Dragon Age Interest Check

[Guest]

So, being so obsessed with Dragon Age: Origins, and loving the story-telling aspect of it, I've decided I want to make a role-play based on this wonderful world.

I think I'm going to have it centered on the First Blight, perhaps just before when the Tevinter Imperium commits the Second Sin (according to the Chantry), entering the Maker's kingdom in the Fade.

Any interest and any thoughts on the plot?

If you haven't seen it, there is a world map on the internet. I will post a link here for you, if you are interested.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/8/80/ThedasMap.jpg

[Blackrock]

As I mentioned already, this sounds very interesting. You have my sword...er quill....or keyboard rather...erm yes...

[Falciferum]

I'm all up for the RP as well. Hopefully an OOC can be started this week. I have spring break, so this will be the easiest time for me to make a character and whatnot.

[Guest]

I did some research of my own. I've discovered that there have been five blights (the events of Origins being the fifth), and that each of them have been led by an Old God. That leaves two of the Old Gods left, with the possibility of two more blights.

Since a role-play set in the past, as well as one set in current times, both have their cons, I decided that perhaps it may be a good idea to do one set in the future.

What do you think of having our characters face the next Blight, led by either one or both of the remaining Old Gods? It could be set in some as-of-yet undetermined number of years after Origins, and we would have the freedom of doing whatever we wanted without breaking the feeling of authenticity (so long as we keep history factual and "current" locations similar with what they were in the past, if there are still there at all).

So, what do you guys think?

[Falciferum]

Sounds like a good idea. We would have much more freedom with the character (kings and other prominent figures), as well as territories of kingdoms and factions. Plus we could refer back to any of the events in the game, seeing as it would all be history.

If we were to do it this way we should set it enough years in the future to allow all of the leaders of Dragon Age's time to have died off or at least be very old. This would allow us to have even more freedom with characters. That's just my though on the subject, feel free to take what you will of it.

[Gadreille]

I like your idea, especially considering that the first blight took 200 years to end...it seems like too much time to express by a single group of characters.

I am, of course, only a supplemental character, seeing as though I pined for this game before it came out I've never actually played it. I'm only here to keep things rolling, the major players are ye who actually bothered playing it

[Blackrock]

I'm probably in the minority here, but I don't quite think the timeframe is suitable. In a PM to Silvone I mentioned why the thing happening in the past wasn't a good idea, now I'll say why the future is a no good too. The problem is the same, past or future, and I'll try to explain why.

Let's assume we go ahead with this and start the RP somewhere during the time of the First Blight. Right, so we create our characters or try to, because some questions will arise. Where do they hail from? What kingdoms are there? What's the political/social structure of the Tevinter Imperium, for example? Yes, we know that were some bad guys who wanted to play god, they committed a great sin and were cast down, they returned as darkspawn and ravaged the land. Then, some more daring fellows decided to band together and find a way to defeat the Blight, they succeeded and have been doing the same for every other Blight. That's about it. And let's not forget, most of this is the Chantry's version of events, which might be wrong or manipulated. (as is hinted in the game quite a few times)

The future. That's even more shaky, in my opinion. This is not our world, it belongs to the developers, BioWare. And while Dragon Age 2 is still in the making and we have a blank slate to work with, it just seems wrong to me. Some of the events at the end of the game are far-reaching, stretching well into the future - and most of these are based on player choices. How will we decide on a "canon" ending? Not to mention the expansion, Awakening (which I'm playing at the moment), which promises will bring some "drastic changes" to the world. Fact of the matter is, we have little way to know how things will proceed.

Which brings me to the problem: lack of authenticity. Last I checked the thread was called "Dragon Age interest check", not fantasy or what have you. This doesn't mean that we have to basically do the same thing which is done in the game. No, we merely need to preserve the "spirit" of the world. And we do not, for the time being, know how things were or are going to be in the Dragon Age universe. We only know how things are in the present, which I'd reckon can stretch as far back as a hundred years. This is quite a large period of time and we can squeeze our story between the great events mentioned in the game and books (which I haven't read yet).

There's also another thing: location. Where will the events take place? Thedas is a big place, lots of kingdoms and empires. And we only know one: Ferelden. With a bit of imagination, Orlais can work too, since we get to interact with the country (via people or history) quite a bit. Orzammar, the city of the dwarves, along with the Deep Roads can work too.

What my point is, thinking of a setting is nice and all, it means we can do whatever we like with the world we create. But since we are playing in another's world, we have to play by the rules, so to speak. And must use the defining points of the setting, otherwise there wouldn't be a point in calling it a Dragon Age RP. These are my thoughts, take them as you will. There are other things I'd address, but I thought clearing this important point up is necessary.

