Nerdery 39: Power Creep…It’s Creepy

Consider the following hypothetical situations:

• A supernatural being (that would be me) gives you a brand new shiny long sword so you can save your living room from invading zombies.
• A supernatural being (me again) gives you a brand new shiny great sword that disintegrates undead in a one mile radius, while granting you infinite wishes, taking off those few extra pounds you haven't the willpower to diet off, and playing soothing music while you sleep. Um...also so you can fight off the invading zombies.

So which did you choose? Whichever you chose I'm sure it will garner the ire of AEToZ (Americans for the Ethical Treatment of Zombies). Yet, the point is that one sword is clearly better than the other. And why is this? Well, one is from the first edition of D&D and the other is from the thirteenth edition of D&D. (What, you don't have your copy yet?)

It seems like in every new edition of any game system there is some sort of power creep. It just comes creeping in like a spider crawling into your shoe, ready to bite you as soon as you put your foot in. As I've pondered this for the past few minutes, I see two scenarios for this phenomenon.

The first of these scenarios is that human beings naturally want to improve themselves. Aren't farming, airplanes, and iPods all a form of power creep? Obviously, we weren't content as human beings to have to stay on the ground walking everywhere. And imagine having to keep your music on individual disks that you have to pay for and you get songs you don't even want. Obviously there had to be improvements to our way of life. Power creep in RPGs is a lot like realizing that conveniently storing all your music on a small portable device is better than individual storage devices that you have to switch between. It's often a little thing that works out the bugs in a system, making playing the game a little more fun and a little easier to play.

Course, there are those who would take objection to this sort of increase. There is the possibility that, with each little change that makes things easier for us, things get thrown out of balance in the universe. Some argue that ever since humans started farming we’ve begun the destruction of the world. Our world just keeps getting more complicated with each new gadget and each rewriting of the rules. Think about it. It used to be that fighters only swung swords and now you have to go through this complicated process of selecting feats and skills and other things.

Humans have a funny habit of wanting more control over our lives...and everything else. Perish the thought that we be subject to the whims of some higher being...like a gamemaster. So we find ways to have more control by rewriting the rules and getting more stuff. Oddly, this seems driven by a lot of confidence in ourselves combined with a lot of insecurity about the world around us.

Of course, maybe power creep is the only way to make sense of life? Gaining a little more each time we remake ourselves?

Maybe I should just stop with the metaphors and start killing zombies?

Gee, this undead disintegrating great sword sure makes slaying zombies easy...and it plays such soothing music.

Discuss it in our forums.

Written by 42 on June 01st, 2006