Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Tomb of Horrors - example of many, or one of a kind?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5578622" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Sure, as soon as I figure out how spoiler tags work...</p><p></p><p>The module has a totally unfair reputation for unfairness, not because it is unfair but because it is utterly unmerciful and unforgiving. D&D is a very forgiving game usually. You have hit points. If you get hit, you lose a few but it in no way degrades your performance. And pretty soon, you have a lot of hitpoints and can survive a lot of stuff before it kills you. If something bad happens because you weren't careful, you generally expect that there is a random chance you'll just get out of it with no or little harm. And so forth. There are a lot of things I could touch on, but the point is that normally in D&D it takes a lot to kill you and any one mistake by design is not normally fatal. So normally, D&D players are a bit careless because they don't figure that they have to take much in the way of additional precautions on account of the fact that in their expeince when they get into trouble, they can get out again.</p><p></p><p>So you can imagine their shock when they take that care free attitude in and the DM just closes the book and says, "Well, you're all dead now. Thanks for playing."</p><p></p><p>Like a child whose suddenly realizing that things aren't what they expect, they typically say, "That's not fair.", and since they typically run away from the module at that point and they leave it at that.</p><p></p><p>However, being merciful is by definition not being fair. When you are shown mercy, it's because what you deserve is something worse and you are unfairly given more (or less) than you deserve.</p><p></p><p>But the tomb is very fair because the tomb is never really arbitrary. </p><p></p><p>Arbitrary is usually a synonym for random, and the tomb is rarely random.</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER]Acererak doesn't use reverse logic. If Acererak calls for a sacrifice, he'll reward you if you make it rather than laughing at you about your pointless loss and then punishing you on top of it. If Acerak gives you a choice between a noble deed and an ignoble one, the noble choice will be repaid. If something looks evil and diabolic, then it certainly is. There is no 'evil is good' and 'good is evil' stuff going on in the tomb. If the tomb warns you against doing something, then its a fair warning and the consequences of ignoring it will be bad. If the tomb provides you a clue, it's a fair clue that isn't meant to mislead you. When in doubt, it's the middle way. Up toward heaven is good and down toward hell is bad.[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER]Acererak doesn't play damned if you do, damned if you don't. There is a way forward, and if you take that way foward you won't get punished for it. If there is a way to disarm the trap and you need to disarm the trap, the way to disarm the trap won't also be trapped. You won't come to any dead ends, and if you do, it's because you missed something. You won't come to a spot where all the doors are wrong, and if you are at that point, it's because you didn't look for another door.[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER]Acererak doesn't build a maze. He doesn't make you guess which way to go. It's not a sprawling labrinth filled with a lot of arbitrary choices between left and right with no way of knowing which leads to certain doom and which to a reward. You aren't arbitrarily picking your way through it, and if you paid attention he'll give you very specific directions through the tomb. False leads look like false leads once you have the real one to compare them too, so just look around before you decide to follow the first thing you find and you'll be alright.[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER]Acerak doesn't rely on attrition. He's not trying to wear you down. He's not going to force everyone to make a saving throw just to go foward and turn the whole affair into a test of whether you can roll high on 4 or 5 unavoidable rolls in a row. The dungeon doesn't amount to whether you can win initiative enough times, or whether you roll high on your damage dice, or whether the monster makes his saving throw, or whether you can avoid a streak of 1's. If you play by his rules, you'll probably never have to make a saving throw, and if you screw up and get reckless you'll probably never have a chance to. There is almost no combat; there is almost no luck, good or bad[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER]Pretty much everything you need to get out of the tomb is in the tomb. Sadly, not everything necessary to defeat Acererak himself is in the tomb, but that might be asking for too much since the final fight in my opinion is again primarily a test of whether you stupidly blunder foward into things without observing and thinking first. Avoiding combat is probably the best option, and its lets you get out with all the treasure. Looting the tomb and getting away is in my opinion true victory, and as I said, it's just about possible for a 1st level party to loot the tomb and escape from it.[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>I could cite a lot of specific examples from the tomb, but it's getting late.</p><p></p><p>The best way to see what I mean is to read the module and then compare it to its imitators like Grimtooth's Traps where the rule of the day is coming up with completely unfair gotchas and no win scenarios for the PC's and where the text encourages DM's to adopt that sort of 'Ha! Ha! Fooled you!' attitude. Even comparing the text to something like S2: White Plume Mountain is very instructive.