[Guest]

I see your point, Blackrock. Ryona said the same thing, that since the sequel is coming it would damper our own story if it actually survives till then. And since I haven't completed the game, and likely won't for a while, that leaves spoiling it by researching it so that I can have an idea of where the story goes for the present.

I understand your point concerning working from the past as well. However, there are also limitations to working in the present. We can only work with what was given with in the game, if we are to be that strict about it. Which means we would be limited to locations visited in the game only, people we met in the story, etc. If our characters don't end up being major players in repelling the blight, which in this case they shouldn't because they weren't in the game, then they won't really have access to the same people anyway. My point is, no matter where we go with this role-play, unless we follow the footsteps of the game itself, we will be forced to make up some information ourselves.

And in my opinion, why not? Why not make up the political structure of the Tevinter Empirium? Why not come up with the layout of a few cities and and make up some people?
This is a role-play based off of Dragon Age, yet we have to work off of very limited information. It isn't like we are planning on selling our written work, it is just for entertainment.

I do agree that the future would be less of an ideal idea than I originally thought...I didn't realize that the ending had such far reaching consequences. But as far as the past, I don't see creating details as being a bad thing.
And as for the present, we can do that, but our options will be limited to the background of the main events.

[Blackrock]

Yeah, whenever acting in an existing world, you have to carefully decide on the balance between lore and whatever you want to add. Be too rigid in preserving the lore (or spirit or feel or whatnot) of the universe and you restrict yourself severely, on the other hand - disregard it too much and you risk washing away the things that set it apart. I'm all for creating and adding stuff to a world (or nation or city even, scale doesn't matter), the more details the better. However, I prefer if it's my world, the one I have been with since the start. And if we just takes BioWare's idea and twist it in some way...I dunno, it sounds weird even to me, but I'd feel awkward. Enough rambling from me, though; let's just focus on the task at hand.

When I say the "present" I don't actually mean the events that take place in the game. I don't see why we should walk in the footsteps of others, when we can leave those of our own (my statement. forum name. irony alert ). But, something taking part, say, 20 or even 30 years before them would be doable I think. It would be close enough to the time of the game, for the world to be pretty much the same, yet this would leave us with an entire generation worth of characters to play with. If we're talking about Ferelden, the Orlesian occupation is still in place (or at its very end, it depends) and the Wardens are still exiled. I don't think there's any indication as to what's happening in the rest of the world.

When it comes to what characters we play or interact with, there are a lot of options. I think we should stay clear of the "head of state" thing or high-ranking people, since it may lead to murky waters (dynasties and how they interact with each other, that sorta thing). Similarly, I don't think there's a reason for involving any of the characters we meet in game (not the major ones anyway). We might not even be in the same place. The whole story might take place in the lands of some Bann, or an arling. Our characters might be a group of Grey Wardens on a foray in the Deep Roads. We might be dwarves (Legion of the Dead even?) battling the darkspawn. A lot of opportunities, aye.

Anyway, I'm just tossing ideas around.

[Gadreille]

It will take a while, in that case. I've not found many of the codex's in-game, and I will need to do some research online. If you have a preference, throw it out there and we'll see what we can do. I'll start looking around myself.

(I do believe Silvone wrote this, seeing as that I did not...)

[Guest]

Yes...she logged in on my computer... Bad Ryona!

[quakernuts]

Interest grabbed!

I would like to be a part of this when, or even if, we get this thing started. I would also like to throw some input into this, and it's going to get wonky so bear with me.

I had kind of the same idea as Blackrock after reading through this thread. Put the story into the past, but not far enough that what we know is hampered by lack of knowledge. I kind of had the idea of the thread being placed in the time of the third or fourth blight. I have beaten the game, but reading the codex entries hurt my eyes and I went back to killing darkspawn. However, what I think we are lacking here is that, even though Dragon Age is a whole knew universe and is created by Bioware, it was still created from scratch.

What I mean by that, is that we can still create characters, do what we want with them, and still have the history and lore of the story intact. An example would be the game itself. For everyone that plays the game, it will not be the same unless we talk to each other and do the exact same things. Everyone's history for the game will forever be changed simply by the choices the player makes, and that is what we, as writers, must do here. I mean, there is six possible endings (Or is it seven?) to the game. That means everyone's sixth blight is going to be different.

This possibly means that we could do a future portion of the game, and still not hamper the upcoming sequel to the game simply because of the choices and differences that happen in the fifth blight.

So, anyways that pretty much sums it up for me. Just thought I should get that out there, and I know there is going to be an argument to this, but I thought 'What the hell, why not?'

[Guest]

Thanks for joining up with us, Quakernuts! And that is a good point about the future, but I would like to see what Blackrock thinks before deciding, as well as Falciferum. I'm really not sure where to start it from, since everyone kind of us a different idea. I don't to lose anyone because they don't agree with the time period, you know?

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