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Dragon Age: Which Witch?
Short version: there are pros and cons to both mage NPCs. I've ended up going with Wynn in the end, which is not what I initially planned to do, but for various reasons I'm glad I did ...
From both a gameplay and story point of view, both Morrigan and Wynn have a lot to recommend them. Unless you're playing a mage you're probably going to take one of them with you, so I'm glad that I like both of them.
Morrigan is the poster child for the Dragon Age marketing campaign. The game developers like to say this is because she best represents their dark fantasy world; I'm cynical and think it's because of the boobs. However, if you look past the ridiculous outfit (how does she not freeze to death in the colder areas?) there's a genuinely interesting character there. Claudia Black's voicework is superb, her lines are hilarious and she's got a view of the world worth exploring through her romance/friendship path. On a gameplay level, I didn't play with her long enough to get the best out of her shapeshifter specialisation, but it's a nice idea to have a mage who can turn into a bear if she ever runs out of mana mid-battle. The game also hands her to you on a platter - she's one of the two NPCs you can't avoid recruiting, as far as I'm aware. That makes her an attractive beginner option.
On the down side, unless you're playing a grimly pragmatic or outright evil character, keeping her happy can be a challenge. She often doesn't like doing side quests to help people, and if you're like me you'll want to grab all of those you can on your first run just for the sake of curiosity. For my particular character, her shapeshifter forms were less interesting because I'm playing a Ranger. (As a side note, I'm delighted to find that my summons are useful even though I didn't even manage to unlock the specialisation until Level 11. Nothing quite like throwing a bear or a giant spider at your enemies.) She's also not half the healer the other mage in the game is when she starts out, which brings me to Wynn.
I'm pretty sure this character is named Wynn because she is made of win. (Morrigan, on the other hand, is clearly made of awesome. And Alistair is made of adorkable.) She is old enough to be your character's grandmother and she will pwn any darkspawn dumb enough to hassle her. Wynn has one big drawback: her starting location. In order to get her in the party you have to agree to be locked inside a bloody difficult dungeon which you cannot leave until you have conquered the whole thing. Fortunately, this is made much easier by having her along. She's a superb healer with so many starting Tactics points that I've yet to think of something to do with all of them - you can set her up as you like and leave her to her own devices most of the time. I'm steadily adding some crowd control to her spell list as she moves up in levels, and she's very powerful.
Personality-wise, I've grown fond of her, although I imagine some players might find her preachy. She's like the DA equivalent of Keldorn Firecam, an older character with a strong sense of duty and not much respect for people who don't share that. She's definitely a better alignment match for my character than Morrigan, and we've had a lot of interesting conversations. She's also deeply sarcastic about her age and other people's expectations of her. Plus, her commentary on my character's relationship with Alistair is interesting and occasionally hysterical. Especially when Alistair asks her for romanctic advice.
My favourite bit so far, slightly paraphrased because I didn't jot it down at the time:
Alistair: Wynn, imagine you're a woman ...
Wynn: Since I am a woman, Alistair, that shouldn't prove too terribly difficult.
Alistiar: I didn't mean it like that!
What sealed my decision to keep Wynn after we got out of the tower, though, was a roleplaying consideration: she reminds me a lot of my character's mother from the Origin story. One of the things I'm really liking about this game is that there are plenty of older female NPCs who are not there to flash their boobs and attract male players. (Although, amusingly all female humans share the same animation model, so if you take off Wynn and Morrigan's robes they're identical from the neck down. Possibly this has disturbed a few fanboys. Also, I keep wondering when the people of Fereldan found the time to invent the strapless push-up bra.) Not only Wynn and my character's mother, Flemeth and various others around the place. The priests outside the the Chantry in Denerim are not to be missed. ("... for the Maker is your bacon and your shield ..." "There is NO VEAL in in the Chant!") This is one area where they're clearly doing better than Baldur's Gate, where even the female party members you couldn't romance were young and conventionally attractive.
From both a gameplay and story point of view, both Morrigan and Wynn have a lot to recommend them. Unless you're playing a mage you're probably going to take one of them with you, so I'm glad that I like both of them.
Morrigan is the poster child for the Dragon Age marketing campaign. The game developers like to say this is because she best represents their dark fantasy world; I'm cynical and think it's because of the boobs. However, if you look past the ridiculous outfit (how does she not freeze to death in the colder areas?) there's a genuinely interesting character there. Claudia Black's voicework is superb, her lines are hilarious and she's got a view of the world worth exploring through her romance/friendship path. On a gameplay level, I didn't play with her long enough to get the best out of her shapeshifter specialisation, but it's a nice idea to have a mage who can turn into a bear if she ever runs out of mana mid-battle. The game also hands her to you on a platter - she's one of the two NPCs you can't avoid recruiting, as far as I'm aware. That makes her an attractive beginner option.
On the down side, unless you're playing a grimly pragmatic or outright evil character, keeping her happy can be a challenge. She often doesn't like doing side quests to help people, and if you're like me you'll want to grab all of those you can on your first run just for the sake of curiosity. For my particular character, her shapeshifter forms were less interesting because I'm playing a Ranger. (As a side note, I'm delighted to find that my summons are useful even though I didn't even manage to unlock the specialisation until Level 11. Nothing quite like throwing a bear or a giant spider at your enemies.) She's also not half the healer the other mage in the game is when she starts out, which brings me to Wynn.
I'm pretty sure this character is named Wynn because she is made of win. (Morrigan, on the other hand, is clearly made of awesome. And Alistair is made of adorkable.) She is old enough to be your character's grandmother and she will pwn any darkspawn dumb enough to hassle her. Wynn has one big drawback: her starting location. In order to get her in the party you have to agree to be locked inside a bloody difficult dungeon which you cannot leave until you have conquered the whole thing. Fortunately, this is made much easier by having her along. She's a superb healer with so many starting Tactics points that I've yet to think of something to do with all of them - you can set her up as you like and leave her to her own devices most of the time. I'm steadily adding some crowd control to her spell list as she moves up in levels, and she's very powerful.
Personality-wise, I've grown fond of her, although I imagine some players might find her preachy. She's like the DA equivalent of Keldorn Firecam, an older character with a strong sense of duty and not much respect for people who don't share that. She's definitely a better alignment match for my character than Morrigan, and we've had a lot of interesting conversations. She's also deeply sarcastic about her age and other people's expectations of her. Plus, her commentary on my character's relationship with Alistair is interesting and occasionally hysterical. Especially when Alistair asks her for romanctic advice.
My favourite bit so far, slightly paraphrased because I didn't jot it down at the time:
Alistair: Wynn, imagine you're a woman ...
Wynn: Since I am a woman, Alistair, that shouldn't prove too terribly difficult.
Alistiar: I didn't mean it like that!
What sealed my decision to keep Wynn after we got out of the tower, though, was a roleplaying consideration: she reminds me a lot of my character's mother from the Origin story. One of the things I'm really liking about this game is that there are plenty of older female NPCs who are not there to flash their boobs and attract male players. (Although, amusingly all female humans share the same animation model, so if you take off Wynn and Morrigan's robes they're identical from the neck down. Possibly this has disturbed a few fanboys. Also, I keep wondering when the people of Fereldan found the time to invent the strapless push-up bra.) Not only Wynn and my character's mother, Flemeth and various others around the place. The priests outside the the Chantry in Denerim are not to be missed. ("... for the Maker is your bacon and your shield ..." "There is NO VEAL in in the Chant!") This is one area where they're clearly doing better than Baldur's Gate, where even the female party members you couldn't romance were young and conventionally attractive.