Quick tips that may be useful! (short but also links)

Dragon Age Origins is one of those few games where I (personally) couldn't find a full 100% guide with consequences and whatnot all laid out so I decided (not to make one, god no) but to at least put together some stuff that helped and was useful finding out! Credit for all original guides to their respective owners

So what is this guide?

Basically, I played Mass Effect Legendary Edition and saw that Bioware has a knack for making importable save files and big decisions that change the way your game plays out. I love that, but I also hate missing out on story bc I didnt know something was time gated or required specific orders/choices. Luckily, IGN had a 100% walkthrough for every game that explained the consequences of every major decision as it took you through, and also why it did certain missions in certain orders.

Problem is, that kind of guide is very rare (due to not being necessary in most games) and Dragon Age for some reason does not have one. The end result? I have 18 tabs open whenever I run this game. Now as a disclaimer, I am writing this guide AS i play the game. its not finished, and I will continue to update it as I learn things. Feel free to message if u think theres something I should add, or just make your own guide. become famous. be a vtuber. idk. This might not be very helpful to anyone! It may be wrong at points! but I figured hey, I do the work anyways, I might as well share it. Anything linked is the property of their respective owners, mostly guides I found useful for different reasons, anything not linked i found myself by playing or the dragon age wiki. (If any of this is not allowed well, I couldnt find anything saying so I guess thats up to steam)
I am playing this game on Normal difficulty with no mods. Will this make the game too easy once i get full build? who knows. My party is characters I like so it is highly unbalanced, maybe that'll make it harder.

THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD. obviously. you're reading a guide.

Most Important!

1. 'How do I start the game?' yea the game is broken for most players it seems. Personally I downloaded Nvidia's Legacy Driver[www.nvidia.com] and that seemed to work but depending on your specs / the age of the guide u may have to find something else.

2. SAVE OFTEN. saving takes literally half a second in this game and u can delete them easily theres no reason not to do it. save after every fight, save before you enter a new room, save when u get a drop u particular like. save before you enter a building, there might be a cutscene. save before you talk to any npc, it might end up being a story choice, you may just want to see what the other dialogue options were. save over ur old one or do a bunch of saves and delete all but one once u leave a map, whatever feels good to u but remember to keep saves before u make big decisions.

3. Connected to 2, some party members don't like certain things you do! typically the points dont matter much (you can make up affection with gifts) but if u want to make things easier or just like having a canon where all ur buddies like u, just take them out of the party and add them back in later. NOTE: some choices are story relevant such as Shale and breaking or keeping the void anvil but you can also lie to them to keep them happy (apparently). Again this 'guide' isnt so much in depth as it is, things i researched that would probably be tedious for you to research so here you go.

4. HOLD DOWN TAB. everywhere you go in every map. I've seen so many ppl mad in discussion posts bc they couldnt find a thing. Hold down tab and every interactable thing is highlighted and named. im sure this is explained somewhere in the game but it bears repeating here bc even guides won't detail every single thing in every room and money is nice to have.

5. Buy the Dwarven Merchant's Belt as soon as you can (Camp Shop). It's cheap enough and gives a 5% boost to gold gained from chests just for being in your inventory, no need to equip.

6. BEFORE YOU REACH THE POINT OF NO RETURN
When transferring save data to awakening, you will retain all gold and items still on your person. All items kept in the Soldier's Peak DLC box, however, are no longer acccessible. Apparently you can still go to Soldier's Peak from the epilogue save created by the game itself to change items to be transferred. Note that items found in Awakening are typically better than those in Origins, so you don't lose out on much, but if you want to transfer runes or sell items beforehand, make sure to do that. (Runes are used in crafting in Awakening).

Creating your character

Choose whatever u want. I personally chose male human noble bc u can become king[www.wikihow.com], and considering the protagonist changes every game, I might as well leave my MC in the best state i can. (as such, a lot of my tips will be geared towards rogues since that's what i chose to be, but if u choose a different class/build just follow the other characters.

