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

[Hriston]

I'd have to say there's just about nothing in SKT that resembles King Lear.

Well, like I said, I haven't read the adventure, but just the setup described in this thread: absent king, three daughters, seems to resemble King Lear quite a bit. The inadequate bodyguard would be another, albeit tenuous, resemblance.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well, like I said, I haven't read the adventure, but just the setup described in this thread: absent king, three daughters, seems to resemble King Lear quite a bit. The inadequate bodyguard would be another, albeit tenuous, resemblance.

King abducted by outside forces; Queen murdered by same; youngest daughter on throne as favorite; elderest being opportunistic, yes, but completely unaware of actual plot; secret dragon running plot.

Nope, except for having a king with daughters, some of them not nice, nothing at all like Lear.

 

[Hriston]

youngest daughter on throne as favorite;

Cordelia was Leir's favorite. And if you go back to the original story, she did succeed him on the throne. So that's two more resemblances.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Cordelia was Leir's favorite. And if you go back to the original story, she did succeed him on the throne. So that's two more resemblances.

Few people realize that Shakespeare completely reworked the ending of the well-known story, in what must have been a hugely shocking twist for those who first watched the play.

William Shakespeare: The M Night Shyamalan of the 17th century....

 

[Ovinomancer]

Cordelia was Leir's favorite. And if you go back to the original story, she did succeed him on the throne. So that's two more resemblances.

Um, no. Shallow coincidences like the King having three daughters and the youngest one is favored don't make a case, especially when the rest of the facts don't match.

Maybe you could familiarize yourself with the work in question before being an expert on it?

 

[Demetrios1453]

Um, no. Shallow coincidences like the King having three daughters and the youngest one is favored don't make a case, especially when the rest of the facts don't match.

Maybe you could familiarize yourself with the work in question before being an expert on it?

Perhaps you should take up the matter with the designers, who repeatedly stated that they partially based the adventure on King Lear? If you dredge up some old threads on speculation before the adventure was announced, you'll find continual references to the upcoming "King Lear with giants" module. Granted, it's not a point-by-point match, but there's more resemblance than you're claiming...

Sent from my VS987 using EN World mobile app

 

[Ovinomancer]

Perhaps you should take up the matter with the designers, who repeatedly stated that they partially based the adventure on King Lear? If you dredge up some old threads on speculation before the adventure was announced, you'll find continual references to the upcoming "King Lear with giants" module. Granted, it's not a point-by-point match, but there's more resemblance than you're claiming...

Sent from my VS987 using EN World mobile app

Well, the thread is generally about how WotC has poorly designed elements in their published adventures, so I suppose adding not being able to follow the plot of your supposed reference could be added. So, the, what bugs you about how badly they got the plot of King Lear wrong?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Cordelia was Leir's favorite. And if you go back to the original story, she did succeed him on the throne. So that's two more resemblances.

Well, no, and I misremembered this as well. Cordelia dies and never sits the throne.

I took a few moments and tried to sum up the two plots in three broad arcs (Acts II-IV in Lear are mostly political infighting and betrayers being betrayed, so I lumped them together).

[table="width: 750, class: grid"]
[tr]
[td]King Lear[/td]
[td]Storm King's Thunder[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Lear decides to divide his kingdom amongst his daughters and holds a flattery competition. He awards his kingdom according to how well his daughters praise him. The eldest fawn, but the youngest blunts says she cannot compare her true admiration for Lear with anything else. Mistaking this, Lear rages and banishes Cordelia and splits his kingdom equally among the other two daughters.
The King of France still likes Cordelia, and agrees to still marry her even after being banished (they were betrothed)[/td]
[td]Ammun the All Father, God of Giants, decides giants ain't gianting well enough and breaks the ordning. The Giant begin to compete amongst themselves for place in whatever new ordning arises. An evil dragon takes advantage of the situation, allies with a Kraken, and then kills the storm giant queen and kidnaps the storm giant king. The storm giant king's youngest daughter has been named heir, and so ascends the throne in her father's absence. Her spoiled sisters work to try to take power for themselves, but have no idea about the dragon's plotting or even that there is a dragon, and so far have done little to weaken their sister.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Lear's sisters work to weaken Lear and manage to separate him from much of his support and drive him mad. Lear eventually reunited with Cordelia, now leading an invading French army. The other sister get up to shenangians with murder and sleeping around.
One is widowed, both are still struggling for power. The English nobles gather to fight off the French.[/td]
[td]Um... the party runs around the countryside and kills one or more giant lords that are doing bad things in the lords' quests to gain rank in the new ordning. The evil dragon manages the storm giant court from the shadows, making sure things stay unstable and the storm giants can't bring the other giant clans to heel. The two sisters play music for other giant lords and maybe plot and stuff -- not real clear here.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]The French army loses, and Cordelia and Lear are captured. The sisters get betrayed, and die. Cordelia is executed. Lear dies of a broken heart. As is typical of Shakespeare's tragedies, pretty much everyone dies in the end. One of the surviving nobles takes the throne (and, interestingly, who it is varies by version -- that wily Bard, inventing alternate endings!).[/td]
[td]The PCs get to Maelstrom, meet some hill giant guards, the elder sisters try to bump them off (poorly), and then, maybe, learn of the kings abduction and out the evil dragon plotter. The PC then maybe rescue the King, or not, but the youngest daughter keeps the throne. Eventually, the PCs go fight the Dragon.[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

There, quick and dirty, but that sums it up. If the adventure is based on King Lear, it's extremely superficial. Aside from a political entity in strife and the king having three daughters, there's just not much there.

 

[Hriston]

Shallow coincidences like the King having three daughters and the youngest one is favored don't make a case, especially when the rest of the facts don't match.

They aren't coincidences when it's a well known fact the adventure was inspired by Shakespeare's Lear as well as the Dungeon #78 adventure "Lear the Giant-King", which hews more closely to the plot of the play and interestingly enough features a retinue of 100 Hill Giants as the Giant-King's bodyguard. Such points of resemblance are expected and unlikely to be accidental.

Well, no, and I misremembered this as well. Cordelia dies and never sits the throne.

The original story to which I referred was that recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his History of the Kings of Britain. In that version, Leir is restored by the Frankish invasion of Britain, reigns for three years, and is succeeded by Cordelia. Shakespeare's ending put a twist on the original story's ending, which was also featured in a comedy that preceded Shakespeare's version on the Elizabethan stage.

 

[Ovinomancer]

They aren't coincidences when it's a well known fact the adventure was inspired by Shakespeare's Lear as well as the Dungeon #78 adventure "Lear the Giant-King", which hews more closely to the plot of the play and interestingly enough features a retinue of 100 Hill Giants as the Giant-King's bodyguard. Such points of resemblance are expected and unlikely to be accidental.



The original story to which I referred was that recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his History of the Kings of Britain. In that version, Leir is restored by the Frankish invasion of Britain, reigns for three years, and is succeeded by Cordelia. Shakespeare's ending put a twist on the original story's ending, which was also featured in a comedy that preceded Shakespeare's version on the Elizabethan stage.

Wait, which it is you're contending, was SKT based on Lear or Leir? And, either way, it's still nothing but a shallow coincidence that there's a king with three daughters, the youngest the favorite. As I point out above, and you so neatly ignored, there are no other similarities in plot. So, it's patently ridiculous that a shallow comparison lends itself to explaining that the regent is guarded by two morons because, in Lear, the king was only guarded by a knight and a fool after being betrayed by his daughters -- something that doesn't happen at all in SKT.

By the way, paraphrasing the top line of the wikipedia entry to look like you pulled it from somewhere else? Not very canny.