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

[merelycompetent]

These are actually detectable, but you need magic to do so.

How, exactly, do you do this in 1e? Do you walk through the entire dungeon at a crawl using the

Spoiler

gem of seeing found in the gargoyle arm?

If so, how is this vaguely cleverness-inducing as opposed to just dull? I don't mind one or two secret doors; I mind a forest of them for no purpose other than to induce tedium.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the module itself says that it will take several sessions of playing to complete. It even recommends camping near the entrance to replenish spells and hitpoints (page 2, under Notes for the Dungeon Master, 2nd para). I won't go further about the wandering monsters, so I don't spoil the fun for others, other than to say that we took precautions against wandering monsters like any experienced (and paranoid) party would.

So in answer to your question: YES, you go through the entire dungeon at a crawl, using every trick in your arsenal, built up over playing your character for 10-14 levels, plus coming up with some new ones. You are assumed to be *very* familiar with your character and the ins and outs of his abilities and spells. You spend game *days*, usually outside the tomb recovering from a trap or trick we'd triggered, and multiple sessions of play time, searching the place carefully. We spent a weekend, 2 days, playing about 6 hours a day, going through it. If you rush in, you die. This is spelled out in the module's DM notes. As for detecting the secret doors, it was easy:

Spoiler

We used several Knock spells: "Knock (Alteration) Level: 2, Range: 6", Duration: Special, Area of Effect: 10 square feet/level, Components: V, Casting Time: 1 segment, Saving Throw: None.

"Explanation/Description: The knock spell will open stuck or held or wizard-locked doors. It will also open barred or otherwise locked doors. It causes secret doors to open. The knock spell will also open locked or trick opening boxes or chests. It will loose shackles or chains as well. If it used to open a wizard-locked door, the knock does not remove the former spell, but it simply suspends its functioning for 1 turn. In all other cases, the knock will permanently open locks or welds - although the former could be closed and locked again thereafter. It will not raise bars or similar impediments ( such as a portcullis). The spell will perform two functions, but if a door is locked, barred, and held, opening it will require two knock spells. (1E PHB, p70)"

Note that by the spell description, the secret door only needs to be in the area of effect, and if it is only shut, or shut and locked, it will swing open. We had our thief listening carefully in the AoE for any clicks or scrapes indicating locks or latches coming undone for secret/hidden doors that had multiple latches or locks. Worked for all those areas where we failed the d6 rolls. On the occasions where this trick didn't work, a couple of divination spells and (when we got impatient) a Rock to Mud did the trick. We had secret door detection down to about 5 minutes of real-time.

As for the no-save poisons, we went in prepped with Slow Poison (2nd lvl Cleric spell, duration 1 hour/lvl, for a total of 10-14 hours of poison semi-immunity). This gave us ample time to use Neutralize Poison and avoid the bad effects of the sleep gas the first time I played through.

Yes, there are some outright 1E rules violations (auto-hitting traps that do minimal damage, critters that always attack first, etc), but none of them are insurmountable or deadly by themselves -- unless the PCs have rushed things and not spent time recovering and recouping.

The spell description does. You can't use 1e stone shape to open holes in things.

Puzzles and traps we couldn't solve: We circumvented them with passwall, stone shape, Rock to Mud, or the like.

From 1E PHB, p81: "By means of this spell, the magic-user can form an existing piece of stone into a shape which will suit his or her purposes. For example, a stone weapon can be made, a special trapdoor fashioned, or an idol sculpted. By the same token, it would allow the spell caster to reshape a stone door, perhaps, so as to escape imprisonment, providing the volume of stone involved was within the limits of the area of effect. While stone coffers can thus be formed, secret doors made, etc., the fineness of detail is not great..."

While it uses about 3x as many words as it needs to, that pretty much tells me the caster can use stone shape to open holes in things. A strict reading would say that it can make a door or lid (closed), it amounts to the same thing - can't get past the magic portal thing? Stone shape a door next to it. We used this to bypass several of the traps in the tomb.

The boring pits: Once we found an area with pits and similar traps, our wizard laid down a Wall of Stone on the floor and we simply walked across it (still checking for traps in case we missed a tripwire our RBDM set 1' above the original floor, or in case the entire area was one giant pressure plate). This did result in some backtracking on occasion, and some digging through a Wall of Stone, but that's why we brought along a Dwarven cleric with a magic warhammer, and lots of iron spikes.

For the time period when the module came out, these were the tricks of the adventuring trade. If your preferences ran towards puzzles, then it was fun. If your preferences didn't, then you weren't going to enjoy it. The module author(s) recognized this even back then - it's printed in all caps in the module's DM notes.

ToH has some very imaginative and challenging traps and tricks, but overall, its real challenges to player creativity pale before something like Lost Tomb of Martek or Descent into the Depths of the Earth.

