Dragon Age Plot : Grey Warden

[Volourn]

"Sten respects order, discipline, strong leadership. However due to this he will do things that others might consider reprehensible. "

Yeah, because his respect for order/discipline/strong leadership is why he mass murdered an entire innocent family. And, don't say he was 'crazy with grief' to know what he was doing. He was plenty calm enough to udnersatnd that they were no threat to him, tried to help him, and didn't steal his sword. He was also calm enough to make the decision and surrender to those who arrested them depsite the fact I'm sure theyw eren't calm about it either.

Nope, Sten is scummy evil. There is no excuse. There is no grey here.

Like you said, even Zevran, who is a hired assassin for spaghetti sake has a betetr excuse for his actions.

 

[Balthamael]

"Morrigan also apparently approves of a demon possessing a little girl in Honnleath, for some reason I can't quite fathom."

It's not thats he approves of the possession. It's that she dissaproves of wasting time on it. And, i agree, it's not good that she doesn't care but it surely doesn't make her evil.

I guess this would make sense, if not for the fact that I was already wasting time a plenty by being in that useless little village in the first place, with no word of complaint from her. What is an hour more, to help a girl?

But at least I now understand what the designer probably was thinking, so thank you for that.

 

[Norfleet]

I think trying to pigeonhole characters as "evil" is an unnecessary oversimplification. Morrigan is uncaring and callous, but not really malicious. Sten flipped out and killed an entire family, but on the other hand, he clearly recognizes that this was the wrong thing to do, and it not really an intentionally malicious character either. Zevran was a conscript: He didn't exactly get any real input in whether or not to be an assassin, and assassination is an accepted part of their culture. Sure, none of these people would be what we consider "good", but are they really "evil"? Does everything NEED to be about good and evil? Why can't people simply be people with differing views, some of which you will disagree with violently and have to kill? Why does everything need to be about "good" and "evil"?

 

[Freelance Henchman]

For RPGs, I blame fucking D&D and the fucking alignment system. Everyone keeps looking for the sources of "good and evil points" now. I'm very glad DA didn't try and actually adopt that shit.

 

[Dnny]

KOTOR brought it up to a new level, Freelance Henchman, though, and it set the gold standard followed by Biowhore since then. Jade Empire and Mass Effect both had the same exact, clear cut dichotomy between good/evil side, even more clear cut than in D&D games because there was no concept of neutrality (it is easy in BG2 to stay somewhat on the neutral, I don't care side). In those three Biowhore games you were either on the goody, nice guy side or you were the jerk.

It was quite surprising to see that they didn't do it again with DA. This is one of those things that sets DA apart from all the shit Biowhore put out because you can pick and chose how you act depending on who you want to ally with and who you hate without affecting a bar meter of "Evil vs Good" so you could be utterly bad with elves and good with humans or be good to humans and bad to elves, infinite combinations that won't lead to a "totally good vs totally bad" ending.

 

[Volourn]

"I guess this would make sense, if not for the fact that I was already wasting time a plenty by being in that useless little village in the first place, with no word of complaint from her. What is an hour more, to help a girl?

But at least I now understand what the designer probably was thinking, so thank you for that."

Morrigan hates demons. If you pick her for entering the Fade at redcliffe, she won't even talk with the demon, and ignore the demon's offer for a deal by saying something as 'you demons cna't be trsuted, blah, blah, blah, now die!"