Yeah but once you take away the immediacy factor of the issue of the mage threat, it becomes a much more even choice.
If you were to take away the immediacy factor, you mean?
The immediacy factor is there, and I see no way to just pretend it isn't. And given that it is there, it has to have an effect on the decision making process.
If you were to take away the immediacy factor, you mean?
The immediacy factor is there, and I see no way to just pretend it isn't. And given that it is there, it has to have an effect on the decision making process.
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If there was any immediacy factor you'd already be dead/captured.
Logically, if at any point in the timeline Alexius could have stopped you using time magic, he would have jumped back and done so. The fact he has not, confirms that time magic is not a real threat.
In general this is why writers should stay away from time magic as a plot device, it's never done well, and this is no exception.
The answer is simple, the devs did a horrible job of giving each option the weight necessary to make it a compelling choice. Mages while seemingly urgent (and if you don't deal with it right away you don't deal with it at all) doesn't give nearly the same type of background that picking the templars does. You get cut off from a lot of revelations of cory. At some points it does feel disjointed. Picking the templars seems stupid because of the urgency of the situation at redcliffe especially with magisters in the mix. Yet if you do you get a much better background to cory and a better flow of story imo.
So really the devs just did a poor balance job. They should have given you reason to go see both and then decide OR giving you no way to see them then just picking blindly. They should have also made sure the choice later was more balanced that each side got a unique, but familiar enough story that it flows about the same. That way it doesn't feel so jarring.
Oh and a side note: Aside from the urgency favoring mages you also have no idea if the templars will be able to suppress or weaken the breach. It makes very little sense to side with the templars without knowing this. I think it makes even less sense if your quizzy isn't a mage. Mages have a lot of power on their own and are already tied to the fade. It stands to reason a mage could have use of templars with the breach. I don't see how a rogue/warrior could though. They would surely need the help of mages too. I really just think this choice was poorly organized and done. I think there should have been more quests related to it so you had a good feel for what the abilities of both and how they could help you.
I feel that the mages were mostly at fault. What happened in Kirkwall was absolutely horrible, and the conditions of their Circle were atrocious....but Kirkwall was the exception. None of that crap was really going on elsewhere, and the mages rebelled using it as an excuse for everything they didn't like. The rebel mages did exactly what everyone on the Templars said they would do: killiing at will, running around unchecked, delving into blood magic, killing and abandoning the Tranquil, and basically going ape**** while screaming "freedom!" the entire time. It's for their going off of the deep end that i can't support them. Hell, you even find wayyyy more unsympathetic mages in the game bashing the actions of their fellow mages who rebelled, than you do Templars bashing the Templar's actions during the war.
Plus it seems like their were more Templars who truly wanted to step away and end the war, close the Breach...while most mages only wanted what was good for them.
Oh boy.
better then unknown trap aka templars ,i perfer known trap so i can counter it aka mages.Well, the Redcliffe situation is pretty clearly a trap for the Herald of Andraste. As far as you know, there's nothing suspicious going on with the Templars, aside from Lord Seeker Lucius acting a bit odd. You might decide to go to Therinfal so as to avoid the trap.
I feel that the mages were mostly at fault. What happened in Kirkwall was absolutely horrible, and the conditions of their Circle were atrocious....but Kirkwall was the exception. None of that crap was really going on elsewhere
The real Cole was locked in a cell and left to starve to death in the White Spire. The Circle at Dairsmuid in Rivain was annulled. Rhys was taken from Wynne in Ferelden. Kirkwall was not the only Circle where mages had it rough.
Given that at that point, the inquisitor only knows that what is happening with the mages is a huge threat that seems to call out for immediate intervention, while the only experience the inquisitor has had with the templars is their leader acting like a pompous a-hole, and seemingly completely shutting out the possibility of helping the Inquisition.
So... what sort of logic would allow the inquisitor to ignore the present threat at Redcliffe, and go on a wild goose chase to see if they could persuade the a-hole in charge to join the Inquisition?
Heh, amusingly I recently talked about this in another thread.
I agree that the mage issue is presented as more urgent. However, you can look at it this way: the rebel mages have gotten way in over their heads and now the "evil" Tevinter types are involved doing Maker-knows-what and manipulating time. Who are the best around at combating magic? Templars. So you can certainly reason that you need to go fetch the templars in order to fix this whole mage issue.
The problem comes in with the game mechanic of the war table and by necessity only being able to choose one side. The war table tells you this when you click on either mission, which is immersion breaking.
You can also forgo going to Redcliffe at all, but unless your character is rabidly pro-templar I don't see a logical reason that you would not go just to see what they want since Fiona invited you.
