105 réponses à ce sujet

[willsanders84]

Dalyaria. My top 5 games of all time.



1. Planescape: Torment

2. Civilization 2

3. Deus Ex

4. Little Big Adventure

5. Half-life



BG2 and Fallout close behind...

[Dalyaria]

Odysseus44 wrote...

Dalyaria, you want equal opportunities for good and evil characters, but don't you feel that DAO steers away from such definitions? The game doesn't reward you from being consistent in the tone of your choices, because there is no moarlity meter attached to the main PC, and so no associated reward for maxing it, like in KOTOR of Mass Effect.

Doesn't that allow you to roleplay your character's morality more freely?

You're only held in check by companions approval score, but you're freed from that constraint with the gift system.

I think it is ultimately much better not to have a "morality meter", like you pointed out. I indeed feel that it's easier to roleplay without one. I don't feel like I have to necessarily choose the evil options to maximise my character's evil value to make the character more powerful, but can instead choose the dialogue options which would be most fitting for my image of my character. I can admit I loved to shoot force lightning as a sith lord, though

To be honest, I don't think the gift system makes it much better. I think: "Do I have any fitting gifts? Can I find them? How much money will they cost?" The gifts also won't make it possible to do quests in evil ways, or they don't help with the breaking of immersion when I'm unable to talk my choices through with an evil character. While giving gifts to alleviate bad feelings can be believable in minor instances, they beget more questions. One example could be: "Who owns the party inventory? How am I able to give certain gifts to certain characters from such an inventory?" In the end, this leads to the thought that I can just strip them naked and send them away...which again somewhat breaks immersion, since they do not complain about the lack of equipment or share in the "loot".

[Sylixe]

To the OP

How is anything you just stated any different than a normal P&P RPG session? 

[Dalyaria]

Cathail wrote...

But your choices on how to pursue an action are likely to have consequences, that is the way of things.

I agree. And I'm not against consequences at all. Having no consequences for your actions would make them meaningless. It's about presenting these consequences in a believable manner.

Cathail wrote...

Playing a completely benevolent, compassionate character should open some choices, close others just as playing a conceited, self centered character with no value on life would. Again to a degree da:o does this, if you help everyone it causes Morrigan to dislike you, and even at times Sten if it takes you away from the mission of pursuing the Blight though in my opinion it could go farther.

I agree that not every quest needs to necessarily be open to both good and evil choices. However, when it wouldn't be so, then there should be alternative content provided for the evil players.

[willsanders84]

Honestly, and this is what gets me. What is 'good' and 'evil'. When I play an RPG for the second time, I always take the evil paths, and I don't ask for fire and brimstone, I just ask that the game recognises the character I'm trying to portray, and gives me a little satisfying feedback from it. It isn't much to ask, but I'm yet to come across a game which does it properly.

[Volourn]

DA doesn't have an infleunce system. Get out of the NWN2/KOTOR2 mindset. DA has an *approval* system. The system keeps track of how much the npc approve you not how not how much you influence them. It's not complictated. Perhaps, you thoguht you were playing NWN2?



And, it works awesomely. So you cna't get your npcs to agree with you ALL THE TIME? Let me cry ya a river. It's got C&C, it's called personality, it's called the npcs having the ability to form their own opinions, and stand up for what they believe in.



I'd use spoilers to illustrate this but cna't.



Again, DA has an APPROVAL system NOT an INFLUENCE system. There is a very definite difference between the two.

[Inhuman one]

I would like to see it the other way around, they should care about my approval and worry about losing influence with me.



Nobody ever gives me a gift..

[Sylixe]

willsanders84 wrote...

Honestly, and this is what gets me. What is 'good' and 'evil'. When I play an RPG for the second time, I always take the evil paths, and I don't ask for fire and brimstone, I just ask that the game recognises the character I'm trying to portray, and gives me a little satisfying feedback from it. It isn't much to ask, but I'm yet to come across a game which does it properly.

The witcher is about as close as i have found in the gaming industry that doesn't embrace the "Good" with open arms.  Most of the game is grey but you can be totally self serving if you choose to, which is pretty close to an evil side. 

It's really hard to come out with a truly "Evil" game considering it has to base the rating system on games.  Many games have been ripped apart due to the moral majority objection to such material.  That's the real hurdle that a game like that would have to overcome and i just don't see it happening.

[willsanders84]

No, I agree Sylixe, creating a game based on an evil storyline just wouldn't work. I confess I haven't played the game, just reading what people have posted on here, but perhaps the good/evil allignment paths are more flexible than I assumed.

