Has anyone here ever run a game set in the Dragon Age setting...

>DA:O is unpopular
I mean, wasn’t there enough reasons to let the world burn already?

Paradoxically, it's also the only good game in the series.

>Best game in the series
>Least liked
This bothers me more than it should.

>DA:O is not liked
>the only one DA I liked
well guess I have bad taste

I ran the tabletop once through a module I'd originally designed for D&D. It went pretty well, except the party were a bunch of murderhobos and pissed off their employer, who called in the templars on them.

Sure, in D&D you can give [insert noble here] the finger, Z-snap and disco slide away without consequences, but in Dragon age, whatever lord you work for makes the law. Being an ass will make for him calling for your head, and then screaming for an apostate mage when he calls for it is sure to damn your whole party.

They did get to kill some spiders, though.

I mean, Ferelden is just a sort of weird, not!Anglo-Saxon Westeros which I sort of appreciated.

Why? It's bland and lacks variation.
>>dwarves are different
No they aren't.
>>darkspawn are sort of like zombie orcs instead of just being boring barbarians
They're just LotR-movie orcs but with a different name.
>>church has one god and original sin instead of being the usual fantasy polytheism
Which is a lot duller.
>>mages are oppressed
The only thing it has going for it, but also not something that's gonna matter if the mage is out adventuring.

Where else have you seen Roman dwarves with an animist reincarnation earth-faith and a caste system?

It’s Anglo-Saxon lands bumping up against Louis XIV’s France, the fantasy Byzantine-Turk conflict, Renaissance Italy, and a sort of pagan Iberia. I dig it.

>where have I seen traditionalist dwarves of a declining civilization living in grand cities underground
>b-but because it has two social classes it's different, nobody's done that before

The dwarves in Dragon Age are reclaiming territory, though. Their decline is over and their societal structure is different from the standard.

It did poorly? I was under the impression that it did decent, not groundbreaking but certainly not a franchise killer. In my own opinion I thought the game was decent, they ruined what made the Qunari interesting though

>Has anyone here ever run a game set in the Dragon Age setting?
I did. See my relevant post.
>I’m sad that Inquisition was shit
it got "game of the year" though, lol
>Bioware will probably get shut down
no sources cited, so it's probably some bullshit appeal statement.

Inquisition did fine, but the last Mass Effect got the branch that made it shut down and that series killed, and Anthem will probably be trash.

I have, and their rulebook is pretty good. I enjoyed it, reminded me of 5e but with "less".

Such a damn shame they never managed to do anything interesting with the setting's lore post Origins.

Frankly it feels like they wanted to just tear it all down in Inquisition.

The Qunari have only gotten more interesting over time, and we’ve learned some neat shit about Tevinter.

>Tumblrites don't like a game where women are kidnapped and repeatedly raped until they become disgusting breeding monsters
>They prefer the game where Qunari are apparently totally okay with trannies and you get negative points for questioning two women dancing at a high state ball
Colour me shocked

The Qunari trans thing makes perfect sense, though. Sten explained that jobs are genders back in the original game. This isn’t new.

>church has one god and original sin
Holy shit, I've never heard of this before.

Caring about a Bioware setting is just slightly worse than caring about a Bethesda setting.

>one thing makes a setting
Name a good setting, then think about one thing it stole. What matters is how well everything that was stolen works together, that makes a setting you daft retard.

Stem literally argues with you if your warden was a woman because the concept of a female being a warrior was so against the Qun that your sheer existence broke him on a fundamental level.

youtu.be/PKSi_KZ6tck

DAO makes it very explicit that the Quan has strict gender roles and that how you LOOK defines that.

>DAO makes it very explicit that the Quan has strict gender roles and that how you LOOK defines that.

Yet another way that we should be emulating the Dragon Age world.

>Such a damn shame they never managed to do anything interesting with the setting's lore post Origins.
The Descent DLC was pretty cool.

>It also seems like DA:0 is liked the least.

> DA:O is the least popular

That's just not true.
The world is bigger than sjw and lgbt trash, user.

Yes, because he says a warrior is a man. A female warden is a mann to him because your job is your gender to the Qun.

