With almost all the tasks done in Lothering we entered the tavern for a well earned pint of milk but are attacked by a handful of Loghain's troops. A red headed girl named Leliana in chantry robes helps defend us in the melee and after I kill off the last of the surrendering cowards she asks to join the party, having had a vision from the Creator telling her to do so. She might be crazy but she's handy with a knife and sort of cute so I take her along. I do -NOT- take along the psycho in the cage outside though.
But I'm hurt in the feels?
It's pretty clear that the big brute Sten could be another party member but for the crime of killing a bunch of good people who nursed his wounds I don't give a shit how much remorse you have. It's unfortunate there is no option to execute him so I just leave him there as darkspawn food. After killing some desperate refugees who were also after the bounty on my head (Alistair's head too), I rescue a dwarven pair of merchants from darkspawn and convince them to get outta dodge.
Apparently they took this as "please join us on our travels" for some reason and are now part of my camp. It's handy to have a vendor and enchanter traveling with us though. After getting bad dreams which turn out to be "communicating with the darkspawn leader telepathically due to the grey warden joining ritual" I chat with the team for awhile, listening to Leliana's stories, learning Alistair is a funny bastard, and agreeing with Morrigan's suggestion that we go directly to Denerim to face our enemies immediately.
Interesting. I am so used to Bioware tropes that it never occurred to me to not take a party member when they are offered. I figured that only they are obviously evil (like having a perma-scowl, laughing maniacally, stealing candy from babies) then they will have some story to explain their situation or some redeeming quest or something. Eventually they will even be willing to throw their life for the player character too, just like everybody else in the party.
ReplyDeleteAnd if they are evil then they are just temporary and I am stuck with them until the required point in the story where they will "betray" me or something else to keep the story moving along.
Bioware was never too subtle with their characters, in my opinion. :p
Hehe, I used to make gamey decisions like that too thinking I'd be missing out on content for paths less traveled. I much prefer more logical choices these days - guess it comes with age?
DeletePerhaps! :)
DeleteThe first time I played Dragon Age I did try to roleplay more my character and play a bit outside my usual zone of comfort by playing an evil rogue (who also happened to be a noble human too). He was a jerk to everyone... except his party members. I feared missing on stories about the companions that I ended up being gamey in the way he related with them.
So before I got even to the middle of the game I was so unhappy with my gamey decisions that I decided to reroll and play a goodie character. I still tried to go with something different by playing with an elven ranger and that worked pretty well for me. That is still one of my favorite characters in my game career. :)
I did eventually play an evil character though, on my second playthrough as usual. And he was an absolute jerk to everyone, even his party members. :p