Playing the evil warden does not have to have that impact on your mission specially in Origins where your main priority is the treaties. Also, who's going to punish you when everything and everywhere is in deep ****? Who you really have to worry about are your companions, because they are the only ones who are willing to help you on your mission. Everyone else won't even give you the time of the day unless you bend over backwards and forwards for them. So, I don't get all these special snowflake and other colourful words you name the Warden, when you have the inquisitor who has everyone kissing their asses, complete with uber advisors and soldiers from the get go. Oh and a castle! While the warden has 5 nobody companions, sleeps on the ground, hunted, jailed and even killed.
Anyway, playing Evil protagonist does not only mean having to fail, but doing something that is horribly bad. I am also talking about having a direct hand when dealing with it and not sending your cronies at the war table to do your dirty work.
You think it is just a window dressing evil if you let your father in a cage die for 1 hp? Really? Yet you praise dai as a prime example of consequence for something that might happen to Sir Barris and the children? Err.. what children? I don't see any children in DAI. Even if they had children somewhere on paper that you "might" read about in DAI, i can't really care because I don't see them. So for me there is no emotional investment.
There is such power in visual presentation that lends weight to making a choice to play evil, that does not have to translate to consequence to your mission, but your conscience in seeing the direct consequences to your choices/actions.
Oh, there is allowing Shianni to be raped when you see her down on the floor surrounded by 4 men, when you have the power to stop it. Then allowing Sofia Dryden to go forth and create havok that she'll even give Hawke an accounting about it in DA2.
And what about the innocent mages and yes ... children that you actually see in Origins that would die in the mage tower if you choose the templars and the mages that was at their last batteries protecting themselves and the children? Or the whole dalish clan who will all die because of one man's stupidity if you choose the werewolves? A clan while so firmly plastered to their tradition but you see their struggles. Hell, even deflowering Camen and bragging to his girl afterwards, I consider evil in a way that you are pretty much destroying his chance to have a life with that she elf ( forgot her name )
Granted it's ymmv when it actually comes to playing evil but dammit, give me the choice to play that role, and not just between choosing stupid templars, or stupid mages, or stupid wardens, or even between stupid monarchs, for the large part.
Fiona says there are children (and others unsuitable for fighting) among them when Alexius describes what will happen to the rebel mages under their contract to Tevinter. 10 years of fighting in their battles before they can become citizens. So it's not 'just on paper', there is an actual dialogue in game. Since Alexius doesn't deny her words, I'm going to assume even if we don't see them, there are children and old people among them who will die for not being combat ready. And this conversation is available even if you choose to ignore that and go recruit the templars instead.
And I'm not arguing that your conscience being affected isn't a consequence. Obviously it is. Of course, this presupposes that your evil protagonist actually has a conscience and can be arsed enough to care. Most evil people don't see themselves as evil. They may justify what they do by 'I was trying to teach them a lesson' or 'I was only following orders' or 'I did it for my country' or my personal favorite 'I had no choice'. Loghain is a prime example of his actions having consequences though he justifies every action as "doing it for my country". And still you can see he's affected by what he's doing. Somewhere under all that bluster and insistence on being 'Ferelden's savior' is a conscience.
But that is a very different argument than what I am saying. I was saying results of your actions that happen off screen and don't really affect the protagonist aren't really consequences. Those are just window dressing, resulting in X companion or Y NPC doesn't show up later in the game. Something that happens as a direct result of your actions and impacts your protagonist is a consequence. It doesn't even have to be big, but it still has to impact you to qualify as a consequence. At least that's the criteria I am setting as a 'consequence'. My examples of consequences may have been a bit extreme, so I apologize if they offend, but I was trying to get a point across which the other poster I am debating with just isn't getting. I point out the mage/Templar situation since it's a really good example of what I mean. Your Inquisitor meets Ser Baras in game, he/she talks to Fiona and Alexius and can see these people, learn how choosing is going to impact one group or the other. And knowing later what happens to the mages or the templars lets the Inquisitor know how his/her choice to help one has a direct affect on the other.
The Inquisitor has his followers just as the warden has his. The circumstances of the two aren't dissimilar initially. Even if the warden sleeps on the ground, and the inquisitor in a building (later a castle, but initially he has little more than a hut with a bed) both have more people supporting them than just 5 or 6 companions. Most people my warden talked to, unless they have their heads up Loghain's butt, don't share the regent's paranoia. The Inquisitor starts off with a few companions and advisers only. The people staying with the Inquisition--not the Inquisitor--who do it because it's one of the few sane/safe places to be in Ferelden/Orlais aren't technically supporters of the Inquisitor himself (until the breach is sealed and then it kind of shifts as the Inquisitor becomes a walking, talking symbol) and they argue among themselves to boot. Josephine and Cullen have arguments with other NPCs to showcase this situation. The Inquisitor also has a lot of people who don't like him, and as Trespasser shows, even those he helps end up not liking him. This is quite different from the HoF, who can do all those evil acts you describe and more for no other reason than that he's a sociopath, and at the end, everyone, including the king/queen kisses his ass. By constraints of the narrative, the Inquisitor, at best, can be a jerk, which offsets some of the devotion, whereas the HoF can be a public menace as bad as Rendon Howe, and is the darling of Ferelden.
If it's a standalone game, go nuts, roleplay the next Emperor Palpatine(sp) or Charles Manson on Thedas. Slaughter everyone in sight, deflower virgins, rape, pillage, plunder and become the next God-Emperor ala Star Wars, but that doesn't seem to be the kind of game they're going for since each one builds on the next. Even major happenings (like abandoning Redcliffe to be slaughtered) should have an impact, but ultimately don't since Redcliffe abandoned is exactly the same as Redcliffe rescued in Inquisition--complete with the same griffon statue in the square honoring the HoF, who, you know, abandoned them to the undead. This is what I mean by 'window dressing'.
Perhaps they should consider tossing out the idea of Keep and wrapping up the loose ends of each story as it happens and making each game standalone. That way they can tell two different stories each game. If your Inquisitor got to do all those things and more, it wouldn't matter in DA4 because that's a new story elsewhere.
Retour en haut
after 18 pts no one was bowing and scrapping the floor for my warden. Everyone wanted something first before they even give you the time of the day. Not a single one aside from your 5 companions and a dog readily helped with your cause. And in the end I haven't seen anyone darlinging me around and worshiping me like the second coming of Jesus, aside from receiving a well deserved boon from saving the whole of Ferelden ...IF you lived. Come awakening after you got rid of the threat in Origins, their claws came out specially when you let Amaranthine burn. Hell, even before that you are still dodging assassination attempts. 