No, it doesn't, they just completely fucked over the Qunari's lore to make them a mouth piece for their sjw ideas. Hell, 90% of the lore was shifted around to revolve around that.

Except Tevinter, which are absolutely cartoonishly evil and also the only place in the entire world that doesn't like gays, real subtle there bioware.

Tevinter has a trans woman magister, dummy. Dorian’s dad doesn’t hate gays, he hates that his son is gay and won’t give him an heir.

>Tevinter has a trans woman magister
W-what?
Holy fuck, bioware's staff needs to be crucified.

?
The only non asshole qunari are sten (who is sten) and talvashoth iron bull (who's tal vashoth)

The issue is that you are a woman trying to be a woman. It's a retcon, but it does work. The distinction is that whats-it's-name in Inquisition is a woman who dresses up and acts like a man.

THE ARISHOK
DID NOTHING WRONG

Does awakening count as post origins?

Except for literally everything. Just because Isabella is worst girl doesn't mean he gets a pass

Literally this.

I would have forgiven the pile of shit that DA2 was if it let me join the qunari and burn the fucking city down. That place was Gomorra 2.0.

In 2 they were portrayed as more sane than Kirkwall if you were am elf. Kirkwall was a fucking pit though.

In 3 The Iron Bull tells the tranny character that as far as the qun is concerned she'd be a man. Despite the fact that it's portrayed as an awful place people throw fits because one aspect appeals to SJWs.

Keep in mind that Bull's qun name literally means "liar" so who knows if he was telling Krem the truth (and Krem is a decent character despite being a tranny to be honest)

I legit thought Krem was a feminine man or a reverse trap until "the talk"

>Tevinter has a trans woman magister

Excuse me what

If it wasn't for the completely hamhanded talk, krem would be just fine as a character. You can even have a tolerant message behind it, since s/he was forced into the chargers because s/he's a social outcast, but it's still a good person an a useful member of the Inquisition. Instead, they went for the hackiest fucking cutscene

>It also seems like DA:0 is liked the least.
Christ, it was the only one that was good as a game.

Exactly. Krem is a warrior and therefore a man according to the Qun. Sten only objects because Woman is a job, Warrior is a job, and Qunari don't believe in multi-classing.

But it only has the one gay, so it's unacceptable and problematique

>In 3 The Iron Bull tells the tranny character that as far as the qun is concerned she'd be a man.
Which is extra retarded because Sten in the original Dragon Age gave you shit if you ever played a female Warden and he's supposed to be the paragon of their culture. It would be hilarious if the Iron Bull was actually lying just to get people more interested in defecting in the next Dragon Age but I strongly doubt they'll approach it with that angle.

>Qunari don't believe in multi-classing
>Passing up on that sweet arcane warrior/spirit warrior/Knight enchanter action
And this is why they fail

Krem wasn't forced to join the chargers, they joined up because they punched a doctor's lights out and deserted the Tevinter army after the doctor discovered their big secret and tried to blackmail them.

>Exactly. Krem is a warrior and therefore a man according to the Qun. Sten only objects because Woman is a job, Warrior is a job, and Qunari don't believe in multi-classing.
This is reminding me a lot of Iran, how they'll execute homosexuals but will let them sexually transition and pretend to be women.

I meant she was forced out of tevinter. She, like the rest of the chargers, is an outcast (except for what's his face, secret Noble guy).

>Theocratic state that violently works to suppress religious dissent reminds me of Iran

There's no s/he.
She's just a she and will always be.

>their societal structure is different from the standard.
In Dragon Age the Dwarves are incapable of casting magic, with society built strongly around Castes. The lowest of their society are casteless. Those who have committed grave crimes join the Legion of the Dead, where they fight until death to regain their honor.

In Warhammer the Dwarves are incapable of casting magic, with society built strongly around Clans. The lowest of their society are the clanless. Those who have committed grave crimes join the Slayers, where they fight until death to regain their honor.

Theocracies are a dime a dozen I'm just fascinated by the whole trans bullshit.

>Dwarves are incapable of casting magic,
Sandal, dagna, and the chick from the descent would like a word

Those are enchanters. It's different.

In fact, the dwarven enchanters of Dragon Age aren't terribly far off (as a concept) from Warhammer's Runesmiths.

