322 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

Done right, this seems like a pretty big resource sink. Which is a bit of an issue when a fair percentage of RPG fans actively dislike having preset detailed backgrounds in the first place.

I'm neutral on having the feature myself in a future game; might be fun for a change. But I don't think having the feature would have been thematically consistent with DAI; it's no accident that who the Inquisitor really is just isn't all that important.

[Realmzmaster]

I don't think a player should need to rely on headcanon to have a solid background from which to roleplay.

 

Nor does a player need origins to roleplay. A blank slate character allows the player to define the backstory rather than have it handed to the player by the writer.

[Lezio]

Nor does a player need origins to roleplay. A blank slate character allows the player to define the backstory rather than have it handed to the player by the writer.

 

I can work with a blank state if the character has basically no backstory whatsoever and i have to make everything up or if, as i already said, the character has amnesia. See, for example, Fallout: New Vegas for an example of the latter and 4 for the former. They work because, basically, those are games sructured to give the player complete freedom over their characters

 

I fell like DAI tries to be like that but fails short because

1) It is actually possible to address the character's background but, IMHO, since i had nothing to work with in my first palythorugh it just seemed like i was making up as i went. Like, in Dragon Age:Origins, as a City Elf it's not really so hard to be an a-hole to humans because we actually lived the bad things elves must endure. Similiarly, because we lived the life of a circle mage, however brief, it is easier to understand just why mages feel oppressed

2) The codex actually explains why each Inquisitor was at the Conclave, so it's not like s/he is a complete blank slate anyway. it would have been nice to live the reason why were there, instad of just reading about it

[vbibbi]

Part of what made DAO so different from other RPGs I've played was the origin stories. Even Hawke, despite not having an actual origin segment, has their sibling and mother to act as a continuing origin throughout the game. It made the PC a fully connected part of the world and gave them in game context for their motivations and world views.

 

It's part of what humanized Shepard in ME1, while there was no connection to Shep as an actual person rather than Space Jesus in 2 and 3.

 

I do wish the origins had bled into the rest of the story more. I remember different dialogue options based on origin during Ostagar, but that was really it except for the Guardian of the Urn and coming across NPCs from the origins. At least DAI does have a few background dialogue options, but both games could have benefited from more instances of this.

[nightscrawl]

The good example in game is when mage Trevelyan speaks with Vivienne about the Ostwick Circle. There needed to be more of these instances in conversation. I think any Trevelyan should have been able to speak to Blackwall about being a Marcher, for example.

 
Oh, I agree in that case, but I think it should be optional. For example, in the Vivienne dialogue with the Trev mage, she asks you about another mage there and you can say a variety of different things, leaving the choice up to the player.

I simply don't want people and relationships forced on my character. That's all, really.

[In Exile]

Part of what made DAO so different from other RPGs I've played was the origin stories. Even Hawke, despite not having an actual origin segment, has their sibling and mother to act as a continuing origin throughout the game. It made the PC a fully connected part of the world and gave them in game context for their motivations and world views.

 

It's part of what humanized Shepard in ME1, while there was no connection to Shep as an actual person rather than Space Jesus in 2 and 3.

 

I do wish the origins had bled into the rest of the story more. I remember different dialogue options based on origin during Ostagar, but that was really it except for the Guardian of the Urn and coming across NPCs from the origins. At least DAI does have a few background dialogue options, but both games could have benefited from more instances of this.

 

It was a cool idea, but one that undermined the plot. The plot was predicated on you dedicated yourself to the GW order. DA:O cannot conceive of a motivation to save Ferelden while not considering yourself a GW. This becomes a more serious issue in DA:A, but throughout DA:O you're not actually allowed to care about any of the issues you see animating your origin story. 

[vbibbi]

 
Oh, I agree in that case, but I think it should be optional. For example, in the Vivienne dialogue with the Trev mage, she asks you about another mage there and you can say a variety of different things, leaving the choice up to the player.

I simply don't want people and relationships forced on my character. That's all, really.

 

I know it's a matter of resources, but I would prefer that we have a default number of conversation options, then add one or two per origin/background rather than have them replace the default options. So dialogue wouldn't be defined by background but enhanced by it.

 

It was a cool idea, but one that undermined the plot. The plot was predicated on you dedicated yourself to the GW order. DA:O cannot conceive of a motivation to save Ferelden while not considering yourself a GW. This becomes a more serious issue in DA:A, but throughout DA:O you're not actually allowed to care about any of the issues you see animating your origin story. 

