Spicing up Mass Effect (Spoilers)

[Auron225]

So I finished the Mass Effect series for the first time recently - this thread is NOT about the Ending, although I will mention it in context.

All in all, I loved it and I plan to replay it at least once more, likely twice. My first playthrough was a Paragon, "out-of-the-box" Shepard (in terms of appearance) with Liara as a LI all throughout. What I really want to try is;

1) A female Shepard with some more Renegade choices
2) My own design of Male Shepard, with Tali as a LI

However - here is my dilemma. I thought long and hard about every major choice I made throughout the series, and I regret very few of them. Seriously; my only regret was rewriting the geth heretics (Legions loyalty mission) as opposed to destroying them - but in the end, even that didn't stop me from uniting the quarians and geth.

So, what alternate decisions can I make to spice things up a bit, without purposefully screwing myself over? For example; I chose to save Maelons data in Mordins loyalty mission, which led to the Genophage cure - which I wanted. I'd find it difficult to dispose of it this time around knowing full well what it'll cause later.

TLDR; What decisions can I do differently that don't just feel like the wrong decisions?

Spoiler: My actions first time around. Spoilers everywhere.

Spoiler: ME1

Soldier class, Earthborn Akuze survivor
Got the full squad at the beginning & got Liara early
Romanced Liara
Saved victims of the Thorian, including green asari woman
Spared the Rachni queen
Ashley & Wrex survived Virmire, Kaidan didn't
Saved the Citadel council & nominated Anderson as a council member
DLC: Bring down the sky - saved hostages, batarian terrorist got away

Spoiler: ME2

Still a soldier (can't remember if it can change here or not)
Got all squadmates and did all loyalty missions
Upgraded Normandy fully - full squad survived suicide mission
Didn't cheat on Liara - continued romance via Shadow Broker DLC
Tali wasn't exiled from Quarian fleet (via heartwarming speech)
Saved Maelons data
Rewrote heretics instead of destroying them
DLC: Saved David Archer & sent him to Grissom Academy
Resolved all crew conflicts without loss of loyalty
Saved entire crew from Collectors
Destroyed Collector base
Didn't realise I could invite Kelly Chambers to dinner...
Haven't played DLC: Arrival yet

Spoiler: ME3

Now an Infiltrator class
Cured the Krogan genophage, so Mordin died
Stopped the bomb on Tuchanka
Saved Rachni queen (again) at the cost of Arlakh company
Jacks Grissom Academy students appointed to support roles
Stopped Udina from killing Council members, Ashley still alive (and onboard Normandy)
Made peace between Quarians and Geth
Saved Samara
DLC: Omega - spared civilians (@ reactor) and spared General Petrovsky
DESTROY Ending

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

It truly doesn't matter. ME is a power fantasy (and a badly written one), so whatever you do is considered the best choice and totally justifiable.

 

[Kingjackl]

Destroying the data doesn't prevent the genophage cure, it just leads to the female krogan dying. Which isn't so interesting if Wrex is in power (it only costs you a few war assets), but it does shake things up quite a bit if Wrex died and Wreav is leading the krogan.

On that note, stopping the genophage cure with Wrex in power does net you some pretty brutal scenes. It's certainly not ideal, but really effecting. A minor upside is that you'll get to see salarians at the Earth base, with Major Kirrahe giving an even more awesome version of his 'hold the line' speech.

I would recommend letting a few squadmates die on the Collector Base mission. That always changes things up nicely. Mordin has a pretty cool and highly underrated replacement character, Jack dying changes the tone of the Grissom Academy mission to be less hopeful, Tali & Legion's deaths have fairly major effects on the geth/quarian arc (but you won't be able to achieve peace if either of them are dead), and Thane dying can lead to one of two things happening during the Citadel attack. Either Kirrahe will save the salarian Councillor instead, or if both of them are dead Kai Leng will kill the Councillor and Udina will use footage of the assassination with Leng edited out to make it look like you did it. This makes it harder to convince Ashley/Kaidan. Kaidan is way better than Ashley incidentally.

 

[Auron225]

It truly doesn't matter. ME is a power fantasy (and a badly written one), so whatever you do is considered the best choice and totally justifiable.

Thank you very much for your helpful input -.-

Destroying the data doesn't prevent the genophage cure, it just leads to the female krogan dying. Which isn't so interesting if Wrex is in power (it only costs you a few war assets), but it does shake things up quite a bit if Wrex died and Wreav is leading the krogan.

On that note, stopping the genophage cure with Wrex in power does net you some pretty brutal scenes. It's certainly not ideal, but really effecting. A minor upside is that you'll get to see salarians at the Earth base, with Major Kirrahe giving an even more awesome version of his 'hold the line' speech.

I would recommend letting a few squadmates die on the Collector Base mission. That always changes things up nicely. Mordin has a pretty cool and highly underrated replacement character, Jack dying changes the tone of the Grissom Academy mission to be less hopeful, Tali & Legion's deaths have fairly major effects on the geth/quarian arc (but you won't be able to achieve peace if either of them are dead), and Thane dying can lead to one of two things happening during the Citadel attack. Either Kirrahe will save the salarian Councillor instead, or if both of them are dead Kai Leng will kill the Councillor and Udina will use footage of the assassination with Leng edited out to make it look like you did it. This makes it harder to convince Ashley/Kaidan. Kaidan is way better than Ashley incidentally.

Hmm, didn't know that about the Genophage cure. I may try disposing of Maelons data in the next one - but to make it interesting, I'd need to either let Wrex die on Virmire or sabotage the cure and have to kill him that way instead =S Maybe I could let Ashley kill him on Virmire, and use that as a basis for letting her die instead of Kaidan.

I'm thinking of letting a few squad mates die at Collector base - probably the best way to do that would be to just skip a few loyalty missions. Kasumi and Zaeed are so absent in ME3 that's it's almost pointless either way with them. I may let Jack die (even though I like her character) and Legion die, and go for a pure Quarian victory rather than peace. Don't know about Mordin - I love him too much Same with Tali.

If Wrex dies (so Wreav is in charge), and Kirrahe is alive - who gives the speech on Earth near the end of ME3? Wreav or Kirrahe?

EDIT: Btw, thanks for the help

 

[GloatingSwine]

The only real thing you did "wrong" was play man-shep.

Srsly, especially in the first game his voice acting is so much more bland than femshep.

 

[giles]

Play a Vanguard on a decent difficulty setting for some shotgun charge action and be an asshole to everyone ("Renegade").
You can fix the shitty sith lord glow on your ship and it's fun to be an authentic space-asshole that somehow saves the galaxy. Even some of the straight scenes will be unintentionally funny when you remember some of the Shepard-is-a-jerk moments.

 

[The Goat Tsar]

If Wrex dies (so Wreav is in charge), and Kirrahe is alive - who gives the speech on Earth near the end of ME3? Wreav or Kirrahe?

The priority order is

1. Wrex
2. Wreav
3. Kirrahe
4. Random Salarian?

I think if Wreav is the Urdnot leader, you'll always see him giving the speech. Kirrahe only gives the speech if Wrex is alive but then you sabotage the genophage. I don't know who would give the speech is all 3 are dead, I assume it would be a random Salarian, or a minor character you met at some point.