[Sylixe]

To go "evil" you have to straddle a line of evil and sort of grey at the same time in order to keep key member sof your party with you. I am doing a run through as a Female/City Elf/rogue and i am straddling it pretty well but also choosing options that serve my own needs as well. The results have actually been quite interesting as it's my thrid time through and i am finding a lot of new options going this path i previously missed.

[MarloMarlo]

Dalyaria wrote...
I have read from many sources that certain characters become much more compliant after you sleep with them. If this is false, I am glad and also apologize.

If you can't even share what you've read on it, let alone your own gameplay experience, you have no business making an argument about it to criticize the game in the first place. Also, C (as a variable) coming after A doesn't mean that C was caused by A and A alone. On top of that, changing a person's entire moral system, the argument you made, is a separate issue from causing someone to be more compliant.

Dalyaria wrote...
The gifts also won't make it possible to do quests in evil ways, or they don't help with the breaking of immersion when I'm unable to talk my choices through with an evil character. While giving gifts to alleviate bad feelings can be believable in minor instances, they beget more questions. One example could be: "Who owns the party inventory? How am I able to give certain gifts to certain characters from such an inventory?" In the end, this leads to the thought that I can just strip them naked and send them away...which again somewhat breaks immersion, since they do not complain about the lack of equipment or share in the "loot".

How about: how is my character able to think and issue orders while time stands still?  Or, why does everyone wait for an infinite amount of time for me to respond to them in conversatons? Why can I see things from a third-person perspective? Why do we not have to treat blisters in a minigame after doing so much walking? How do we carry around so much gold at a time? Why do certain abilities have different cooldowns from each other? So many pointless questions about "immersion" that you can ask!

And Morrigan tells you what she thinks when she thinks you're wasting the party's gold. It's another opportunity to make her mad by explaining your actions or just telling her that you don't need to explain anything -- you know, stuff that doesn't exist in the game, according to you.

Dalyaria wrote...
I agree. And I'm not against consequences at all. Having no consequences for your actions would make them meaningless. It's about presenting these consequences in a believable manner.

So, when someone disapproves and likes you less, that's not a consequence? And it's believable that you should be able to sway anyone to whatever position you want and have them like you or merely not like you less for it just because you're very cunning and coercive?

Dalyaria wrote...
I agree that not every quest needs to necessarily be open to both good and evil choices. However, when it wouldn't be so, then there should be alternative content provided for the evil players.

And why is that? If you refuse to help a certain blacksmith, why should there be an alternative method of upgrading everyone's armor? Speaking of Redcliffe, have you ever gotten as far as the castle? Because, you know, there's multiple ways to resolve the issue, and only one of them is really all that good. And then there are the elves, and the dwarves, and and the bad things you can do in the mountains. Did you even play this game?

willsanders84 wrote...
Honestly, and this is what gets me. What is 'good' and 'evil'. When I play an RPG for the second time, I always take the evil paths, and I don't ask for fire and brimstone, I just ask that the game recognises the character I'm trying to portray, and gives me a little satisfying feedback from it. It isn't much to ask, but I'm yet to come across a game which does it properly.

Oh really? You weren't impressed in Deus Ex (since you mentioned it for whatever reason) when your brother yelled at you for going on a rampage, or when Navarra yelled at you for not just killing everything you ran into? Party members leaving and fighting you isn't enough feedback for you evilness in Dragon Age? The pleading of a distressed mother wasn't proper enough?

Inhuman one wrote...
I would like to see it the other way around, they should care about my approval and worry about losing influence with me.

Nobody ever gives me a gift..

Aww, poor dog. You don't even acknowledge his dirty pantaloons.

Duncan gives your dwarf noble a gift. And isn't it enough that your party members indulge your constant questioning and even teach you specializations?

Modifié par MarloMarlo, 01 décembre 2009 - 01:23 .

[kelsjet]

Dalyaria wrote...

I feel like I'm playing a diplomatic meta-game, without consistent solutions (or solutions at all) to the problems.

So... kinda like real life, eh?

In the real world, you cannot please everyone. There is no "solutions" to speak of (thinking otherwise makes you naive). DA:O captures the essence of this remarkably well, and if nothing else, it increases the sense of immersion and in no way forces you to suspend your disbelief.

