Is the original Tomb of Horrors a well-designed adventure module?
- Thread starter Quasqueton
- Start date
Cake-walk
I voted yes, largely due to when it was written; with essentially no competition, it was the best published module of its time. I should note that if one were to choose a trap dungeon now, there are far better choices.
I ran it once in 2nd ed as part of Return to the Tomb of Horrors. The party actually found it to be pretty easy; far easier than a home-brew trap dungeon that I'd inflicted on them a few levels prior (which did result in a single death). For that matter, I frankly had to change a number of things so that it wouldn't be a cake-walk; the party had developed tactics by that point that would cremate any standard, non-reactive or weakly reactive dungeon (like the TOH).
I voted yes, largely due to when it was written; with essentially no competition, it was the best published module of its time. I should note that if one were to choose a trap dungeon now, there are far better choices.
I ran it once in 2nd ed as part of Return to the Tomb of Horrors. The party actually found it to be pretty easy; far easier than a home-brew trap dungeon that I'd inflicted on them a few levels prior (which did result in a single death). For that matter, I frankly had to change a number of things so that it wouldn't be a cake-walk; the party had developed tactics by that point that would cremate any standard, non-reactive or weakly reactive dungeon (like the TOH).
Getting back to the original questions
This is not to say that TOH is a wonderful trap dungeon- it isn't. There are better published ones out there, and I've created at least one home-brew one that I think is better. However, for many players at that time, it was challenging because it required those players to think in different ways than they were used to to solve the problems given to them.
It is nice when that is (rarely) replicated in a modern module.
The ability to make a module so challenging to players that it's remembered decades later. Few remember or care about the easy, or average ones; it's the exceptional ones (bad or good) that we remember. In the case of TOH, whether it's good or bad appears to be a matter of opinion.Quasqueton said:
The difficulty in completing it successfully while performing all their goals (like staying alive). Essentially, a module that dosen't teach weaker players something about how to play better really is doing a disservice to those players.Quasqueton said:
This is not to say that TOH is a wonderful trap dungeon- it isn't. There are better published ones out there, and I've created at least one home-brew one that I think is better. However, for many players at that time, it was challenging because it required those players to think in different ways than they were used to to solve the problems given to them.
It is nice when that is (rarely) replicated in a modern module.
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Gentlegamer
Adventurer
What are the better "trap dungeons" . . . ? I'm curious (being a fan of that sort of thing 
).
).Geoff Watson
First Post
Treebore said:
He explained it in one of the early Dragon magazines; it was to humilate and frustrate players who thought they were experts at the game.
Geoff.
Numion
First Post
Gentlegamer said:What are the better "trap dungeons" . . . ? I'm curious (being a fan of that sort of thing
Banewarrens has a trap-filled dungeon as the central part. It's not "only" a trap dungeon, though, because there's a plot and other locales too. IMO that adventure has the level of design most people should strive for.
Psychic Warrior
First Post
...by changing and making up rules to defeat them. Yeah I think I got that when I was trying to understand the byzantine manner 'saves' were handled for pits.Geoff Watson said:
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