Companions are a defining characteristic of BioWare’s RPGs. The band of NPC followers who be a part of your social gathering 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 the very best and worst BioWare companions are. (Jacob protection squad, symbolize.)
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 normal methodology for the event of the forged of companions and particular person companions?”
Laidlaw was former inventive director of the Dragon Age collection, 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 mentioned. “I think about that is pretty frequent—then you’ve got somebody do a cross on the finish of the sport to undergo the character and ensure it suits. However we might usually 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 most likely 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 symbolize 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 manage sure facets of who they’re, which is why Varric’s not a romance possibility. “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 recreation’s themes and central battle was an goal of Dragon Age from the beginning. “I fell in love with BioWare from Baldur’s Gate 2 greater than anything,” Laidlaw mentioned. “Seeing Jaheira, Aerie, and Viconia symbolize not the whole, however positively a really disparate elf expertise, I used to be like, it might be good to do extra of that. We’d discuss ‘What sort of questions are we asking the participant within the recreation?’ 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 virtually chart like, ‘OK, we want characters that symbolize totally 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 need to care, as Laidlaw says. “In Inquisition they type crew yellow, which was Sera, Bull, and people who find themselves like, ‘Ah, no matter, let’s simply kill shit.’ Which can also 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.