IMO, that's exactly what SKT needs. Either that, or it should never have been a campaign and simply been a sourcebook for the north. It would've been much better for either of those choices rather than the hodge-podge it became.
D&D 5E Why does WotC put obviously bad or illogical elements in their adventures?
IMO, that's exactly what SKT needs. Either that, or it should never have been a campaign and simply been a sourcebook for the north. It would've been much better for either of those choices rather than the hodge-podge it became.
It's good to know if I ever need to mortally injure you via brain aneurism all I have to do is send you a copy of D3.
'Wait, 24 pages for an entire city, and for the pivotal Drow houses that you have to deal with to settle the whole campaign, all you get is a few lists of stats of the most important members!?!'
Then, to finish you off, Q1:
'...and then Q1 is a complete tonal shift that acts as if the whole reason for the campaign never mattered, and is filled with monsters that have nothing to do with the rest of the campaign?!??!!!?!?'
*explodes*
'Wait, 24 pages for an entire city, and for the pivotal Drow houses that you have to deal with to settle the whole campaign, all you get is a few lists of stats of the most important members!?!'
Then, to finish you off, Q1:
'...and then Q1 is a complete tonal shift that acts as if the whole reason for the campaign never mattered, and is filled with monsters that have nothing to do with the rest of the campaign?!??!!!?!?'
*explodes*
MonsterEnvy
Legend
None of those things you named were illogical or bad.
"Why does WotC put obviously bad or illogical elements in their adventures? "
How long have you been playing D&D, exactly?
(Edit: I think Dannyalcatraz said it all on p2).
Not long enough to realize it's a stupid question obviously
But seriously, is there not methodology of continuous improvement over there? Do they not even realize they're making things unnecessarily hard for us poor DMs?
And the pièce de resistance has to be the gathering of giant leaders with no explanation for their presence (and while the hill giant is absent - though that actually dovetailed neatly with events for me) but still, the ordning is broken and yet giants are still sitting down to tea together (effectively) - why?! No reason... but of course my players ask that obvious question, leaving me to scramble for some plausible answer!
Edit: [MENTION=6776887]Tormyr[/MENTION] pointed out that this was a misfire on my part - I'd forgotten the brief description given for their presence, though my answer was quite similar (though driven from Serissa's side rather than theirs).
Edit: [MENTION=6776887]Tormyr[/MENTION] pointed out that this was a misfire on my part - I'd forgotten the brief description given for their presence, though my answer was quite similar (though driven from Serissa's side rather than theirs).
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Think about how many movies or video games--which go through a far more intensive writing and development process than your average adventure--have giant plot holes or nonsensical elements. Sometimes things get missed or the reasoning that's perfectly clear to the writer doesn't make it onto the page. And adventures have an advantage that movies or video games don't: a DM through which the adventure is presented who can notice these nonsensical elements and fix them.
When I run published adventures, I generally try to do them as "by the book" as possible, but I will still tweak things to match the characters or party I have, or if something doesn't make sense (such as the matriarch of a bunch of backwoods hillbillies being a mid-level wizard, for example) I'll try to think of a good reason why that might be the case, even if it isn't obvious, or I'll change it.
When I run published adventures, I generally try to do them as "by the book" as possible, but I will still tweak things to match the characters or party I have, or if something doesn't make sense (such as the matriarch of a bunch of backwoods hillbillies being a mid-level wizard, for example) I'll try to think of a good reason why that might be the case, even if it isn't obvious, or I'll change it.
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
My campaign has been home brew. I'm used to plot holes and over sights. When I wrap this campaign up and start Curse of Straud, it will be an absolute dream to have most of the work done for me.
For every complaint that I read about not enough information being given in adventures, I read another that they are not leaving enough for the DM's imagination.
As for illogical decisions made by adventure antagonists, I think that is intentional. They can't make things too difficult to the average casual player. Beside, real life is replete with stupid decisions made by our world leaders that leave us Monday-night quarterbacks scratching our heads.
My greatest issues with these big APs is that they are in books. After running my home brew campaign for two years, which I create and run in RealmWorks, it is painful to have to flip through pages, cross referencing not only content in the AP book but the core books. Not having stats for encounters place in context. Not having content cross linked. Not having maps that I can click on to bring up the room description.
Event though I play and in-person, at-table game, I am thinking of getting Fantasy Grounds for running my Curse of Straud game. I'm not even planning on using the maps. I bought Mike Schleys map pack and will be printing all the battlemaps on a plotter printer and playing with minis. Running a dungeon crawl from paper is fine—any of the stuff in The Yawning Portal, i just run from the book. But something with a more sandboxy approach and multiple plotlines and more complex NPC relationships—I'm just not looking forward to running a party through Barovia from the paper book. Even watching Chris Perkins run Curse of Straud for Dice, Camera, Action could be annoying at times as he flipped through pages. He's a much better dungeon master than I am AND he wrote the book. I've he can't pull it off smoothly, I sure won't be able to.
I am interested, however, in seeing what AP content looks like in DnD Beyond. That may be a better format for my play style. But I've not seen them preview anything that looks like I'll be able to click on a map and see the content related to that area. Having to constantly type in searches to bring up content may be worse than using a well-bookmarked book.
For every complaint that I read about not enough information being given in adventures, I read another that they are not leaving enough for the DM's imagination.
As for illogical decisions made by adventure antagonists, I think that is intentional. They can't make things too difficult to the average casual player. Beside, real life is replete with stupid decisions made by our world leaders that leave us Monday-night quarterbacks scratching our heads.
My greatest issues with these big APs is that they are in books. After running my home brew campaign for two years, which I create and run in RealmWorks, it is painful to have to flip through pages, cross referencing not only content in the AP book but the core books. Not having stats for encounters place in context. Not having content cross linked. Not having maps that I can click on to bring up the room description.
Event though I play and in-person, at-table game, I am thinking of getting Fantasy Grounds for running my Curse of Straud game. I'm not even planning on using the maps. I bought Mike Schleys map pack and will be printing all the battlemaps on a plotter printer and playing with minis. Running a dungeon crawl from paper is fine—any of the stuff in The Yawning Portal, i just run from the book. But something with a more sandboxy approach and multiple plotlines and more complex NPC relationships—I'm just not looking forward to running a party through Barovia from the paper book. Even watching Chris Perkins run Curse of Straud for Dice, Camera, Action could be annoying at times as he flipped through pages. He's a much better dungeon master than I am AND he wrote the book. I've he can't pull it off smoothly, I sure won't be able to.
I am interested, however, in seeing what AP content looks like in DnD Beyond. That may be a better format for my play style. But I've not seen them preview anything that looks like I'll be able to click on a map and see the content related to that area. Having to constantly type in searches to bring up content may be worse than using a well-bookmarked book.
As a counterpoint, while I'm nowhere near finishing the Critical Role series, I've yet to witness an encounter where the players are confronted by something as illogical as stupid Hill Giants guarding a princess in a palace. Matt's world seems to be quite logically populated. Cue the examples countering this observation
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