I’m currently replaying Dragon Age: Origins, in preparation for Inquisition later on. As with many Bioware games, it has the “standard” male secondary lead in Alistair, ex-Templar Grey Warden who accompanies you.

Alistair, on the surface, is Carth Onasi (from KOTOR), or Atton Rand (from KOTOR 2), or Kaiden Alenko (Mass Effect), or Jacob Taylor (ME2). The loyal, male ‘best friend’ character who tends to live by a code of some kind, tends to provide skills that clearly and easily support your party (often either tanky or straightforward support-style characters), you know the drill. Normally, I find these characters somewhat hit-or-miss, as they’re often vanilla enough to be boring and lack strong story hooks to keep me interested, usually far overshadowed by other characters.

Alistair is different. Alistair is funny. He has a ton of really excellent lines and while his character development is interesting (though not that outstanding, with a notable exception I won’t spoil here– anyone who’s played the game knows what I’m talking about), the real draw is his one-liners. He’s constantly irreverent and amusing, and the writing in Dragon Age is excellent in that it allows you to either shoot him down or play along, usually leading to a string of more and more ridiculous jokes from him.

It makes me think of a scene in Saints’ Row 3, where (relatively early on) you and another NPC character wind up idly chatting on a drive in between locations, which devolves fairly rapidly into singing along (badly) with the radio– I actually had the pause the game I was laughing so hard.

My favorite characters in games are the funny ones. HK-47 is a ruthless, evil machine, but his commentary is (often unintentionally) hilarious– but, importantly, for the player, not the player’s character. Alistair is different in that he’s entirely aware he’s being funny and cracking jokes; his jokes don’t break the fourth wall (like HK-47’s do), he’s genuinely trying to lighten the mood and make you laugh.

It’s one of the reasons I love Dragon Age. Funny moments are funny in-world, not just from my couch. I’m not laughing at the ridiculously over-the-top violence suggested by an inhuman robot (which, were I in my character’s shoes, wouldn’t be terribly funny and would be in rather poor taste), I’m laughing alongside my avatar in the world.

Make me laugh, but better, make me believe my character would laugh, and I’ll love a character very quickly, often despite a panoply of other flaws. Fourth-wall humor can be fun, and I often enjoy it, but I much prefer when the jokes fit into the world. It’s much more difficult to write, but the payoff is excellent.