Dragon Age: Inquisition Interview, Part Two

The second and last part of Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s Dragon Age: Inquisition-themed chat with Mike Laidlaw is available, and touches on the return of race selection, returning characters, romance, and a few more things. Here’s an excerpt on character writing:

RPS: I feel like, at least from what I’ve seen in the past, the interesting challenge of trying to tell an all new story like that is that sometimes you end up with a little overlap with the roles characters serve. For instance, I love both Alistair and Anders, but on an archetypal level, they’re sort of similar. They’re the wisecracking, charming guys that are with you pretty much from the get-go. How do you tackle that when you’re creating those characters? How do you differentiate them? How do you avoid repeating yourself?

Laidlaw: Ultimately what you want is a cast of characters who inherently are their own people. That’s all character writing is. You think of a person first, and then you worry about their gender and their race and all that stuff later. Think about a person. And so when we build up a cast for something like, say, DA 2, the big burning question is the mages and the templars. Everybody either has an opinion or doesn’t.

And (doesn’t) is an opinion in and of itself. That’s Isabela. She really doesn’t care. That’s a big part of her character, that she is frustrated by the fact that everybody seems to be getting increasingly caught up in this. Aveline is worried about it in the sense that (This is causing unrest in the city that I’m trying to keep safe.) She doesn’t really have. She has views, because of her husband, but that’s not really her problem. Her problem is the unrest that results. And so you want to say, (What is this game about? What are the things that are happening?)

And in this case it’s about a world in calamity. It’s about something going on behind the scenes and uncovering it, which is why it’s an Inquisition, not some kind of big military action. In a lot of ways, it’s the scalpel, not the knife. And so what you want to do is say, (What characters have a vested interest in the events that are occurring?) You have a character like Vivienne who was the first enchanter of Orlais. Then the Circles fell apart. That’s a bummer, because she was basically as powerful as a mage could be, and then it all came crashing down. Varric and Cassandra are both absolutely desperate to uncover what’s actually happening. That was made very clear at the end of DA 2.

So you build up those characters that have their own motivations and their own goals. And to some degree their personality will come out of it. But you put them together and you say, (Okay, do we have a really good mix of interesting characters? Do we think their interactions will intrigue and that players will [get behind them]?) Our goal is that, as a player, you should love them or hate them, but you should never be like, (Yeah, whatever.)

When I think to my personal favorite, Planescape Torment, it’s an amazing game, and part of the thing that made it so amazing was that the characters who surrounded the Nameless One were such extremes. So what’s up with Ignus? He’s on fire and in pain ALL THE TIME. Most of his dialogue is (AAAAGH!) and you’re like, (Wow, okay.) There’s a wise-cracking guy who’s a skull and threatens to bite you. The succubus tries to focus on her poetry.

And of course it’s a setting that allows for that kind of rampant extremism, which is why I loved it. And in the same way. We obviously aren’t going to have a Modron running around in DA. It’s not going to fit the current state of the world. But we can still look at our characters and say, (Are they intriguing enough? Do they offer that kind of perspective?)

RPS: Oooo, Planescape Torment, you say? Was anything else in Inquisition directly inspired by it?

Laidlaw: From Torment specifically? Huh. Well, I think the big thing Torment brought to the table was offering a lot of different solutions and really cool solutions to the problems you faced. Not everything was fighting. Often just being persuasive or certain stats and stuff would come across like, (Whoa! I have a wisdom of 25, so let’s just shortcut the entire ending.) I really like that kind of stuff.

It also did the job of, (Did you pursue this path in the game?) There’s some stuff there too. That’s something we’re trying to explore more deeply. There’s making a choice, and that’s fine. But there’s also, what’s the aggregate of your choices? What’s the long term? And occasionally saying, (Look. There’s this really cool scenario in here. Not every player is going to see it.) But as developers, we’re trying to get more efficient in our work, because it lets us do a little more sandbox with what you play. Which is to say, (Not everyone is going to see this, and that’s cool.) That’s not a problem. That’s not a waste of money. That’s awesome.

As we build up our community efforts, it’s like, social media and e-mail and FAQs and everything, there are no secrets in gaming. If that’s the case, I think part of the joy is from having a friend who says, (Oh, you beat the game? Did you see this?) And you’re like, (No, I didn’t!) That’s as thrilling as seeing it. And that’s something that we’re getting increasingly comfortable with. I don’t want it to be a weaker experience because you didn’t do X or Y. It should be complete. But understanding that sometimes, even if you never replay it, you’re probably going to hear about it, and you’re going to feel so much more satisfied about the fact that you made a choice and something else happened from your friend who made a different one.

I think Planescape paved a really good path on that front.