Time to wake up

I recently had another bash at Dragon Age Awakenings. Now compared to the other DLC and the game itself, I think this had the best writing for the whole Origins experience.

Now don't get me wrong: I found the original game to have some great ideas at work, excellent characterization and enough to keep me going on with it just to see what happens next (not to mention it lasted a lot longer than Awakening). But when you've been playing Bioware RPG's as long as I have, you realise that it does seem a bit formulaic. Come on, a guy wants to do something to ensure his dominance so you have visit a variety of locations to build a method of stopping him? How much difference is there between Loghain and Darth Maul/Saren?

But I digress: what appeals to me with Awakening is the player character going to the effort of rebuilding the Grey Wardens. In Origins, the Grey Wardens are treated with a mixture of awe and fear as these people are the only one's capable of stopping the Blight. As the game progresses, it's made clear the Grey Wardens are mighty in battle yet go through terrible lengths for their role of Blight-Queller.
But in spite of this, the Grey Wardens have fallen into disrepute in recent decades and are looked upon with an anachronistic eye - matters aren't helped with the the order decimated and two new recruits are the only one's remaining: Alister and the player character.

But it's this idea of 'once-noble-order-now-fallen-into-disgrace' that fascinates me - and which is pushed to the front with Awakening. Now that the Grey Wardens have lands and a keep from which to rebuild, the player character starts actively recruiting party members. But what does he/she get? A fugitive, a drunk, a disgraced noble, an exile, a doom-seeker, and a dead man. Far from being recruits to a noble order but to me that's what makes the plot to Awakenings so compelling.
Being an experienced gamer I'm used to RPG's being full of noble heroes who save the world just for (seemingly) the sake of it. But the party members are far from [Lawful Good] material - no, they are a bunch of misfits and losers who really have nowhere else to go - except an anachronistic order dedicated to killing Darkspawn. They are to rebuild this order - and even then the survival of said order isn't really assured....

And that's what makes Awakening compelling. It takes a convention of the RPG formula and does things differently. Indeed, messing with a formula can indeed bear fruit and I wonder why this wasn't taken further in the main game...