The plan offered to deal with the mess in Redcliffe is seriously sketchy, and relies totally on you trusting Dorian, some guy you just met from Tevinter.
But... he's so charming though!
Hmm... might just have to go with that, though it does seem a bit weak. That would require that the tevinter magister, his son, and Dorian constructed an elaborate ruse to get you to... what? Come to Redcliffe? But you were there already? What's the purpose of letting the person you intend to trap go, persuading him to possibly return later, and then trap him? Why not trap him immediately when he comes to you the first time, under the impression that he's meeting the grand enchanter at her invitation?
After all, if you engineered the invitation, you could just as easily have prepared the trap for the first encounter, as the second.
So it does seem a bit weak.
I really wish they actually made the decision a little more even - so that going to the templars was possible to justify solidly without having to skip Redcliffe altogether.
Dorian says, "You already know you're a target. Knowing about the trap is the first step in turning it to your advantage." So the whole trap angle was already discussed and doesn't necessarily have to mean that Dorian and Felix are involved in it [the trap]. But as you said, what Dorian and Felix discuss is quite probable given what you've already witnessed, so you don't necessarily have to trust their word. So you could very well consider the whole thing a trap, including the two guys, and just go for the templars.
The answer is simple, the devs did a horrible job of giving each option the weight necessary to make it a compelling choice. Mages while seemingly urgent (and if you don't deal with it right away you don't deal with it at all) doesn't give nearly the same type of background that picking the templars does. You get cut off from a lot of revelations of cory. At some points it does feel disjointed. Picking the templars seems stupid because of the urgency of the situation at redcliffe especially with magisters in the mix. Yet if you do you get a much better background to cory and a better flow of story imo.
While I adore Dorian and the time in the future with him, I feel that the real loss in siding with the mages is missing out on the whole Cole experience. That is the only time the player and Inquisitor gets to experience Cole's abilities on a personal level during the whole game. I also think there is better justification for keeping him around after that than when he randomly shows up at Haven's gates. At least with Dorian at the gates he looks totally worn out, is possibly injured, and you may have already met him before, so it's an "I told you so" situation; not so with Cole.
Perhaps I'm remembering this wrong, but the only reason to go to Redcliffe is because we bump into Fiona at Val Royeaux and she says "come to Redcliffe so we can talk". That doesn't strike me as a strong reason to go to Redcliffe, tbh. So your Inquisitor might just go 'forget that, I'll see if I can persuade other templars'. There's an implication that others (like Barris) might be more amenable to an alliance, so the idea might be to appeal to the templars as a whole rather than going through Lucius. Cassandra could also be used to bring the templars to heel (as a Seeker and Right Hand of the Divine), whereas the mages would see no similar authority figure in the Inquisition.
Other potential reasons:
-Public appeal. Despite the issues with templars lately, most people seem to have a bit more faith in the templars than the mages, partly perhaps because it's just status quo. Building an army of the faithful looks good for the Inquisition when the Chantry is being currently unhelpful too. That quest also involves strengthening alliances with the nobility in order to approach the templars in the first place.
-Templars can use their powers to suppress the magic from the Breach. This is confirmed by Cullen, an ex-templar. We're told that pouring magic into the Breach would also help, but none of our advisors are mages (and Solas is not present in these discussions). The idea might be pretty off-putting for a non-mage (how exactly would it work?) whereas templars suppressing its power seems more straight-forward. The assumption that magic caused the Breach might also make the idea of using anti-magic more appealing.
-Fiona's questionable leadership. You get to Redcliffe and she pretends to have never met you (as far as the Inquisitor is aware), then tells you a Tevinter magister now controls her people. The templars might seem more favourable simply due to the fact that Lucius seemed more in control during his brief introduction (even if he was a d*ck). Plus, you might not want to get tangled up with Tevinter. Those would be powerful enemies to make so early in the Inquisition's rise to power, especially since you might be stepping on the Ferelden crown's toes to do so.
-Mistrusting Felix/Dorian. You get a note after meeting Alexius telling you to go to the Chantry, but as a companion notess, it could be a trap. So the only reason to go is curiosity or following up a lead. Seems like a perfect moment to give this up as a bad job and see whether the templars are as messed up. If you do go to the Chantry, there's less reason to back-out, because time magic is a pretty serious threat. However, that's only if you believe 'time magic, go with it' from Dorian. There's also the possibility that the Inquisitor thinks "I've got enough to deal with, trying to close the Breach! Doesn't Ferelden have any other heroes to deal with a time magic threat??"
My pro-mage, Templar siding Inquisitor went to the Templars first thinking she could use them against Alexius and help the mages that way (while I know going to one cuts off the other, the characters don't know that).
Our advisors make it rather clear that it is a either/or choice, iirc.
