Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows
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@bored To be fair, although I've no problem with FCs in particular, I don't like the exclusivity involved here. It's not like there's a big roster of FCs people get to apply for if they like, it's a very limited number of them and obviously they'd be played by special people. That's often enough a barely obfuscated way of saying "staff and friends".
Just keep them as NPCs if you really need them.
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Yeah, the game's in an early beta and already the FCs are taken? I'd feel a lot better about it if they'd at least held those characters for game opening, so that people could "audition".
I guess. Actually, no, I don't think I'd ever feel ok with someone rping Hawke while I was playing Random_Apostate_001.
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I don't hate FCs either, I think there are some games where it's appropriate. Dragon Age is not one of those games.
@Steel It's fun for the person playing it. The audience, not so much. If they can do such amazing things with a FC, just imagine how awesome they'd do with their own PC.
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@Kanye-Qwest said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
Yeah, the game's in an early beta and already the FCs are taken? I'd feel a lot better about it if they'd at least held those characters for game opening, so that people could "audition".
I guess. Actually, no, I don't think I'd ever feel ok with someone rping Hawke while I was playing Random_Apostate_001.
Even a Level 2 Hawke who is schlepping around cheap goods for the Cartel?
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
@Kanye-Qwest said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
Yeah, the game's in an early beta and already the FCs are taken? I'd feel a lot better about it if they'd at least held those characters for game opening, so that people could "audition".
I guess. Actually, no, I don't think I'd ever feel ok with someone rping Hawke while I was playing Random_Apostate_001.
Even a Level 2 Hawke who is schlepping around cheap goods for the Cartel?
That's the thing though, what does a level 2 Hawke add to the game as a whole that an NPC (or otherwise-named PC) doing the same thing wouldn't?
And if he/she is destined for bigger and better things then the concerns about regular characters being secondary ones are more valid.
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This would all be moot if the game were PvP, of course.
You can all just get together, gank the FCs, and move on.
<.<
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Coin said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
This would all be moot if the game were PvP, of course.
You can all just get together, gank the FCs, and move on.
<.<
Shut your whore mouth, I would never hurt Varric. Even an imposter.
@Thenomain said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
Even a Level 2 Hawke who is schlepping around cheap goods for the Cartel?
Yeah, because like Ark said, we all suspect that no matter what staff says or their good intentions, the events of the game are going to pivot around that character, since the game is set during that characters time of massive influence in Kirkwall. It's a great story, but if I was going to take part in a Thedas world I'd want it to be much more along the lines of the warden's story, or the inquisitor's, where it really could be anyone.
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I'm with you, Ms. Qwest, but now it's a matter of supposition. If the Hawke siblings are doing anything other than being mercenaries, you can call them out on it. I've seen book characters work very well. Even Orisno and Merdith are locked into their roles, and we can shine a spotlight if something goes wrong.
I still agree that having players for these characters is probably not a great idea, but they deserve the chance to pleasantly surprise us.
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@Kanye-Qwest said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
@Coin said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
This would all be moot if the game were PvP, of course.
You can all just get together, gank the FCs, and move on.
<.<
Shut your whore mouth, I would never hurt Varric. Even an imposter.
I've never played Dragon Age so your psychotic love for a fictional character means nothing to me.
[picture of Varric getting shivved a la Robb in The Red Wedding, which I don't have, but which you will now imagine because that's how brains work. Aren't they awesome?]
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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I know I sound super cranky about it. I do wish them the best of luck, I am just disappointed that it has this setup, since I'd love to play on a DA game and this factor kills my interest.
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@Coin said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
@Kanye-Qwest said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
Shut your whore mouth, I would never hurt Varric. Even an imposter.
I've never played Dragon Age so your psychotic love for a fictional character means nothing to me.
[picture of Varric getting shivved a la Robb in The Red Wedding, which I don't have, but which you will now imagine because that's how brains work. Aren't they awesome?]
As a surprise even to me, that doesn't bother me at all. Maybe because he's a dwarf and picturing a Frey stooping down to slit his throat is kind of humorous.
@Thenomain said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
I'm with you, Ms. Qwest, but now it's a matter of supposition. If the Hawke siblings are doing anything other than being mercenaries, you can call them out on it. I've seen book characters work very well. Even Orisno and Merdith are locked into their roles, and we can shine a spotlight if something goes wrong.
I still agree that having players for these characters is probably not a great idea, but they deserve the chance to pleasantly surprise us.
Nothing against the players, and I honestly wouldn't want to be like "HEY get your ass back in line as a scrub mercenary, how dare you try to have fun" to any player. The issue with this is that if player 1 is Hawke and player 2 is random_person, I mean, who is more likely to succeed at Doing the Thing? We all know how Hawke did the thing. It's not like Hawke's going to try to do the thing and a GM will say "LOL no that would never work", since we saw it work.
You're right, it's entirely possible that I would be pleasantly surprised. The issue is that, for me, I love the source material so much, and would be so amped to be playing in the setting, that the possible disappointment would be exponentially more disappointing to me. I want it too much.
Not like this.
Not like this.
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I do think Kirkwall is one of the best options for a Dragon Age game.
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I actually think the best time to play in Thedas would be during the rebellion or just after it, when there were still a number of Grey Warden's running around before they were killed off, you wouldn't have to worry about blights and qunari incursions really.