 

True, and I don't think the origins were utilized to the best of their capability past Ostagar. I suppose the boons we can ask at the end could reflect our hopes for the life we left behind. There should have been more conversation options showing our reluctance to be a Grey Warden, especially with Alistair and a love interest. It's not much different than us being asked how we feel about being the Inquisitor and providing motivations for the Inquisition, but nothing changes from that, either.

[In Exile]

True, and I don't think the origins were utilized to the best of their capability past Ostagar. I suppose the boons we can ask at the end could reflect our hopes for the life we left behind. There should have been more conversation options showing our reluctance to be a Grey Warden, especially with Alistair and a love interest. It's not much different than us being asked how we feel about being the Inquisitor and providing motivations for the Inquisition, but nothing changes from that, either.

 

Where I'm going with all of this, though, is that we do get an Origin for the Inquisitor. It's everything before "In Your Heart Shall Burn". 

 

And I'm not talking about a reluctance to be a Grey Warden. The fact that Duncan kidnaps you and forces some darkspawn blood down your throat on penalty of him murdering you on the stop doesn't make you a Grey Warden. That's not how it works. They can't force you to identify with the Order. Not even the Qun - which is all about the Thought Police™ - can actually force that one. 

[vbibbi]

Where I'm going with all of this, though, is that we do get an Origin for the Inquisitor. It's everything before "In Your Heart Shall Burn". 

 

And I'm not talking about a reluctance to be a Grey Warden. The fact that Duncan kidnaps you and forces some darkspawn blood down your throat on penalty of him murdering you on the stop doesn't make you a Grey Warden. That's not how it works. They can't force you to identify with the Order. Not even the Qun - which is all about the Thought Police™ - can actually force that one. 

 

I think you're taking two different aspects and conflating them. We can consider pre-Skyhold to be the origin of the Inquisitor as a role. It's not the origin of the person who takes on that role, though, and that's what's being discussed.

 

We have an origin for the person who takes on the role of the Warden. And by your logic, that origin all the way up to Ostagar is the origin for the Grey Warden. I don't see how the PC not being able to refuse drinking darkspawn blood and tracking down allies to stop the Blight is different than the Herald not being able to decline the title of Inquisitor and leave Haven/Skyhold. Either way, they're abandoning the world to a bad fate so they might as well embrace their role, reluctantly or not.

 

How does the Inquisitor have more opportunities to be concerned with issues relevant to their background? The DC can side with Bhelen because he will help the casteless, the DN can side with Harrowmont for revenge, the mage and Dalish can recruit their people to fight against the Blight and prove their maligned minorities to be heroes and not an enemy to the masses. I thought there were enough motivations which could be applied to all origins. We don't have to be thrilled at being a GW, but it's too late to ignore the taint in our bodies and if everyone we ever knew is going to be safe from the Blight, we might as well follow the GW plan.

[Xerrai]

I have mixed feelings on the matter.

On one hand, actual origin sequences would have 'fleshed out' thier characters for some players. But on the other hand, origin sequences tend to comepletely squash any number of potential backstory/headcanons the player may have had in mind when creating their character prior to the origin sequence.

 

Part of the reason why I actually liked that they described the basic back story of each character in codex entries was because their real origin was left open ended for each individual player.

 

The one issue I would have had in it either way, though, is the fact that the player character has minimal interaction with his or her family/company/cartel after they join the Inquisition. Sure you may see war table operations describing something like a noble attacking clan Lavellan or a Trevelyan relative using his ties to the Inquisition as a form of power, but you don' actually get involved in it really. You just slap it onto some advisor, and then if something bad happens your essentially like "Whelp. That's a bit of a bummer" and move on. No special dialogue, no comments from companions, not even a way for the Inquisitor to express anything related to whatever tragedy/mess up that may have befallen the family.

 

Where you came from or what your background is doesn't really seem to matter in DAI.

[myahele]

Would have been great, I think. We go to the conclave, get to know people and then a huge black screen and we're off to where we began in Inquisition. 

 

Although they'll probably need to find a way to as to why we went there to the place where the Divine was held. I guess "go get supplies and intel" should be fine. and then BAM.

