Retrospective thoughts on D&D gaming, as I play through NWN2, Campaign styles, power levels, and the impact of modern entertainment Options

[Wounded Ronin]

Hey folks,

I've been playing through NWN 2 in my free time. I liked the beginning part of the game the best, with the emphasis on militia village defense, hiding out at little inns, escaping by sea, and this kind of thing. Later in the game, when things started to become extremely epic and dealing with the fate of the whole plane or whatever, it started to feel more boring for me.

The other thing that I noticed was how the endgame proliferates with ridiculously powerful magic items especially magic weapons. You keep running across +3 and +4 weapons with secondary abilities ("on hit, target must make save or lose X points of Dexterity", "+1d6 vs. Evil, + 1d6 vs. Orcs") that seem pretty insane. It's not just one or two, but somehow when you reach a certain point in the story you just inexplicably keep finding these things in chests left and right, where before a +1 sword would have been uncommon.

This, combined with the high level spells that potentially deal like a hundred points of damage over a wide area and how casters seem to get a whole lot of these, I began to feel like I might as well have been playing some kind of Dragonball Z role playing game. I could almost see my spell casters going, "Kame...hame...haaaaa!" And then there's a big explosion that, like, levels a mountain or something.

I think that the power level and epic level of the narrative has really changed over the decades.

I remember as a kid reading through a bunch of paper modules including some of the 1st edition classics like Isle of Dread, The Lost City, In Search of The Unknown, Chateau D'Amberville, and The Keep on the Borderlands. With the possible (and, reflecting on it, arguable) exception of some of the tournament modules, like the one that contained the level-eating Black Sword whatever it was called, or the one that let you get laser guns from the spaceship, none of the power levels on anything were resembling what I play today in a CRPG.

All the official non-tournament modules I named above tended to emphasize careful dungeon exploration, terrible perils, and while discovering treasure was always part of the game, I don't ever remember seeing uberweapons (with the exception of that tournament black sword). Like, a +3 weapon was about as badass as it got. I don't remember +1 swords ever becoming common to the point that anyone would just throw them away or not want to pick them up. Maybe if you were super lucky you might find a +3 Flaming Sword.

For me, the +15% to-hit chance was never the main reason why it was so exciting to find a magic weapon. Rather, the reason it was so special was 1.) the scarcity, and 2.) it gave you the ability to fight the undead, werewolves, etc. It was like insurance; so that a random encounter with Gargoyles or something wouldn't mean your party was going to be TPK'd. It was all about having the key to survival instead of a mountain-smashing weapon. Some parties without such weapons would have to carry a silver dagger as a backup weapon or something like that and hope that it would be enough if they encountered certain types of monsters; the silver back up dagger today sounds quaint because of the sense of proliferation of magic weapons.


I have to say in retrospect I think the classic low-level game is more interesting to me. I guess I appreciate the struggle of the little guy to make his way in the world, protect the village, and piece together the meaning of it all for himself in the midst of strange and dangerous circumstances. Undead monsters, in the context of drained EXP levels occurring with a single hit and being permanent, were always truly terrifying and were to be avoided or Turned if at all possible. Another key difference was that in the classic game, running away was important. The rule books talked about dropping food or treasure to delay pursuit. So the character really did have to be "switched on" and know when to fight and when to run and make provision for running away.

I feel like that gets lost when there's a giant, unambiguous cosmic threat that you're supposed to go and punk; like I said, the narrative at that point starts to resemble Dragonball Z, complete with repetition, and staircase-style power levels that always seem calibrated to provide exactly the right challenge. It also gets lost when for the most part you're meant to win every battle; it might take you a few tries, but there's not really a good mechanism in place for when you want to run away, nor is there a way to advance the plot if you can't win certain battles. (I appreciate this would be very complex to handle in a computer game.)


It used to be said that D&D worked best with character levels from 1-7 or so, and I guess that ties into what I'm saying here. For me the most compelling narrative is more like a Robert E. Howard story, moreso than an Akira Toriyama Dragonball Z story. I prefer things to be a little grungier, a little deadlier, a little scarier, and a little bit more about the fate of communities and individuals than about the fate of the WHOLE ENTIRE UNIVERSE or whatever. Because I think the struggle of the little guy to protect his community is basically more compelling.