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

[Ovinomancer]

I just don't think most people consider Hill Giant guards to be a huge problem, I personally have no problems with guards not being the sharpest knives in the drawer. Easily fooled and bamboozled guards is a staple of movies and fiction.

And in the larger view for me, things making perfect sense is way behind making things fun at the game table. I never had problems with "illogical" dungeons if they were fun to run though and made for cool encounters.

Some find illogical tropes to be in the "not so" fun category. As a player, I like to believe the world has a reasonable order so I can make meaningful decisions within it. Obviously ridiculous things (like the sole guards on the royal family being idiots and the weakest of their kind) rub wrong. As a DM, it would really bother me. However, as a DM, I can fix it. Royal family guards are tough and competent or the royals don't live. The guards on the back gate of the city are an appropriate place for the bumblers.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

[Machiavelli]...unless the person or persons they were guarding were extremely unpopular, and someone had arranged for "a mishap"[Machiavelli]

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I guess I'm just a stickler for coherent world-building (and perhaps a sign that I should start home-brewing!) it drives me crazy when books and movies have illogical worlds too (moreso in books as the author has more control)

I'll stop expecting better from WotC.

I've just never had player say "whoa that was a well thought out logical encounter environment" after a session. But I have had players say "whoa that encounter/fight was amazing and so much fun" regardless of how logical it was. Its a game for my table first and as long as its not ridiculous, which I don't consider Hill Giant guards to be, its all good as long as it plays well at the table. If your players are more into exploring a deep logical world them obviously its going to get a different reaction. My guys are looking for exciting trap and monster laden environments before anything else. Not to say you can't have both.

 

[clearstream]

Perhaps it's never come up, since they all got eaten by sharks? Probably also it's not that hard to leave Maelstrom, via conch or other tool, it's just hard to enter it.

My main problem with Maelstrom is that it feels kind of small for the capital of the Giant civilisation, but then nobody wants a dungeon map that accurately depicts an entire city, so I just accept that as a necessary price for a useable setting.

Must be those sharks. The conches themselves are one-way: they don't offer a return trip. Getting out of the Maelstrom seems kind of hard for a fire or hill giant to me!

They have had some funny scales for places. Neverlight Grove in OOTA for instance seemed way too small to me.

 

[robus]

I've just never had player say "whoa that was a well thought out logical encounter environment" after a session. But I have had players say "whoa that encounter/fight was amazing and so much fun" regardless of how logical it was. Its a game for my table first and as long as its not ridiculous, which I don't consider Hill Giant guards to be, its all good as long as it plays well at the table. If your players are more into exploring a deep logical world them obviously its going to get a different reaction. My guys are looking for exciting trap and monster laden environments before anything else. Not to say you can't have both.

I've got at least one player whose suspension of disbelief is severely challenged when things are illogical. So my group is probably exceptional.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I've just never had player say "whoa that was a well thought out logical encounter environment" after a session. But I have had players say "whoa that encounter/fight was amazing and so much fun" regardless of how logical it was. Its a game for my table first and as long as its not ridiculous, which I don't consider Hill Giant guards to be, its all good as long as it plays well at the table. If your players are more into exploring a deep logical world them obviously its going to get a different reaction. My guys are looking for exciting trap and monster laden environments before anything else. Not to say you can't have both.

I have. I've had players state that they loved how everything fit together with the information they had and everything had a reason for happening/existing. My players enjoy worlds that make sense, and have trust that if something doesn't make sense to them right now that there's a good reason for it anyway. If they found out there wasn't, I'd lose a decent bit of trust for providing a world where decisions based on reasonable deductions are wrong.

As Danny said above, the immediate reaction to realizing that the only guards on the royal storm giant family was a pair of hill giants would be to wonder what was up. If I hadn't already prepared a Machiavellian plot, there'd be a problem. Which goes back to having to fix the nonsensical things WotC sticks in their adventures. It's not a great opportunity to tell a new story, it's something I have to fix, either by creating a new story or changing the element to something that does make sense, which may require re-balancing that arc. Both cut against a big reason for using a published adventure -- saving time. I get many like these options, but this is one of the reasons I generally avoid published adventures. I'm running SKT right not mostly because I had to rapidly shift from my campaign due to out of game reasons to a new game and didn't have a new campaign ready yet.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Must be those sharks. The conches themselves are one-way: they don't offer a return trip. Getting out of the Maelstrom seems kind of hard for a fire or hill giant to me!

They have had some funny scales for places. Neverlight Grove in OOTA for instance seemed way too small to me.

They have a teleporter. I'm not at home to access the book, but it's in like room 36 or something.



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[Flexor the Mighty!]

Understandable. For our beer and pretzels gaming it all works out fine. Personally I'm not overly impressed by any of the AP they have put out myself, that I've read, and don't see running another one if 5e continues past this campaign.

 

[robus]

I have. I've had players state that they loved how everything fit together with the information they had and everything had a reason for happening/existing. My players enjoy worlds that make sense, and have trust that if something doesn't make sense to them right now that there's a good reason for it anyway. If they found out there wasn't, I'd lose a decent bit of trust for providing a world where decisions based on reasonable deductions are wrong.

Exactly - things not adding up to the players should be tickling their "hmm - a mystery...?!" not "ha ha - Hill Giants again - what fun!"

 

[Ovinomancer]

Exactly - things not adding up to the players should be tickling their "hmm - a mystery...?!" not "ha ha - Hill Giants again - what fun!"

To be fair, the latter is a perfectly valid way of playing and can be great fun. It's just not my preferred way.