Childer, Witches and Oh My! - Let's Play Dragon Age DLC!

Doing it right now! I thought that having to bold choices happened only in the Zafehouse LP.

I pinched the idea. It helps me keep the count straight ^^;

Don't worry, it's a good one!

And so to Hell I shall consign you...

Wait, no. Wrong franchise and wrong character. There's still time to vote, but as it stands now:

Nathaniel: 4
Sigrun: 3
Justice: 3
Anders: 2
Velanna: 1
Oghren: 0

Unless someone votes for Anders and makes this awkward it seems like we'll be going with Nate, Sigrun and Justice in a few hours.

I should mention at this point you're not allowed to make single character votes :p

Can I vote for Elissa's look of hapless confusion? Is that a legitimate choice?

It is now. I'll be sure to screen it if she makes it XD

DK, you are a magnificent person.

And so it begins.

Save Amaranthine! This is why we invested all that cash into fortifying the Vigil, after all.

Still catching up with the thread so that's probably addressed somewhere down the road by now, but... the thing i like about Oghren the most is how there's actually layers upon layers of psychological issues that he is hiding behind the drunk dwarf and fart jokes facade, but the writing is subtle enough (relatively, for an RPG) that a lot of people never notice any of that, fall entirely for his stereotypical mask and go all BIOWARE Y U SO SHALLOW on the BW forums.

In contrast i've found Varric so well adjusted he's almost boring and bland. Not quite the Jacob/Vega level of bland, but he similarly suffers from the "cool, competent and generic enough to be a protagonist in his own game, too bad stuck with the role of a sidekick" syndrome.

I get to it eventually, but I agree, Oghren's layers are really easy to miss, especially if you don't talk to him in the tavern and question Loilinar about him in Orzammar prior to recruiting him.

Varric has the same sort of subtle stuff going on, but with him it's really not entirely apparent because he's so flippant about everything and firmly set on not letting even Hawke into his business unless his hand his forced. I like the stuff they only hint to with him and the fact he actually gets involved and cares far more than he wants to let on. Jacob and Vega really only have what you see up front.

And Jacob's tiny hips scare me.

Oghren is like an onion.

An onion.

DK, you are too good to me xD

Pah, who needs tanks. A slot wasted on a tank is a slot that could've been taken by a mage setting fools on fire.



Team Screw Aggro Management, represent.

To be fair, when you meet Velanna she a) leaves a survivor and b) doesn't attack your group but tells you to go deliver a message regarding what she wants. Given these and c) the Darkspawn has apparently watching been her closely and toying with her... it's not too far-fetched to think she'd been attempting to send messengers from the start, but those were simply intercepted and killed by the Darkspawn so that their fun wouldn't get ruined.

EXACTLY.

And I had the same team, but the Warden was a mage <3
I don't know what to vote, I often fail at upgrading the Keep so I save it. I'm sorry Amaranthine, but COMPANIONS. And stuff about organizing your army for the greater good.
Since we see a certain someone in DA2, I don't feel too guilty about it.

But the priiiize..... /runs away

I love Varric, he's an interesting character and I'd like to see more of him, mostly because the whole Coterie-Guild-Merchants thing seems fascinating. If only they had more time...
But I really needed moments and banters like the ones in the DLCs where they talk about more personal stuff, like Varric being fixed up with Lady Helmi.

That's an excellent point. In fact that's very likely what happened, especially because Velanna does seem a bit more reasonable about it once she's calmed down. She really acts hysterically angry in the forest, which does make sense, all things considered.

*repeats how she loves doing LPs because people always notice these things and expand subsequent playthrough perspectives*

I am the benevolent overseer. For the moment, I believe in democracy ^_^

SO THAT'S where I got the onion metaphor from. Shrek!

I'm good at remembering quotes. Better than I am at recalling where they're from.

Vote counted. And it seems this will be what decides Amaranthine's fate XD

Yes, it was indeed.

That suggestion felt bit odd to me coming from Nathaniel because hello, your own pregnant sister with her entire family happens to live there, remember? The weirdness is doubled when you don't even get option to point that out and the game falls instead on the magic persuasion check.