Furthermore, there is no "influence" to speak of. This is not KoToR where your party changes as you do. Instead, this is DA:O. The party are set in their ways, and your actions will dictate who wants to stay around you and who doesn't (kinda like real life again, see a pattern?).

Imagine you have 2 friends in real life. One is a devout catholic and goes to church every day and loves everything holy and 'good'. The other is a emo-goth, self mutilating, chronically depressed sadist. One day walking along the road with the two of them you come across an injured rabbit. The 'good' friend says "lets help the rabbit" the 'bad' friend says "lets tear out its eyes and curbstomp the rabbit".

Like in real life, your choice of what to do to the rabbit will directly influence how your two friends see you. If you save it, the 'good' friend will think better of you and the goth friend will think worse. If you curbstomp it, it will be vice versa. Eventually, if you go around curbstomping all the rabbits in the town, your catholic friend might end up not being your friend anymore and stop hanging out with you (maybe he thinks your boring, maybe he thinks you should be institutionalized. who knows?). Either way, your choices have directly effected which one of the two friends will spend more time with you.

Now, you can turn around and say to your catholic friend, "WTF man, you keep wanting me to help these damn rabbits but that means I lose out on perfecting my curb-stomping techniques, omg life is so unfair, there is no solution to having you around and continue curbstomping. God you have made an unbalanced life! Damn you!"

Your catholic friend will say "Grow the f*ck up man. Thats life!".
Your goth friend will say "There is no choice left, you must /wrist"


I say to you, "welcome to the real world mah ninja".

Modifié par kelsjet, 01 décembre 2009 - 01:27 .

[Darpaek]

I've done an "evil" playthru and a "selfish/pragmatic" playthru, and my biggest complaint is that when you tank your relations with a party member, it doesn't open new dialogue like increasing influence does. I'm not looking for as many dialogues as us being buddies, but I had Morrigan down to -100 on a goodly playthru and Alistair down to -60 on a evil playthru - and neither of them had anything to say. It might be the masochist in me, but I was waiting for a dressing down from Alistair, or some mockery from Morrigan. And these are your two main NPCs! Absolutely nothing.



And it does suck that the game ties in ability boosts to influence. I'd rather go with no reward so the min-maxer in me isn't tempted to RP differently than my character would.



I agree with the criticism from another poster about the game being too accessible on a single playthru. However, I also agree with #2 from the OP - No spoilers, but I abandoned a certain town once that HALF MY PARTY at the time wanted me to abandon, and it shut down a huge portion of the game - including making certain quests elsewhere inaccessible, as well.



I really liked how KOTOR 2 did party member influence. Most people don't realize, but 0 influence and 100 influence with a character are exactly the same thing in KOTOR 2 (or, actually, mirrors of eachother based on good/evil) I could say the "wrong" thing to Kreia EVERY SINGLE TIME and as long as my character was "true to themself" I would still be able to unlock every convo with her. The same goes for Jedi-ing the rest of the party. It's a shame that Obsidian accomplished so much with barely a year of development time and DA:O really dropped the ball on a lot of this, despite having a 5 year dev cycle.

[thegreateski]

*You do some horribly bad stuff!*
Alistair: "I can't believe you just did that!"
GW: "Shut up and have an action figure."
Alistair: "You think you can bri- holy crap this thing is awesome!"

Modifié par thegreateski, 01 décembre 2009 - 01:45 .

[cheeseslayersmu]

You're roleplaying without believing that party members disapproving of actions they don't agree with makes sense?



How can you role-play if you don't pretend the characters are real people?

[Pseron Wyrd]

Slaign wrote...
The man is a deserter

He's not a deserter. The authorities think he was attempting to desert but he was really getting the key.

It might be possible to see it as a mercy killing anyway. I guess it would depend how the authorities intended to execute him.

Modifié par Pseron Wyrd, 01 décembre 2009 - 01:59 .

[Kaosgirl]

[quote]Dalyaria wrote...
3) The apparent lack of consistency

One of the things I hear the evil characters being portrayed is as pragmatists. Their goal is to save the world from the darkspawn, not to help villagers with their minor troubles. I find that by this philosophy, they are dedicating themselves to a higher - immaterial - purpose. Their motive is essentially "good", at least so far as "good" is generally thought out to be.[/quote]

How so?  You've touched on what they want, not why they want to do it.  And so soon after you admitted yourself that it's the "why" not the "what" that makes one good or evil.

