Angel of Adventure said:
Hey Col,
There is a thread under the General RPG Discussion forum that rates your S1 mod. There seem to be a few naysayers there that believe it can only be won by cheating or extreme (perhaps Lotto winning) luck.
Please smite them with a story of how some non-metagaming players took down Acererak and his crypt by virtue of their skill. Thanks for writing this one, too. No one has surpassed this one in terms of originality or terror. (As I mentioned in that thread, the mod also improves the gaming skills of those that survive.)
Thanks,
AoA
Well Amigo...
What I say about nay-sayers is, pluck 'em! They can express their opinion, and so what? I don't need to defend anything. Some hundreds of thousands of PCs have adventured in the ToH, and not many have made it successfully, so it is most demanding of real skill.
You can quote me from this post, if you like, for we ran the module as a tournament at a Spring or Autumn Revel, or a Winter Fantasy con here back in the day. There were, IIRR, eight teams, and one of them absolutely obliterated the demi-lich by using the crown, putting it on his head, and touching the "wrong end" of the scepter to it. Russ Stambaugh was the DM for that team, and he asked me if that would work. I was astounded at how clever the players had been, said so, and gave them the top spot for their innovation. Again, as I recall, several of the other eight teams made the cut, destroyed Acecerak. those were veteran dungeoneers, of curse.
Ernie playing Tenser didn't go for the situation and cleared out. Rob playing Robilar made it to the end, grabbed all the loot, and didn't bother fighting the demi-lich--not much profit in that by his estimation, not with all the treasure in his bag of holding. I have run a party of local gamers through the ToH, and they made it with the loss of a couple of the PCs. It was many years ago, so I do not recall player names and details--way too many gaming sessions under my belt in the 33 years I have been a GM for such recollections...
Cheers,
Gary