1530 réponses à ce sujet

[Caz Neerg]

I disagree with this.  once he started selling off the elves to slavery to fund his army  that's the point where the morality of my choice and some of my freinds over the years come in.  He put himself in charge and then only cared about the humans in his city. Why would a " good"   person be ok with that?

 

 the wardens were able to build an army starting with only two people. no slavery was required. My wardens had no issue with anora and didn't have any personal issues with Lohgain (heck, besides the human warden the rest really don't even know who he was).  it always came down to the slavery thing for me and the wardens I played.  Do my wardens trust Loghain, who funds his army with slaves and knowingly lies about my own characters by blaming the death of the king and Duncan on him/her  or do my wardens trust Alistair that has been fighting beside them the entire time? It becomes an in game choice Alistiar or Loghain. 

 

 my favorite setup is a hardened Alistair and Anora together.   As I mentioned elsewhere in the keep discussions my current Aeducan (Seen in my avi) is going to make most of the decisions I do not normally take. that includes a living loghain and a probable drunken Alistair. i really do want to see what the different choices may mean for the games ahead. 

 

I wasn't arguing that Loghain is himself "Good," I'm pointing out that a "Good" Warden (in the sense of the most common stereotypes of Good) would not kill Loghain, or allow him to be killed by someone else, when he can be made a Grey Warden instead and have his undeniably great military skill put to use fighting the darkspawn.  "Good" only kills when it is given no other choice.  You have to metagame to characterize it as a choice between Alistair and Loghain, because Alistair leaving the party is not a result of your warden's choice to spare Loghain.  It is a result of Alistair's petty and childish nature, even when hardened.  To use comic book categories, a character who causes Loghain's death when there were other options is a Punisher style anti-hero at best, he's no hero.

 

That said, as far as consequences in DA2, I find drunken Alistair to be the most entertaining.  I doubt we will see him getting plastered again in Inquisition though, this many years later he must have either managed to drink himself to death, or finally stopped drinking.  And I believe Loghain has a cameo in Awakenings if alive, but no appearance at all in DA2.

 

EDIT: The funniest thing is that when you watch the sequences at Ostagar, it becomes clear that it takes the Warden and Alistair so long to get the signal lit that even if Loghain had followed the plan and attacked, it's about 99% sure that Cailan and Duncan would have been dead before anyone got to them anyway.  The warden force was already on it's last legs when Loghain pulled out.

[The Bear Muse]

"Good" only kills when it is given no other choice.

 

So I take it that you don't kill Anders either then?

[Caz Neerg]

So I take it that you don't kill Anders either then?

Not in my "Paladin" world state.  Anybody who can live through it, does live through, including Danzig the slaver and that creepy dude who likes to kill elf children.

[Roleplayqueen]

I love The Keep, it's awesome. I have tried a few different things in the world states. I went through this last time and picked mostly the rebellious and bad stuff, wonder how that will make Inquisition play out .

[CIA]

      Overall? Pretty good! The layout is a little muddled, but there are a LOT of choices.

 

Anyway, I've categorised them into good, bad, and 'bad' bad where I've crashed Ferelden with no survivors

[Verly]

 Caz Neerg  it's no problem.   Just like every other choice in this game I've never considered any of them "good" or "bad" and after a lot of us have played this game a number of times I think most of us have decided in our own head what a "proper" warden would do. 

 

I've never considered any of my wardens (or hawkes) totally "good" or "bad".  Certainly not Paladin level.  

All of them have been thrown into a situation that they were not really prepared for.

 

For example:  My canon warden is Vey Brosca- a castless dwarf. The only indication for her that Loghain is a  great hero is by other people's accounts. She certainly didn't see any of it with her own eyes. She grew up in a place that didn't even consider her a person. so, she doesn't care what titel or lable a person is given. She cares about what she sees with her own eyes  So, She already had a number of things against Loghain when he blamed her for the deaths of Duncan and the King on her and putting a bounty on her head. 

