

This "inner IP editor" I've picked up is what has pretty much prevented me from ever enjoying any fanfic prior to now (with notable exceptions - fan comics with sparse, well-written dialogue and accurate facial expressions have traditionally worked for me.) 

When I say "ooc" I probably don't mean it in the traditional sense that fandom uses it. Forgive me, I'm new to this undiscovered country. I mean in the sense that if I were an IP editor looking at existing dialogue and trying to determine whether or not the lines uttered in some of the better fanfic I've read logically proceed from the dialogue I've heard in-game from Hawke, I'd probably say no. I'd send 'em back with some red pen and "more melodramatic" scrawled in the margins. (I essentially had "more evil, less funny" scrawled in my digital margins once, when I tried to make a member of an unrepentant evil race hate his job, and complain about it like a person, rather than just hate everything in the world with equal venom.)

So when I say "ooc" I don't mean "breaking with the established cannon personality in a radical way," rather I'm indicating that the dialogue in question breaks from the tone I've grown to expect based on the information I've gathered from the source IP.

This is why I said above "the hole is tastier than the donut here." The supporting details in fanfic that people have come up with to justify some of the more ridiculous-seeming Hawke and Anders dialogue convey a more interesting character than I would imagine if I extrapolated from in-game dialogue alone. The thing is, the changes in fic that I enjoy involve departures from the expected logical conclusion for Hawke, but usually feature dialogue from Anders that is logically consistent with everything I know about Anders. That is to say, Hawke acts in ways that diverge from what I would naturally assume given the game script, while Anders acts in ways that logically follow the assumptions established in the game script (esp when Awakenings is also taken into account.)

* * * * 
It's also funny that I find no need to metagame in ME, but if I didn't metagame at least a tiny bit in DA2 (in the form of not taking Fenris to free mages, etc) I'd probably end up with everyone but Varric and Anders stuck in "neutral" for most of the game. I don't think that either the F/R or P/R systems are the best solution to whatever problem they solve, but they are both interesting prototypes. I hope they continue to creatively iterate.

bear with me, i've had like three glasses of wine which is not ideal for non-obnoxious posting but here we go anyway:

like most modern philosophical discussions, this debate is most likely borne of a difference in semantics. i've (unfortunately) been off-again-on-again a part of fandom for, christ, what, ten years now? that's a sad thing to admit, but anyway. in the bleak world of fanfiction, having a work labeled "out of character" is considered one of the greatest insults, which i've always found silly for the reasons i mentioned above; character interpretation is largely subjective, after reaching a certain level of quality in writing -- by which i imply a fundamental attempt to understand and translate into fan creations the most important aspects of a character, his perceived motivations and canon actions, then consequent actions in new scenarios, etcetera.

where we differ -- and again, it's probably semantics -- is in classifying that reconciliation or compromise as out of line with what we might come to expect from in-game scenarios.

for me, if the quality of work is high enough that i can reasonably appropriate actions in a fic to what i observed in-game without breaking tone, i cannot fault the work.  again, i know you're not actively faulting any works here, quite the opposite, but what i'm getting at is that i don't draw any distinction between what happens in-game and what i'm reading in fic if the fic is presented well. i don't see it as divergent, because i can reconcile it with in-game actions without sacrificing any part of the game. your batman analogy would apply in the type of work i'm proposing, because the author is good enough to present what happened in the game in perhaps more palatable form.

of course, this is not to say i personally find fault with authors who make hawke less melodramatic for the purposes of building a more self-perceived organic relationship with anders. they still make for incredibly entertaining reads.

the big difference, i think, in our arguments is that i'm, i don't know,
making excuses and you're being more forthright in what you expect from
the game. namely, less limiting options. i, meanwhile, am like "well okay but i can fic that out if i write it well enough so nyah~".

ultimately i think we're in agreement here. i've said a few times now that one of the big reasons i'm still hanging out here in late june for a game released (and played) in early march is because i can't get enough of the speculation and extrapolation possibilities this game provides.

and also, y'know, anders.

[ademska]

Maaia wrote...

What do you do when you want to participate in a discussion but are too lazy to actually write a new wall of text?

I go back to lurking, apparently.

