Is TOMB OF HORRORS the Worst Adventure Of All Time?

Prevailing opinion here in the EN World community has traditionally held that the worst adventure module of all time is 1984's The Forest Oracle. 7th Sea designer John Wick (whose upcoming edition of 7th Sea is the third most anticipated tabletop RPG of 2016) vehemently disagrees; he nominates the classic adventure Tomb of Horrors for that position, contending that it "represents all the wrong, backward thinking that people have about being a GM." In an article on his blog (warning: this uses a lot of strong language), he goes into great detail as to why he hold this opinion, stating that the adventure is the "worst, &#@&$&@est, most disgusting piece of pig vomit ever published".

Prevailing opinion here in the EN World community has traditionally held that the worst adventure module of all time is 1984's The Forest Oracle. 7th Sea designer John Wick (whose upcoming edition of 7th Sea is the third most anticipated tabletop RPG of 2016) vehemently disagrees; he nominates the classic adventure Tomb of Horrors for that position, contending that it "represents all the wrong, backward thinking that people have about being a GM." In an article on his blog (warning: this uses a lot of strong language), he goes into great detail as to why he hold this opinion, stating that the adventure is the "worst, &#@&$&@est, most disgusting piece of pig vomit ever published".


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[lQ]"My players picked the entrance with the long corridor rather than the two other entrances which are instant kills. That’s right, out of the three ways to enter the tomb, two of them are designed to give the GM the authority for a TPK."[/lQ]

Very strong words, and you can read them all here. As I mentioned before, there's lots of NSFW language there.

The article also includes an anecdote about a convention game in which he participated. In that game, being already familiar with the adventure and its traps (and having advised the DM of this), he played a thief and attempted to discover or deactivate the traps, up until a near TPK occurred and he left the game.

Wick is, of course, no stranger to controversy. A couple of years ago, he created widespread internet arguments when he stated that "The first four editions of D&D are not roleplaying games."
 

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doctheweasel

Explorer
It's a good module for a specific playstyle. For other playstyles, not so much.

It obviously doesn't fit John's style and I think he makes it clear why.
 

CubeB

Explorer
I guess its fun if you're fond of the meatgrinder playstyle, but I hate that kind of playstyle.

And I also hate the stupid demon face. That's dumb.
 

delericho

Legend
Well, apparently 51% of ENWorld members in 2006 thought it was badly designed. I doubt that percentage has changed all that much since then.

Personally, I've never played or run S1. However, I very much doubt it's the worst adventure of all time - certainly, it's got a long way to go before it matches "Scourge of the Howling Horde" with it's grey-text-on-grey-background failure, or the adventure that finally persuaded me 4e wasn't for me... "Tomb of Horrors".
 

Deuce Traveler

Adventurer
This is a horrible adventure to spring on a bunch of 10-14th level characters who had been developed slowly over the course of many, many hours of adventure.

But this is not meant to be an adventure to spring upon your long standing adventuring group. It is a tournament module meant to be used against numerous groups all competing with one another for which group got furthest, normally with quickly generated characters in which the gamers have little emotional connection. It is meant to be cruel, with a lot of dark and malicious deaths and other twisted fates like the loss of limbs, equipment loss, and gender swapping. Even solo characters can get deep in using summoned creatures, retainers, and laborers, as was common in 1st edition. Because of this, it is one of the best tournament modules ever published and is a classic I am quite proud to own.
 

Tomb of Horrors is a product of a different era in gaming. Would I want to play one of my favorite characters in it? Heck, no. Would I want to grab a bunch of pregens and see how far we can get in it? Absolutely!
 

Dahak

Explorer
John Wick was probably the player in his group (and there was always one) who stomped out of a session when he didn't get his way. Gary Gygax hurt his precious little feels and now he's burying a dead guy's work.
 

darjr

I crit!
It's a high level DCC funnel in my mind. Very fun. But yea, if your players have a deep connection to their characters and they only have the one and your group is dead set against making new high level characters, then maybe steer clear.

More and more I think John Wicks RPG sensibilities are alien to my own.
 

Kramodlog

Naked and living in a barrel
Yeah, old dungeons weren't always great. Random monsters of random power levels and deadly traps for no reason.

Kid today have it easy with their level appropriate dungeons, "CR" and bounded accuracy.
 

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