It's Dragon Age. What do you expected, an happy ending?

I usually side with Spock. Because the need of the many...

But yeah, a Grey Warden as an Arl was a pretty stupid idea. Especially because they chose the Hero of Ferelden, instead of sending someone trained for it.

EDIT: Yeah, that about Nathaniel was strange, but after all his entire arc is about him embracing the idea of being a Grey Warden. So maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

Yeah, the option to convince him to fall in line is calling him a coward? I couldn't facepalm hard enough. Normally they're pretty good at making sure past actions matter, and in this instance why you can't bring up Delilah if you did the quest is beyond me. It's so ignored I couldn't even remember her when I wrote the update. Surely "Your pregnant sister" has more weight than "someone" in terms of potential people to save.

This may sound like an odd question, incidently, but do you use this screenname anywhere else?

On a sidenote, "Lamppost in Winter" is a great item name for any Alistair fancier who had that one particular conversation with him, i reckon.

The news about Keep... still remember how that last part of the game felt like my Warden was going through it like in some sort of a surreal haze because half the people she's come to care about have apparently died despite the best efforts, and she was now leading the remaining few on some hopeless crawl that'd most likely just have them die in the end, too. In hindsight, they did excellent work by not pulling punches, there.

(as for the screenname... yeah, in a few places. my unhealthy fascination with DA might've resulted in committing a mod or two at some point, if that's what's behind it.)

(That's indeed where I saw it, and thank you for your work on them. I have a few installed myself and I owe a lot of replay value to people like you, so if you were the same tmp I'd give my accolades where they were due. Thank you, sincerely. I think without mods I might have stopped replaying somewhere around the 15th time.)

Lamppost in Winter is truly wonderous. It's like they know you'll need the pick-me-up after Garavel's revelation everyone might be dead. I remember being stunned the first time the game would actually go there. It's one of the first times in the franchise you can't save everyone no matter what you do, there is no third option. In retrospect now more than anything it's one of the things that makes Awakening the bridge between DAO and DA2. It's very rare in DAO there isn't a third option requiring a bit more work that can save everyone, or close to everyone. Here you either lose your friends or the entire city. I was blindsided the first time and I never felt good making that choice. It was actually a relief to leave it to a vote this time.

(speaking of the mods, one of them can cure at least some of the issues poor Elissa has been struggling with though this LP -- the absurdly giant hands and assets, spindly arms and, optionally, gender-specific armour design. But then at this point that could be too much of a shock to the system, plus i'm not even sure if you didn't keep the base apperarance there for comedy value. So.. just saying)

(Comedic value was a large part of it, but I'm going to do a sweep checking for some anatomy fixes. The hands didn't bother me as much before being away from DAO a bit, but it's really started jumping at me. I'm glad to know they exist for certain!)

It's better than DA2 about that.

Point. And an excellent one.

Don't blame me, I voted for him!

It's been a long while so I don't remember clearly, but I'm pretty sure when I played Awakening the first time I chose to burn Amaranthine and Nathaniel was not happy about it.

My memory may, however, be faulty.

I could see him hating either option, really. He's caught between what he thinks is expected of a Warden and a strong unwillingness to burn down Amaranthine. I mean, even if his father didn't go that far, especially if Delilah is still inside.

Apparently a few days ago Robin Sachs, the voice of Varel, passed away aged 61. I don't really what to say other than 'too young to die' and that his is a voice I will miss recognizing when I play a new game.

...and that's why I love being a shapeshifter. I can have a little cute spider in the party without having to kill him afterwards.

Even Zevran and Morrigan dispprove of killing people without hearing what they have to say first.
So, hear him out.
And then side with him.

I just wish I knew if he's lying about Keenan who clearly WASN'T DEAD when he was brought to him and whose words seem to indicate everyone else might not have been either, or if this is the game having another Nathaniel Has Two Paternal Grandfathers moment.

Hear him out!

Hear him out.

Then kill him anyway.

You should be. That whole series of battle screenshots is just gorgeous.

Also, hear him out. Because I like to vote for an option where you can change your mind later if you need.