 

even then if it was an option she may have considered him joining the wardens. Heck, at that time she had a giant that admitted to killing a family including children because of his missing sword and an elf assassin that was sent to kill her. It was the slavery in the alinage that put the nail on that coffin.  By the time it was suggested for him to join there was no way she wanted him around.  It had nothing to do with Alistair.  If this makes my canon warden no "Hero" to you, that's fine. She never asked to be one anyway. 

 

 As I said, the only background that might have extensive knowledge of Loghain's great war hero status is the human noble. *maybe* a city elf. (my CE did not) anyone in game can be *told* he is a great war hero, but it doesn't mean that the pc has to believe it. 

 

your notes on Ostigar:  I just have never seen it that way.  It might be clear to you and that's fine. it's why I love these games we can all take away something different,  but to me Loghain left his son in law to die and then blamed it on the wardens.  in DA2 it is called a betrayal.  Avaline as well as a warrior/rogue hawke and Carver all survived ostigar, so I'm not seeing how it was too late for loghain to proceed with  the war plan he created. If it was a total loss how come I have direct knowledge of 2-3 people that survived the battle? it is hard for me to believe that they are the only survivors of the war. 

[kat102]

I'm trying to create 3 - 4 world states.

One as my original "first" playthrough.
One as what I want to consider my "official" playthrough which consists of mostly good choices with a little morally bad thrown in.
One as a bad choices playthrough.
And finally one that is an in-between I guess... more equally grey in balance of choices between good and bad.

It's great not having to play the bad choices. I always found it so hard to actually make those choices myself while playing. Being somewhat of a jerk wasn't hard but actually making difficult choices that resulted in deaths of one or many were tough. Now all I have to do is click the choice.

[Caz Neerg]

I usually find "bad" choices lead to the more entertaining consequences.  That said, I do tend to avoid the ones related to companions unless they are during the endgame, or I've already seen everything that companion has to offer in other playthroughs, because I hate to miss out on whatever participation they would have had if they were alive.

 

The only choice I can recall, from either game, that actually felt bad for me to pick was the option to kill the Mabari at Ostagar.  Killing humanoid characters I can do all day long, giggling at the flying heads all the way, but dogs?  That's just not cool.

 

I have four "primary" world states planned at this point.  One based on a slightly modified version of the choices I actually made in my initial Origins and DA2 playthroughs, which choices tend to be based on what I predict will be the most amusing, and skew relatively dark.  One where I try to have as many characters dead as possible, and wherever death wasn't possible, whichever was most unpleasant for those involved.  One "good" run where (other than siding with the Templars in Broken Circle and at the end of DA2) the most non-violent solution is always picked.  And finally, one where I make all the decisions I think I would make if I actually were in the player character's shoes.

 

My final world state I have been using for the various options in different choice sets that didn't make it into one of the other four states, like having female Warden/Hawke or romances with dudes.

[Verly]

I'm not sure If I've mentioned this in here  I've personally played dao at *least* ten times (probably way more than that, but I'm trying to sound less obsessed with this game. lol), but I currently have 5 world states that I have kept (still planning two more because I want to have one for each origin) I know with only 5 states savable in the keep I'll eventually need to delete a couple of them to make room, but I'm totally prepared to play DAI 7 times at the least. 

 

I have my Castless dwarf Vey Brosca, human noble Aedan Cousland, Dalish elf Gail Mahariel, human mage Violet Amell, and city elf Estina Tabris.  My current character is Delamara Aeuducan who is going to have Loghain make the ultimate sacrifice and the elf mage I'm planning will do it himself. I want to do this because I've never played a game where my character didn't agree to do (or usually have Alistiar do) the dark ritual.  Each of my current 5 warden's have a corresponding Hawke attached to the world state.  Basically, I like to have the Warden and the Hawke attached to that world state use the same weapon type and I have some kind of weird theme going on. For example, Gail Mahariel was an archer. Lynn hawke was also an archer who romanced Merril.  I've covered all romances in the game because Aedan was a dog that romanced both Zevran and Morrigan (and eventually, married Anora.)

[FrozenSolid]

All this Keeping has made me hungry for some Dragon Age. I started a new Warden, this time a Casteless Lady Dwarf. Sharp witted an opportunistic, she's been hilariously fun to play through. Since my canon warden as very pro-magic and anti-demon, I decided to have my Casteless be very eager to take deals that come her way if they seem worth her while. 