It'd be a lot easier to fit in various types of RP, political, economical, adventuring as the kingdom tried to make itself right after being occupied by a foreign army for so long.
Trying to set inside any of the games is inherently limiting imho.
Origins you have the Blight.
2 you have the Qunari
Inquisition you have the torn veil etc.Huge events like this are great for single player you are the protagonist hero story, but they often become problems when you have a dozen people or scores of people who feel they are the protagonist, and nobody else is.
Or that's what they want.
Hello! Long time listener, first time caller...
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I don't really mind FCs in general. They can be fun if handled properly. I think my main hold back is only that Hawke is a playable FC. Hawke is basically a blank slate with an identifiable name. In DA2, S/he could look like just about anything, had completely customizable stats, and react in a myriad of ways. Letting someone play Their Version of Hawke is off putting to me as mine was, most likely, very different. It's not like picking up Tony Stark on a comic game. Everyone may play him differently, but you essentially know the essence of that character.
Varric, Merrill, Fenris, etc. all changed depending on your interactions with them, but they also had defining characteristics in the beginning with which you would immediately identify. Like @Kanye-Qwest's avid love of Varric attests, those characters aren't blank slates, they're just moldable. Having those guys involved could be interesting.
The point of Hawke is that the name is important for the history of the Ferelden world. If the game will not be using all that history and will, instead, be changing it and using Hawke much like a regular character, then the name loses all meaning and turns the character into an OC that happens to have an OOC famous name. At that point, it makes more sense just to use OCs and elevate them to that level of importance. However, if they will be keeping most of Hawke's history as being the Champion of Kirkwall, then I don't see how they will be able to avoid having that FC in particular take over the game-changing and important plots.
I do love DA and I may still check the game out, but the Hawke thing makes me wary.
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@Lithium said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
Trying to set inside any of the games is inherently limiting imho.
You're right. They could overcome this by setting the game after DA2. After all, Inquisition occurred after the Mages decided to rebel as a whole, and I'm lead to believe that there was 2 years separating Meredith's fate and the explosion at the Conclave.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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So, I think the one thing I don't understand is this...
Why Hawke?
Hawke is a blank slate. He/she is up to the player in the video game to decide -- male, female, class (Mage, Rogue, Warrior). Does one person get to decide all that, and it can never be altered?
I'm always wishy-washy with FCs, even if there are a couple games where I play FCs, but Hawke as a playable character seems so... wonk to me. I mean, I played an albino mage Hawke who was anti-Chantry, but then played a dark-skinned rogue Hawke who was all about the Chantry.
Just curious about that...
EDIT: Yes, I'm repeating the question asked by @Nausicaa but I think it is a valid... issue.
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@Ganymede
man. Imagine a game just set in Kirkwall or wherever just focusing on the Mage-Templar war? Endless possibility. -
WARNING: If you haven't played Dragon Age 2 and don't want to be spoiled, you should stop reading. It's been out for a while and makes an impact on Dragon Age: Inquisition, however slight, so you should play it now.
This is partially a risk of having a game existing around established fiction. Whether or not Hawke is an NPC, she will always do That Thing. So don't try to do That Thing. The Things Hawke does is very minimal, too: work for a mercenary company, go on a Deep Roads expedition, use the massive money and moderate fame infusion to buy her old family estate, kill the Qunari leader, and be friends with the guy who blew up the church then save the city from both its insane leaders. Maybe mess around with the Dalish, which is going to be a moderate sticking point, maybe participate in the death of a Tevinter lord, maybe help out some orphans or kill some dragons. Really, Hawke doesn't do much.
She sure as hell doesn't do enough that a massive city of merchants and politics doesn't flow around her like water, only occasionally does she change its flow. The complaints about not being able to do X because of Hawke are because we know the timeline, is all.
Fearing staff gushing over Hawke is one of those things that is giving such the "too bad; I would have liked to play there" responses.
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Yeah, to people ( @Arkandel and maybe others) saying its the # available, my universal anti-FCism applies in the typical WoD/SW/L&L/etc-game usage of it (ie 'cool overpowered plot-shielded char that gets given to a staff buddy') and not the Comic FC vs OC sense where if there's tons of FCs, they're totally fine (probably even the norm).
@Nausicaa said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
I don't really mind FCs in general. They can be fun if handled properly. I think my main hold back is only that Hawke is a playable FC. Hawke is basically a blank slate with an identifiable name.
Yeah, this is the reason it makes me the MOST uncomfortable. Since the character doesn't have a set identity or anything, the only thing turning a PC into a Hawke does is mark them as more special. They're not constrained to move the plot along in particular ways or serve some specific thematic focus. It's akin to letting someone play a non-canon but still feature Bob Skywalker.
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@bored said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
Yeah, to people ( @Arkandel and maybe others) saying its the # available, my universal anti-FCism applies in the typical WoD/SW/L&L/etc-game usage of it (ie 'cool overpowered plot-shielded char that gets given to a staff buddy') and not the Comic FC vs OC sense where if there's tons of FCs, they're totally fine (probably even the norm).
The difference to me is made by the answer to this question: What are FCs there for? What purpose does their existence as PCs serve in the game?
The impact of anyone one character on the overall direction should never be inherent in the design phase. It could happen organically, but if staff is planning for any figure to be integral to the story and drive it forward then they really should make them an NPC. If they don't then yes, far more likely than not one of their friends is bound to end up playing a very special sanctioned snowflake.