I wish I had the ability to express my thoughts as clearly as so many of you do. All I can say is no game has ever captivated me as much as DA2. I love voiced Hawke. I actually like the character and don't have much trouble playing in character. While I wish there was more dialogue with everyone (because there could never be too much), I enjoy the spaced out interactions. Despite its flaws, I am completely hooked.

si senor, it is an amazing game and i can't stop thinking about it ever.  i know at bsn it's a mortal sin to like it better than other bioware titles, but i've just never seen a video game with the kind of narrative devices and political plots da2 utilizes. i mean, the antagonist is political circumstances, well thought-out ones at that -- how does that even happen in this combat-based gaming world we live in? i mean, it's has it's flaws for sure, but it's absolutely captivating.

my college degree has bought me nothing but endless hours of internet time


it's interesting to me how different some of us approach metagaming, what we consider meta and what is acceptable in crpgs, but i'm going to throw my lot in with the F/R system versus P/R for less metagaming. it's impossible to completely separate a character from his author, obviously, and i tend to play characters who want decent endings for themselves and their friends. in part due to linear narrative but also due to a less dualist more shades of gray F/R system, i find it far easier to accomplish hawke's emotional goals than shepard's without metagaming

[FieryDove]

DreamerM wrote...

This does not explain why Justice thought "Person walking into clinic" was a threat when it looked like dozens of people, some probably more heavily armed then I am, walk into his clinic every single day. I can only assume Justice smelled "Player Character" on me, and since he's read the script he knows that's his cue to announce his presense to everyone.



http://imageshack.us.../mrwiggums.jpg/

I took it more of Justice warning Anders that some people with sticks/swords/whatever were walking in. If Justice had taken over for a fight like he does other times he would have stayed all glowy...yes? No?

Being tired from healing could substitute for being angry-templar-beating-time but as I said I don't think that's what happened.

[DreamerM]

ademska wrote...

my college degree has bought me nothing but endless hours of internet time

Join the club. We have jackets. And lap blankets. And coffee that we made three days ago.

FieryDove wrote...

I took it more of Justice warning
Anders that some people with sticks/swords/whatever were walking in. If
Justice had taken over for a fight like he does other times he would
have stayed all glowy...yes? No?
 

Again, considering that you can't walk two feet in Darktown at night without getting jumped by thugs, I have a hard time believing that I'm the first person to ever walk into Anders's clinic with a weapon. Heck I'm probably not even the first that day. And if the mere sight of a sword/dagger/staff could bring out a glowy-eyed reception, don't you think Anders might put up a "Stow Yer Weapons" type sign rather then risk a best-case scenario where he blows his cover, and a worst case where he unleashes Hell in his own clinic.

And CAN Justice "warn" Anders of anything? Does Justice have like....Justicey-Sense that warns him when Player Characters approach, or something like that? I have no clue.

[ademska]

DreamerM wrote...

Join the club. We have jackets. And lap blankets. And coffee that we made three days ago.

what a coincidence, i like just now drank coffee out of a glass jar i keep for the old coffee i don't drink in, ah, particularly timely fashions

hopefully by law school i'll be less of a giant loser but YEAH that's a pipe dream

do i get a special post-grad lame-o membership card?

Again, considering that you can't walk two feet in Darktown at night without getting jumped by thugs, I have a hard time believing that I'm the first person to ever walk into Anders's clinic with a weapon. Heck I'm probably not even the first that day. And if the mere sight of a sword/dagger/staff could bring out a glowy-eyed reception, don't you think Anders might put up a "Stow Yer Weapons" type sign rather then risk a best-case scenario where he blows his cover, and a worst case where he unleashes Hell in his own clinic.

And CAN Justice "warn" Anders of anything? Does Justice have like....Justicey-Sense that warns him when Player Characters approach, or something like that? I have no clue.

at this point i am... beyond debating the possibilities of justice and anders and all their strange and enigmatic ambiguities. the game is full of flaws, tho what constitutes a flaw seems to be entirely a matter of opinion.

in my personal opinion, or at least the way i interpret it, hawke and whichever buds he chooses to drag in to meet anders are not of the typical darktown crop. they're armed, yes, which is automatically a point against them since they're not injured, but they're also obviously not of the beaten-down stock that i imagine a darktown clinic typically sees.

i guess, what i'm saying is, they seem like outsiders, more likely to turn an apostate in than his usual client fare. regardless of justice's emergence, anders is already in the middle of using magic when hawke enters the clinic, and thus he's already in danger if hawke proves a legitimate threat.

but, lol, i guess this goes back to what i said to CGG earlier; my opinions can just as easily be classified "justification" as "interpretation". but i don't care, i'm having fun

Modifié par ademska, 21 juin 2011 - 08:17 .

[highcastle]

Fell asleep, but there are at least a couple of points I'd like to respond to.

[quote]maxernst wrote...

But it's NOT.  There's no reason at all that he couldn't try to track the Lyrium idol after Bartrand's death.  He should know how dangerous that thing is.  Maybe he would fail, but simply saying, oh, well, not my problem anymore, is inexcusable. Maybe Meredith would still act the same way without the idol.  But at least he could try.[/quote]

Varric's looking for the idol. He tells this to Hawke when prompted. And Varric's spy network is more extensive than anything Hawke has. So why not trust his best friend and well-connected ally with this task? It's called delegation.