Different races/classes have exclusive flings[dragonage.fandom.com] so if you care about that or wanna see what they look like, check that out.

As for starting stats, I dumped pretty much all of them into cunning. this is because
1. in the prologue/start of the game, there are persuasion checks that I want to be able to pass (how high do ur stats have to be to pass them? no idea)
2. rogues have access to lethality which uses cunning stat for damage purposes instead of strength. Note that you should still build some strength into your character for the sole purpose of being able to equip higher tier armor.
3. cunning increases stealing chances (as does stealth) and there are quite of lot of early stealing targets. heck, try everyone, least u get is gold. save before you do so obviously. notable targets[dragonage.fandom.com] if you just want the good stuff but if you're trying to buy things like extra backpacks or tomes early its useful to at least try the named ppl.
early talent points into coersion, stealing, and stealth. (A later quest will ask you to have a party member with trapmaking. The guide I used recommended putting this on Alistair, but I opted to come back later when I was leveled up a bit more and had a point in it myself).

If you're not a rogue, you can get leliana to do most of this but that means putting off her damage focused build path for later. not the end of the world, but the combat AI in this game is terrible so I really do recommend maxing combat training and combat tactics for all ur party members (minus you) first so that u can do some damage control. More on that below.

Building the characters

Your party member options will increase as the game progresses (unless you for some reason decide to reject every single potential party member).
This guide[dragon-age.livejournal.com] details the best skills and talents to take for each character, the stats they will need, and what tactics to put on them. I follow this directly with the exception of three units: Zevran, Wynne, and Leliana.

• Zevran/You (rogue)

according to this[web.archive.org] archived bioware discussion post, someone did a breakdown of pure dps calculations for each build and weapon combination. The highest dps by far is a cunning focused dual dagger build. Mind you this is DPS only, if you desperately need cc in your team (dont use alistair or morrigan) then you might want a bit more varied of an approach.
While im at it heres another archived post[web.archive.org] detailing rogue mechanics (stealing stealth etc) in case you wanna get technical into why you are/arent passing checks.

Finally if you're like me and find it really funny to have an evasion tank (and dont care about the dps reduction), the Evasion skill[dragonage.fandom.com] is a double edged sword that forces a dodge animation sometimes BUT coupled with other items/skills (one linked to MC only) can reach a 90% dodge rate.Items required detalied in link. Note that this does not help against spells/auto hit abilities, but spell resistance is also given from some of those items and the rest u can make up with armguard and helmet stats

• Leliana

again, depending on your needs, you could go for the recommended build that does knockdown on enemies, but you know whats harder cc than knockdown? death. The full (and very useful and detailed!) breakdown can be found here[dragonage.fandom.com] but tldr; build cunning with dexterity as a secondary, rush melee archer, lethality, song of courage, aim and master archer. Avoid evasion skill (you want her dps and 20% is not a lot by itself). When you get them, give her Repeater Gloves. it offsets the attack slow from Aim. There are better gloves later, up to you but for max damage you want Shale on your team using Rock Mastery. crit go brrr. Obviously still use skills manually if u need them.

• Wynne

Wynne stays mostly the same with 2 changes. First off, the guide says to use haste manually. In the base game haste is bugged, if using archer characters it goes over the acceptable limit and actually INCREASES aim time. Aside from using patches/mods, the only way to fix this is if your archer is a warrior and also activates momentum and precise strikes, math works out to just under the limit. Or just dont use archers, haste still works on melee attackers normally. Secondly, guide has Wynne using health and mana potions as needed if either gets too low. Since both regenerate after every fight, and not every fight is life or death, I turn these off until a boss/my team gets wiped out. hasnt happened yet and also wynne has a resurrection skill (use manually)

Who should I romance?

