Is the original Tomb of Horrors a well-designed adventure module?

[Mark Hope]

For instance, there is no other way to figure out what end of the scepter to touch to the crown. Is there a reason why gold should work and silver not, or vice versa?

Just referring to this point, I really can't agree with you. You touch the silver end of the sceptre to the silver crown or the gold end to the gold crown. That's it. What is so crushingly difficult about that? Maybe not everyone will figure it out, but I saw someone do just that the other day. There's a lot to be said about the ToH and its lack of suitability for regular D&D play, but the myth that players cannot reason their way through it is just that - a myth.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Ehren, we ran into this before, and up until this point I've seen no problem with what you've been saying, but can you please stop the name-calling of "hypocrites," calling a fellow poster immature, etc.? I can understand not liking the module, and your reasons why, but sinking to the name-calling is a little much, especially since the person you were replying to didn't go there, either.

It's been going pretty well, but I'd rather not see it degenerate into an insult-fest.

Thank you.

Every thread I've been in has begun with a fellow long time gamer making snide remarks on the way the game is played now, how players are coddled, how players want things to be handed to them, etc. I'm frankly quite sick of it. If older gamers dont like being called on it, stop espousing elitist attitudes.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

And why I voted yes.




Quote:
Originally Posted by Hussar
It does little or nothing to actually play to the characters, and mostly tests the players.

Bingo. That's why I voted "no".

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Just referring to this point, I really can't agree with you. You touch the silver end of the sceptre to the silver crown or the gold end to the gold crown. That's it. What is so crushingly difficult about that?

The fact that if you touch the silver end to the silver part while wearing it, the wearer is killed (no save), but if you touch the silver part to the crown when no one is wearing it, the secret door opens up is my issue with these particular items. It just seems random to me, and I dont remember any riddles giving a clue. If you're out of auguries at that point (or *gasp* didnt memorize them in preparation for a "One True Path" style module), its a toss up.

Its not something intuitive, or requiring players to use resources in an unconventional fashion, like casting a healing spell to staunch the flow of blood in one trap (giving credit where its due), or from the Mud Sorcerer's Tomb, using sleep, eyebite or blind to defeat the wall of crying eyes.

 

[Mark Hope]

The fact that if you touch the silver end to the silver part while wearing it, the wearer is killed (no save), but if you touch the silver part to the crown when no one is wearing it, the secret door opens up is my issue with these particular items. It just seems random to me, and I dont remember any riddles giving a clue. If you're out of auguries at that point (or *gasp* didnt memorize them in preparation for a "One True Path" style module), its a toss up.

Er, what? That's not how it works at all. The only way you can die from the sceptre/crown is if you wear the gold crown and then touch it with the silver end of the sceptre.

No, there are no riddles for this part, but the connection between gold crown/silver crown on the throne and gold ball/silver ball on the sceptre is pretty straightforward. Maybe not obvious, but certainly not beyond the realms of reason.

No wonder that you seem to have such an issue with this adventure - you don't seem able to actually recall its contents very well, do you?

 

[Raven Crowking]

I love 1e, but I voted "No". Modules like Village of Hommlet, Keep on the Borderlands, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Cult of the Reptile God, Isle of Dread, Dwellers of the Forbidden City, Endless Stair, Against the Giants, the original Ravenloft, Secret of Bone Hill, Eye of the Serpent......those were the ones I would call good design.

RC

BTW, while I wouldn't call myself stupid by any means, that sceptre/crown thing did kill one of the PCs I was playing.

 

[Vigilance]

Definitely a "yes" for me.

We actually had a party go through ToH without a single fatality. That's right.

We had a player who was VERY paranoid, anytime a player would reach to touch a tapestry she would yell "don't it's a trap!" and tackle them. Everyone thought she was just insanely paranoid until ToH.

ToH is an almost perfect module imo. You're not paranoid. The dungeon IS out to get you. Wimps can stay home.

Chuck

 

[gizmo33]

I should realize that answering a dude with a screen name of "ruleslawyer" is a chancy thing on this subject, but I'll try

There's a big difference between changing flavor text, demographics, or... well, anything campaign-related and arbitrarily changing the way the rules work a number of times in combination.

I think it depends what you mean by "arbitrary" which seems subjective. I'm not sure how a gem that can't be found with see invisible is "breaking" some rule. There's no rule that says that see invisibility actually sees everything with an invisibility spell on it. Non-detection, for instance will mask it. Granted, the actual spell used in this case was not specified, but if you bought "Arms and Equipment Guide II" and it had an entry for the "Camougem: a gem that is immune to divination" would you be complaining? Aren't ALL rules at some level campaign-related?

