Roleplaying in Veilguard (or the lack of)

So now that a lot of the discourse has died down about veilguard (I like to be fashionably late), I have some thoughts about veilguard and one of the reasons why it didn’t work for me. I think there are already a lot of good critiques of veilguard regarding the writing, the lore, etc. This is something a little different and is definitely not my only issue about veilguard but it’s one I’ve been thinking about it.

What happened was, I was watching a behind the scenes interview about dai and so this whole post is basically inspired by something Gaider said:

“You may not always have a choice about what to do…but you should always have a choice about who you are” - David gaider in a behind-the-scenes interview about dai.

I think this is something that veilguard didn’t understand. And what people who try to say that it’s too expensive to add choices in games also don’t understand. Choice isn’t always about having massive diverging storylines. Sometimes it’s simply about having a choice in how your character responds to or feels about things.

I love that in dai you regularly have companions asking you what YOU think. Varric checks in with you: how do you feel about being made herald? Cassandra asks about what you believe. In dao, wynne asks about your thoughts on being a warden. Sten challenges you and in those discussions with sten you have the opportunity to define what your character believes and who they are. When talking with morrigan about magic you get to define your warden’s views and attitudes towards magic. Alistair literally asks for your thoughts on every companion! These are the little choices I’m talking about, the choice to decide who your character is, and what they think, feel, and believe.

When there isn’t an actual choice to be made in the other dragoon age games (I.e. when the plot determines something must happen), you still get to choose how your inquisitor/hawke/warden responds and feels about the situation before them. You still get to decide who your character is and what they believe and how they feel about things. When I say I want more choices, that I want to roleplay and that veilguard was lacking in choices, this is what I’m talking about. I’m not asking for diverging plot lines or massive world changing decisions (although getting to choose political leaders is always fun), I’m simply asking for the ability to choose who my character is. I’m just asking for a couple lines of dialogue that don’t change the plot, storyline, direction, or really anything, and yet allow me to feel like my character is my own. I’m just asking for the ability to roleplay.

In dao you don’t have a choice about whether or not you’ll join the grey wardens and go to ostagar with Duncan, but you DO get to choose how your character feels about it. You get to decide who your character is. Are they excited to leave their home? Scared? Angry? Begrudging? Those little choices (that really don’t change anything in the overall story) matter, because it’s those little choices that make it a roleplaying game.

Choosing to kill the ostagar prisoner or trade food for a key, or just straight up give him food, doesn’t affect anything in the long run, but choices like that let you define who your character is. So when people say adding choices is too much work and requires too many resources I call bullshit. Choosing whether to take Jetta’s lockbox to give to her or to sell the necklace for money only requires like 3 lines of dialogue. Choosing to return the amulet to the beggar or keep it for yourself? Like 4 lines of dialogue needed in total. In da2, Choosing whether to send feynriel to the circle or to the dalish barely changes anything, but making big changes isn’t the point - the point is showing where you stand, what you believe.

Imo dai lacked a lot of those choices in side quests, which is why so many quests felt like fetch quests. Luckily, they still kept some: do you give info about red crossing to elves or chantry? Do you help the halla or kill it for money? Do you recruit the soldier sleeping with mages in the hinterlands or scold them? Do you turn the cult in the hills into a spies for you or into a charitable organization (changes nothing but maybe what kind of agent they are, but still MATTERS). And luckily for dai it makes up for the lack of choices in side quests with all the conversations about faith and leadership and how your character feels about it.

Veilguard took away a lot of those little choices and there really is no excuse for it. When I played through the game I often found myself frustrated that my rook would engage in conversations and I didn’t get to choose what they said or how they responded. Rook would just talk! Like when companions asked for help with their personal quests? Rook always just says “sure.” I don’t get to have a say. I don’t get to say no. I don’t even get to be annoyed while saying yes. I don’t get any choice at all in those conversations (except to just not have it I guess). Rook responds without any input from me. I’m just watching. I’m not roleplaying. This seems like a small nitpick, but my point is that those small moments matter! They matter in a roleplaying game. They are the roleplaying part of roleplaying games! I don’t need to be making world changing decisions every moment, I just want to be able to take ownership of my character, to feel like I’m playing a character, not just watching a story play out.

I’m mad that veilguard lacked these small roleplaying moments because these moments are so small and they change so little so why couldn’t they just include them? Why did they take them away?

I never felt attached to rook because I never felt like rook was mine. I didn’t get to shape her in any meaningful way, i didn’t get to decide how she felt about things, it was already decided, no input from me needed. Simply put, I didn’t get to roleplay (in a roleplaying game). And because I wasn’t attached to rook, I really wasn’t attached to the world or the companions or the plot of the game, because it is through rook that I experience the game, the world, the companions. Basically, this is a really long way of saying that roleplaying really matters in a roleplaying game.

And just for good measure, here’s the quote from David gaider again: “You may not always have a choice about what to do…but you should always have a choice about who you are.” Did you feel like you had a voice about who you were? Why/why not?