D&D 1E What are examples of "gotchya" encounters from Gary Gygax?

[Shades of Eternity]

I got into a discussion and while I could mention the monsters that were distinctly designed to make adventurers miserable, I couldn't remember the actual encounters that if you didn't follow classic dungeon hack strategy you were screwed.

Any come to mind?

 

[CleverNickName]

Well there's this classic from the Tomb of Horrors:

 

[Shades of Eternity]

I remember one involving a required key in the stomach of a fish, but darmed if I can remember the exact module.

 

[Maxperson]

Well there's this classic from the Tomb of Horrors:

View attachment 119789

I took an entire party out with that one. The first player thought it was a portal and didn't want to transport his head, so he dove in. When he didn't return, one by one everyone else did the same thing. End of story.

 

[MwaO]

There was an illusionary wall in a very old RPGA tournament mod. Parties figured this out pretty quickly.

The winning team was the one who used a 10' pole to realize that there was a spiked pit behind it and therefore didn't die. Fastest end to a tournament adventure ever...

 

[HarbingerX]

There was an illusionary wall in a very old RPGA tournament mod. Parties figured this out pretty quickly.

The winning team was the one who used a 10' pole to realize that there was a spiked pit behind it and therefore didn't die. Fastest end to a tournament adventure ever...

People scoff, but the 10' pole is one of the handiest tool of dungeon crawling.

 

[HarbingerX]

I took an entire party out with that one. The first player thought it was a portal and didn't want to transport his head, so he dove in. When he didn't return, one by one everyone else did the same thing. End of story.

Man, all they needed was to use their 10' pole...

 

[HarbingerX]

I got into a discussion and while I could mention the monsters that were distinctly designed to make adventurers miserable, I couldn't remember the actual encounters that if you didn't follow classic dungeon hack strategy you were screwed.

Any come to mind?

The rust monster, as originally designed, was probably the worst for players.

I'm not sure about 'classic dungeon hack strategy' though. Gary was more about trick and traps than 'hacking'. When you did go up against his monsters they were smart and coordinated - his modules had monsters working in a coordinated fashion.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

The nilbog.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Early D&D was very much challenged based, rather than adventure story based. DMs would throw challenges at players and players would try to overcome them through various means: combat, stealth, figuring out riddles and traps, etc. I mean, the most famous dungeon was literally separated by levels of difficultly lol.

so in that regard, a ton of things were gotcha. ToH was specifically designed to take all those players who bragged about defeating modules down a notch.