That's why almost every DM I know tells the players what his house rules are.

I wouldn't go out of my way to tell players about Camougems. I wouldn't tell them about how any spell works that they can't cast (most of the ones used to build the Tomb). I don't tell PCs about how a spell affects a monster, and I wouldn't tell them if I changed to rules in the Monster Manual (although they'd get the normal Knowledge checks). In 3E days, a Knowledge (Arcana) check might be in order for an anti-magic area that behaves strangley, but there were no such skill checks in 1E.

ToH actually confounds player cleverness by mucking with the rules.

AFAIK the rules of any edition don't rule out camougems. A DM, IMO, who just combines random elements from the PHB in order to create a dungeon is missing some of the point of being a DM.

Also, don't you think a demi-lich would try to confound the normal actions of an adventurer? He's not really trying to protect himself from commoners, is he?

Take the Wand of Wonder for instance (or Rod now is it?) I suppose that if it were responsible for the deaths of countless PCs that people would starting writing WotC to demand an explanation for why the Wand works the way it does. But they don't and I suspect that somehow they're able to imagine that there's some logic behind it's operation (even the "logic of Chaos"). It seems strange to me to expect an explanation from ToH.

Normally sensible tactics are simply rendered useless without explanation

Explanation can be overrated (see camougems-above). In a campaign where there is more to magic than what's covered in the PHB, putting too much trust in a See Invisibility spell is not a "sensible tactic" IMO. Your post (and others along this line) continues, IMO, the somewhat circular logic of assuming that the players are entitled to a dungeon built only on the core rules. Assumptions like this cause the frustration with the module.

, requiring, to quote Pants, "borderline ridiculous" (and, in the case of Robilar, boring and unimaginative) tactics to get through the module.

Is there a section in the rules that says which tactics are ridiculous and which ones aren't? Isn't building a huge wooden horse and hiding inside of it in order to conquer a city ridiculous?

I've run it several times and it ends up just being boring and frustrating for the players and myself.

No problem there - dungeon crawls in this vein aren't for everyone, but that's not the same thing as bad design. All of Dragonlance would be a bad design IMO if not liking it were the same thing.

IMHO, running ToH requires far more in the way of luck than skill. Thus, I simply can't agree that it makes for a good player test.

I'm not one of the people saying "ToH requires skill and people that don't get it are n00bs". It's a killer dungeon, almost certainly (by admission of the author too IIRC).

 

[ruleslawyer]

"Killer dungeon" is fine. "Dungeon that requires arbitrary solutions or dumb luck to navigate" is not, IMHO.

I'm not really so concerned about the "camougem" (especially since the "riddle" tells you how to get around that) or advocating that dungeons contain no non-standard rules situations or items. That is a rather unfair presumption on your part. I *am,* however, concerned with the idea of a dungeon that involves plenty of situations that neither an understanding of the rules nor basic logic has a role in overcoming, and ToH is (as ehren37 put it in his, er, inimicable fashion) loaded with such situations. I'm not fond of the overabundance of "there's a 1-in-x chance that you just die without any chance to deduce a way out or avoid your fate" situations in the module.

For instance, the poem in ToH provides some room for PC creativity and problem-solving. So does

Spoiler

the false lich encounter

. Some of the other encounters

Spoiler

(the devil mouth)

are just obvious "don't be stupid" plays. No problem with any of those. The pits? The undetectable secret-door accesses? The unsavable sleep gas? The so-called "puzzles" that involve mere trial-and-error approaches? The

Spoiler

slot door that can take a ring, coin, or gem and thus requires pure guesswork to bypass?

All bad adventure design in my book.

I see ToH's relation to a challenging module as being analogous to someone making a silly and baiting argument as opposed to a cogent, persuasive one. Both kinds can confound responses, but for bad reasons in the first case and good ones in the second.

Finally, the Trojan Horse is probably not the analogy you're looking for, for several reasons:

1) It features in a myth, not a game intended for the enjoyment of the players and DM
2) It has a very good and sensible (quite non-ridiculous) place in that myth. The horse is the symbol of Poseidon, and a common object of sacrifice to that god, who (along with Athena) was a patron of the Achaean besiegers. Thus, it was seen as an auspicious object to the Greeks, and the Trojans would thus naturally covet it (and seek to bring it into the city walls) because it represented an object of reverence to their foes (and thus capturing it was a symbolic victory of sorts).

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Er, what? That's not how it works at all. The only way you can die from the sceptre/crown is if you wear the gold crown and then touch it with the silver end of the sceptre.

And yet, touching the silver end is what opens the door. Theres no internal logic. Thats my point. If you follow the ideas you set forth (like to like) the person dies. I remembered it just fine... its stupid and random.