Describe your character's dream home or ideal living space. Do they ever get to live someplace similar to it?
My Surana, Ayden, would probably initially insist that 1) he did get his dream home but 2) it's nothing like what he thought it would be when he was a kid. When he was younger, he would have said his dream home would be very much like the one he grew up in: large and well kept ... for a house in the alienage ... and a life structured in a similar way to his folk's lives. Family. Job. I mean, sure, he and his buddies occasionally sat around and talked about estates and palaces and discovering ancient elven cities, but he would never have answered "where do you want to live when you grow up" with those cloud castles.
On further introspection, he might admit that though where he winds up living is nothing like where he thought he wanted to be on a superficial level, it actually has some similarities. Like ... if you stripped off all the stuff he only thought he wanted because everyone around him told him it was the way to assure himself happiness, what's left isn't entirely dissimilar to what he winds up with. A space large enough to be comfortable and small enough to be easily maintainable. A comfortable circle of friends and acquaintances. More often happy than not. With the added bonuses of leisure to study anything that strikes his curiosity, occasional adventures and a partner who is really more "home" than the building they live in.
(There were also the years he spent in the Circle when he wouldn't have been able to give a coherent answer to the question. He'd have said "away from here" or "it doesn't matter, I'm never going to be anywhere but here" and shut down any attempts to pry further.)
On a purely "What impression does the house give?" level: warm, elegant, tidy, spacious. (Ayden's library/workroom stays cluttered, but he's careful not to let it spill out into the main living spaces too often.) I go back and forth between thinking it's probably a compact little townhouse somewhere and thinking it's a more-open building (maybe with a balcony or courtyard) depending on how far north I think they settle.
What character choices were influenced or limited by game mechanics, like in-game items, specializations, available dialogue wheel responses, etc?
Oh, this one is hard. If you look at it the right way, all my decisions were influenced by some combination of gameplay and my quirky sense of humor. I rolled a mage 'cause the gameplay was fun. I rolled a bunch of male characters in a huff over the Dark Ritual. I picked up a mix of Entropy/Creation because it did what I wanted spells to do in game. I want to max out persuade and alchemy, I found Dog not terribly useful, my tank dies in the archdemon fight. We won't even get into the number of choices I made to min-max companion approval. They're all major parts of my character now. Narrowing it down to just one... hrm...
It's pretty much required to have a healer in the party at all times so I took up Spirit Healer. Then I work out that Ayden's personality includes disliking the Circle and the templars and realize he'd probably have been stuck with lessons from Wynne often and suddenly their dislike of each other makes sense. She's all motherly and orderly and pro-"making good choices because they're the morally right thing to do, no matter the cost" and he's rebellious/angry at being uprooted and locked away for no good reason and just wants this whole mess to be over with as efficiently as possible, let someone else figure out the morals later. She thinks he's stirring trouble for spite and taking too many risks. He sees her as part of the power structure that ruined his life. He brings out her sharp and judgmental side. She makes him act more like the rebellious teenager he isn't really anymore.
Aside: I keep having a hard time not slipping into full first person mode. It would be so easy to role play my warden answering someone asking these...
Also, I'll take Keeper if no one else wants it, but if anyone else is chomping at the bit, feel free. Also also, I spent way more time on this than I meant to and I'll have to read everyone else's posts tomorrow, it's almost time for work.