Don't just leave this out there.
We want examples dammit.
Good design lessons from
Dragon Age, huh? We'll make this fast, so as to not hijack the thread (we can fork this to a separate thread if you like). While the game isn't perfect, it does many things well that are easily yoinked for D&D.
Beware; spoilers.
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Make your PCs special. In this case you're a member of a unique organization that not just anyone can enter, and you're cut off from support. That makes you responsible for what happens.
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Don't let the NPCs outshine the PCs. Let's face it, Alistair should be leading instead of you. But he's insecure and has a fear of hurting people through his actions, so he's content to let you take the lead. It's a nice justification.
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Use dungeon dressing to build a mood. The first time I ran across blood mages was in the Circle Tower. The gradual growth of glistening fleshy bulbs growing across the environment - not doing anything, just sitting there - really freaked me out and set the mood. By the time they were swallowing statues and crawling across the walls, they had my attention. this is also done well before the broodmother encounter. You get a similar (if less sinister) effect from the dwarven designs in Orzammar and the thaigs, and the vast and empty spaces in the Temple of the Sacred Urn.
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Pacing. They do a good job of mixing exploration and combat, building anticipation for a few minutes before a new fight occurs.
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Narrow-Wide-Narrow. The game lets you handle the middle quests in whatever order you want, but without feeling strained it steers you closely at the beginning and end of the game. What you do in those middle quests influences your end quests. That's a good model for a campaign as well.
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Foreshadowing. Hespith's monologue before the broodmother is a beautiful example of setting up a dramatic encounter; similarly, the spiders running away from you back to their nest really gets your attention before the fight with the spider queen.
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Small actions cause big changes. The ways in which even tiny actions change the world are detailed in
this list from the wiki. Save Kaitlyn, give her money to escape and she ends up marrying Bann Tegan? Who knew? Players want their actions to change the world; make sure they do, and that they get to see the result of those changes.
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Consequences. Similarly, what you do can directly impact you. Decide to cleanse the tower and you're forced to kill Wynne. Act like a jerk and people treat you accordingly.
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Tactical battlefields. Battlefields often have terrain features to help protect ranged combatants. Flanking is important. Taking out a key foe through focused fire can swing a battle. Analyzing a battlefield can be critical; the broodmother fight is a good example of this.
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Guarantee your monologues. If you want your bad guy to ramble a bit, put him someplace hard to reach or attack right away.
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Not all challenges are combat. Some are moral. The small, quiet moment in the werewolf ruins where you can choose to help the trapped soul in the ancient phylactery is one of my favorite moments in the game, because of what your decision says about you.
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Consider the culture. The comment up-thread about the campaign where elves only value beauty made me think of this. Dwarves are viciously political, ruthless, classist, and polyamorous; it makes perfect sense but was something I never considered before. The implementation of "The Dalish Elves as Israel" was a little more heavy-handed, but also helped define their culture.
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Variations on a monster theme. This is especially good for 4e; instead of creating brand new monsters, twiddle with existing ones and make them memorable. Spiders, poison spiders, thaig crawlers, corrupt spiders - I like this much more than if it had been four or more completely different creatures.
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Sometimes, you actually want funny voices for your races. This is something I think they got wrong. Dalish elves sound like dwarves sound like city elves sound like most humans. Not that all dwarves should have scottish accents, but I think that weakened their presentation.
There's more, but that's a good overview of what I noticed.[/sblock]
