No good deed goes unpunished

Mostly I just want consequences for choices that make sense.

To be honest I am slightly worried how they are going to approach Tevinter next game. I think they have tried to make it easier to work with individuals like Dorian by changing him from a slavery apologist to someone who has freed all his slaves, a change of mind which he credits to his time in the south. It is also noticeable that they have now introduced an anti-slavery movement into Tevinter where none had been mentioned before (Dorian's influence again?). However, it is going to be a challenge to them to remain true to their depiction of Tevinter in the past and yet make the player actually think it is worth saving from the Qun. I hope they don't reduce it to a simplistic "Venatori bad, Lucerni good", whilst the rest of the shortcomings of the Imperium are largely ignored.

There is also a similar problem with the Qun. By introducing the idea of a split in the Qun between the aggressive Antaam and the more reasonable leadership back on Par Vollen, they have clearly given themselves wriggle room so a player can work with the Qun without feeling morally compromised.

Your suggestions for how to approach choices in the game bring to mind the Crestwood Choice that was in the sample of DAI that was shown off in 2013 but subsequently dropped from the game. From what I recall the player was given three options: stay and support your wounded soldiers; leave them to defend the village; or leave them to assault and capture the Keep. Each choice would have had both beneficial and negative results for the Inquisition, so it would not have been a simple choice between good and bad outcomes. Clearly staying with the soldiers would be good for morale and encourage future recruitment but both the village and Keep would be lost; saving the village would raise your status in the wider community and mean you could trade there in the future but at the cost of your soldiers' lives and the Keep; opting for an assault on the Keep would mean you have a major defensible position in the future but at the expense of your reputation with both your recruits and the wider community, with resources having to be brought in from further away. I was looking forward to playing that section of the game so was disappointed when it was abandoned.

Yes 100% I remember my first PT of DA:O & the Connor situation, I thought that by going to the circle & back, as I had yet to do the quest there, would result in the demon reasserting control, so I sacrificed Islode, when I later learned that nothing happened at all, I was like "oh" so re-did the playthrough.

Having to think carefully about ones actions makes for a much better roleplaying experience

Just my thoughts

From what I recall, you can just go further into the castle after visiting the Circle so there was no penalty there. However, the penalty I am talking about is not in terms of missing out on loot or even companion approval/disapproval (which was fairly easy to remedy in DAO with the appropriate gift) but actual negative result of taking the Circle path. I have to admit on my first run I did wonder if I would return and find Teagan dead because the demon had grown tired of him, or some more villagers, but, as it turned out, I need not have worried because nothing at all bad resulted from leaving him on the loose. I am focusing here more on the role playing aspect rather than simply consequences as separate from this. How my character reacts in the world is always grounded in that world and the attitude of the people there and the background of my PC.

For example, the Dalish are meant to be very wary of anything involving spirits and my Dalish Warden, having gone to the Dalish first for help, has the example of Zathrian in how badly things can go wrong when you start messing around with spirits. Blood magic is definitely considered taboo (which I thought was the reason Merrill was later shunned by her clan). So sacrificing Isolde to send a mage into the Fade was definitely not on. So the choice for him was between killing Conor, as he would have been required to do in his clan if one of their mages became possessed, or going for expert assistance at the Circle. The reason he opted for the latter is because he had gone to Redcliffe to get the assistance of the Arl. Since Eamon was sick and might die, Isolde as his wife was in charge, so it seemed expedient to keep her on side by not murdering her son. Then if the people in the Circle subsequently insisted upon his death, the responsibility was on their heads and I had done my best. So it could be argued my Dalish was taking a pragmatic approach, with the risk of possible further human deaths but it seemed a risk worth taking to gain the Arlessa's support. Anyway, I headed off to the Circle but, particularly after we got embroiled in the Circle's troubles, I fully expected that I might return to discover that there had been negative consequences to my previous decision but there were none. That just didn't seem to ring true to the world we were in. Mind you, I suppose you could argue that the opposite was also true and sacrificing either Conor or Isolde had no real impact on either the support given by Eamon or our standing generally in the world (as separate to the effect on Eamon himself and his family), so perhaps I was expecting too much in view of the fact this is a computer game and not a table top RPG.


This is a different issue. The PC is taking that decision in the full knowledge it will be losing them Fenris but should anticipate that it might lead to the loss of other supporters as well. So they are suddenly left with a dirth of supporters. Too bad. That is the result of your choice and you should live with it. Actually, since a lot of people play as warriors the loss of both Fenris and Aveline might not be too big a burden. Anyway, I was not arguing for all of them to abandon you but for it to result in at least someone doing so.

Still, the same argument could apply to the decision over Anders, which coupled with your decision over which side you support, could lead to you having no mage at all. I'm not sure but I believe there was some sort of programming element that meant if you killed Anders and supported the Templars then Merrill would still stay on side regardless of her friendship/rivalry status. Now my first run I didn't have Sebastian in the game and Isabella didn't return for Act 3, so Varric was my only rogue as first game I played as a mage. Since Sebastian can leave if you spare Anders, that can also be the case if he is in the game. So I can see why Varric was made ultra loyal no matter what you do. I presume Sebastian didn't leave you over Fenris because they wanted him there for the confrontation over Anders but, let's face it, since he was an optional character anyway, why not let him reject you at this earlier stage instead of at the end? (In fact he could still return to confront you in Act 3, just as Anders does if you tell him to get lost in Act 2).  He was the one you would most expect to object. He is meant to be an ultra devout Chantry brother, the organisation which outlawed slavery in the south and for whom Tevinter is the ultimate enemy. Yet a Tevinter Magister walks into Kirkwall in order to recover his property, Hawke hands Fenris over and Sebastian continues to support them. Why? Mind you, considering the amount of other things that Hawke gets mixed up in with Anders, which Sebastian knows about and yet does no more than talk about doing something with Fenris, I suppose it was in character.


