It was getting late when I made that post, so I didn't get around to covering is that different modules do have different campaign settings and recommended starting levels, which is another thing you may want to take into account when deciding what to play next. It would be a lot easier for me to just link you my spreadsheet, just go to the NWN tab.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sbYtmxQA3jOUYptwJi_1blD2L3hXXLIi/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=112882206293283405691&rtpof=true&sd=true


Also in regards to some of the other things that were stated in this thread, I wouldn't say The Wailing Death is completely awful to the point that you should avoid it completely. I'd recommend going through it at least once to judge it for yourself. It really is going to be a case of your enjoyment mileage is going to vary depending exactly on what class you play. Those of us who play rogue/anything are going to have the most fun because the biggest issue with this campaign really is the out of control henchmen that will just run into enemies. Being able to take care of locks and traps yourself does make this module better. I do bring a henchmen with me to the final battle to act as a squishy decoy.

Comments on some of the other games....


Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale also use the Forgotten Realms setting as is the case with most of Neverwinter Night's modules. Other than the NWN module Dark Dreams of Furiae that occurs between Baldur's Gate 2 and 3, there is no connection between any of these games in terms of timeline. They are also separated enough from each other that playing order really doesn't matter at all. Baldur's Gate is a city state along the Sword Coast while Icewind Dale is a region of arctic tundra in the extreme most Northern region.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Baldur's_Gate
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Icewind_Dale
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Neverwinter

Planescape: Torment uses the Planescape campaign setting. Although it is based on D&D, it is even more removed from the others.

The Temple of Elemental Evil uses the Greyhawk campaign. While the NWN community module Cult of the Reptile God also uses Greyhawk, they are far enough apart from each other that play order isn't going to matter in terms of any continuity timeline.

The Temple of Elemental Evil is not far from the city-state Verbobonc. On the map below, this is to be found north of Kron Hills.
https://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/96809/jewel_river.jpg

The Cult of the Reptile God is near the border of the Gran March and the Kingdom of Keoland.
https://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/96551/sheldomar_river.jpg

This means that you have the Lortmil Mountains between the two and therefor, lots of time spent walking to get from one location to the other. I doubt that either makes any reference to the other since they're not even part of the same game. Even though there is a NWN module version of The Temple of Elemental Evil, I doubt that references the Cult of the Reptile God.


Let's talk about something not Dungeons & Dragons...

Divinity Series. The chronological order of these is as follows:
* Divinity: Dragon Commander
* Divinity: Original Sin
* Divinity: Original Sin 2
* Divine Divinity
* Beyond Divinity
* Divinity 2

However the release order of these games is as follows:
Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, Divinity 2, Dragon Commander, Original Sin, Original Sin 2

Playing these games in chronological order would be like watching the Star Wars prequel movies before watching the classic movies from the 1970s/1980s. You can do that, but it is better to just put them in three playing groups:
* Divine Divinity > Beyond Divinity > Divinity 2
* Dragon Commander
* Original Sin 1 & 2

Play any group in any order that you want.

How connected is Divinity 2 to the previous two games? I haven't tried it yet, but I kind of got the impression that it was only connected by setting and some lore, rather than being a direct sequel (as the name implies it is).

Ah yes thank you for bringing my attention to this! makes sense, indeed couldn't find those three in my installation. I will try to find the original versions online along with that DRM workaround you mention.

Thank you for posting another detailed reply! Lots of good info - also just had a quick look at your spreadsheet, damn that's a lot of modules!! (and I realise that's a curator's list, not an exhaustive list of all extant modules)
I will definitely be playing the base campaign for Neverwinter Nights first before the expansions and community stuff.
Thanks also for the breakdown of the Divinity series, I agree with the sorting into three playing groups and when it comes to this I'll first play Divine Divinity > Beyond Divinity > Divinity 2 since I already own these games.

Interesting post, and a lot of great feedback. I have all of these games as well (except Lionheart) and I've enjoyed reading all the suggestions as I've not played any of them yet either. I came to GOG originally to replay classic games from my youth like the Bards Tale, Ultima, and Might and Magic series, and have strayed into a few others as well. I was actually thinking of trying out Neverwinter Nights first myself out of all these, but after reading I think I may go with the BG games instead as a few have suggested. Fun thread!

