Trivia / Neverwinter Nights

• Channel Hop: The original was developed by BioWare and published by Atari (under license from Wizards of the Coast, natch.) The Enhanced Edition was developed and published by Beamdog, who have made a habit of doing this with older RPGs. Then again, Beamdog was founded by former BioWare employees.
• Dummied Out
  • In Shadows you would have had the option to sell a baby you kept as part of a questline into slavery, but it was Dummied Out.
  • Hordes has many options dummied out for usages of the True Names of characters, likely due to the Video Game Cruelty Potential it offered, commanding people against their will to do things for you. However, a truly hilarious ending was cut as part of this: commanding Mephistopheles to serve you as your chambermaid.
  • Originally Wizards of the Coast told BioWare and Atari that all of their Adventure modules couldn't use established D&D settings (Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Greyhawk, etc), leading to the creation of modules such as Witch's Wake, Shadow Guard and Kingmaker, all of them being meant to start their own settings for future adventures. Then, out of nowhere, Wizards of the Coast demanded that all of their Adventure modules be set in established settings, leading to the abrupt cancellation of Witch's Wake and Shadow Guard's storylines with the former ending on a Cliffhanger and the latter on a Downer Ending.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: For a while, there was no official support or distribution for some premium modules such as Infinite Dungeons, until GOG released most in their Complete Edition. The rest were later released alongside Beamdog's Enhanced Edition.
• The Other Darrin: All the henchmen from the original campaign returning in Hordes have different voice actors.
• Recycled Script: Hordes' plot has several similarities with Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, also made by BioWare:
  • You canonically start as an already experienced hero who loses all their stuff when the game begins.
  • The first chapter is set inside an evil sorcerer's lair filled with deathtraps.
  • An entire chapter is set inside Underdark, with quests consisting in cleaning Mind Flayers' and Beholders's dungeons, while Drows are the main antagonists. During the chapter, the party's home is inside a Drow city.
  • A part of the story is about fighting a clan of vampires.
  • Both game feature a single mono-class Rogue party member (Tomi Undergallows/Yoshimo), who is forced to leave the party for plot-related reasons.
  • Late in the storyline, a friendly female NPC (The Knower of Names/Queen Ellesime) reveals she was in love with the Big Bad (Mephistopheles/Irenicus).
  • A character (who was an antagonist in a previous game) atoned in the afterlife and joins the party (Aribeth/Sarevok).^note It's a plot point from the Throne of Bhaal sequel/extension instead of Shadow of Amn, but still.
• Recycled Title: Neverwinter Nights was originally a MMORPG released in 1991. They're both part of the Forgotten Realms universe, but they were created by different developers and are very different gameplay-wise (a MMORPG vs a single-player/LAN multiplayer RPG). BioWare eventually acquired the rights to Neverwinter Nights and reused the title for their own game.
• Referenced by...:
  • The short story "Pimpf" from The Laundry Files has protagonist Bob Howard getting involved in the NWN modding community to keep modders from accidentally summoning Eldritch Abominations with the toolset. Author Charles Stross, incidentally, is the inventor of several iconic D&D creatures, of which the slaadi and the githzerai appear in the game.
  • Deekin is one of the characters of Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms, a Crossover bringing together several characters from various Forgotten Realms works in a single grand adventure.
  • Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has several encounters with a kobold bard named Crinukh, though unlike Deekin he speaks the Common Tongue fluently.
• Screwed by the Lawyers:
  • Because of the change between publishers from Interplay to Atari, changes were made in the storyline so that characters from Baldur's Gate wouldn't carry to Neverwinter Nights.
  • Several character portraits were changed in later updates, as the original portraits, being modified from real life celebrity pictures, weren't licensed for modifications.
  • The Premium Modules Witch's Wake and ShadowGuard are both stuck with No Ending as only the first episodes of longer stories that were never finished. This is because Wizards of the Coast initially said that Premium Modules could be anything except stories set in the Forgotten Realms seting and so both modules were dutifully set in their own fictional universes. Then for unclear reasons WotC did a complete 180 and said that any further Premium Modules could only be set in Forgotten Realms and thus further development of both series had to be cancelled. Thankfully the third of these first Premium Modules, Kingmaker, was already finished.
• Un-Canceled: Played with:
  • Darkness over Daggerford was a planned premium module before Atari canceled it. The module was then release for free to the NWN community. When NWN: Enhanced Edition was released, DoD also got an Updated Re-release with changes to the quests, characters, the storyline and other improvements. The original version is still available for free while the Enhanced Edition of the module can be bought on Steam or GOG.
  • Same thing happened with Tyrants of the Moonsea. It was meant to be a premium module before its cancellation by Atari. The mod was release for free, but in an uncompleted state. More than 10 years later, Beamdog has re-released as intended by the mod's creator with updated art, more quests, bug fixes and a better ending resolution. The planned-but-never-made follow-up The Blades of Netheril is currently in development.
• Unspecified Role Credit: Voice actors were uncredited in the base game, while in the expansions they're all listed in the credits under "Voice Acting", with no further indication. Eventually it was possible, in the course of years, to reconnect some voice actors to their exact roles (and sites such as IMDb are being updated accordingly), but for many characters (especially from the two expansions) the doubt remains.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original campaign underwent major rewrites during the publisher transition from Interplay/Black Isle to Atari, and as a result many features, characters, and plot threads were cut. Some of the cut content including Lord Nasher dying during the final battle, Aribeth betraying Maugrim, and more roles for Sedos Sebile, a minor NPC in the final game with her unique portrait and model.
  • Luke Scull, the creator of The Blades of Netheril, said that the module was to be made by Beamdog, but no deal has been reached. The author is now developing it himself on Patreon, as an unofficial sequel to the main campaign.
  • A Dice, Camera, Action! portrait pack was in the planning stages, before being scrapped due to Wizards of the Coast's sudden cancellation of that series.

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