Also, the girl from the Descent is a unique case because she gains the power of the Titans or whatever and her abilities are more divine than magical.

The dragonage game that's out is absolutely terrible.

>Those are enchanters
>When you ask sandal how he did it in da2, he says not enchantment
>Dagna got high off of corephyeus
>The descent chick starts doing Titan blood magic

>Sandal
A literal autist that just has the equivalent of lead immunity. He inscribes runes, which is hardly that different from what the Dwarves of Warhammer do.

>dagna
She studies magic, does not cast it.

>chick from the descent
I'd rather we pretend Dragon Age ended after Origins. Regardless this is a freak occurence, if anything I could argue there are more Chaos Dwarves turning their dicks into crystals so they can cast fireball.

Regardless this is clearly missing the forest for the trees. The core point was that the Dwarves of Dragon Age are not really all that unique. I find it very telling you're niggling about magic rather than their societal structure as was originally claimed.

I always wanted to run around with a full on Avar and Chasnid crew up on the front lines between Tivinter and the Qunari.

alas...

yes, it was using the weird fantasy age system. it was simplified dnd with more dark descriptions.

So was DA:O actually that unique? When I played through it, it just felt like shit I've heard before in a million other fantasy settings but presently in a "dark and edgy" manner.

People like you are what’s wrong with Tevinter. I hope that the Qunari conquer your homeland, and cut off your tongue before a demon possesses your ass.

It’s seen as a compromise there. Kind of like don’t ask don’t tell was in the US. It’s a convenient loophole, you can’t be gay, but it ain’t gay if it’s a trap, taken to litigious standards.

I played Inquistion as an Athiest first time around (since it gave me the option). I liked how it’s actually pretty ambiguous as to which religion is right. We know the Tevinter Dragon Gods are real, and we know the Tevinter trying to make it to the Golden City happened. But we see there were Elven Gods, and we know the Chant was composed for political means. Most settings have it pretty definitive as to who’s right and wrong with no confusion as to matters.

I haven’t played the dlc, I don’t know if that clears things up more.

no, it's not unique. it's a pretty standard fantasy world with a pretty standard "ancient evil is awakening" story. it's just that it's fairly well presented, had some interesting NPCs, allowed for a fair range of player choice, and wasn't insultingly easy (ie. you actually had to plan how you were going to approach fights, at least the first time through before you broke the game by minmaxing your character)

the draw of the world is essentially that DA:O was an effective game. I don't think it was terrible the way some people ITT are eager to insist, but almost any world can be made interesting by a good game. it didn't bash you over the head with lore, but offered it, and made it relevant to the plot. it was fun to play, so people bought into the world and wanted more of it.

DA2 reveals very little (iirc the DLC expansions delved into some stuff)
DA:I reveals a ton, not all of it completely explicitly, but definitely I prefer some of the ambiguity and lack of clear information that DA:O created

err sorry, somehow contrived to read your post as "I played origins but not the sequels"
anyway, tresspasser does delve a little more into the elven gods side of things

I expected as much. Played origins, skipped two, biding my time before approaching inquisitions dlc.

I also love the diplomacy aspects of dragon age. The factions aren’t just there for flavor, they are intractable differences that you have to navigate to get everyone to work together. I think Inquisition did it better, but not perfect. I wish more fantasy and games placed you as a political mediator.

Not how it works user. You're still gay.

There is a Dragon Age TRPG

I like the idea of what inquisitions was trying, but I found you ended up being too detached from what was happening at ground level to really understand/care about what was going on. I just wanted a few villages or something. It made me think of in origins or a low-level tabletop campaign, however limiting it might feel to the player, you almost always end up exploring the world by setting up in a town with a shopkeep/inn/healer/whatever and then exploring around it. It might be cliché, but it's yet another cliché that origins used well and it worked, because then you had some sort of investment and sense of revelance to what you were doing

To each their own. I found Inquisition had other faults, but that didn’t really bother me.

But I do agree about being a political mediator. A lot of times in games (video games and tabletop) you end up effectively being a political mediator on a low level, just because it's a different sort of challenge or because having to factions at each others' throats raises the stakes in the face of an impending threat. But going all in and making it so uniting/manipulating/controlling factions on a large scale your explicit goal is a fun idea.