Why do they want to "save the world from darkspawn"?  The obvious answer (to me) is that they want something out of the world, and they're all bright enough to realize the darkspawn won't leave them even scraps.  This isn't a "higher path" or anything - it's just having enough foresight to realize that one subset of Evil Beings is getting in the way of their own Evil plans.

[quote]Dalyaria wrote...
Still, they often like it when I e.g. threaten various villagers. What higher goal does this serve? [/quote]
I guess it could be thought that they dedicate themselves to a "left-hand" philosophy. Might makes right, and others should be able to stand punishment and grow stronger for it. [/quote]

Or just get the hell out of the way, and show proper deference to their Betters.  If these pathetic villagers can't stand against the tide themselves, then they should grovel before those who do.

[quote]Dalyaria wrote...
But how does this serve with their goal of saving a falling world from the darkspawn, if they really are pragmatists? Why not try to join with the winning side in the first place? [/quote]

Differing goals, differing mindsets.  Even pragmatism (if that's truly the motivating factor here) prefers to side with the underdog than with the side who's concept of "victory" means destroying everything you'd be trying to win.

[Freddo]

kelsjet wrote...

In the real world, you cannot please everyone. There is no "solutions" to speak of (thinking otherwise makes you naive). DA:O captures the essence of this remarkably well, and if nothing else, it increases the sense of immersion and in no way forces you to suspend your disbelief.

Furthermore, there is no "influence" to speak of. This is not KoToR where your party changes as you do. Instead, this is DA:O. The party are set in their ways, and your actions will dictate who wants to stay around you and who doesn't (kinda like real life again, see a pattern?).

Imagine you have 2 friends in real life. One is a devout catholic and goes to church every day and loves everything holy and 'good'. The other is a emo-goth, self mutilating, chronically depressed sadist. One day walking along the road with the two of them you come across an injured rabbit. The 'good' friend says "lets help the rabbit" the 'bad' friend says "lets tear out its eyes and curbstomp the rabbit".

Like in real life, your choice of what to do to the rabbit will directly influence how your two friends see you. If you save it, the 'good' friend will think better of you and the goth friend will think worse. If you curbstomp it, it will be vice versa. Eventually, if you go around curbstomping all the rabbits in the town, your catholic friend might end up not being your friend anymore and stop hanging out with you (maybe he thinks your boring, maybe he thinks you should be institutionalized. who knows?). Either way, your choices have directly effected which one of the two friends will spend more time with you.

Now, you can turn around and say to your catholic friend, "WTF man, you keep wanting me to help these damn rabbits but that means I lose out on perfecting my curb-stomping techniques, omg life is so unfair, there is no solution to having you around and continue curbstomping. God you have made an unbalanced life! Damn you!"

Your catholic friend will say "Grow the f*ck up man. Thats life!".
Your goth friend will say "There is no choice left, you must /wrist"


I say to you, "welcome to the real world mah ninja".

If I saved the rabbit and told the 'evil' friend I only did it to later have something to eat, I think he would accept that. It may not be the truth, but I'm a good liar

And that's what seem to be the whole point of this thread. There are no dialogue options to convince 'evil' people to do good acts for your selfish goals instead for the greater good. Not even when the main character have a high coercion.

[Dalyaria]

thegreateski wrote...

*You do some horribly bad stuff!*
Alistair: "I can't believe you just did that!"
GW: "Shut up and have an action figure."
Alistair: "You think you can bri- holy crap this thing is awesome!"

Absolutely great! 

I think that the gift giving (or should I say bribery) system is much more believable from an evil point of view. If you have people who are trying to gain a lot of personal power via social / material means (evil) vs. people who want to help others because their conscience demands so (good), one would think that giving material gifts for the evil ones and having them approve doesn't necessarily break immersion. However, there are glaring problems with bribing the good guys. I couldn't possibly explain it better than thegreatski has already done here.

I will answer some of the other posts tomorrow. For now, it's time to sleep. 7:21 am in Finland.

Modifié par Dalyaria, 01 décembre 2009 - 05:24 .

[kelsjet]

Kazutoyo wrote...

If I saved the rabbit and told the 'evil' friend I only did it to later have something to eat, I think he would accept that. It may not be the truth, but I'm a good liar

And that's what seem to be the whole point of this thread. There are no dialogue options to convince 'evil' people to do good acts for your selfish goals instead for the greater good. Not even when the main character have a high coercion.

Um.. I'm not sure what game you are playing (maybe console version?) but I have had many, many dialog options where I could lie to someone. I think you are not playing the same game as the rest of us.

