While that one little piece of information seems to have spawned LIMITLESS threads about LI possibilities, racial choices for the main character, bemoaning about possibly being forced to play a Chantry-aligned character... I thought I'd try and focus on being an actual Inquisitor for this thread, and seeing what that (could) mean.
An Inquisitor is someone who, plainly put, Inquires. They ask questions. They try and find the truth. Now, in Western European history, the Inquisition is often tied to the dark Spanish Inquisition (queue the Mel Brooks jokes!), its not clear if this is going to be tied to brutal interrogation via torture, if it would include intricate cases of espionage, bribery and subterfuge, or if the organization could be all just rainbows and sunshine. Let's hope there is the option for both.
That being said, I want to go over a mechanic I'd like to see for DA3 - false accusations.
False Accusations
An old staple of RPGs are quests were you have to solve a mystery. This usually involves talking to a ton of NPCs, finding the right conversation options, finding the obligatory evidence and then talking to some of the same NPCs again until the options comes up that says "It was YOU!!!" Which, while cool, is a mite bit boring... but not for the reasons you might be thinking.
The thing is, when this is done in games (such as Ultima 7, Fallout or DA:O), the game doesn't really require the player to pay attention to all that many of the details, since if you just keep talking to people and follow the clues, you will always get that dialogue option to say "It was you!" which then results in a confession that involves the person turning themselves in or fighting you. But what if the power to imprison someone on suscpicion alone was an option? What if the clues NEVER clearly pointed to one suspect over another, but rather cast shadows of doubt on a number of people? What if, when accused, a person who is falsely accused fights for their life, but the guilty person pleads, saying you have the wrong man?
What if, essentially, you had no real, concrete way of KNOWING who the right or wrong person was everytime... and you could throw out false accusations which would imprison the wrong person?
Before We Go Crazy
Now... let me take a few steps back... this would NOT involve going up to any and all NPCs and saying "You're under arrest" just by walking up to them on the street. That would be both silly and unwieldly. This would only come into play during set quests/events where you are looking for a guilty party (searching for an apostate, or looking for a Templar informer, or attempting to weed out a Daughter of Flemeth from a group of women, etc., etc.). You would still need to talk to a bunch of NPCs, you'd still need to find plot items which act as evidence, and you'd still need to say "It was YOU!" to accuse someone... but that option would, even after all the information is gained, by an option for anyone who was a suspect.
It would require moral gut checks on the part of the player, having to make the call of who is trustworthy and who is not. It would put into mind the problem of what you think is acceptable evidence, the possibility of conspiracies or having to determine if the tone someone took is guilty or something else.
It could also have impacts on the story of the game. For instance, during DA2, you search for a serial killer (who winds up killing your mother) and can release a man who you originally think is the killer, but turns out not to be (at least according to him). You can believe him and let him go, or kill him. In the end, DA2 doesn't let you affect the story at all with this choice, but imagine if it could, where sparing the man and letting him go opens up the option of him having more information later on, or killing him could have scared off the real killer into moving into a new area.
Wrong for the Right Reasons
Which leads me to the next aspect I think would be interesting: having GOOD outcomes for accusing/punishing the WRONG person, and BAD outcomes for capturing the RIGHT person.
There are ton of ways this could happen. And it wouldn't happen in EVERY INSTANCE. But long story short - if you capture the wrong person, it doesn't mean that things will be inherently worse. In fact, it could have no impact, or it could even have a good one, where perhaps the criminals in question keep on doing their activities and it results in eliminating future opposition or obstacles. Think gang vs.gang warfare wiping out a rival gang, all because you threw the wrong person in jail and never stopped the gang from gaining power.
Similarly, if you put the right person in prison for the right crime, this may cause trails to become cold, as associates of the criminal now view you as someone to be avoided and not talked to. While, if no one has seen you arresting any known criminals, they might be more likely to not run away at the mere sight of you.
Conclusion
These are some pretty basic examples of how this whole mechanic could work, but I am far from a good writer. So I'd leave the details to the professionals. But, that being said, I would like a mechanic that lets us decide who the guilty party is, for better or worse, rather than just keep plugging at clues until the guilty party is pretty much painted on the wall in bright colors. Adding ambiguity to the search could be a very interesting concept, especially for a game that is going to let you play as an Inquisitor, a role that is known for making judgments and imprionments.
Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 12 octobre 2012 - 12:27 .
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