[quote]There's no reason for him to let Mother Petrice talk him out of talking to Elthina.  In fact, I can't even come up with any rationale for it, unless he's eithersuicidal or just plain stupid.  Maybe it wouldn't have changed anything, but you have information she doesn't and you withold it from her.  You never tell her that Templars (or mother Petrice) are forging her signature and that they're abusing the rite of tranquility.[/quote]

Yes you do. Petrice prevents you from getting into seeing the Grand Cleric the first time, but you can go to her after Demands of the Qun to tell her of Petrice's failings. And you can present the evidence from Ser Alrik's corpse about the abuses of the templars. About which the Grand Cleric doesn't care (being more concernd that Alrik was murdered than anything he did to warrant such a fate).

[quote]Even if you think Mother Petrice's news of this rally is so important, why don't you ask somebody with real power like Elthina or the Viscount to accompany you to see it?  And if for some inexplicable reason, Elthina refused to see me, I'd either write her a letter or go back and get the Viscount himself to come with me.  Maybe she still wouldn't do anything, but then it would be her fault, not mine for lack of trying.[/quote]

The Viscount asked you to deal with it. Again, that's how delegation works. For the same reason, I can't drag Bann Teagan to go after the Urn of Sacred Ashes with me. He has other responsibilities, which is why I was contacted in the first place.

There are various points in the game where you can go to Elthina and say, "Bad mojo is going down. Won't you do something?" After Alrik's death is one of them. After a few of the quests with the Qunari is another. That you didn't do this is again on your shoulders, not Hawke's. As for letters...that's not part of the gameplay, but it wouldn't break immersion to think Hawke did just that.

[quote]DreamerM wrote...

[quote]highcastle wrote...

You're
talking to a lit major here. I'm not going to get into whether there's a
shortage of great stories out there (there's not), but I do object to
your definition of what makes a "good" story.
[/quote]

There's
an old saying that there are only a few stories in existence, but
infinite ways in which to tell them. The story of DragonAge:Origins was
so watertight (give or take a few bugs) that my inner-muse was unable to
think of a way to improve it, which it found frustrating but which I
understand just means the people telling that particular story are
smarter and more creative then I am. I can only admire them for that. [/quote]

Good for you. I felt nothing when I played the game, though. No emotional resonance. Ho hum, another story where I'm a hero and save the world. Another day at the office. No one cares that I lost my family, that I got my revenge, that I fell in love. These are the emotional hooks that make a story matter to me. I don't always care about the larger stakes--world saving stories are commonplace now--but I care about the finer details of my character's life. And these were glossed over.

No story is completely watertight. Things were left hanging even in Origins. (OGB much?) But you prefer that narrative, so you overlook its "flaws."

[quote][quote]highcastle wrote...

But Hawke doesn't have any more information than you do.
[/quote]

Then
Hawke should have the option of saying that he doesn't have enough
information to make a call either for or against this choice. He just
met this Anders guy, and he doesn't know that many intelligent
Abominations either. What's more important is how Anders feels about his
choice. Does he regret it, now that he's saddled with a new personality
and only partial ownership of his own body? What has being an
Abomination really meant for him anyway? Why do his eyes glow sometimes
and not at others, if Justice is "always there?" Does this give him
abilities normal mages don't have? Does he remember what he was like
before the merger? What are his opinions of that person now? What were
the circumstances that made him decide to agree to this? Has it been
what he expected it would be? He says Justice was his "friend" but how
is that possible, how do you befriend a fade spirit? And what is the
deal with Vengence? Is Vengence just Angry!Justice or like a split
personality of Justice or a whole different thing? Is he Vengence when
he's angry and Justice when he's not? Why does he hate templars so much
anyway? Just on principle or is there a specific reason? What the oh my
pizza rolls is done! 

Do you see my point? We are given no answers.
I might as well flip a coin to decide heads or tails, do I think it was
good or bad, given how little information I'm given before asked to
make a choice that will provide the foundation for Hawke's relationship
with Anders for years to come. I'd have appreciated the chance to get to
know him better first. That's all I'm saying. [/quote]

Most of those are questions that get answered later, when Anders actually knows Hawke. And trying to answer everything at once would result in an infodump that stops the action in its tracks.

Again, to use the beloved Origins as an example, how much information did you have before having to decide between Behlen and Harrowmont? Real life means not always having a wealth of intelligence before you have to make snap decisions.

[quote][quote]highcastle wrote...