I am not sure as I haven't played Divinity 2 yet. Blame Beyond Divinity, which I didn't enjoy too much. I do intend to give it another try but don't have any of the Divinity games installed at the moment. I just found that when I was looking up the release order that technically Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, and Divinity 2 would be grouped together just as Original Sin 1 & 2 would be grouped together.


I just updated the spreadsheet as I had found a bunch of the old Bioware demo modules so added them. These can be found on the vault as Ancient Bioware Modules. My spreadsheet is far from exhaustive as I haven't even gotten around to modules that require the Community Expansion Pack (CEP) as there's different versions of CEP, and I haven't tried any of them with Enhanced Edition. I'll take a break from Neverwinter Nights after playing through everything I currently have just to play through some other RPGs then cycle back to hit the CEP modules. At the top of my list when it comes to CEP stuff would be Baldecaran's Prophet series.

I think none of the Divinity games are direct sequels to another? They share the same setting and lore but personally I found all of their stories and background quite convoluted and not all that interesting. The games were fun to me despite of their stories, not because of them, and I don't think it really matters all that much whether you recognize some names or lore from previous games or not. They all have their own plots that are easy enough to follow, and most of the lore just felt like background noise to me. Unless you're totally invested in studying some silly fictional history, I'd say you can play each of the games independently and just ignore most of the references. IMO these games excel in gameplay, not storytelling.

Nice, I didn't know about the demo modules (I suppose they were made to help demonstrate what you can do with the editor?). The whole Neverwinter Nights scene does sound like a never-ending world of content - got to pick and choose, thanks for highlighting the Prophet series as a worthwhile one.

Ultimately, I ended up deleting most of them as they really were not playable in any sense. The Blackjack Inn was interesting, but ShadowGuard handles gambling better if you're playing single-player even though you cannot play it for long.

Some of these you should have already as they are fully playable and included with Enhanced Edition:
The Dark Ranger's Treasure
The Winds of Eremor
To Heir is Human
Contest Of Champions
Neverwinter Chess

These ones are multiplayer:
Catapults!
Chiguins
Dance Club
Naval Battle
War Wizards

The demo modules that I kept are:
A Bucket of Gnolls
The Cat Lady
Land Sea-Puma (in the lost & found download)

Actually I have the Diamond Edition only (as HunchBluntley said, I'll have to add manually "Pirates of the Sword Coast", "Infinite Dungeons" and "Wyvern Crown of Cormyr" if I want all the official add-on content released during the original run), but thanks for providing the above list for reference regarding Bioware modules (demos, should be able to install manually too).

I bought the first three in the series in a "build-your-own-"bundle back in 2014, mostly because Divine Divinity looked cool and I hadn't yet seen it go on sale on its own for as cheaply as I would see before too long thereafter. I only got Beyond Divinity to round out the bundle, and have never intended to play it (user reviews -- even a lot of the 4- & 5-star ones -- did not paint a very appealing picture of it :D ).

Oh! I missed that part. You'll want to install the 1.69 patch fron the NW Vault if you haven't already done so. There is also the 1.71 Community Patch Project and while unofficial, it contains additional fixes. There's also a patches specifically for Wyvern Crown of Cormyr to deal with things like horse hat and horse system issues.


The issue for me is that I like Divine Divinity and well, I knew that Beyond Divinity wasn't going to live up to the prior game. I just didn't anticipate as to how much of a disappointment it would be in comparison.

Copy that! My installation shows it's already patched to 1.69, but duly noted regarding unofficial patch 1.71 and the patch for Wyvern Crown of Cormyr (love how much care goes into this stuff!).

The only thing that is missing for Wyvern Crown of Cormyr (non-Enhanced version) is a fix so that items from the module will work outside of the module. The unique armor, for example, results in invisible body parts if taken into another module. This is something that I plan to look into myself after I play through Infinite Dungeons (Enhanced.)

Ah, I see - so at least not a problem that would affect my playthrough of the module itself. Good to know!