The advent of the computer RPG, then, was a godsend. Arcane number crunching was suddenly not my problem, and if I wanted to take a minute to consider my options, nobody was going to get on my ass about holding up progress. The Gold Box games and, even more significantly, the Eye of the Beholder titles cemented my love of the genre; they provided a solo approach to what was until then an inherently social form of gaming. When Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment arrived, my brain just about exploded; here, on my computer, was the full D&D experience as I had always imagined it, the real deal, an epic tale of high adventure that even a dice-dummy like me could handle like a pro. It was perfect. I've played a lot of different games across a lot of different genres, but since those days nothing suits me better than swords and shields, monsters and treasure, deep dungeons and soaring castles.

So isn't it odd that after finally buying Mask of the Betrayer, the expansion to the Forgotten Realms-based RPG Neverwinter Nights 2, I'm closer than ever to throwing up my hands and walking away from the whole thing?

I wish it wasn't that way, but in truth, it's been a long time coming. Every D&D-based release since sometime around the Temple of Elemental Evil adaptation has been source of increasing disappointment and annoyance, and it's not too hard to figure out why. Let's have a show of hands: Who wants to play a Half-Drow Sacred Fist? No? Not your cup of tea? How about a Svirfneblin Red Dragon Disciple? Anyone? Maybe a Strongheart Halfling Eldritch Knight? That sound like fun to you?

It sure as hell doesn't sound like much fun to me. I tried to roll with this nonsense when the original Neverwinter Nights was released; I played as a Half-Elf Arcane Archer, and while it seemed to go well enough I suspect I simply had a higher tolerance for lower standards thanks to the game's overall mediocrity. When the sequel arrived, I decided I'd get more enjoyment out of it if I played a "better" class, rather than just whatever seemed cool at first glance, so I put some serious effort into various race and class combinations, trying one exotic build after another in a search for the perfect fantasy hero.

I realized things had spun completely out of control right around the time I started giving serious thought to trying a Half-Orc Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep. All the rules and statistics and other such bullshit I'd so happily left behind all those years ago were suddenly being shoveled back onto my lap by the very medium that had liberated me from the depths of RPG incompetence. Simplicity and imagination were out, apparently; prestige classes, epic characters and numbers, numbers, numbers were in. How is this fun?