Romances in this game are incredibly simple so my decisions were based off of their endings.
Romance and just general affinity are the same in this game with the difference of a handful of dialogue choices you make, its quite easy to 'accidentally' be in a romance with someone. Be mindful of what you say if you dont want to romance them, if you lose or need points use gifts. Also, affinity points give stat bonuses to every character (including the dog, more below) so its good to talk to/give gifts to everyone regardless of your interest in them.

Again playing as human male noble to romance Anora (not actually a romance) so that he can become king (consort, really, but who saved the kingdom hmm)
The way to become king is detailed in the section 'making your character' but the main thing to remember is not having Alistair hardened, and YOU cannot be the one to kill Loghain. Or you can spare Loghain but Alistair leaves/is executed. Your choice.

All romances are detailed here[dragonage.fandom.com] , with links to their epilogues at the bottom. tldr;

-Morrigan leaves no matter what you do. there is no happy ending there. If you go to bed with her, she has a baby, if you go to bed with her for the ritual, she has a possessed demon god baby[dragonage.fandom.com]. You can read that and choose whether u want him to exist in Inquisition/want him to be possessed.You can romance her a bit and then break up and she still has the baby, or go through with the ritual if that's too much work. Kid also shows up in this quest[dragonage.fandom.com] in inquisition. Theres a non-possessed path in Inquisition, but to be king AND get a pretty neat necklace from Alistair in 2, you gotta go through with the ritual. Or dont. Make your own canon.
If you decide to become king, she will understand 'business is business' and it will still be a successful romance, but again, she will not stay. Note: there is a 'happier' ending at the end of the Witch Hunt DLC if you keep the romance up but I currently cannot find details to that. Look for more if you're interested. She however does not mention you much in Inquisition.

-Leliana unhardened with Marjolaine dead will be given an assignment by the chantry, and invite you to come with her. if you hit love (max maybe?) she will stay with you in Denerim or ask to follow you if you're leaving. If you decide to become king and she is hardened, you can tell her the marriage is political and have her stay as your consort/mistress/etc. Note you can also have a threesome with Isabela if Leliana is hardened. (more about hardening below). Also Leliana romance triggers a quest/unlockable research in Inquisition, if that interests you for lore reasons. The game also says more about the romance between you two depending on choices made in that game. All that said, Inquisition famously does not import save files from 2 and instead has you mark off choices you made on a website called Dragon Age Keep, so you could lie.

-Alistair is only for female Wardens. It is possible to romance him AND have him become king, but requires a persuasion check. He'll also only keep you as a wife if you're a human noble, otherwise you're a mistress (if he's hardened). Note that the final boss requires that either you, alistair, or loghain die fighting the boss, or that you go with Morrigan's plan for the demon god baby. If you die well. you know. If Alistair dies. well thats kinda the end of that romance. If you allow Loghain to join the grey wardens instead of executing him, any romance with Alistair is ended permanently and he leaves. So the only way to have Alistair and you live and be married is to go with the demon baby plan. Theres probably a non king epilogue scene but whats the fun in that. (That said if Alistair stays a Grey Warden he gives you The Sacred Heart[dragonage.fandom.com], whereas with a King/Exiled/Dead Alistair you end up with the slightly less impressive Warden's Promise[dragonage.fandom.com])

-Zevran (god if I ever make a guide for the other two games im sorry im just not going over all the romances theres 8 in the next game. research whoever you're into folks.) Zevran is a steady romance, he will follow you around no matter what you choose to do in the epilogue. If you become king you can have him be your consort, no hardening needed.

The Guides

Basic rundown, most comprehensive guides I used.

• Master Guide for General Playthrough[www.trueachievements.com]

Use this while playing, read 1 and 2 if you need to for items to keep (I just hoard everything in the DLC party storage (assuming everyone has it i think it comes with the steam version).
Go to your specific origin story, keep a tab open for 9 (Random Encounters) or just remember it exists, and then go to 10 onward for all other gameplay. There are certain choices I believe have better options, I will detail them below (but basically if you come across a choice u think might be important check the tab in this guide or look it up, I will detail all varying result choices I come across and their pros and cons).

