Companions are a defining function of BioWare’s RPGs. The band of NPC followers who be part of your occasion in video games like Baldur’s Gate and Dragon Age weren’t only a assortment of yes-elves who quietly went together with each choice you made. They pushed again and disagreed, and would generally go away to go do their very own factor. Every of these companions had a definite character and voice. That is why there’s nonetheless no higher argument-starter amongst BioWare’s gamers than asking who one of the best and worst BioWare companions are. (Jacob protection squad, signify.)
And so, when a gaggle of veteran RPG designers got here collectively for a latest GDC roundtable hosted by PC Gamer, the query of how the writers managed their casts got here up. Obsidian’s Josh Sawyer took the chance to ask Mike Laidlaw, “At BioWare, was there a typical methodology for the event of the solid of companions and particular person companions?”
Laidlaw was former artistic director of the Dragon Age sequence, in addition to being lead author on Jade Empire and a designer on the primary Mass Impact. However it’s Dragon Age he is aware of most intimately, and so he answered by explaining how the writers room labored throughout the three Dragon Age video games he labored on—dividing companions between them and collaborating when these characters interacted.
“We had been firmly within the [camp of] ‘You personal this character, you’re the voice holder for this character,'” Laidlaw stated. “I think about that is pretty widespread—then you have got somebody do a move on the finish of the sport to undergo the character and ensure it suits. However we might sometimes sit in writing rooms, and the writers would shout out, you’d have Mary [Kirby] proudly owning Varric and Lukas Kristjanson can be like, ‘Hey, what would Varric say to this factor that Sera says?’ She’d be like, ‘He’d in all probability be irritated.’ And she or he’d throw in a line or one thing like that.”
Every companion had areas of the setting they wanted to signify and have one thing to say about. Within the case of Varric, the popular dwarven raconteur and rogue from Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition, that meant “he is mercantile, and he represents dwarves,” Laidlaw explains. However that companion’s devoted author would nonetheless be free to regulate sure facets of who they’re, which is why Varric’s not a romance choice. “Mary, she’s like, ‘Not romanceable! As a result of I do not try this.’ Honest sufficient. Mary simply hates writing romances. I am like, ‘Good, they do not all must be romanceable.'”
Guaranteeing there have been companions who reacted to every sport’s themes and central battle was an intention of Dragon Age from the beginning. “I fell in love with BioWare from Baldur’s Gate 2 greater than the rest,” Laidlaw stated. “Seeing Jaheira, Aerie, and Viconia signify not the entire, however undoubtedly a really disparate elf expertise, I used to be like, it might be good to do extra of that. We might speak about ‘What sort of questions are we asking the participant within the sport?’ Whether or not it is mages versus templars, or freedom and safety, or overreach of energy, or no matter type of stuff was being handled, we nearly chart like, ‘OK, we want characters that signify completely different viewpoints on these.'”
Having companions with differing opinions on all these points left them free to additionally write companions who did not stand in for a selected philosophy. The individuals who did not should care, as Laidlaw says. “In Inquisition they kind workforce yellow, which was Sera, Bull, and people who find themselves like, ‘Ah, no matter, let’s simply kill shit.’ Which can be legitimate, proper?”
Our RPG roundtable additionally included Strix Beltran, Josh Sawyer, Lis Moberly, and Paweł Sasko. You’ll be able to learn extra of the issues they talked about, in addition to hearken to the entire 80-minute dialog proper right here.
