Does 5e need its own, original TOMB OF HORRORS?

[Parmandur]

I was curious about Mearls list. I'm glad he put Ravenloft at the top: my old gaming friends from the 80's still remember that as the most fun we ever had playing D&D. He also has Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh on the list, albeit at #10. We really loved that one, too.

Well, he didn't put anything anywhere: he crowdsourced on Twitter and shared the results.

 

[Bawylie]

I agree; the more I think about it, the more I wonder about the points raised by Umbran (and others) recently. Which is to say- could you even make something similar today?

Because the three biggest obstacles would be:

1. The "meta-game." For lack of a better phrasing, ToH depending on player skill, and player knowledge. It was testing the players, which is now viewed more as meta-gaming by some.

2. Rolling. So many more things (skill checks, etc.) are assumed to be within the province of a roll today.

3. Subverting expectations. This is the biggie; at the time, the usual experience was more hobmurder-y. See an orc, kill an orc, loot the corpse, rinse, repeat. By making the whole module nearly monster-less, it really subverted (then-current) expectations. Not sure how that would work today.

Those aren’t obstacles.

1.) Not every module is for everyone. If you want to write something that challenges player skill, do that. Embrace the meta-aspects and associated challenges that brings. You get a whole new level of difficulty by leaning in here. Say, for example, the “winner” is the player with the most experience points, even if everyone dies. Then charge experience points for things like instant short rests. Now you’ve got a whole “meta-game” layer of decision making that asks players to risk their point totals for potential advancement. Anyway, it doesn’t have to be an obstacle. But people ought to know if it’s a tournament style module or something like that.

2.) The province of a roll is the province of DM adjudication of Player actions. True for any game of D&D. But to this point, we have a greater understanding of challenge today than we did in the 70s. A proper challenge is a scenario wherein the players decisions determine or influence the outcome. A die roll is not a decision, but a decision may need a die roll to resolve. A new ToH wouldn’t be something that automatically had crazy high DCs (that’s merely numeric difficulty) - it would have challenges that required intelligent, calculated risks to overcome - obvious (but hard) solutions, and creative (but not so obvious) alternate solutions. Gordian Knots, so to speak.

3.) Subversion of expectations involves first understanding the expectations. It demands that you understand why things were done the way they were done before making any changes. And then changing as little as feasible. Because in order to really subvert an expectation, you have to sort of fulfill a good 80% of it.

Might be you do a survival horror scenario in an enclosed complex stalker by a single super predator type monster that’s essentially undefeatable and hunting the players as they strive to be the last to die. Maybe each room in the complex is likewise it’s own danger and maybe hides something useful. As the predator stalks players they have to navigate challenges just to get away from the baddie - all while perhaps accumulating, discovering, or creating something that actually hurts the dang thing. And maybe the players have a way to detect the baddie and communicate to one another from different areas. So they can work together on stuff even while it closes in on them.

I’d play the **** out of that.