As for the missions...I've never played the templar mission and probably never will. That is partly metagaming (I love "In Hushed Whispers"), but even without that...we have Fiona politely inviting you to Redcliffe to discuss a possible alliance, or templars who assault some elderly chantry sister. And after I went to Redcliffe and talked to Fiona I felt it more urgent to deal with Tevinter and time magic instead of going off in in the middle of nowhere to investigate why some genocidal lunatics were acting like jerks in Val Royeaux.
Actually, I didn't. I asked "Is there an RP reason", not "Is there an RP reason that worked for you".
That's kinda rude, don't you think?
That's kinda rude, don't you think?
Not intentionally. It was, in fact, a factual correction; the person I responded to thought I had asked something I specifically, and purposefuly didn't - as I was looking for a good, rational RP reason one could convincingly argue for, not something that just "works for you" (unless, of course, what "works for you" can also be argued for forcefully enough to convince most others).
I don't know how I could make that correction more pleasantly - and I did not wish my original question to be misrepresented.
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If there was any immediacy factor you'd already be dead/captured.
Logically, if at any point in the timeline Alexius could have stopped you using time magic, he would have jumped back and done so. The fact he has not, confirms that time magic is not a real threat.
In general this is why writers should stay away from time magic as a plot device, it's never done well, and this is no exception.
Of course, you are right - thanks for pointing that out, should have thought of it myself.
However, the fact that you can rule out Alexius ever achieving time travel to undo the Inquisition, does not rule out something just as threatening: Alexius achieving a way to stop time, locally. After all, what you've already witnessed is the slowing of time, and the improvement need only be incremental, to slow down time so much as to make you freeze in place.
If control over such magic was achieved by Alexius, all would be lost - he could just freeze the inquisition forces, and leave them that way, while his master gets his way unopposed.
And you don't know how far Alexius is away from achieving THAT. Could be years away, months away, weeks away, days away, or hours away. Thus not dealing with Alexius post-haste is playing with fire.
The immediacy again calls into question the wisdom of abandoning that path, and going after the templars, especially since the templars have shown no indication they COULD be convinced to help - their leader seemed quite unreasonable, and definitely hostile and dismissive of the Inquisition. For all the Inquisitor knows, the templar path might already be out of the question, and an effort to recruit them would only waste time. At the very least, the Inquisitor has to consider that a possible, even likely outcome.
The way I did it in the end was just to head-cannon it so that my Inquisitor was inexperienced with magic, and didn't trust her ability to deal with the situation, and going to the templars for help was a desperation move; one that backfired as she now discovered she cannot immediately go after Alexius with the templars after all. So she considers her actions to have been a mistake - and after seeing the templars fooled by a demon, she doesn't trust the templars enough to lead themselves, and subsumed the order into the Inquisition. But as she told Solas later, beggars can't be choosers, and she just has to make do with the situation as it is, and hope that Alexius isn't about to freeze all their asses.
It still felt a bit weak to me, but it'll do, I guess.
Perhaps I'm remembering this wrong, but the only reason to go to Redcliffe is because we bump into Fiona at Val Royeaux and she says "come to Redcliffe so we can talk". That doesn't strike me as a strong reason to go to Redcliffe, tbh.
Sure, there might not be a compelling reason TO go. But what is the reason for NOT going just to see what the mages have to say? Why wouldn't you go and then decide after that point, unless, as I said before, your character is rabidly pro-templar and you never consider it as a viable option in the first place. At that point you don't know anything about the time magic or Fiona's contract with Alexius. Granted, there is banter in Haven of "Tevinter sightings in the Hinterlands," but the player can easily miss that, and it doesn't necessarily indicate the goings on in Redcliffe.
Sure, there might not be a compelling reason TO go. But what is the reason for NOT going just to see what the mages have to say? Why wouldn't you go and then decide after that point, unless, as I said before, your character is rabidly pro-templar and you never consider it as a viable option in the first place. At that point you don't know anything about the time magic or Fiona's contract with Alexius. Granted, there is banter in Haven of "Tevinter sightings in the Hinterlands," but the player can easily miss that, and it doesn't necessarily indicate the goings on in Redcliffe.
I would add to that that the offer to talk to the mages is given right after you seemingly get completely shut out of the possibility of recruiting the templars. So if your inquisitor is pragmatic, even if she is extremely pro-templar, she must consider the possibility that the choice has already been made for her; the events leave going after the templars look like a path unlikely to succeed, while all you have to do to just hear the mages out is to go and talk to them to Redcliffe. For all you know, you could go to them, turn down their offer, and decide to go after the templars, at least having learned what the mages are up to in Redcliffe.
