This is not necessarily going to be a review, though I will be talking about a couple of games I've been playing. Since the idea this year is to just write about whatever comes to mind, it stands to reason that I should devote some time to explaining how Dungeons and Dragons has been invading my life.
The primary thing to know before I start is that I have played exactly one game of D&D. Ever. It was just an introductory game where we created some characters and tiptoed into a dungeon. Through a combination of not knowing everyone in the group, the inexperience of the DM, and the stilted enforcement of role playing, it wasn't fun for me at all. I can’t say I’ve ever been intrigued by the actual act of role playing. I've played my fair share of video game RPGs, it was my favorite genre when I was a teenager and had all the time in the world. But I've never been drawn to creating my own character and pretending to be that character.
So, I bounced off it for a decade or so. I still haven't actually played another game, though I've done a couple one-shots of other systems. But thanks to the emergence of D&D-based shows, like Penny Arcade's Acquisitions Incorporated, I have slowly gained respect for the system. And somewhere along the way, it clicked for me that it really is the system that I care about, the mechanics of battle and interaction with the world. The lore that has been built around D&D is pretty cool too, you have a lot of elements that get shared between different groups so you can have those common experiences.
It’s through these shows and the lore that I ended up jumping into some recent D&D video games, namely Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms and the Neverwinter MMO. I enjoy the lore, I like the systems (though these games only loosely use them), and it was easy to give them both a shot since they are free to play.
Idle Champions was my first dip into this world of D&D games, and part of me feels like it was great but also a mistake. For those who don't know, Idle Champions is a clicker game where you play a scenario over and over again, earning money to buy upgrades, which allow you to get more money for more upgrades, and you just keep going until you hit the wall of the exponential curve. Idle Champions uses that formula but adds enough to it to make it stand out. For one, most of the characters you can use and unlock are known into the D&D world or come from well known D&D shows (like the aforementioned Acquisitions Incorporated), which lends it some fun fan service. Another aspect is that even though you are starting from zero each time, you’re not really because various achievements and unlocks give you permanent boosts across campaigns and the whole game.
What surprised me most about this game though is that it actually has strategy in it. Sure there's not a lot of strategy to: kill enemies, get money, go as far as you can before you get overwhelmed. But with each scenario you get a formation that you have to put your characters into, and you can only have 10 characters max (out of 40 or so, so far). So, the real fun of the game for me is figuring out the best formation to use in a scenario, which can take many times to optimize. The game is also good about offering challenges that put twists on the scenarios, and having events where certain characters are buffed for a period of time, which force and encourage different ways to approach it. There are some tactical decisions you can make too, though they only provide temporary advantages. It really comes down to the formation, and also how much money you've earned from previous scenarios. Yeah, it's kind of cheap that way, but that is the whole point, you are trading time played for progress, it’s not inherently a skill-based game.
My computer has put an obscene amount of hours into running this game, and the time I've spent interacting with it is probably higher than I'd care to admit, hence why it might have been a mistake. It's not much of a game since it largely plays itself, but I have fun with it. As far as free to play time wasters go, I've certainly played worse.
Now what surprised me even more than liking that game, is that I also ended up really liking Neverwinter when I gave it a go. I've been traveling a lot lately getting ready for my new job so haven't had a lot of time to play it, but I do think about it often. I don't have a lot of MMO experience to compare it to, maybe 10 or so hours in World of Warcraft is about it, but they have certainly done a good job of making quests quick and easy enough that I find it hard to step away. Much like Spider-Man from last week, Neverwinter is good at the "just one more" loop.
As far as gameplay goes, Neverwinter is pretty standard stuff. Run around and attack baddies, pick up items to complete quests, get gold and other currency that you use to buy equipment. As you level up you get access to different abilities you can pick and choose from. You also get various perks that permanently boost your stats, including points you can add to the standard 6 D&D attributes. And as you go along, more and more systems get introduced to you to expand what you can waste your time on.
The nice thing that Neverwinter has going for it is that right from the start it was fun to play the main game of running around and attacking. Since I chose a sword fighter, running is particularly important as it's how I escape from getting hit by attacks. I did a lot more dodging in the early game, but I'm usually powerful enough now that I can just tank in order to finish enemies off faster. At this point, some 30 hours in, the main game loop isn't quite as fun on its own as it was starting out, but there are other systems that I enjoy to keep me engaged.
Two systems in particular that I like are the workshop and the campaigns. The workshop is sort of the crafting system for the game, where you hire workers to make weapons, armor, materials, and other tools. You get a worker, you select what you want them to make, you get the right materials, and then you pay them to make as many you want. After a certain amount of time, the items are crafted and ready for pickup. There is also a job for fetching materials from the wild that other workers use. In the grand scheme of the game, the workshop isn't that useful, but it really scratches that itch I have for management sims.
The other system I like is how they do campaigns. Campaigns are essentially chains of side quests that go for an extended period of time and provide unique loot. I've only been able to dig into two campaigns at this point, but I think it's a great way of incentivizing side quests that you can otherwise skip. One of the reasons I even took a look at this game is because one of the campaigns is for Acquisitions Incorporated, and I have to say it's quite enjoyable. Yeah, I may be a bit of a fanboy when it comes to that kind of stuff, but what do I care? I'm having fun.
There's plenty about the game I don't care for though. Like other MMOs, it has the problem of throwing too much at you from the start. It does a better job than most (from what I hear) since many systems are gated by level or story progression, but I feel like more can be done to make it less overwhelming. Just the sheer number of currencies in the game is insane. No one can keep track of all that. And speaking of currency, the other major thing I dislike is how much is locked behind the money gate. Sure, it's free to play, and that is how they fund development. But it just feels like too much is behind that gate, and they bother you about it a lot. Again, it could be done better.
Anyway, there isn't much of a point to this post, just wanted to give some thoughts on the D&D stuff I've been doing lately. One day I'd like to try getting into the real game again and play some of the older D&D games (like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment). But for the time being, these will keep me going for a while.