• Companion Gifts[dragonage.fandom.com]

specifically ones from feastday DLC, they give a lot more points than common gifts so i mean if u just wanna keep things basic theres your info. Also some of the gifts are actual items your characters can use, to varying levels of actual utility.

• Dialogue Options for Affinity[dragonage.fandom.com]

Each one will show what's the best for them, some options gain and lose affinity with characters u keep in ur party, again give gifts as needed.

• Hardening and Its Consequences[dragonage.fandom.com]

Leliana and Alistair have the options to change their personalities which cause changes in the story. I detailed above the major ones, but theres details there.

If you skipped to this part of the guide don't forget to check out the Tactics guide up in 'building your character'!

Big Choices (and small ones)

Updated as I come across them:

-All romance choices theoretically have consequences extending to Inquisition, check Romances section for details but just look up ones you care about (and again, you can lie to the game and tell them u romanced someone u didnt).

-Stone Prisoner DLC: Honnleath - The Kitty encounter nets you the Cord of Shattered Dreams and either the Helm of Honnleath (kill and loot) or Wilhelm's Magus Staff (persuade/ask for bribe). The Helm is the superior item, HOWEVER to keep the little girl alive as well you can persuade(lie) to kitty saying you'll free her, do the puzzle and free her, then choose 'I never said I'd let you live'. Little girl gets scared of Kitty, runs, you fight and get the loot.

-Warden's Keep DLC: Soldier's Peak- Partway through you enounter Sophia Dryden possessed by a demon. She offers you a deal that many people do not take because killing her instead nets you the Warden Commander Armor[dragonage.fandom.com] with very good stats. Now, granted, it is a good item. I would be tempted, surely, if I wasnt planning on using an evasion build. HOWEVER, what people seem to not know is that there are two bonuses to accepting her deal. By passing a persuasion check, you can ask for more beyond just her help in sealing the barrier; upon killing Avernus (obtaining the Robes of Avernus[dragonage.fandom.com]) and going back to her, she reveals a stash worth 8 gold. Keeping her alive has her reappear in Dragon Age II as an enemy who drops Robe of Hidden Pockets[dragonage.fandom.com], an item that increases healing and makes enemies drop better equipment. No info on the numerical effect of the item but it can only help. In contrast, keeping Avernus alive gets you Avernus' Experimental Draught[dragonage.fandom.com] in Dragon Age II which gives two points to allocate to whatever stat you choose. Decent, but not world changing I'd imagine.

- Circle Tower - Agreeing with Morrigan in your party when first meeting Wynne causes her to turn against you (save beforehand if you want to see the dialogue). Mentioned in the guide, you must tell Cullen you want to save the mages again to keep Wynne from attacking you. Siding with the Mages (or simply doing this quest later) allows you to get this quest[dragonage.fandom.com] with the potential rewards of a ton of gold and a really good dagger. NOTE: Don't question Godwin or try to blackmail him before finishing this quest or you'll lose it. Siding with the Mages also allows you to save both Connor and Isolde in Redcliffe, who then show up in Inquisition (albeit with very little impact beyond being alive). For keeping them both alive, you can ask Isolde for a reward, but its inconsequential (you can even tell her to keep it for affinity points). I cannot find any positives to siding with the templars aside from people liking them in the final battle.

-Redcliffe - To my knowledge, there is no downside to saving the town, and you lose out on a multitude of quests for abandoning it. Neither choice affects or is even mentioned in Inquisition (other than the existences of Connor and Isolde whose fates are linked to the main quest as opposed to the town defense). Abandoning the town kills the old shopkeep and replaces him with a new one who sells the longbow Far Song, but you can also convince him to die/make him hostile and kill him regardless of the events of the defense quest. Choosing to finish his quest either by telling him his daughter is dead (in which case he will hang himself unlocking the new shopkeep) or successfully finding her rewards different items, and a success will have him upgrade his stock, most notably selling Boots of Diligence and Poison Caltrop plans.