Furthermore, I think you have missed the point of the thread. The OP clearly states (and I quoted the appropriate part in my earlier post), that the thread was about how/why the OP felt constrained in that he could not please everyone. That his "bad" party members were constantly at odds with his "good" members and he felt that no "solution" was being presented to him so that he could satisfy everyone equally, at all times. He then furthered this assertion (rather incorrectly) in saying that because he can't please all party members, his sense of immersion in the world is diminishing.

My point was that you can't please everyone in the real world either, hence, by his own logic, this only adds to the games sense of immersion.

It was all quite clear really.

[Wolfva2]

I think the problem is people hear 'role play game' and think, "WOW! I can play any type of character I want!" Well, the problem here is you are playing a specific role, a Grey Warden who is tasked with stopping the blight. Now, how would a truly evil person react in this situation? Would he risk life and limb to stop the blight and save the realm? Or would he tell the Gray Wardens to screw themselves, hit them up the arse with a fireball, loot their smouldering corpses, and be on his way to Orlais?



You do not get penalized for your choices. Choices have consequences; if you chose to be an insufferable arse then be prepared for the consequences, ie. low approval from those who have taken your guff. Think of it in real life terms. If you talk down to the folks at work, are they going to be happy with you? Of course not. So what, you'll run to the boss and cry about how your co-workers don't like you and should be forced to like you no matter how badly you treat them? That wouldn't make sense.



Now, you ARE right about the suspension of disbelief with gifts. I wouldn't expect Leliana to stick around for long if you're peeing all over the Chantry just because you gave her a nice bauble. But then again, just how much can we expect from a game AI?

[kelsjet]

Dalyaria wrote...

I think that the gift giving (or should I say bribery) system is much more believable from an evil point of view.

Begging the question. Ofcourse it makes more sense to say "bribery is more believable when you look at it from an evil point of view". The fact is that you have already decided to look at it as 'bribery', hence, already assumed the evil form of the action.
At the end of the day, its a potato - pohtahto issue. The only fact is that one person gives something to another person. Some people will call this act 'bribery' (they are looking at it from an evil perspective), other will call this act 'giving gifts' because they look at this act from an 'good' perspective.

So wait... You don't think 'good people' give each other gifts? What a pessimistic view. Good people can commit the act of giving someone an object just as well as 'evil' people. What classifies it as good or evil is just motivation.

If you have people who are trying to gain a lot of personal power via social / material means (evil) vs. people who want to help others because their conscience demands so (good)

Lets now inject reality into your mildly neo-nihilist view of good and evil people. You assert (through inference) that 'good' people cannot 'give gifts' because it is contrary to "helping others because their conscience demands so". This would automatically mean that the only reason people commit the act of giving another some physical quantity is due to selfish reasons. Has no one ever given you a present because they thought you might like it? Have you never given anyone a gift because you thought it would make them feel better? If you don't, you should, then maybe you would see that not all "gift giving" is for bad purposes.

But now I hear you say "WAHT ABUT TEH REP GAINZ". Simple really. By the natural law of human interaction. If you give someone something, they will feel better towards you. Everyone likes presents. Now some people do leverage this natural law for their own purposes (again, good vs evil comes down to the intentions behind the act, not the act itself), but many others also just give people gifts, the rep gain is a bonus side effect. Hence, there is no correlation that can be drawn between rep gain and evil actions. Especially when you realize that some people will act without thought for their gains. (Which, funnily enough, is the whole premise behind a selfless act, a key quality of a 'good' person, by your definition even).

I will answer some of the other posts tomorrow. For now, it's time to sleep. 7:21 am in Finland.

Great (/rollseyes). I look forward with baited breath to clinically dissecting your arguments. It says tons though, that you stay up all night and sleep at 7:21am on a work day. It could be a stretch, but do you think this shades your view on reality and people? I do think so, I'm curious as to what you say though.

Modifié par kelsjet, 01 décembre 2009 - 06:18 .

[Odysseus44]

kelsjet wrote...

Dalyaria wrote...

I think that the gift giving (or should I say bribery) system is much more believable from an evil point of view.

Begging the question. Ofcourse it makes more sense to say "bribery is more believable when you look at it from an evil point of view". The fact is that you have already decided to look at it as 'bribery', hence, already assumed the evil form of the action.
At the end of the day, its a potato - pohtahto issue. The only fact is that one person gives something to another person. Some people will call this act 'bribery' (they are looking at it from an evil perspective), other will call this act 'giving gifts' because they look at this act from an 'good' perspective.