 

Over the weekend I finished the opening scenes, made it through Lothering, and headed straight for Orzammar. The trip there had me run into a man selling a control rod for a Golem. Being the smart opportunistic Dwarf that I was, I eagerly took the rod and headed to release the Golem. When I got through the dungeon to get the little girl, I found Kitty, whom I freed along with the girl. Up until I got Shale my party included Leliana, Morrigan, and Alistair. Shale replaced Alistair.

 

With the Golem business out of the way, we all headed for Orzammar. I quickly sided with Bhelen because of my sister, but attempted to work both sides for the most profit. I was sad to find out that I couldn't go onto step 2 of each questline, and could only do Bhelen's. After doing Bhelen's dirty work, I followed his instructions on heading into the Deep Roads to find Branka. Joined by Ohgren, who replaced Leliana, we began our search. Part way through we found the severed pieces of a body, whom we eventually put back together only to be rewarded for freeing a demon!

 

Eventually we made it to Branka, after having fought the Broodmother (man that fight is freaking hard with a mostly melee group, using Morrigan for support rather than fighting). Branka was nuts, and after making it through all the traps that lead to the Anvil we met Caridin, who convinced us to join him and stop Branka.

 

... then half way through the fight the game crashed and I was sad. To be continued!

[Ardulin]

I recently finished another playthrough of Origins and Awakening a few days ago, prompted by my invite into the Keep. It's amazing how much I forgot when I first went to take a look at the Keep. I haven't replayed for a few years, though, so it was an amazing experience all over again. I only remembered the main quests, and just experiencing the party banter and side stories again was a great feeling.

 

It was also extremely worth it, since now I can continue crafting my true canon Keep save state, one that I'll focus on for my first playthrough of DA:I. It felt wrong to make choices that I completely forgot about! Reading the Wiki just isn't the same.

 

My Warden is a friend of the people, kept all her companions alive, broke Zathrian's curse, saved the mages, destroyed the anvil, and had Alistair perform the dark ritual with Morrigan. Alistair became King and she remained by his side (and eep, the little scene between Alistair and the Warden at the beginning of Awakening always makes me die a little inside ). 

 

As for my Hawke, who I hold a special place in my heart for, she's pure sarcastic and honestly has no idea why she's always the center of attention for Kirkwall's problems. Still, she loves her merry band of misfits and helps them out whenever she can, but drawing the line at helping Merrill restore the Eluvian. She supported the mages throughout the game, much to the dismay of her LI Fenris's opinion about them.

 

I could go on and on but, gosh, the Keep has really accelerated my hype for Inquisition. Even though I'll be focusing on my canon save state, just knowing that I can make so many different varieties of save states makes me giddy for future playthroughs. Ahh!

[Cypher Sama]

Right now I've got all six slots used with the following:

 

• Ladies Run the World - Sereda Aeducan/Teyrnia Hawke
• Reboarding Try 3 (random Hawke and warden)
• Watch the World Burn: Aka all the "bad" choices you can make. Alim Surana/Invictus Hawke (somehow I've duplicated this WS?)
• Alistair as Lone King: Theron Mahariel/Victor Hawke
• Warden as Queen: Cyrian Cousland/Severin Hawke

I'm going to wipe that duplicate Watch the World burn state and pick other hawke/warden combos.

 

By the way, has anyone successfully shared world states? I've tried and I get a success message, but I still get "You have no shared world states at the moment" at the bottom of the World State Manager/

[Mhairwen]

By the way, has anyone successfully shared world states? I've tried and I get a success message, but I still get "You have no shared world states at the moment" at the bottom of the World State Manager/

 

That spot won't show what you've shared, but will include any world states shared with you.

[Cypher Sama]

That spot won't show what you've shared, but will include any world states shared with you.

Ah that makes sense then! Anyone wanna share a WS with me?

[DarthVeritas]

Nice to see there's many of us with so many different possible world states out there that's it's hard to have a good cannon one only to see what the world would be if something else happened. Saying that, I know I read that some were totally opposed to leaving Loghain alive.. The wardens aren't always about the moral high ground, their job is stopping the blight with any means necessary. One of my DAO states had a hardened Alistair take the throne only to recruit Loghain so he could make the final blow vs the archdemon thus not needing to have the my warden or Alistair die and not have to have the dark ritual either. So many possibilities but this one was always one of my favorite choices. 