When it comes to Kaitlyn's mini quest, you can talk to the boy and persuade him to give you the key to a sword, or tell him you'll pay for it. If you tell her you'll give it back after the battle and do so, the epilogue mentions the boy growing up and using the sword bragging about the time you fought off the invasion with it. You can also pay the higher amount to send them to Denerim, where she will marry Bann Teagan in the epilogue.

With Lloyd and Bella in the tavern, you could promise to help Bella get out of there, and by giving her the max amount she will go open up a brewery in the epilogue. However, with enough points in Coersion (or enough strength to intimidate), you can have her take over the bar instead. The full ideal route would be to first talk to the militia in the tavern about them not getting free beer, talk to Bella and ask about her situation, why wouldnt she leave, and offering to help her after the battle, then talk to Lloyd and tell him money wont help when he's dead, ask if anyone would miss him, say you'll only protect what is yours (making you owner of the tavern and giving you 80 silver), ask him how business is and say you want a cut of the profits now (giving you another 20), asking about the free beer and saying its your bar (finishing that subquest), and then asking why he isnt fighting and insist he does. If he dies overnight (and friendly fire is possible with spells), and you offered to help, you can give the tavern to Bella as one of your 'helping' options. There's also an option here (I didnt say for free) that gives 3 gold. Doing all this has you lose out on the zero deaths reward (250 xp and the Helm of the Red) and the keeping Lloyd alive reward (Lloyd's Magic Ring), but both items are somewhat underwhelming and Bella names the bar after you, so I see that as a net gain.

-Denerim - if you kill anyone in the Pearls Before Swine quest, you lose out on rewards and a follow up quest. Doing Slim Couldry's quest line Crime Wave has characters reference you in Awakening, no further downsides. Killing Ser Landy gives you loot, persuading him otherwise gives nothing and the quest disappears (sorry old man). If you steal from Sophie's room (right most locked) in the tavern before starting Crime Wave, he returns the gold you gave for the info (first break-in).

-Haven/Urn Quest - Defiling the ashes loses you wynn and leliana (unless you do a lot of work beforehand), you gain a specialization, and you skip out on some fights and rewards. If you dont do anything with them, you get a ton of loot from clearing out the cave, and if you keep Genitivi with you and allow him to live at the end, you unlock the Miracle Makers quest in DA 2 (not a huge quest, but nice enough). Buy everything you want from the shopkeep first, if you finish the area or start fights, they disappear. Kill everyone though, theres literally nothing else to do in Haven after. Finishing Test of Faith (the questions and walking through the fire) as you're 'supposed to' gives more XP than fighting the enemies that spawn for wrong answers.

-Brecilian Forest - Killing the grand oak for the Mad Hermit gives you basically nothing. Siding with the Oak gives you a mediocre staff, however instead of trading you can kill the Hermit and get a ring that gives +10% spirit damage, among some other choice loot (random). his camp is also replaced by bandits later who you can get more xp from. now the big choice: Dalish or Werewolves. Siding with the Dalish gives the most xp from all the killing, a big unique axe, and you get to keep Varathorn, an important merchant for plant crafting materials. Siding with the Werewolves gives you an interesting ending (and a ton of loot from the now dead elves). In DA2, the Dalish gives you an encounter on the Wounded Coast that nets a possible 600 xp and some money, while the Werewolves route gives you the Changing One's Nature quest that results in less xp, more gold, and the unique shortbow The Trepanner's Gift (not amazing but hey its a sidequest).