 

Though I suppose that'll be up to the player to fill in the blanks of their characters, since we've already been given a bit of a bio for each potential Inquisitor

[nightscrawl]

I can work with a blank state if the character has basically no backstory whatsoever and i have to make everything up or if, as i already said, the character has amnesia. See, for example, Fallout: New Vegas for an example of the latter and 4 for the former. They work because, basically, those are games sructured to give the player complete freedom over their characters

 

I fell like DAI tries to be like that but fails short because

1) It is actually possible to address the character's background but, IMHO, since i had nothing to work with in my first palythorugh it just seemed like i was making up as i went. Like, in Dragon Age:Origins, as a City Elf it's not really so hard to be an a-hole to humans because we actually lived the bad things elves must endure. Similiarly, because we lived the life of a circle mage, however brief, it is easier to understand just why mages feel oppressed

2) The codex actually explains why each Inquisitor was at the Conclave, so it's not like s/he is a complete blank slate anyway. it would have been nice to live the reason why were there, instad of just reading about it

 

I'm just the opposite. DAI provided just enough for me, a few grains, that allowed me to build an entire character. The non-mage Trevelyan is the youngest of two or three children, who, by family tradition, was supposed to dedicate their life to the Chantry. And that's all you get.

 

That said, while I didn't want to actually live through the Conclave, I DO think that all of the origins, save the Mage Trev, have lame reasons for being there in the first place. The non-mage Trev is there "to protect [their] family's interest." Wtf is that even supposed to mean? Do they think that the Chantry is going to implode if the mages aren't locked up in their towers? Since my Trev warrior isn't an actual member of the Chantry, I doubt he'd be allowed to speak at any point, so it just seems like his sole purpose is being an escort for the various family members of the Chantry. That's fine, but it seems like a lot of words to say so.

[GoldenGail3]

Yes. I love this idea.

[BansheeOwnage]

Nor does a player need origins to roleplay. A blank slate character allows the player to define the backstory rather than have it handed to the player by the writer.

What I'm getting out of this debate is mostly that some people like to headcanon and some don't, all for a variety of reasons, and that's the main reason for wanting or not wanting origins or even backgrounds at all. Personally, I don't want a blank slate, not fully, nor do I want an over-defined character.

 

A blank slate where you headcanon everything has no real appeal to me since I'm not usually very imaginative but even when I am, I know I'm headcanoning, that I'm making this up and therefore can't consider what I'm thinking to mean anything real. And obviously I wouldn't like an over-defined character because it limits roleplaying. The most balanced characters are the best for me.

 

Most of the reason I never got as attached to my Inquisitor compared to some previous heroes was just that I had no idea who she was, and that stayed pretty much the same to the end of the game; I didn't get to flesh her out as much as I'd like as a person. She reacted to other people like all RPG protagonists, but wasn't anything special (in a writing sense) as her own person, most of the time. There were some good moments, but not many.

 

 
Oh, I agree in that case, but I think it should be optional. For example, in the Vivienne dialogue with the Trev mage, she asks you about another mage there and you can say a variety of different things, leaving the choice up to the player.

I simply don't want people and relationships forced on my character. That's all, really.

I definitely agree with that last line, but I think backgrounds can be done without forcing relationships.

 

But the problem I had with talking to Vivienne about that mage or talking to Josephine about my family was that I was not roleplaying my character's opinion/reaction of those people, I was roleplaying the people she knew!

 

That's a huge issue for me. Sure I didn't have a forced relationship, but because that relationship was entirely off-screen, whatever answer I gave felt insincere and unreal, because I know that I as the player am just choosing someone else's personality.

 

And that choice didn't even amount to anything like a varied quest as someone suggested, or even differently-toned letters to our character, which would have at least helped.

[nightscrawl]

But the problem I had with talking to Vivienne about that mage or talking to Josephine about my family was that I was not roleplaying my character's opinion/reaction of those people, I was roleplaying the people she knew!
 
That's a huge issue for me. Sure I didn't have a forced relationship, but because that relationship was entirely off-screen, whatever answer I gave felt insincere and unreal, because I know that I as the player am just choosing someone else's personality.

I don't understand this. How is this method any different from saying, "I don't have a good relationship with my parents," in real life if someone asks you about them? Or you could be even more explicit and say something like, "I was never able to be the person my parents wanted. Needless to say, we don't get on very well."

 

When my Trev says of his parents, "Once they hear I've been touched by Andraste, you'll have to stop them from giving you money," I don't see that as my role-playing his parents, just my Trev's PoV of them, which everyone has of everyone they know, regardless of the PoV that other people have of those same people. Vivienne may think that Enchanter Lydia was great, but your PC can certainly think she was a nagging, overbearing so-and-so.

[Vanilka]

Personally, I would love to play through the background stories. I don't really have trouble with the fact I just choose the background and that's it, because it always takes quite a lot of time for me to establish my character and how they fit in the story anyway and I also feel that it gives me more space to decide what I want to do with my character. However, I think this could be fun. At least I enjoyed it a great deal in Origins and I think it served quite well as an introduction to the race/background chosen and perhaps as an inspiration as to what to do with our character. I'd also like it if the background related war table operations were playable. So, I guess, as far as I'm concerned, either is good.

