Leliana vs. Liara: The Right and Wrong Way to Ignore Player Influance
Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2021 4:00 am
If there's one thing that bugs me about sequels in RPG series is how often developers try to find a way to ignore player choices and to minimize or flat out remove any impact we have on the story moving forward. Part of the fun of RPG's is that WE are part of the writing staff, in a way. We are the given options to shape the story as we see fit and while we are given several restrictions in the end this is our story and ignoring our choices to the higher ups can tell the story they want feels more then a little hypocritical given how often writers complain about studios for THEM to alter the story.
However, I do get why this happens as it's impossible to account for every story point and you need to make it so somethings happen a certain way to get the plot moving or something in the player choices goes against the story your setting up but this character is needed for the plot to work so you have to ignore what players did and just hope for the best.
But if you're going to do that then you HAVE to do it right. You can't just ignore player choice and go "Well this is the story I Want to tell!" You have to make it so the change makes sense AND Not make us feel powerless.
To show what I mean let's look at two of BioWare's most well known characters who are shaped by the writers of the series that try to find a way to work around the player's influence, Liara from Mass Effect and Leliana from Dragon Age.
Likely due to how popular they were with both fans and writers Liara and Leliana were promoted to major characters (with Leliana even getting a DLC where you got to play as her in Dragon Age: Origins) but it's very clear that the writers had an idea of where THEY wanted to take the characters and player choice had to be ignored with only certain points getting mentioned here or there but mostly your choices have no real impact on the character's journey.
Now, let's just focus on the 3d games in both series as that's were the real impact on is tossed aside for the sake what the writers want to do and between the two Liara is a bad example of ignoring player influence.
In ME1 and ME2, you can leave Liara in her Cell until literally the last second and in ME2 you can damn her for selling your body to Cerberus AND not give her the information needed to find the Shadow Broker. And despite being able to treat her like a piece of crap whom you can spend no real time with in the first two game (seriously the most about of time you can get with Liara that ISN'T optional amounts to 10 minutes throughout the Trilogy) ME3 STILL acts as if you are Liara and the best of friends and with some hints of romantic tension. This is not a good thing because it makes it clear that your choices do not matter and this didn't need to be the case. ME3 will add entire new characters and cutscenes depending on player choice and yet Liara will not alter despite her being someone who SHOULD be the most impact by Shepard.
Contrast this with Leliana in Dragon Age: Inquisition. At the start of DAI, no matter how influenced her in the first game (and that includes killing her) Leliana will always be alive and will always be bitter and cold. Even if you helped her reaffirm her faith she will be questioning it in DAI. But there are a couple of key differences here. One, Leliana's character DOES change a little bit depending on your choices.
If you killed Leliana in DAO and were cold towards her, or didn't recruit her at all, she is a slightly more bitter and cold person. And if you killed her, she states that she died and clearly doesn't really care for the Warden all that much because of that. Now, these are really just token to player choice as Leliana's character is still going to be more influenced by BioWare then by the player but we're already off to a better start because at least our impact on Leliana hasn't just ignored with her talking about how great the Warden was.
But the real key difference is in Leliana's arc in DAI. In DAI Leliana's arc is to rediscover her faith after being put into a situation where she questioned it. And that situation is, as Chuck showed in his review of the game, losing her surrogate mother/the DA equivalent of the Pope, which also resulted in hundred of innocent people dead, including everyone who was worthy of taking over the Divines role, a war becoming even more bloody, and also resulted in the death of many other people she knew... If your not allowed to be cold and bitter after THAT then when CAN you be cold and bitter?
If you're going to ignore player choice you should still acknowledge it on some level AND create a situation where it's believable that the character would change. Leliana is ALWAYS going to be Religious, she is always going to hold onto her faith even if you try to weaken it in DAO so losing the person who helped her find her faith, whom she saw as a mother and was the leader of the faithful in such a horrible way makes her going off her own path a MUCH easier pill to swallow.
Liara's arc and personality are NOT shaped by the player in anyway, shape or form. She is who BioWare makes her and while that does result in a good character it is a good character whom we have no real control over. And in a RPG that makes this all the more annoying.
However, I do get why this happens as it's impossible to account for every story point and you need to make it so somethings happen a certain way to get the plot moving or something in the player choices goes against the story your setting up but this character is needed for the plot to work so you have to ignore what players did and just hope for the best.
But if you're going to do that then you HAVE to do it right. You can't just ignore player choice and go "Well this is the story I Want to tell!" You have to make it so the change makes sense AND Not make us feel powerless.
To show what I mean let's look at two of BioWare's most well known characters who are shaped by the writers of the series that try to find a way to work around the player's influence, Liara from Mass Effect and Leliana from Dragon Age.
Likely due to how popular they were with both fans and writers Liara and Leliana were promoted to major characters (with Leliana even getting a DLC where you got to play as her in Dragon Age: Origins) but it's very clear that the writers had an idea of where THEY wanted to take the characters and player choice had to be ignored with only certain points getting mentioned here or there but mostly your choices have no real impact on the character's journey.
Now, let's just focus on the 3d games in both series as that's were the real impact on is tossed aside for the sake what the writers want to do and between the two Liara is a bad example of ignoring player influence.
In ME1 and ME2, you can leave Liara in her Cell until literally the last second and in ME2 you can damn her for selling your body to Cerberus AND not give her the information needed to find the Shadow Broker. And despite being able to treat her like a piece of crap whom you can spend no real time with in the first two game (seriously the most about of time you can get with Liara that ISN'T optional amounts to 10 minutes throughout the Trilogy) ME3 STILL acts as if you are Liara and the best of friends and with some hints of romantic tension. This is not a good thing because it makes it clear that your choices do not matter and this didn't need to be the case. ME3 will add entire new characters and cutscenes depending on player choice and yet Liara will not alter despite her being someone who SHOULD be the most impact by Shepard.
Contrast this with Leliana in Dragon Age: Inquisition. At the start of DAI, no matter how influenced her in the first game (and that includes killing her) Leliana will always be alive and will always be bitter and cold. Even if you helped her reaffirm her faith she will be questioning it in DAI. But there are a couple of key differences here. One, Leliana's character DOES change a little bit depending on your choices.
If you killed Leliana in DAO and were cold towards her, or didn't recruit her at all, she is a slightly more bitter and cold person. And if you killed her, she states that she died and clearly doesn't really care for the Warden all that much because of that. Now, these are really just token to player choice as Leliana's character is still going to be more influenced by BioWare then by the player but we're already off to a better start because at least our impact on Leliana hasn't just ignored with her talking about how great the Warden was.
But the real key difference is in Leliana's arc in DAI. In DAI Leliana's arc is to rediscover her faith after being put into a situation where she questioned it. And that situation is, as Chuck showed in his review of the game, losing her surrogate mother/the DA equivalent of the Pope, which also resulted in hundred of innocent people dead, including everyone who was worthy of taking over the Divines role, a war becoming even more bloody, and also resulted in the death of many other people she knew... If your not allowed to be cold and bitter after THAT then when CAN you be cold and bitter?
If you're going to ignore player choice you should still acknowledge it on some level AND create a situation where it's believable that the character would change. Leliana is ALWAYS going to be Religious, she is always going to hold onto her faith even if you try to weaken it in DAO so losing the person who helped her find her faith, whom she saw as a mother and was the leader of the faithful in such a horrible way makes her going off her own path a MUCH easier pill to swallow.
Liara's arc and personality are NOT shaped by the player in anyway, shape or form. She is who BioWare makes her and while that does result in a good character it is a good character whom we have no real control over. And in a RPG that makes this all the more annoying.