[Oasis_JS]

Hmmm.. I can't say it all by detail. I just did my best to play it how I first play my female rogue city elf. Kind,helping people but also taking the law in her own hands at time. Being direct with then plays. Also play my city elf as silly at times. I went the same route with my rogue female hawke. Hmmm. Lets see.


Some of the things i did as the Warden
- gave the pub to the barmaid
-save the mages
-harden Leliana and alistar
-romance alistar than broke up and started a romance with Leliana
-save redcliff, city leafs and much more

For hawke
- kill anders
-save Merrill and romance her
-made friends with all my companions
- sided with the mages
- kill the Nobel kid who was killing elves.

[PhoenixAeon]

I wasn't arguing that Loghain is himself "Good," I'm pointing out that a "Good" Warden (in the sense of the most common stereotypes of Good) would not kill Loghain, or allow him to be killed by someone else, when he can be made a Grey Warden instead and have his undeniably great military skill put to use fighting the darkspawn.  "Good" only kills when it is given no other choice.  You have to metagame to characterize it as a choice between Alistair and Loghain, because Alistair leaving the party is not a result of your warden's choice to spare Loghain.  It is a result of Alistair's petty and childish nature, even when hardened.  To use comic book categories, a character who causes Loghain's death when there were other options is a Punisher style anti-hero at best, he's no hero.

 

That said, as far as consequences in DA2, I find drunken Alistair to be the most entertaining.  I doubt we will see him getting plastered again in Inquisition though, this many years later he must have either managed to drink himself to death, or finally stopped drinking.  And I believe Loghain has a cameo in Awakenings if alive, but no appearance at all in DA2.

 

EDIT: The funniest thing is that when you watch the sequences at Ostagar, it becomes clear that it takes the Warden and Alistair so long to get the signal lit that even if Loghain had followed the plan and attacked, it's about 99% sure that Cailan and Duncan would have been dead before anyone got to them anyway.  The warden force was already on it's last legs when Loghain pulled out.

 

 

I completely disagree with you. Good would not let evil go unpunished.  If The Warden and Alistair has died, then Loghain could never of stopped the blight, and all of Ferelden would of been consumed.  You need a Grey Warden to defeat the Archdemon, 

 

Loghain allowed his fear of being re-occupied by Orlas skew his judgement.  Ferelden would of perished thanks to Loghain. 

[Kilek Darkfire]

I completely disagree with you. Good would not let evil go unpunished.  If The Warden and Alistair has died, then Loghain could never of stopped the blight, and all of Ferelden would of been consumed.  You need a Grey Warden to defeat the Archdemon, 

 

Loghain allowed his fear of being re-occupied by Orlas skew his judgement.  Ferelden would of perished thanks to Loghain. 

One could also argue that making Loghain a Grey Warden is punishment in and of itself, since it can be considered a death sentence with the shortened life span thing if you survive it and all. That said, I still couldn't stand Loghain, and never managed to successfully finish a play through where he lived. I don't take kindly to someone leaving me for dead, framing me for murder, and then sending assassins after me, not to mention all the other things he's done, like selling the elves into slavery and such. I preferred my justice a little more immediate. 

 

Edit: In a sense it could also be viewed as a poetic justice. He seems to hate the Grey Wardens, so what better way to get back at him than to make him one?

[Caz Neerg]

I completely disagree with you. Good would not let evil go unpunished.  If The Warden and Alistair has died, then Loghain could never of stopped the blight, and all of Ferelden would of been consumed.  You need a Grey Warden to defeat the Archdemon, 

 

Loghain allowed his fear of being re-occupied by Orlas skew his judgement.  Ferelden would of perished thanks to Loghain. 

