D&D 5E (2014) Why does WotC put obviously bad or illogical elements in their adventures?

[Dannyalcatraz]

My country doesn't have F35's because the entire program is a massive boondoggle for a 5-eyes black budget which was never meant to deliver a workable system given the laughable requirements which were set over twenty years ago.

You're just jealous.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

You're just jealous.

You're right. Here, have another $50 billion.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You're right. Here, have another $50 billion.

Spasibo!

 

[Zardnaar]

My country doesn't have F35's because the entire program is a massive boondoggle for a 5-eyes black budget which was never meant to deliver a workable system given the laughable requirements which were set over twenty years ago.

I know, lets build 300 million dollar fighter planes (or you know 4 or 5 F18's).

 

[pming]

Hiya!

TL;DR so...

I'd bet dimes to dollars it is because the writer was "designing encounters" as the primary method, as opposed to "environment dictates" as the primary method. Y'see, the two stupid hill giants? Designed because of EL vs PC Make-Up. Sharks? Same thing, probably. I'm sure there are many more in that adventure...seems to be the normal method since 3e came out, really.

Personally, I actually don't have a problem with this sort of 'design', but only one or two instances in an adventure. If the whole thing is written with the "designing encounters to fit the PC's using EL/XP" as the primary consideration then the adventure becomes REDICULOUSLY predictable once the players become experienced. Me and my group (I was a player in this one...a rarity) tried to play "Shackled City" back for 3e/3.5e. The DM was pretty much running it 'by the book'. After a single session we quickly learned that "You open the door and see a large room, with a single, human sized creature poking a campfire with a stick. Roasting on a spit is a series of human heads"...was code for "RUN AWAY!". Likewise, "You open the door and see a large room, with about a dozen human sized creatures gathered about a campfire. Roasting on a spit is a series of human heads"...was code for "Hehe...Get Em!".

Why? EL encounter building. A large group of things = all those things being low EL. A single thing = high EL. IF everyone in the party is at FULL capacity...feel free to give the single creature encounter a shot. But if everyone has taken a few hits, has cast spells and used abilities...do NOT take on a single creature encounter. That is the achilles heel of the "Design Encounter for the PC's" method of adventure design. And why I think it's a bad way to do it.

Give me Hackmaster 4e adventures, where a half-dozen 1st level PC's can encounter an aged beholder with an attitude in a cave any day of the week! (why is there a beholder in the low level adventure? ...story and to give the Players a crack on the head that not every encounter can be won...at least not in the normal 'kick down the door, kill the monster, take it's treasure' sort of way...).

Er...yeah. A bit long winded there. Bottom line...bad encounters are likely because of the whole "design via EL" method. IMHO, of course.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Seramus]

When in doubt, blame Nepotism.

Those Hill Giants are related to some other giant, and had to be given an important post to keep the peace or make a political statement. Sometimes we make bad decisions to please others.

 

[Demetrios1453]

When in doubt, blame Nepotism.

Those Hill Giants are related to some other giant, and had to be given an important post to keep the peace or make a political statement. Sometimes we make bad decisions to please others.

Or perhaps the honor guard for the throne room rotates among the various giant subraces, and today just happens to be the turn for the hill giants.

I think the answer to the OP, as amply shown by the responses, is not to complain if you come across something seemingly bad or illogical in a story, but instead come up with an interesting reason for its existence. It's much more fun that way!

 

[hastur_nz]

So I was prepping for tonight's SKT session which occurs in the Maelstrom. Great setting - looking forward to presenting it to my players and hoping they get the right feel....

Two things...

1) the "Chris Perkins Style" - he's a great ideas man, with a touch of whimsy in what he comes up with. If it's not your thing, you just need to re-flavour.

2) WoTC relies on play-test from selected people (including my group), but the time-frames they give us, and the amount of feedback they actually take on board, is usually limited. I have no idea how much internal play test they do, but I suspect it's zero. They get something written, in full, then get it out for a quick review, meaning their ability to make fundamental changes is approaching zero...

Certainly, if you look at historical adventures up to and including SKT, we got a playtest adventure which was pretty much completed (excluding art work), but my group certainly never had time to get anywhere near playing any of them, so we spent a bit of time reviewing it on paper, which never works out anywhere as well as if you actually try and throw it on the table with real people, week after week. Typically, we only get a few weeks to get feedback in, and often our feedback is quite fundamental in nature, and often that doesn't get action. For example Curse of Strahd had an 'intro' (Death House) quickly added to what we playtested, and while it was a great little adventure, we never reviewed it and it didn't really address the problem we saw which was that the CoS campaign was more suited for mid-level PC's, not for 1-10 (or 3-10 even). SKT was very similar - I didn't like the beginning, and it put me off reviewing the rest; the published adventure had a really poor (IMO) Chapter 1 added on after review, for taking PC's from 1st to 5th level asap. Tomb of Annihilation aka Dust has gone through a similar thing - we got a copy to review near the end of 2016, with only a few weeks to review it, and it's not actually going to be published until Sep-2017, nearly a year after the adventure was put out for review. Will much of our feedback be taken on board? Obviously I have no idea, but given that my only feedback wasn't on anything specific, but more on the PC levels it was designed for, and the early parts of the adventure... well I suspect it fell in the "too hard" / "ignore" basket...

Anyway, nothing is perfect, at least they are including the community in trying to help make their adventures as best they can be. They don't have loads of staff to look after endless quality control, especially difficult given playing a big adventure book takes months if not a year or more.

 

[hastur_nz]

SKT is particularly bad for this and it's my belief that it's due to not having a proper revision and testing procedure in place for that particular adventure. My guess is that Chris was initially tasked with creating a sourcebook for the north and to lace it with plot hooks, but then WotC were like, "No, no, make it a campaign book as well!" All the design aspects of it scream sourcebook. It's actually incredibly well researched and draws on a huge amount of lore from the Forgotten Realms and ties it together like no other book I've seen. It also screams, "Last minute scramble to turn it into a campaign book,". So many elements seem shoehorned in without any, or very little, consideration for the logic or consequence of them and because of that, it comes across as very disconnected and random with a thin veneer of "story" to it.

Yeah, I'd say pretty much exactly right. Chapters 1 and 3 were added after it was reviewed by playtesters (Chapter 4, I don't recall). Now, they might have different tiers or cycles of review / playtest, but I suspect not. So what we got, is a mix of linear and sandbox, with 'quests' chucked in to help shape Chapter 3 that IMO are one of the worst aspects.

Anyway, I'm currently running it, and while it's hard work (like CoS was), it's really rewarding, there are loads of cool ideas it just needs ongoing work to smooth it all out. Maybe they never designed it for newer DM's? I certainly think it's best run by a DM with enough experience and desire to go through it with a fine-tooth comb before each session, change it as required, and so on.

 

[robus]

[MENTION=40592]hastur_nz[/MENTION] thanks for the background. One would have hoped that the slower release schedule would give them time to address things like this. I guess I'd imagine a more critical process from the team where "why" would be asked during development, And "how would a DM take advantage of that"? Sort of like presenting a storyboard for a movie.