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5578622, member: 4937"] Sure, as soon as I figure out how spoiler tags work... The module has a totally unfair reputation for unfairness, not because it is unfair but because it is utterly unmerciful and unforgiving. D&D is a very forgiving game usually. You have hit points. If you get hit, you lose a few but it in no way degrades your performance. And pretty soon, you have a lot of hitpoints and can survive a lot of stuff before it kills you. If something bad happens because you weren't careful, you generally expect that there is a random chance you'll just get out of it with no or little harm. And so forth. There are a lot of things I could touch on, but the point is that normally in D&D it takes a lot to kill you and any one mistake by design is not normally fatal. So normally, D&D players are a bit careless because they don't figure that they have to take much in the way of additional precautions on account of the fact that in their expeince when they get into trouble, they can get out again. So you can imagine their shock when they take that care free attitude in and the DM just closes the book and says, "Well, you're all dead now. Thanks for playing." Like a child whose suddenly realizing that things aren't what they expect, they typically say, "That's not fair.", and since they typically run away from the module at that point and they leave it at that. However, being merciful is by definition not being fair. When you are shown mercy, it's because what you deserve is something worse and you are unfairly given more (or less) than you deserve. But the tomb is very fair because the tomb is never really arbitrary. Arbitrary is usually a synonym for random, and the tomb is rarely random. [SPOILER]Acererak doesn't use reverse logic. If Acererak calls for a sacrifice, he'll reward you if you make it rather than laughing at you about your pointless loss and then punishing you on top of it. If Acerak gives you a choice between a noble deed and an ignoble one, the noble choice will be repaid. If something looks evil and diabolic, then it certainly is. There is no 'evil is good' and 'good is evil' stuff going on in the tomb. If the tomb warns you against doing something, then its a fair warning and the consequences of ignoring it will be bad. If the tomb provides you a clue, it's a fair clue that isn't meant to mislead you. When in doubt, it's the middle way. Up toward heaven is good and down toward hell is bad.[/SPOILER] [SPOILER]Acererak doesn't play damned if you do, damned if you don't. There is a way forward, and if you take that way foward you won't get punished for it. If there is a way to disarm the trap and you need to disarm the trap, the way to disarm the trap won't also be trapped. You won't come to any dead ends, and if you do, it's because you missed something. You won't come to a spot where all the doors are wrong, and if you are at that point, it's because you didn't look for another door.[/SPOILER] [SPOILER]Acererak doesn't build a maze. He doesn't make you guess which way to go. It's not a sprawling labrinth filled with a lot of arbitrary choices between left and right with no way of knowing which leads to certain doom and which to a reward. You aren't arbitrarily picking your way through it, and if you paid attention he'll give you very specific directions through the tomb. False leads look like false leads once you have the real one to compare them too, so just look around before you decide to follow the first thing you find and you'll be alright.[/SPOILER] [SPOILER]Acerak doesn't rely on attrition. He's not trying to wear you down. He's not going to force everyone to make a saving throw just to go foward and turn the whole affair into a test of whether you can roll high on 4 or 5 unavoidable rolls in a row. The dungeon doesn't amount to whether you can win initiative enough times, or whether you roll high on your damage dice, or whether the monster makes his saving throw, or whether you can avoid a streak of 1's. If you play by his rules, you'll probably never have to make a saving throw, and if you screw up and get reckless you'll probably never have a chance to. There is almost no combat; there is almost no luck, good or bad[/SPOILER] [SPOILER]Pretty much everything you need to get out of the tomb is in the tomb. Sadly, not everything necessary to defeat Acererak himself is in the tomb, but that might be asking for too much since the final fight in my opinion is again primarily a test of whether you stupidly blunder foward into things without observing and thinking first. Avoiding combat is probably the best option, and its lets you get out with all the treasure. Looting the tomb and getting away is in my opinion true victory, and as I said, it's just about possible for a 1st level party to loot the tomb and escape from it.[/SPOILER] I could cite a lot of specific examples from the tomb, but it's getting late. The best way to see what I mean is to read the module and then compare it to its imitators like Grimtooth's Traps where the rule of the day is coming up with completely unfair gotchas and no win scenarios for the PC's and where the text encourages DM's to adopt that sort of 'Ha! Ha! Fooled you!' attitude. Even comparing the text to something like S2: White Plume Mountain is very instructive. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Tomb of Horrors - example of many, or one of a kind?
Top