 

Good isn't about punishment.  Good is about forgiveness, Good is about redemption, Good is about letting people live and have a second chance even when every ounce of reason tells you to kill them.  Lawful can be about punishment, sure, but not Good.  That's why D&D Paladins have never made any logical sense.  A character who finds himself in realistic situations will eventually have to choose which is more important, being Lawful or being Good, thus making it impossible in a believable scenario to actually play a character who remains Lawful Good over time.  Unless you are seeking to define Good in a way which is inconsistent with both the D&D definition and the most dominant real world definitions, killing Loghain (other than in explicit self defense) simply is not a Good act.

[Lee80]

I've never been under the impression that good must never kill is a rule.  I mean good alignments generally forbid murder in of itself, but execution of someone such as Loghain can be very easily justified and in no way comes across as anywhere near evil to me. Failure to end his evil would possibly lead to far more deaths than just his own.  All of those deaths would have been on the good character's hands. I'm still not convinced that a saved Loghain won't be a serious problem in the future really.  I don't expect him to go out quietly when his calling comes.  

[PhoenixAeon]

Good isn't about punishment.  Good is about forgiveness, Good is about redemption, Good is about letting people live and have a second chance even when every ounce of reason tells you to kill them.  Lawful can be about punishment, sure, but not Good.  That's why D&D Paladins have never made any logical sense.  A character who finds himself in realistic situations will eventually have to choose which is more important, being Lawful or being Good, thus making it impossible in a believable scenario to actually play a character who remains Lawful Good over time.  Unless you are seeking to define Good in a way which is inconsistent with both the D&D definition and the most dominant real world definitions, killing Loghain (other than in explicit self defense) simply is not a Good act.

 

 

Loghain did so many heinous acts that making him a Grey Warden would only be a reward not a punishment. Once news of his crimes were discovered do you think anyone would respect the Grey Wardens?   That is why in Awakening (if you made him a Grey Warden) they ship him off to Orlais. They knew he would not be able to resist meddling.  

 

Good cannot allow someone to be rewarded for so many crimes, even against the Grey Wardens themselves.  Riorden was thinking of the immediate threat not the long term implications. I certainly wouldn't allow losing Alistair because of Loghain becoming a Grey Warden.   That would be is the ultimate betrayal. Someone you fought with since the beginning for your very survival, only to stab them, Duncan and all other Grey Wardens in the back. 

 

No, this is not good at all. Loghain has already proven he cannot be trusted.  

[The Bear Muse]

Unless you are seeking to define Good in a way which is inconsistent with both the D&D definition and the most dominant real world definitions, killing Loghain (other than in explicit self defense) simply is not a Good act.

 

That'd be the crux of the argument here. As you said yourself, "that's why D&D Paladins have never made any logical sense."

 

The closest thing I've got to a paladin is one of my Hawkes, who outright refused to kill most people when given the option. But she wouldn't stand for sparing slavers, who profited off the lives of others, or Kelder, who murdered children and was unlikely to be stopped by the corrupt court system. Everyone else was given the benefit of the doubt....for better or for worse.

[Caz Neerg]

I've never been under the impression that good must never kill is a rule.  I mean good alignments generally forbid murder in of itself, but execution of someone such as Loghain can be very easily justified and in no way comes across as anywhere near evil to me. Failure to end his evil would possibly lead to far more deaths than just his own.  All of those deaths would have been on the good character's hands. I'm still not convinced that a saved Loghain won't be a serious problem in the future really.  I don't expect him to go out quietly when his calling comes.  

Generally in literature that embraces the Good/Evil dichotomy, with "Good" characters being labeled as "Heroes," the best a character who kills (outside of the self-defense or heat of battle exceptions) can hope for is to be considered an anti-hero, which is generally presented as a character whose motives may be Good, but whose actions are not.  Executing people, or choosing to kill them in unnecessary duels, these are cold blooded choices not generally associated with being Good.  We see lots of choices like that in Dragon Age, because it is quite explicitly not built on a moral framework.  Most of the time, there aren't any Good or Evil choices, just choices with a variety of consequences that each have a grab bag of possible moral implications.

 

Trying to build a "Good" world state in the Keep is very, very hard.  But it's easier if you refuse to meta-game, focusing only on the choices themselves rather than their consequences.  No world state is going to achieve consistently "Good" outcomes, because some choice sets don't really have any Good outcomes.  But you can come pretty close to creating a world state where your characters don't take any explicitly "bad" actions.  Killing in cold-blood may, depending on who you are killing, not rise to the level of "Evil," but attempting to call it Good is a huge stretch.

