D&D 5E Acererak's Tomb of Horrors is in Chult

[hawkeyefan]

I said that there's not many people who benefit from chucking the ToH into FR. There are lots of people who benefit from a great adventure, but I wasn't griping about a great adventure, I was specifically griping about chucking ToH into FR, which doesn't set up things well to be a great adventure. It might be great despite that, sure! But even if it's a great adventure, it's still a hackey crossover.

So, I'm still voicing my concerns about crossovers, and about a potential ToH adventure that is a crossover.


When they told Strahd's story, they didn't relocate Barovia to FR. They don't need to relocate the ToH, either. The idea should always be to tell the best story, and a crossover is giving you a handicap right out of the gate, regardless of the lore reasons for it.



I'm not necessarily objecting to it's canonicity / authenticity here. I'm objecting to it's lameness. Crossovers are lame. It's an ancient, stale, pandering, and over-used trope that speaks to a lack of confidence in either of the stories individually. It was lame when Elminster went and had tea with Mordenkainen or whatever. Even a good crossover can't escape the sucking black pool of lame that is at the center of it.

I mean, from my perspective, as an example, one of the best crossovers is maybe Kingdom Hearts. Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters all mixed up and you wouldn't necessarily expect a narrative where Mickey Mouse is some black-robed key-wielding Jedi figure and Maleficent and Pete From Goof Troop lead armies of shadow to destroy the Beast's castle and where you can fight Sephiroth in the coloseum made for training Disney's Hercules to really work. And it's a convoluted mess, but it kind of pulls it off! A new narrative, new characters, a good 'verse...yeah, it's pretty juicy as a setting and as a set of stories.

...and it's still pretty lame on the face of it. One of the things one always says about Kingdom Hearts is that it's a lot better than it sounds.

(and, one of the reasons it kind of pulls it off, is because it isn't interested in mimicing the experience of watching Mulan or Playing FF7 or whatever - it's using Mulan and Cloud for it's own purposes)

Even if this was the best adventure since ever, it would still have that little asterisk next to it that says "Okay, guys, I know this sounds bad, but it's actually really great!"

And with a start of "Let's put the ToH in FR!" I'm not filled with a whole lot of confidence.

That lack of confidence is what I'm voicing.

I expect that whatever they do decide to do with the Tomb, it won't contradict what's come before. So I don't expect that it will be them taking the Tomb from Greyhawk and dropping it in FR, as you describe. Instead, I expect that this will be some kind of expansion on Acererak's plans...him setting something up on another world in some way. Which, given his goals and the purpose of the Tomb and the scope of his plans, actually makes a lot of sense.

As for crossovers, sure, many of them stink. Many are forced. But is a story set within a fictional world that already involves all the elements in play actually a crossover? Or is it just a story that uses more of the fictional lore than other stories might?

I don't know anything about Kingdom Hearts beyond the very basics. But it's not what sprang to mind when I heard about this.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I can't help but chuckle at the irony of people complaining about plug+dropping GH material into FR when the best quality of GH was being able to plug+drop material directly into it or take GH material and plug+drop it into a homebrew world. I don't think we were alone when we played with our own campaign world, and used all of those iconic modules in our world with absolutely no fuss.

Let's be real, players have been taking GH material and putting it into other worlds since day 1.

 

[Ath'kethin]

I would absolutely love a good jungle-themed adventure, with tons of dinosaurs and snake dudes and whatever. You know what I'd love even more: to have it be an adventure, and not a freaking campaign. Put it in the Kitchen Sink, I don't care. Just for the love of Gary, make it something that can be dropped into an established campaign and not something that IS an entire campaign by itself.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I expect that whatever they do decide to do with the Tomb, it won't contradict what's come before. So I don't expect that it will be them taking the Tomb from Greyhawk and dropping it in FR, as you describe. Instead, I expect that this will be some kind of expansion on Acererak's plans...him setting something up on another world in some way. Which, given his goals and the purpose of the Tomb and the scope of his plans, actually makes a lot of sense.


As for crossovers, sure, many of them stink. Many are forced. But is a story set within a fictional world that already involves all the elements in play actually a crossover? Or is it just a story that uses more of the fictional lore than other stories might?

I don't know anything about Kingdom Hearts beyond the very basics. But it's not what sprang to mind when I heard about this.

I was just trying to find an example of a crossover that I thought was still pretty good, despite that fact. And I've always said that the adventure could still be good! I just don't have much cause for optimism when the extent of what we know about it factually so far is "The Tomb of Horrors is in Chult."

