Okay, so now that I'm doing another go through of the Randomized Runs, I want to have a secondary post where I explain the rules, so that the worldstate summaries for each of these runs can be less cluttered and so I can link back to this when I need to explain them. So here's that post!
The Dragon Age Randomized Runs first began when my friend (@vashothmages) bought the DATV bundle on Bioware's website, which includes a massive d12 with all of the dialogue symbols on it. We thought it might be fun to play a run of Veilguard where you used this die to make all your dialogue decisions and flipped a coin/rolled a die/randomly generated a number to make all non-emotion based decisions. It turned out to be really fun. So fun that I went back and played through all the other games in the same way to make a worldstate for that Veilguard run. So fun that I started doing it again! And here are the rules for that run, for reference or if you're interested in trying this out for yourself!
Rules Applicable to All Games:
All dialogue decisions are made by the roll of a die (the Veilguard emotions die where useable, a regular die where not) or a random number generator. Any story decisions made outside of dialogue are also decided with a die or random number generator. The only outlier is Origins shopkeepers, so you don't need to keep exiting their menu and reentering it until the dice let you select the "let me see your wares" option.
Main quests are completed in a random order, where applicable. Side quests, including companion quests, can be done in whatever order is easiest. DLC specific quests, like Legacy, Soldier's Peak, etc. count as main quests for the purpose of this rule, but if you roll to play through a DLC before the game has afforded you the opportunity, you can roll again.
All character creation is randomized through dice/random number generators wherever possible. When sliders are involved, flip a coin to decide whether you pull it to the maximum or minimum option. Randomize the name how you see fit (use the default name, randomize it from the names from all the games, use fantasy name generator, your pick). The only outlier is when you have to recreate a character in another game (like Hawke in Inquisition or the Inquisitor in Veilguard), when you must try your best to recreate whatever the hell you got last time.
Each time you enter the party select screen, randomly decide which companions you select to join you. I usually do this by assigning a number to each companion based on the order they stand in the selection screen, but do whatever your heart desires for this.
As long as a quest appears in the journal, you're allowed to do it. Even if your character turned it down during conversation. You are also allowed to cheese picking up a quest by talking to the quest giver over and over again if that option is available.
The only aspect of the game that you do not have to randomize is character leveling, as to make the game at least a little playable.
Dragon Age: Origins Specific Rule
All character gifts are randomized, unless they are locked by a cutscene. When you want to give out a gift, you have to utilize the same method you were using to randomize who you bring places to decide who you give the gift to. Some gifts are companion locked, like Alistair's Mother's Locket or the Black Grimoire, meaning you can't do this, so you can give that gift to the companion in question if you want.
(This is an Origins specific rule because none of the other games do gifting in the same way. DAI doesn't do gifting at all and DA2 and DATV only do companion locked gifts, so this is irrelevant.)
Dragon Age 2 Specific Rule
After each time skip between acts, you are allowed to go to the Black Emporium and give your character a haircut (change their hair and facial hair, if applicable). If you decide to do this at any point, you must continue to do it throughout the game after every time skip. You also cannot reuse a hairstyle or facial hairstyle after you have played an act with it.
(This is DA2 specific rule because none of the other games have similarly long time skips to DA2. It is also because my original randomized run DA2 character was so horrible to look at that I literally couldn't do it and needed a way out.)
Dragon Age: The Veilguard Specific Rules
Before you start the game, flip a coin to decide if each given faction will get the maximum or minimum amount of faction level. Do this for each faction individually, not for the factions as a whole. Once this is determined, play as this dictates. For the maximum faction level, do all relevant side quests, level up the shop, etc. For minimum faction level, DON'T TOUCH IT. Don't do side quests, don't sell them anything, don't look at them. TIP: While most side quests make it clear which faction they'll give you points for, not all do, and it might be helpful to check the wiki before you decide to do a quest. For example, all dragon killing gives you Lords of Fortune strength, regardless of whether or not the Lords were involved, most, if not all, quests under the Crossroads umbrella (like the Champions or Solas memories) will give you Veil Jumpers and/or Wardens strength, the Evanuris/Fen'Harel alters give you Veil Jumpers strength regardless of location, etc.. Generally if the ancient elves/the Blight/dragons are involved, assume it'll give you Veil Jumpers/Wardens/LOF strength until proven wrong. Those aren't the only factions who you can get accidental faction strength from, but they're the easiest to run into, in my experience.
Before you start the game, flip a coin to determine whether or not you will make a companion Hero of the Veilguard. If you are not making the companion HOTV, I would recommend not doing any of their personal quests, not just the final personal quest, to avoid any extra faction points you don't want. You don't have to do it this way, but it's easiest. If you do want to do their quests but they are not going to be made HOTV, do not do their final personal quest regardless of whether or not there is a follow up conversation where they actually become HOTV, as that would mean their villain doesn't show up in the endgame and that's less fun.
(These rules were put in place to attempt to mimic the horrible party makeups of randomizing the previous games. Veilguard is the only game that doesn't allow you to not recruit companions or lose them along the way, except for when they can die at the end. Whether or not they die is dependent on whether they are HOTV, what the relevant faction levels are, and what task they are sent to do. You would already be randomizing the task they were sent on in the base rule set, but these two rules were added to make sure all aspects involved were randomized to maximize the chance that terrible things happen.)
This got longer than I anticipated. Sorry I have a problem in that regard. Anyways, that's everything! If this or my other random run posting seemed intriguing enough that you want to try it yourself, please tell me about it! We've had a lot of fun with seeing new parts of these games and building terrible characters out of these runs, and we think you all could too! We also put a lot of work into these rules, as they were slowly built over our first try at this whole thing, and I finally feel confident that we've ironed out all the kinks enough for another try and for this to go well if you want to try for yourself. And at least if I'm wrong, this post won't be too hard to edit.
