Indignant Desert Birds

I’ve Never Meta Dragon Age I Didn’t Like

Posted on March 21st, 2011 by Punning Pundit

I was surprised to find a monster at the center of the dungeon. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been: since the days when stone tablets were too precious to inscribe stories on, story tellers have been inventing labyrinths and putting monsters in them. Nevertheless, the magistrate had contracted me to find a criminal and return him to face justice. The father of his most recent victim had told me that no human would ever be held accountable for the murder of elves. The elf begged me to create justice by killing the human.

I’ve got a thing about justice. To me, justice isn’t merely a matter of outcomes. Rather, it resides at the intersection of correct outcomes and correct procedure. This is what makes, for instance, Batman so compelling. When outcomes and procedure stand at odds, I almost invariably side with procedure. But that’s me. I don’t know how Hawke will feel about it.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered not just any criminal, but a child molester. That seems simple enough. Also simple enough? Diagnosing this child molester as schizophrenic. This makes a difference. Perhaps he could be rehabilitated? He’d still need to be punished, but I’d rather have him productive and sane than not. That’s when I realized that not even in the 21st century can such a thing be accomplished. Fantasy medieval empires are “fantasy” because they involve dragons, not because they involve really high end mental health clinics.

And there’s another problem: the mentally ill child molesting murderer hasn’t yet faced justice because he’s the son of a judge. I don’t really blame the judge for not condemning his own child. I can’t even really blame the judge for sheltering his child from legal repercussions. There might be an element of racism (the victims, after all, were elves), but protecting one’s children is a very human reaction.

So there are my choices: ignore procedural justice and outcome justice by returning this person to his father, or, kill this person and anger one of the most powerful people in the city. I thought about it for a bit. That’s when I realized that this is a Bioware game. There is no way at all that any decision I make will be the wrong one. In another, better, game this would be a wrenching decision. I’d have to figure out exactly how much I’m willing to sacrifice for my sense of justice, or honor, or to simply protect a community. I’m betting Bioware won’t make this decision cost me anything.

I slay the monster.

When I return to the magistrate, he knows what has happens, and vows that I’ll be punished. He didn’t get the memo that I’m the hero of this story, and his job is to make me look good.

It is interesting to me that meta gaming with Merrill made me really bond with the game, but in this quest, meta gaming ripped me out of the story and made my decisions easier. I think the difference is that with Merrill, I used meta gaming to give my character a goal, and tools to achieve that goal. In this instance, meta gaming was the result of having seen through the system, to the underlying mechanics.

I think this wraps up my thoughts about Dragon Age 2, act 1. I’ll leave with possibly the best quote of the entire game so far. It’s why I love Merrill:

But don’t go that way, there’s this huge dragon” – NPC fleeing for his life.

“Oh! Are we going to go that way? I’ve never seen a huge dragon before!” – Merrill.