Power creep

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Power creep is a the gradual unbalancing of a game world in a role-playing game or computer role-playing game due to the accumulation of power by the player or players. Power creep leads to fights that become more abstract than physical and a world that becomes increasingly unbelievable.

A facet of this is how the enemies becomes stronger and more difficult to fight the further into a campaign the heroes get. A good instance of this is in a Final Fantasy game when the enemies surrounding the later towns are much more powerful, making it very unlikely that the guards and militias of said town were able to hold them back. These enemies are only more powerful to keep the players from getting bored. This is in contrast to a Wizardry or Ultima game, where the toughest enemies are found deep in dungeons or in strongholds.

The term is also used to describe the progressive creation of increasingly powerful character classes and weapons in the sourcebooks of tabletop role-playing games. This is especially evident in Rifts, where character classes and equipment published in various sourcebooks often outstrips equivalent options in the core rulebook. As time goes on, the power and quality of these options "creeps" higher and higher, often leading to issues of game balance as the various ideas of one source attempt to one-up those from an earlier publication.

Power creep in this latter usage is present in almost all RPGs with sequels/supplements (most notably tabletop RPGs, but nowadays MMORPGS too), simply because better options sells more expansions/books.