So wait... You don't think 'good people' give each other gifts? What a pessimistic view. Good people can commit the act of giving someone an object just as well as 'evil' people. What classifies it as good or evil is just motivation.

If you have people who are trying to gain a lot of personal power via social / material means (evil) vs. people who want to help others because their conscience demands so (good)

Lets now inject reality into your mildly neo-nihilist view of good and evil people. You assert (through inference) that 'good' people cannot 'give gifts' because it is contrary to "helping others because their conscience demands so". This would automatically mean that the only reason people commit the act of giving another some physical quantity is due to selfish reasons. Has no one ever given you a present because they thought you might like it? Have you never given anyone a gift because you thought it would make them feel better? If you don't, you should, then maybe you would see that not all "gift giving" is for bad purposes.

But now I hear you say "WAHT ABUT TEH REP GAINZ". Simple really. By the natural law of human interaction. If you give someone something, they will feel better towards you. Everyone likes presents. Now some people do leverage this natural law for their own purposes (again, good vs evil comes down to the intentions behind the act, not the act itself), but many others also just give people gifts, the rep gain is a bonus side effect. Hence, there is no correlation that can be drawn between rep gain and evil actions. Especially when you realize that some people will act without thought for their gains. (Which, funnily enough, is the whole premise behind a selfless act, a key quality of a 'good' person, by your definition even).

I will answer some of the other posts tomorrow. For now, it's time to sleep. 7:21 am in Finland.

Great (/rollseyes). I look forward with baited breath to clinically dissecting your arguments. It says tons though, that you stay up all night and sleep at 7:21am on a work day. It could be a stretch, but do you think this shades your view on reality and people? I do think so, I'm curious as to what you say though.

Don't forget it's a game. It has strict rules for gift-giving. They emulate real life only to a point.

Companions will always accept gifts, no matter how much they dislike you - except the special gifts that trigger cute scenes. And they will always have the same effect (I think only the amount of gifts already given matters, no?). 'Inappropriate' gifts for the character only produce a tiny amount of approval, but they are never refused.

In real life, I may not accept a gift, even if I really like it, from some people I despise. Because the acts of giving and accepting mean someting by themselves, outside the nature/value of the gift, and I may not want to acknowledge that connection.

And good and evil are, ultimately, empty labels. In DAO, there is no 'path', no 'way', just every time you make a choice, you decide, as the player, what the motivation of your character are. For example you can decide, that for the companions you like, you will give them a gift because making them happy makes you happy. For other, because pleasing them will make them stay with you despite your disagreements, and so you will maintain you combat capabilities.

[robertthebard]

Wolfva2 wrote...

I think the problem is people hear 'role play game' and think, "WOW! I can play any type of character I want!" Well, the problem here is you are playing a specific role, a Grey Warden who is tasked with stopping the blight. Now, how would a truly evil person react in this situation? Would he risk life and limb to stop the blight and save the realm? Or would he tell the Gray Wardens to screw themselves, hit them up the arse with a fireball, loot their smouldering corpses, and be on his way to Orlais?

They would do it for the same reason that Flemeth aids the Wardens; because if the darkspawn win, there would be no world to try to rule.  In doing so, they also open up a whole new easy button road to domination.  After all, they are now considered a hero, and can benefit from that.

You do not get penalized for your choices. Choices have consequences; if you chose to be an insufferable arse then be prepared for the consequences, ie. low approval from those who have taken your guff. Think of it in real life terms. If you talk down to the folks at work, are they going to be happy with you? Of course not. So what, you'll run to the boss and cry about how your co-workers don't like you and should be forced to like you no matter how badly you treat them? That wouldn't make sense.

Yep, this is exactly right.

Now, you ARE right about the suspension of disbelief with gifts. I wouldn't expect Leliana to stick around for long if you're peeing all over the Chantry just because you gave her a nice bauble. But then again, just how much can we expect from a game AI?

The thing that mystifies me is where people get off thinking that Sten is evil.  He is driven by duty, and wants to push to that end.  He is also impressed by self reliance, as can be evidenced in one particular encounter that actually does have some party dialog prior to any actual combat.  He firmly believes that the situation should be left up to the parties involved to resolve w/out your interference.  I hate that this convo is in the no spoilers section so I can't be more specific.

[Wolfva2]

Actually, companions don't always accept gifts. Don't believe me? Try giving Morgana a bone sometime.