 

And, to try to get back to focusing on world states rather than our tangent about morality, a world state where every choice is coldly, rationally calculated to maximize chances of defeating the Blight would probably also leave Loghain alive.  A lot of the choices which appear less than ideal depending on the moral perspective they are viewed from start looking a lot rosier if you consider them in the context of a playing a character who has no reason to believe victory is guaranteed, and has to consider every choice in the context of trying to create some edge to allow an unlikely victory.

 

In such a purely pragmatic world state, you would almost be required to let Loghain live.  Viewed purely in terms of the immediate conflict with the darkspawn, he is simply and unambiguously a superior resource in every way to Alistair.  It's not even rationally debatable.  You would also have to side with Branka and get those golems into production, and it would make the most sense to pick the werewolves in Nature of the Beast, because they would make more valuable troops than elves or elves and humans who used to be werewolves.  Judging on a lot of people's descriptions of the world state most consistent with their primary playthroughs, I think the norm in the community is a fair amount of metagaming, in the sense that people play characters in a way that assumes victory is guaranteed, and that there is no need to make any "moral" sacrifices along the way.

[Verly]

I think the main issue here is that we all have our own versions of what is good and bad. One may feel that they understand the term better than others, but I still think it comes down to opinion. I just don't see Superman's black and white view of morality fitting in Thedas. That's my opinion as well. 

 

As for meta-gaming: I've probably played DAO at the least 10 times. Anymore, I'm playing for world-state variations. so, I can totally admit to meta-gaming.  I've always made sure the choices I make in the game do fit the "voice" I've given each of them. LIke, I won't do the side quests if it makes no sense for the character. I for sure don't go murder knifing random people (Delamara does, but she's like that).  I don't think I've ever had a character do the crime wave quest line in Denerim (even my Brosca was trying to prove that she (mostly) was a decent person.) .none of my characters have ever considered themselves to be heroes though.  They are just people trying to survive. 

[Caz Neerg]

I think the main issue here is that we all have our own versions of what is good and bad. One may feel that they understand the term better than others, but I still think it comes down to opinion. I just don't see Superman's black and white view of morality fitting in Thedas. That's my opinion as well. 

 

As for meta-gaming: I've probably played DAO at the least 10 times. Anymore, I'm playing for world-state variations. so, I can totally admit to meta-gaming.  I've always made sure the choices I make in the game do fit the "voice" I've given each of them. LIke, I won't do the side quests if it makes no sense for the character. I for sure don't go murder knifing random people (Delamara does, but she's like that).  I don't think I've ever had a character do the crime wave quest line in Denerim (even my Brosca was trying to prove that she (mostly) was a decent person.) .none of my characters have ever considered themselves to be heroes though.  They are just people trying to survive. 

 

Honestly, given the realities of the Dragon Age universe, I think if we look at the choice set of a character who is trying to be "Good" objectively, better descriptive terms for the synthesis of those choices would be "naive" or "stupid."  Thedas has plenty of room for anti-heroes and villains, but it's really not a setting fit for heroes.  I only spend time discussing what the Good Guy world state would look like because it is a square peg that a very large number of people will try to cram into the misshapen hole of Dragon Age, no matter how poorly it fits.  Just because a game series can abandon the tired morality based narratives of yester-year, that doesn't mean the players themselves will stop trying to route their personal narratives down black and white corridors.

 

I definitely appreciate what you say about character voice though.  My first playthroughs tend to be completionist even where it doesn't make sense for the character, because I can't help indulging my curiosity.  But my subsequent characters have tightly defined narrative identities.  

 

That's one thing I love about the Keep, that it lets us create world states that might have very interesting consequences, but would not actually be all that fun to play through.  "Everybody dies" is a great concept, but when you reach the end of the game with no more than one or two companions still alive and in your party, it's not going to be the most pleasant experience. I hope that other game series that factor in past decisions take note, and that the Keep approach becomes an industry standard which replaces save game imports.