I absolutely agree with you over this. I had read Masked Empire and so I decided that my Dalish Inquisitor, considering they had been sent to the Conclave as a spy, would have done some digging to get more information about recent events in Orlais. However, that was just me justifying using my prior knowledge to inform my decision. That should not be assumed by the writers and, knowing the events of the book, I did feel that the politics and personal relations were simplified for the sake of the game. Incidentally, given what they had told us in game about the Game, let alone what was in Masked Empire, I think it was ridiculous to think that Briala would last 5 minutes as puppet master behind Gaspard. When Leliana suggested this to me I couldn't believe my ears or that I was actually meant to take it seriously. So she has the backing of the Inquisition, so what? We are based in Skyhold, they are based in Val Royeaux. If she suffers an unfortunate accident, what are we going to do? Destabilise the situation again by arresting Gaspard? It was why I could never understand the logic behind the blackmail in the first place. The situation needed resolving so we could concentrate on the real threat. Plus I thought the aim was to prevent Celene's death. So if we failed at that, then flagging up Gaspard's scheming, which had been done as part of the Game, in order to undermine him and prolong the civil war, did seem somewhat counter productive. Whilst I loved the irony of putting an elf in charge of Orlais, realistically it would never work in practice. Mind you, reconciling Celene and Briala publicly seemed to ignore the very reason Gaspard was able to undermine Celene and the events that led to the civil war in the first place. In fact, given the weakness of Celene as Empress that gave rise the the challenge to her rule by Gaspard, I would imagine that after Trespasser it wouldn't take long for Orlais to dissolve into infighting once again, whichever choice you make, with the possible exception of Gaspard who seemed to know how to deal with rivals.

Anyway, I hope we don't find them doing anything similar in DA4, expecting people to have read previous novels or the short stories in order to understand a situation or who we are dealing with. At present we don't know what background they are going to give our PC but if they pretty much start from nothing then I will assume ignorance on their part rather than informing them with my prior knowledge. In fact, I hope they don't assume prior knowledge of Solas considering at this length of time many previous casual players will have lost interest and so they will be relying on attracting new people to bolster the numbers of stalwarts like ourselves. That is what struck me about that trailer at the end of 2020. New people won't even know what darkspawn are, let alone why the Dread Wolf is such a threat or why the elf in the trailer had earned that name. It was definitely speaking to the existing fanbase.

I understand that but some times that's the way things go and let's face it being a Grey Warden doesn't have a happy ending even if you do manage to dodge the bullet at the end by doing the deal with Morrigan (or someone else volunteers to die instead). To be honest, I was worried the writers might spring something like Teagan's death on me, so when I got back and he was still alive, I was euphoric. Then I thought about it and realised it was rather odd that nothing had happened.

The decision that really annoyed me though was the Grey Warden one in DAI. They flag up how keeping the Grey Wardens is a really risky thing to do, which seemed like a big hint not to do it because it would come back to bite you; then the only negative outcome results from banishing them. Not to mention I only sent them away for their own safety (and mine) from Orlais until such time as Corypheus was dealt with, told Leliana not to spread the dirt on them across the rest of Thedas and yet in the epilogue everyone turns against them. There should have been some sort of downside to keeping them because as it was, the writers deliberately lied to the player in order to trick them into the bad ending. I was not happy when I discovered this.

Oii? I'm the one in favour of keeping DA as is. It is my argument that I like the game the way it currently is - containing an array of more dubious and more idealistic options - choosing your own poison so to speak. This topic is the one in favour of changing something? No?

Should I also presume that in your understanding 'adult' or 'complexity' equates to spreading doom and gloom? Or did you mean to tell me to go play another game because my understanding of what 'complexity' is differs from what you've imagined the game should be?

In this case, I guess it is sufficient to say that he needs to be around in some form so he can later tell the tale.

I wouldn't really place this on player class preference. Somebody could also argue that... DAO really wants to force us to play mage because of the micromanagent it takes and 'cause both mage party members aren't really low-maintenance ("Morrigan is a bitch!" or three ways to fight Wynne). Or force us to go rogue 'cause locks'n'traps are everywhere. While I would not invoke the Alone quest for it, there's also the risk and trend of making some things predictable if we end up getting the same mindset towards a certain issue on characters of a given class, like the "distrust/hate mages" warrior (common if not exclusive since DA2), the "shady agenda apostate" (at least one per main game), the "you are no fun" rogue (situationally done by Isabela, Varric or Sera) or the "circle apologist/circle superiority circle mage" (mostly a Wynne-&-Vivienne thing, but Anders in DA2 has some shreds of this at times as well)

I'd say they could have done this via some... say, Inquisition force commitments. Instead of an optional WT OP chain where we can use wardens to fight some D-spawn (and depleting them according to detailed choices), we would have a situation in the main plot were we must decide on how to commit Inquisition troops, including the GWs and if and how we use them here could potentially create a mess, depending on some other choices. Like, having them fight too many Venatori (especially when having done CotJ) as opposed to red templars, for which Wardens would make sense, 'cause taint resistance.

I think so. I don't mind games like Dragon Age allowing players to reach a - relatively speaking - happy ending. I do think there should be some degree of pain in reaching that endgame state though.