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Waldorf!

http://www.greyhawkonline.com/wogcomic/title/wogstrip149b.htm

For my part, I think Chult would be a cool setting for an adventure. Tomb of Horrors itself was never that tied to a setting by its content, even if it feels a bit wrong for it not to be in Greyhawk.

Greyhawk was consumed by that one wizard who ended up reaching a ridiculously high level and having the gods toil away in his salt mines. They managed to get quite a few people and places to hide out in FR though.

 

[Parmandur]

I was just trying to find an example of a crossover that I thought was still pretty good, despite that fact. And I've always said that the adventure could still be good! I just don't have much cause for optimism when the extent of what we know about it factually so far is "The Tomb of Horrors is in Chult."

The analogy is problematic, as Greyhawk is not to the Realms as Mulan is to FFVII, but more as Marvel Brroklyn is to the Marvel Bronx.

Also, Kingdom Hearts is cool because of the gonzo crossovers, not in spite of that awesomeness.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I was just trying to find an example of a crossover that I thought was still pretty good, despite that fact. And I've always said that the adventure could still be good! I just don't have much cause for optimism when the extent of what we know about it factually so far is "The Tomb of Horrors is in Chult."

I guess for me it makes me wonder about how and why that came to be. Yeah, there's a real world answer that's maybe a bit boring and revolves around them trying to sell a product. But if we really want to we can boil everything they do down to an attempt to make a buck. So rather than do that, my mind focuses on the story possibilities...I immediately think of Cordell's "Return to the Tomb of Horrors" adventure...and then the ideas just start piling up.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The analogy is problematic, as Greyhawk is not to the Realms as Mulan is to FFVII, but more as Marvel Brroklyn is to the Marvel Bronx.

Also, Kingdom Hearts is cool because of the gonzo crossovers, not in spite of that awesomeness.

Not sure I agree, but it might be worth looking at "good crossovers" to see what they do right and how they avoid some pitfalls.

Like, one thing I like about KH is that the crossover elements are clearly appropriated for the story that the creators wanted to tell. Most of those crossover characters are minor characters in the narrative - the true heroes and villains are all unique. This hypothetical crossover adventure could steal that by making the ToH a headquarters for a new villain - one with more relevance to heroes from the Realms.

I immediately think of Cordell's "Return to the Tomb of Horrors" adventure...and then the ideas just start piling up.

That's good! Clearly, if the adventure is good, everything will turn out better than my gloom & doom here. But all "The Tomb of Horrors is in Chult" says to me is "We're out of ideas." I might eat crow on that, but if I do it will at least be while playing or running a good adventure.

For me, WotC can't just say "Hey, we're doing Tomb of Horrors again, but this time it's in the Forgotten Realms!" and get me hype. Kind of does the opposite. Kind of tosses cold water on both of those things and makes me not want to do either one. But a good adventure could overcome that.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Not sure I agree, but it might be worth looking at "good crossovers" to see what they do right and how they avoid some pitfalls.

Like, one thing I like about KH is that the crossover elements are clearly appropriated for the story that the creators wanted to tell. Most of those crossover characters are minor characters in the narrative - the true heroes and villains are all unique. This hypothetical crossover adventure could steal that by making the ToH a headquarters for a new villain - one with more relevance to heroes from the Realms.


That's good! Clearly, if the adventure is good, everything will turn out better than my gloom & doom here. But all "The Tomb of Horrors is in Chult" says to me is "We're out of ideas." I might eat crow on that, but if I do it will at least be while playing or running a good adventure.

For me, WotC can't just say "Hey, we're doing Tomb of Horrors again, but this time it's in the Forgotten Realms!" and get me hype. Kind of does the opposite. Kind of tosses cold water on both of those things and makes me not want to do either one. But a good adventure could overcome that.

Fair enough. I don't think that "crossovers" (I don't really look at this tad one, but I'll go with it for ease of reference) are automatically good by nature, so I can get your concern.

However, I don't know if WOTC has really done what you said. They've dropped a couple of hints of some kind of connection, but they haven't put it forth as an actual adventure yet. If and when they do, my guess is it will amount to a bit more than "We're doing Tomb of Horrors again, but this time in FR!"

 

[dave2008]

For me, WotC can't just say "Hey, we're doing Tomb of Horrors again, but this time it's in the Forgotten Realms!"

Is that what WotC said, or is it how some fans are interpreting what was said?