#narrative techniques
“I love unreliable narrators in general. Dragon Age uses unreliable narrators for everything. The reason I love unreliable narrators is that it allows you to present information through the lens of someone who could be wrong, or intentionally misleading. ‘Brother Genitivi says’ is the way that most lore in Dragon Age: Origins is presented. And what that allows you to do is have him be wrong. Mislead the player, on purpose, or sometimes just give yourself the flexibility to change your mind, in order to change the lore, change the universe, around that established lore without actually violating it, because it’s an unreliable narrator. But the cool thing is you actually get all of that while also deepening the sense of your setting being lived in by real human beings. When information is presented by an unreliable narrator, it’s presented by a person within the setting. It’s not just sterile information dumped into a codex. It comes with this implication of story and life that doesn’t come from other ways of presenting information. To my mind it’s actually win-win across the board. It gives you extra flexibility while also making the setting feel more alive.”