Choices pt2

thats wild i hit the word limit
anyways continuing:
- There is a way to cure the werewolves and have the Dalish live. Basically the dude advocating werewolf genocide was just taking some personal stuff out on humans, so you have to accept the parley from the Gatekeeper, agree to bring Zathrian to meet the Lady, offer your protection or say you don't think it would come to that, and after the talks tell Zathrian 'You'll end that curse if I have to force you myself". You fight, Zathrian dies and releases the curse, werewolves turn human and leave, and the new leader of the Dalish pledges their support. This route gives maybe the least xp but sometimes making the best story choice means not wiping a whole civilization from the map. (oh, you can also tell the ex-werewolves time to die for more xp that was also an option).

-Orzammar - So there's two main choices here; who to support for king and whether or not to smash the anvil. First off, in DA2 you get a quest if Bhelen is king, so that's a plus for that end result. Additionally the questlines for each vary a bit, specifically that in Harrowmont's route your first task is to do the Proving (arena fights that give xp), while Bhelen's route involves giving letters to people, one of which can be convinced to give you a discount at Gorim's shop in Denerim. However, you're also able to do the Proving fights on your own as long as you dont finish the second task, so Bhelen wins out there. You can also, after finishing the first task for either one, go to the other camp to betray them for a subquest that gives 750xp. Both secondary quests are the same, as are the third, and you get to decide who wins on your own after the storyline ends, so the ideal would be to go with Bhelen, get your discount, fight in the Proving and support Bhelen, go talk to Harrowmont's people and submit the incriminating evidence to them after, and then support Bhelen again after you come back from the Anvil quest. As for the Anvil quest itself, the choice doesnt affect any other games, but siding with Branka and keeping the anvil gives you golems during the final battle, whereas having her destroy the anvil or siding with Caridin just leaves regular dwarven warriors. You can finish Shale's quest either way, as long as you don't take her with you and pass a persuasion check if you kill Caridin. Neither gives amazing loot, a Master tier thunder rune from Caridin's body but that's about it.

-Landmeet- In 'Saving the Queen', you get more xp for stealthing through the entire level (minus the dungeon guards you must kill) than killing everyone. by like,, 200xp. That said, if you're a human noble these people killed your family so yknow. priorities. If you surrender or lose to the guard boss lady at the end of the level, you get an extra dungeon where you escape/have companions break you out, for an extra 1000 xp. its most efficient to kill and loot everyone in the boss fight except one basic soldier, then kill yourself with aoe/unequipping all items and standing there to get the extra dungeon 'Captured!'

-Awakening DLC - Keeping Nathaniel alive vs killing him: The subsequent missions given from either choice give out two separate quests. Nathaniel's quest is more story heavy, and gives less xp but more loot, while the other titled 'Fool's Gold' gives more xp but less reward. Nathaniel living is more fulfilling for the DA2 storyline, however the quest itself is bugged and may not appear. An apparent fix is to make sure Nathaniel is in your party for the final battle before you port over your save file, while another is to simply run patches/console commands. If you don't want to deal with all that, the consolation quest isn't too terrible (you can still keep him alive, just know theres a good chance you get the 'he's dead' quest anyways.
The next decision has the opposite problem: You get 'The Conspirators' for destroying Amaranthine netting you 2 gold and 1600xp, while you get 'Secret Rendezvous' for a max of 3 gold and 400xp if you save Amaranthine and leave the Keep to be destroyed. With those laid out, there's a bug where even if you destroy Amaranthine, the second quest is still available for some reason. Aside from roleplay reasons, nothing stopping you from just leaving the city to burn.
Finally, siding with the Architect and sparing him gives you the option to buy a neat (though not impressive) staff with a 15% bonus to spirit damage in DA2. Killing him is a matter of roleplay preference.

Final Thoughts

wow i really lied when i said short guide huh. i mean it didnt take that long to put together but man were those some walls of text. hope some of u enjoyed it. heck, hope someone read it lmao. good luck, have fun, and remember; its a game not a job, if you're getting tired of it just hop onto another game for a bit its not that deep. I have like 5 big games going rn and 3 or 4 short ones.