Geriatric Trainees

Adventuring is for young people. How else can you explain starting characters that have next to nothing in the way of skills and abilities? (Also known as being Level 1-3.) When a game such as Dragon Age: Origins introduces a main NPC that is nearing retirement age, yet that character has abilities equivalent to a fantasy world's version of a high school graduate, it seems quite innocuous, to say the least. _Especially_ when the character in question has a backstory that is thoroughly fleshed out. The more you see of that character's biography, the more you've got to be asking yourself, "Has this character been on Hold all those years or what?"

I speak of Wynne, the Circle Mage that joins the hero during the Broken Circle main plot quest. Like all of the other potential party members, her history is handed out piecemeal, but it amasses to be a great amount of detail. All that detail is wonderful to piece together, but upon reflection, it just doesn't make sense. Wynne has been a Mage ever since she was a child. When you meet her, she looks and acts either as a VERY old 40-something, or else she is getting close to 60 or so. Either way, she's been a Mage for more than three decades. And the very first time you see her, you see she has erected and sustained a VERY formidable Force Field-type spell. When you get to see her equipment, you see that she is wearing Senior Enchanter robes. So you would speculate that as old as she obviously is, added to what you have seen of her in action, you'd most likely think, "Yeah! I've got me a Big Gun here!"

Bzzzzzzzz! Wrong. Wynne has nine -- count them, all of nine spells when she joins your party. With the exception of Group Heal -- which requires 7th level -- all of her spells are available to Novice Mages (provided they pumped up their Magic score). And though she _has_ erected and maintained a Force Field, that is NOT one of her available spells.

What's wrong with this picture? What has she been doing for 30+ years? Apparently NOT learning much in the way of magic. During the course of the adventure (which can be measured in weeks), she will nearly triple the number of spells that she knew at the start of the adventure. This, despite the fact that she has been living in, learning at, and teaching at the premiere School of Magic in the entire kingdom. If Wynne is a Senior Enchanter at that institution, it suggests that a diploma from there is worth less than some of these online schools where they'll give you a degree if you simply give them enough money. That is, if she is a prime example of the Circle's teaching prowess, as a school, it's pretty pathetic.

Don't get me wrong. I actually love the depth of backstory BioWare put into each of the main characters. And Wynne's bio is no exception. It's just that it's fairly obvious that the designers fell in love with the character, but failed to think the implications through. And this seems to be a VERY common Achilles heel for many, many RPGs. Often, you will find at least one or two characters that have abilities that match the current level of the party -- that is, low-level -- but the character's bio would suggest that to be that low, the character MUST be retarded or suffering from amnesia. This is most often the case with elderly NPCs. The character's age may fit the story, but the character's abilities, as a factor of the character's age, are waaaayyyyy too low for what a person would reasonably expect.

Now, I understand that RPG plot timelines are "weighted" to have a fair amount of balance between abilities and challenge. That is, given a certain degree of difficulty in the challenge, you do NOT want to have a party of characters that are totally out-classed _or_ handed up a cakewalk. This is why parties are NEVER confronting the Ultimate Bad Guy at the very beginning of an adventure. (Other than to maybe have the UBG sneeringly rub the hero's face in the mud and then leave him alive to "wallow in his humiliation".) So, what you get is that the further along you are on the plot timeline, the more powerful the NPCs that join your party will be. Yet, it seems that designers frequently forget that there IS a correlation between character age and character ability. And this is why they _should_ realize, "Adventuring is for young people."