Lost Tomb of Martek was also a lot of fun, but for us it lacked the real risk of PC death. Don't get me wrong - we enjoyed the heck out of LToM (so much so that most of us players went on to DM it for more players, when our gaming club started growing). It was more 1E rules compliant (as I recall, IDHTBIFOM), so that made it *much* easier to run, IMO. We cheered more for ToH when we beat a trick/trap, and gnashed our teeth harder when we sprung one. LToM also had more of a hack and slash feel to it. Descent is also a classic module that we enjoyed immensely. But it is a logistics puzzle for a special ops military campaign against the Drow. ToH is a puzzle fest leading up to a confrontation with a BBEG. They're very different types of adventures.

 

[ruleslawyer]

See, you guys used clever solutions to make it through. That's impressive. My biggest problem is that the traps don't demand this sort of cleverness to get through; you can just randomly blunder your way through.

Don't really agree on the wording of either of the spells mentioned, though; I still think you need to cast knock on a known door (since it only opens a portal, how is the spell supposed to know which door to open if there are two or more within range?) and stone shape's still not suggesting to me that you can make holes in things. But okay.

 

[merelycompetent]

Thank you very much for the compliments. I wish all of my old group were still with us so I could pass them on, but time and life have scattered us. As for blundering through the traps, I think I'll have to agree to disagree on that. My first trip through, we planned very carefully. My second trip through, with a different group of players and DM, we didn't plan so carefully and were massacred.

Don't really agree on the wording of either of the spells mentioned, though; I still think you need to cast knock on a known door (since it only opens a portal, how is the spell supposed to know which door to open if there are two or more within range?) and stone shape's still not suggesting to me that you can make holes in things. But okay.

I quoted the spell text for a reason. It explicitly addresses secret doors in the spell description, not just a portal. Nor is there a requirement anywhere in the spell info that you have to see the secret door - only that it be within the area of effect. Ruling that you have to cast it on a known door is a house rule - it does not exist anywhere else within the 1E PHB or DMG (that I know of). A DM is certainly entitled to do this.

Your next point is a valid one: What if 2 secret doors are within range? Well, the spell description specifically states that it will affect *a* secret door (meaning only one). That would call for a DM ruling (and generate a house rule). The first time I played through ToH, our RBDM ruled that only the closest door would be affected. The second time, our RBDM rolled randomly to determine which door was affected. Fortunately, an open secret door can't be affected by a 1E Knock spell a second time (it's already unlatched and unlocked), so we were still able to use multiple castings to make the secret doors a non-obstacle.

It's late, and I'm too tired to type straight, so I'll stope here. Good gaming to you!

 

[wilrich]

See, I have trouble with the poem as well as puzzles in dungeons that have clues. Why would a demi-lich or anybody else put such things in their dungeons? If the point was to keep people out, then the last thing you'd do is put clues to help them get through it. That is bad design if your design criteria is versimilitude.

YES YES YES! Quoted for truth -- contrived, arbitrary challenges!!

 

[Jim Hague]

I voted no. I hate this kind of module design with a passion, for exactly the same reason I despise the way a lot of riddles are used in other modules - I am not my character. My character can be expected to know things I don't, and vice versa. Modules like the Tomb strongarm players into meta-gaming - a bad habit to establish - and then punish them with arbitrary 'puzzles' (which aren't) and rule-breaking 'in your face!' traps. It's nothing more than an old-school ego trip, an exercise in the GM telling their players to suck it, and as such is pretty much garbage as far as my playstyle goes.

Funny, though...I think a lot of the grognards wahooing the Tomb are the same ones that complain about the 'wussy, video game feel' of 3.x. The Tomb and similar modules are what those video games you despise so much grew out of, complete with crappy, lethal traps, arbitrary guesswork and 'save points' - like going back and camping at the entrance. It's like playing Wizardry I or the early Ultima games all over again. Irony, thy name is 'old school'.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Thank you very much for the compliments. I wish all of my old group were still with us so I could pass them on, but time and life have scattered us. As for blundering through the traps, I think I'll have to agree to disagree on that. My first trip through, we planned very carefully. My second trip through, with a different group of players and DM, we didn't plan so carefully and were massacred.

Interesting. I'm just wondering how the planning part works, though. Unless you *know* you're going through a trap-heavy dungeon, are you really going to consider preparing (er, memorizing) four knock spells, two passwalls, and a stone shape a good idea? Isn't it more about reactive ingenuity?

I quoted the spell text for a reason. It explicitly addresses secret doors in the spell description, not just a portal. Nor is there a requirement anywhere in the spell info that you have to see the secret door - only that it be within the area of effect. Ruling that you have to cast it on a known door is a house rule - it does not exist anywhere else within the 1E PHB or DMG (that I know of). A DM is certainly entitled to do this.