I've
written about this before. Anders cares about Hawke the moment Hawke
sees him at his worst (when Justice completely assumes control in
Tranquility) and doesn't run screaming away or hand him over to
the templars. Instead, Hawke still sees him as a person when Anders is
starting to think of himself as a monster.
[/quote]

If I'm
not mistaken, Hawke CAN call him a monster (or close to it) in the
conversation immediately following Justice/Vengence's big reveal. [/quote]

Yes he can. Which starts you down the rivalry path in which Anders believes he's a monster, too. He pins his opinion on Hawke's judgment, regardless of what it is, because Hawke saw him at his worst and sticks around anyway.

[quote][quote]highcastle wrote...

So
he trusts Hawke's judgment and aligns his moral compass in many ways to
Hawke's. Anders goes very quickly from ambivalent to all-in.
[/quote]

To
his detriment as a character. He's given no reason to immediately trust
Hawke so fully: for all he knows Hawke could be just chatting him up in
the clinic to keep him in one place long enough for those Templars he
summoned to arrive. Hawke has no information on what it actually means
to be an Abomination. Anders is lucky he didn't decide to error on the
side of caution. [/quote]

Anders isn't mentally stable. You really want to hold him to the same standards of rationality as everyone else? He's not thinking clearly, that's part of his character. Personally, I believe he's relieved to have someone to confide in so he doesn't have to carry this burden alone.

[quote][quote]highcastle wrote...

And I'm not sure more conversations would change that.
[/quote]

I
am. Show us WHY Anders decides he trusts Hawke. Give Hawke enough
information to form an actual opinion, both on Anders's status as an
Abomination and Anders, the man standing right in front of him right
now. Lets learn Anders's opinions about things besides blood magic,
templars, mage oppression, and kittens, assuming he has them. Lets talk
to Justice, hear his side of the story, learn what he thinks about his
new living arrangement. THEN I'll will have the tools I really need to
decide what my!Hawke thinks, and then how my!Hawke will react. THEN I
can get into playing my character properly. [/quote]

It is shown. It's shown in the way Anders looks at Hawke, in the tone of his voice. His relief and tentative friendship are shown. You want him to tell you explicitly all the reasons he has for trusting Hawke. That's not good writing.

As for Justice...Anders believes they are deeply entertwined. Whether that's true or not is debatable, but as he believes it, it likely prevents him from just pulling Justice out at will. And when Justice takes over, things tend to end in decapitation. So it's not surprising Anders wants to keep a lid on Justice.

What's that kernel of truth the Stones gave us? That's right: You can't always get what you want.

[quote][quote]highcastle wrote...

Look
at it this way: Anders is exhausted from healing. It consumes a lot of
his energy. So he's in a weakened state less able to keep Justice at
bay.

[/quote]

This does not explain why Justice thought
"Person walking into clinic" was a threat when it looked like dozens of
people, some probably more heavily armed then I am, walk into his clinic
every single day. I can only assume Justice smelled "Player Character"
on me, and since he's read the script he knows that's his cue to
announce his presense to everyone.

http://imageshack.us.../mrwiggums.jpg/[/quote]

No one else in the clinic is armed. Go play the scene again. Keep going back there. Just poor refugees. It could be a rule Anders set up and no one ever told Hawke about.

[GailRana]

highcastle wrote...

This does not explain why Justice thought
"Person walking into clinic" was a threat when it looked like dozens of
people, some probably more heavily armed then I am, walk into his clinic
every single day. I can only assume Justice smelled "Player Character"
on me, and since he's read the script he knows that's his cue to
announce his presense to everyone.

http://imageshack.us.../mrwiggums.jpg/

No one else in the clinic is armed. Go play the scene again. Keep going back there. Just poor refugees. It could be a rule Anders set up and no one ever told Hawke about.

By this point Anders is probably paranoidly on the lookout for guards, templars and local thugs (the ones that varric helped with later ). Armed and healthy looking hawke is glaringly out of place among the refugees, which is exactly what Anders is used to being on the lookout for. I'm really not that surprised that he reacted to their entrance. 

Modifié par GailRana, 21 juin 2011 - 08:32 .

[GailRana]

Maaia wrote...

What do you do when you want to participate in a discussion but are too lazy to actually write a new wall of text?

I go back to lurking, apparently.

I wish I had the ability to express my thoughts as clearly as so many of you do. All I can say is no game has ever captivated me as much as DA2. I love voiced Hawke. I actually like the character and don't have much trouble playing in character. While I wish there was more dialogue with everyone (because there could never be too much), I enjoy the spaced out interactions. Despite its flaws, I am completely hooked.

Lurking is the way to go. I love the walls of text! I guess that's what happens when half regulars on a forum are writers. You get eloquent and beautifully thought out posts/arguments... and then it goes back to talking about andersbutt. It's what i love about this place <3

Modifié par GailRana, 21 juin 2011 - 08:31 .