So going to Redcliffe seems like the easy, low cost thing to do next, while ignoring that offer to go try to do the difficult, possibly impossible thing first, seems a bit... forced. Perhaps if you were playing a REALLY, dogmatically, get-out-of-my-sight-filthy-mage-type inquisitor, you could head-cannon it so that the Inquisitor just couldn't bring herself to go to where all those mages are, just for the purposes of intelligence on the mage rebellion (as she would not have considered allying with them).
... However, that's only if you believe 'time magic, go with it' from Dorian.
Alas, the existence of time magic was already confirmed to you - even before meeting Dorian, you witnessed it, when closing the breach outside Redcliffe.
Thus your experience lends credence to what Dorian is saying; it's not so easy to dismiss.
You are right though that the last place to possibly back out would be to consider the note a trap, and not going to the Chantry at all. But that would mean that the whole magister's son's sickness routine was a ploy the magister was IN ON.
And this would open up the question: if the magister intended to trap the Inquisitor, why not spring the trap at the tavern. As someone pointed out to me earlier in this thread, it is conceivable that this question is resolved IF the note by the magister's son is not a trap: the son's illness prompted Alexius to change his plans and spring the trap later, first taking care of his son. But if Alexius was in on it, knowing that his son was faking it, that would undermine this reasoning.
In that case, there would be no reason for this sort of an elaborate ruse to achive access to you, when he ALREADY had access to you at the tavern. If he needed you at the Chantry for some reason, there would have been much simpler ways of getting you there. For example, having Fiona meet you at the Chantry, instead of the tavern - she is under your power, after all, if you are Alexius. Leave a messanger to meet you at the gate, telling you that Fiona is waiting at the Chantry.
So the note, and the secretive handing out of it, only makes sense if it's not a trap.
Logically, if at any point in the timeline Alexius could have stopped you using time magic, he would have jumped back and done so. The fact he has not, confirms that time magic is not a real threat.
Again... you see that big butthole in the sky, with the weird **** coming out of it? For all you know at the time, Alexius (whether through success or bungling--directly or indirectly) could be responsible for it. It could be the result of something that he's GOING to do from your present perspective if you don't stop him. You have every reason to believe that time-warping fade rifts and Giant Magic Goatse are connected. This "I'm outsmarting the plot because lol I'm genre savvy about paradoxes" thing just doesn't really work in-character.
I agree that the reason to investigate the Mages, in-game, is far more compelling, from a role-playing standpoint. Certainly the developers should have made each equally urgent.
However, one could argue that a true roleplayer would deny any reason to believe that choosing to investigate one group, would necessarily preclude the other. That is, after all, just a meta-game, railroading construct of the writers.
My Inquisitior would intend to visit both groups, with the aim of forging peace between them. Learning of strange goings on at Redcliffe would encourage him to visit Therinfal and inform the Templars of the Tevinter plot, as well as investiagte the odd behaviour of their leader. Alas, events at Redcliffe proceed too quickly for him to intervene there as he wished.
Problem solved.
A systematic oppression of an entire peoples that includes a butt ton of abuse towards these people are not something I can stand for. So, personally, I see no reason going to the templars whom tend to involve themselves in such abuse would be a good idea. I just stick to the mages 'cause most of them have had it rough since the day they were torn from their families.
A systematic oppression of an entire peoples that includes a butt ton of abuse towards these people are not something I can stand for. So, personally, I see no reason going to the templars whom tend to involve themselves in such abuse would be a good idea. I just stick to the mages 'cause most of them have had it rough since the day they were torn from their families.
...and yet the mages ally themselves with Tevinter...Tevinter...Tevviiiiinnnnter
...and yet the mages ally themselves with Tevinter...Tevinter...Tevviiiiinnnnter
What do you expect from people locked up in a tower their whole lives? Common sense was obviously not on their agenda in teaching these mages lol.
What do you expect from people locked up in a tower their whole lives? Common sense was obviously not on their agenda in teaching these mages lol.
Actually that is not a bad point. 
I mean again the ultimate point here is nothing in Inquisition is black and white. You would be perfectly justified in going to either the mage's or the Templars. Considering, also, that the choice can be not about allying with them but forcibly using the.
What do you expect from people locked up in a tower their whole lives? Common sense was obviously not on their agenda in teaching these mages lol.
Problem some see mages running free turn into Tevinter mages. DA2 had plenty of free mages causing all kinds of problems including killing your mom. So, both Templars and Mages had problems.
By the end of DAI, I had a strong feeling mages were more easily corrupted such as the warden mages, and the mages you fight during "In your Heart Shall Burn". On the otherhand, Templars are controlled by lyrium. Get rid of their addiction, and have them join the seekers is a real positive move for them.
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