His name is Maevis Tilani.

Not to mention it ups the scale, and makes you feel like you have more player agency.

I’m struggling to think of a reason why more games don’t do it. Even Mass Effect veers further away from it, since they want you to be more of a grunt than a diplomat (haven’t played Andromeda).

>Tevinter has a trans woman magister
Holy shit, fuck this game.

The Qunari are the only ones who know how to handle mages right: as mute suicidal slaves.

I ran a short Dragon Age game with a hacked Edge of the Empire system last year. It really reinforced how much potential was there in the setting, still is I suppose. Hopefully I can restart or resume the game this spring.

What about it is terrible?

God forbid a video game violate your safe space.

DA:O was the only good one. The 'tactical combat' that was present in the first installment was completely gutted and replaced with button-mashing.

Does calling a fictional character by the wrong pronouns make you feel like a big boy?

I don't know if it's unique but I appreciate that Dragon Age assembles all it's magical elements into one cohesive whole with a unified field theory. That's something I can't think of too many other settings doing.

The economy is a mostly believably realistic world that just happens to be undergoing a monster epidemic because of the blight. It's not that there are insane super powered monster in the forest outside every village.

Magic and supernatural elements are all caused by the Fade and it's permeable barrier with the physical world in DA:O universe. Gods might be real and interacts with the world because people can go into the Fade and fuck around with the spirit world. Monsters come from the Darkspawn or Fade spirits.

It's basically a real medieval world that believably had one element changed that turned it logically into a fantasy world.

t. avid soy consumer

They were only like zombies in the later two games where an artist who seemingly literally didn’t understand how they worked (he apparently thought humans were “turned into” darkspawn in his artbook design notes) drew them as skeleton-people.
Previously they were more like Tolkien’s orcs in the sense that they are a warped, broken version of what they were spawned from but are still definitely their own species, albeit a horrific one that seems to exist only through parasitism.

Ferelden is pretty Scottish.
Names like, Loghain mac Tir, Calian, Calahed, and even the noble titles (Bann instead of Baron, Arl instead of Earl) are like really old Scottish nobility titles before France’s influence changed a lot.

Guess you had to explain that lore to them as the games let you piss on the feet of anyone who isnt protected against it by dev gods.

It does make sense, but it’s also pretty clearly a soft retcon of info in the past two games. Rather then changing past information they add new context more or less. I dunno why though; the Qunari were not supposed to be an ideal gender-role-free society, but a highly restrictive one based around the idea that the individual should exist for the community and not the other way around.
Some lady writers (and it was a lady writing everything Bull said) just want their fantasy cultures to be super cool and perfect even when they’re bad guys for whatever reason, while guys seem to like writing about inherently dysfunctional.
Like Kraven Traviss and her Mandalorians.

It’s not even “their” sjw anything.
It’s just this one person at BioWare who way heavily injects that shit into her writing in a really preachy fashion that is really annoying.

Are Warhammer dwarves are murdery as DA ones? I’n Asking because I actually don’t know.
The biggest thing I noticed about them was that they were all basically cutthroat amoral backstabbers politically who on the surface seem most known for being criminals and shady bankers, so the DA dwarves are really morally sketchy and their sense of honor seem more like samurai “face” and really you’re just not supposed to get caught fucking up.
Everything I’ve read on Warhammer dwarves seems to suggest that they are so focusef on honoring their word that it actually is borderline autistic and holds their culture back with an endless number of grudges and shit.

I think it makes for interesting fantasy worldbuilding. It’s not like life under the Qun is some progressive paradise, it just has a view of gender somewhat alien to outsiders.

But I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with Thedas as a place where generic fantasy happens to be more queer.

yeah, nevermind whether or not the lore conflicts, I think from a storytelling perspective they lost the balance of the qunari culture as it fits into the world. in origins and 2 their society was presented as having a whole bunch of cruel and rigid characteristics that roughly aligned into a plausible system that allowed for one or two positive characteristics.
the gender stuff they wanted to include certainly could've been some of those positive characteristics, but without the harsh logic and dehumanization as a backbone, their society kind of lost its place in the world as an ideological antithesis and instead was either "well that's not so bad" or a generic evil empire