Yeah, I think I buy these interpretations on second reading. My major issue with the secret doors was that they're so bloody hard to find in 1e/2e, meaning that you have vast stretches of game time where the PCs travel the same set of corridors again and again looking for secret doors (including at least one in a pit) that they might have missed. This is 90% of the boredom that I mention experiencing running this module. The actual fatalities were 1) the sleep gas trap (that one's just mean, and I still call BS on it); 2) the crown ("touch the crown to the scepter" is just a mean, mean partial-info-designed-to-kill-you move!); and 3) of course, the demilich.

It's late, and I'm too tired to type straight, so I'll stope here. Good gaming to you!

And to you. I think you've sold me on how ToH can work with skilled players; my own experiences (two very skilled groups that were just bored and had some casual, non-suspenseful PC killings, and one not-so-skilled group that had a great time in part because they treated the whole thing like a big joke) were a bit less sanguine.

 

[Mark Hope]

With respect to the crown and the sceptre - the groups I played in got past this also - but it is arbitrary. Gold to gold and silver to silver seem to make perfect sense - but given what players had gone through to get to this point why should it be that easy? It could just as easily have been silver to gold. And thats not the real problem - its later outside of the throne room where you have to use the sceptre and there is no clue as to which end you use - so you can either guess, rely on a less the perfect augury, or hope you still have a henchman left to sacrifice.

I am thinking that any absolutes regarding the sceptre/crown must be treated as anecdotal. A few people have mentioned being stumped (or killed) by this, so that's clearly a possible outcome. But there are also those who have been able to reason their way through, so we can't discount that either. In my game, the player figured out the like-to-like element of touching the silver knob to the silver inlay, and then used the gold knob on the door through a process of elimination, reasoning that the silver end had already played its part. I'll agree that this can seem arbitrary to some, but given that I've witnessed it being reasoned out, the opposite interpretation is also possible.

As for the idea that its a myth that you can't reason your way through it, it is also a myth that there is no element of luck involved. As I posted earlier there is one point where we survivng 4 all failed our saves and basically could proceed no farther.

Agreed 100%. There are definitely places where luck is a factor (my game ended in a TPK due to failed saves against the demilich, despite all the terribly clever reasoning before hand, lol). I've just been trying to illustrate that the ToH is not entirely arbitrary and can indeed be reasoned through.

Funny, though...I think a lot of the grognards wahooing the Tomb are the same ones that complain about the 'wussy, video game feel' of 3.x.

I wouldn't know about that. My take is that the ToH is a great example of the killer dungeon, with some fine design elements as well as its share of flaws. As for 3.5, I actually prefer the current edition of the game to previous editions.. You'll get no video-gamey babble from me .

(Cool discussion, folks. I might otherwise have pitched in on the side of those who see the ToH as largely arbitrary and daft, had I not happened to have run it a few days ago. Seeing my group crack the dungeon - er, demilich aside - was quite the eye-opener...)

 

[Melan]

See, I have trouble with the poem as well as puzzles in dungeons that have clues. Why would a demi-lich or anybody else put such things in their dungeons? If the point was to keep people out, then the last thing you'd do is put clues to help them get through it. That is bad design if your design criteria is versimilitude.

Although I can't claim to be authoritive on this module (nor can anyone except Gary Gygax himself), I am 100% sure the design criteria didn't have much to do with "verisimilitude". Before any serious analysis or review, this needs to be established; otherwise, criticism is like faulting Shakespeare for not writing in the style of, say, Márquez. Tomb of Horrors is designed as a place for players to explore and have fun, with a very specific design goal. Not taking this into account, the conclusions are inevitably faulty. That doesn't mean ToH is immune to critical review - far from it. Good points have been made on both sides. However, it shouldn't be criticised based on design goals which were almost certainly missing at the time of its inception.

 

[Hussar]

Hang on Melan. That's not entirely fair. While it's true that those earlier modules weren't exactly teeming with "verisimilitude", that isn't to say that the were all just random collections of encounters for fun either. By and large, there was at least a nod in the direction of why things are there.

But, by the same token, if it is true that the concept of verisimilitude was absent from these early modules, wouldn't that be a design flaw right off the shot. In other words, is a juvenile (oh man is THAT a loaded word - I mean early, unmature (ah crap), dammit my English is failing) form of adventure immune to criticism simply because it is an earlier form?

Land Beyond the Magic Mirror is a completely nonsensical adventure. But, it's SUPPOSED to be non-sensical. That's the point. TOH isn't supposed to be nonsensical though. It's meant to be a giant Rubics Cube of gaming that eats PC's. Shouldn't elements which don't make sense (ie hurt verisimilitude) be criticised?

One thing that always got me was the snakes in that damn chest. I always wondered who fed them?

 

[Treebore]

Has anyone asked Gary in his Q&A thread if he remembers why he designed it the way it is?

Seeing so many similarities of design in his 3e Necropolis book, I would think Gary had solid reasons to make at least the traps the way he did.

I know he has said that not every obstacle should be able to be overcome.

Anyways, see if he can be drawn into a discussion on the design decisions behind Tomb. Just make sure your courteous or he will ignore you.