[BansheeOwnage]

I don't understand this. How is this method any different from saying, "I don't have a good relationship with my parents," in real life if someone asks you about them? Or you could be even more explicit and say something like, "I was never able to be the person my parents wanted. Needless to say, we don't get on very well."

 

When my Trev says of his parents, "Once they hear I've been touched by Andraste, you'll have to stop them from giving you money," I don't see that as my role-playing his parents, just my Trev's PoV of them, which everyone has of everyone they know, regardless of the PoV that other people have of those same people. Vivienne may think that Enchanter Lydia was great, but your PC can certainly think she was a nagging, overbearing so-and-so.

I'll try to rephrase what I've said then. The difference is that the characters you're discussing don't actually exist, even in-universe, for all intents and purposes. They don't have a personality that you react to, your reaction creates their personality. It's sort of like how some people use the term "playersexual", except in this case, instead of an NPC having whatever orientation makes them available to your PC, the NPC's entire personality aligns to your description, in essence.

 

In a real life conversation, I could describe my relationship to my parents to a stranger and it might sound like one of Trevelyan's options, but the point is that I know my parents, they are real characters in my story. I'm reacting/giving my opinion of them, not creating their personalities. In-game, since we've never had so much as a letter to actually judge Trevelyan's parents, whatever our answer is isn't just our character's PoV, it becomes truth. If we got to meet Lydia, we could formulate a PoV of her that may or may not conflict with Vivienne's. As it is, you might as well just pick at random because we have no context to make a judgement.

 

Am I making any more sense? It feels totally cheap and unreal to me when I choose one of these answers, because I'm basically guessing. Because I know that I'm choosing these people's personalities instead of reacting to meeting them, it feels invalid.

 

"What do you think of this person you have no information about?" Well how should I know?!

[nightscrawl]

^ I understand, but feel differently about it.

[ArcadiaGrey]

I was just thinking....in Origins the origin story usually revolves around how epic the pc is, being singled out by Duncan as being great enough to be a Grey Warden and showing the player that you're special.

Therefore they all have dramatic origins, with an eluvian, a castle siege, a coup etc.

 

Isn't the point of Inquisition that you're just an average joe?  A pleb who happened to be there, and it's by your experiences with the Inquisition that your greatness will be played out?  Your origin is DA:I, at least the first few hours, probably until the end of Haven (as someone else said earlier.)

So the origin stories could be really quite mundane.  Just like, 'nothing special happened, you're no-one in particular, here's a tale about how you went to get a sandwich and tripped over a rock that will last an hour and introduce you to the combat.'

 

Just a thought.

[Abyss108]

Origins spent several hours telling an actually interesting story about my characters background, and introduced a ton of interesting characters for me to care about. Then, it suddenly took all of those away, and expected me to care about a much less interesting "save the world from the demon army" plot, whilst giving me absolutely no motivation to care about it, and absolutely no reason for my character to actually stick around and deal with it. 

[myahele]

Honestly, I would never have been able to learn and experience life as a City Elf, Dalish, etc if it weren't for Origin's prologue. Head canon won't do that.

 

Other than that paragraph for each potential inquisitor, there's not much else that a person new to the series would know. They would never have known the unfair treatment of city elves 1st-hand. Even Inquisition don't really highlight the discrimination the elves face. 

[Wulfram]

I don't think origin stories are necessary, but I'd have liked to have spent time at the conclave pre-explosion. Which would naturally have given some opportunity to explore the player's background - your initial objectives and interactions would presumably be strongly influenced by the role that you're there to play - as well as giving an opportunity to set up mage/templar stuff and Justinia.

[Abyss108]

If a person is new to the series, maybe they should start with the first game rather than jumping in after the first several hundred hours and expecting things to make sense...

[ArcadiaGrey]

If a person is new to the series, maybe they should start with the first game rather than jumping in after the first several hundred hours and expecting things to make sense...

That's what I did, I played DAO and DA2 three times each so that I had a good grounding in the lore before tackling Inquisition.

When ppl are confused about DAI, saying they're new to the game and don't understand, I can't help but roll my eyes. What do you expect?

[GoldenGail3]

Isn't the point of Inquisition that you're just an average joe?  A pleb who happened to be there, and it's by your experiences with the Inquisition that your greatness will be played out?  

Isn't Hawke suppose to be that? An average joe, I mean, who just happened to be there. That's like who Hawke is.