Is TOMB OF HORRORS the Worst Adventure Of All Time?

Prevailing opinion here in the EN World community has traditionally held that the worst adventure module of all time is 1984's The Forest Oracle. 7th Sea designer John Wick (whose upcoming edition of 7th Sea is the third most anticipated tabletop RPG of 2016) vehemently disagrees; he nominates the classic adventure Tomb of Horrors for that position, contending that it "represents all the wrong, backward thinking that people have about being a GM." In an article on his blog (warning: this uses a lot of strong language), he goes into great detail as to why he hold this opinion, stating that the adventure is the "worst, &#@&$&@est, most disgusting piece of pig vomit ever published".

​

[lQ]"My players picked the entrance with the long corridor rather than the two other entrances which are instant kills. That’s right, out of the three ways to enter the tomb, two of them are designed to give the GM the authority for a TPK."[/lQ]

Very strong words, and you can read them all here. As I mentioned before, there's lots of NSFW language there.

The article also includes an anecdote about a convention game in which he participated. In that game, being already familiar with the adventure and its traps (and having advised the DM of this), he played a thief and attempted to discover or deactivate the traps, up until a near TPK occurred and he left the game.

Wick is, of course, no stranger to controversy. A couple of years ago, he created widespread internet arguments when he stated that "The first four editions of D&D are not roleplaying games."

 

[Shades of Eternity]

man seriously on the fence.

tomb of horror represent a style of gameplay that isn't everybody's cup of tea. dubbed "fantasy vietnam" by some, it is a harsh assumption that everybody is out to kill you.

however, legend of the five rings (which john wick is partly responsible for) also has a lot of instant kill mechanics, but in a different way.

can't really call either right or wrong, but tomb of horror isn't the worst module by any stretch.

 

[Balesir]

What really puzzles me about ToH is that it's vulnerable to a party thinking as one of the groups of my acquaintance did (I wasn't playing with them that night, more's the pity).

There are doors in the place worth more than the "treasure". Seriously, calculate the volume and mass of the mithril "valves" (14' by 28' by 3' and specifically noted as "solid mithril"!*) and the adamantium "trick" door. The party simply went away and negotiated with a kingdom of dwarves to dig the hill in which the Tomb sat away completely. Simply erase it from the map. Remove every trap and wall from the outside in. The dwarves got the mithril, the party got the 'treasure'. Oh, and some shiny dwarven armour.



*: At a rough estimate, allowing for the doors to be non-rectangular and such, this amounts to over 1.25 million pounds of mithril. 12.5 million mithril coins in OD&D terms. That's a lot, even if you have to fight for it.

 

[pemerton]

The OP failed to understand what type of adventure he was running

<snip>

The module is all about how you approach it, and about what you get out of a game.

Are you more concerned with challenge, invoking a rise in heart rate and trepidation for your enjoyment, or are you a self-entitled monty-haul munchkin (or some variant of that)? Where you are in that range will determine your appreciation of the module.

Tomb of Horrors never suited the processed cheese always-encounter-fair-CR approach to gaming because it pre-existed it

So just to be clear - RPGers who don't like ToH are self-entitled monty-haul munchkins? Including the author of the 1975 A&E review, who played it at Origins in 1975?

 

[Zak S]

What really puzzles me about ToH is that it's vulnerable to a party thinking as one of the groups of my acquaintance did (I wasn't playing with them that night, more's the pity).

There are doors in the place worth more than the "treasure". Seriously, calculate the volume and mass of the mithril "valves" (14' by 28' by 3' and specifically noted as "solid mithril"!*) and the adamantium "trick" door. The party simply went away and negotiated with a kingdom of dwarves to dig the hill in which the Tomb sat away completely. Simply erase it from the map. Remove every trap and wall from the outside in. The dwarves got the mithril, the party got the 'treasure'. Oh, and some shiny dwarven armour.



*: At a rough estimate, allowing for the doors to be non-rectangular and such, this amounts to over 1.25 million pounds of mithril. 12.5 million mithril coins in OD&D terms. That's a lot, even if you have to fight for it.

How is that puzzling? Modules should be vulnerable to smart players

 

[Balesir]

How is that puzzling? Modules should be vulnerable to smart players

Sure, but it renders the place both irrelevant and impossible at once. How did the mithril - a substance that only dwarves are supposed to know how to craft - get there without the dwarves knowing of it? Why was there any trivial "treasure" at all given the economic might needed to make the doors to the final chamber? It just renders the whole place nonsensical, after you have gone through all the traps to get to the "final boss". The only real purpose of the doors seems to be that they are not openable without the key - and yet they both invite their own end and are economically barmy.

 

[Zak S]

Sure, but it renders the place both irrelevant and impossible at once. How did the mithril - a substance that only dwarves are supposed to know how to craft - get there without the dwarves knowing of it?

I can't believe that in 2016 there are still people who do this.

 

[Hussar]

Sure, but it renders the place both irrelevant and impossible at once. How did the mithril - a substance that only dwarves are supposed to know how to craft - get there without the dwarves knowing of it? Why was there any trivial "treasure" at all given the economic might needed to make the doors to the final chamber? It just renders the whole place nonsensical, after you have gone through all the traps to get to the "final boss". The only real purpose of the doors seems to be that they are not openable without the key - and yet they both invite their own end and are economically barmy.

Let's be honest here - that's a thought that wasn't even a consideration in adventure design of the time. D&D as economics simulation has been an exercise in futility since day 1. Trying to apply logic to these things fails miserably.

 

[Balesir]

Let's be honest here - that's a thought that wasn't even a consideration in adventure design of the time. D&D as economics simulation has been an exercise in futility since day 1. Trying to apply logic to these things fails miserably.

As a working system, absolutely - nor is there particular reason why it has to. But this doesn't even meet the basic requirement of making sense as a location for treasure grubbing by murder-hobos. Its "solution" is clear but has nothing to do with the foci of play in AD&D. It all boils down to the GM making a ruling (since AD&D has no actual rules for negotiation) either to arbitrarily and unreasonably refuse to negotiate as the dwarven king or to render the site null in the end.

I think it's just that it seems to have been formulated with blinkers on - with no consideration of the wider meaning of what has been put there. The game world thereby becomes inconsistent in one way or another due to the existence of the place.

 

[werecorpse]

I can't believe that in 2016 there are still people who do this.

Do what?

 

[Balesir]

I can't believe that in 2016 there are still people who do this.

It wasn't written in 2016, it was written in 1978. It was inconsistent by the measure of its own times. And it renders the game world inconsistent by its existence. It's just odd, considering the admonitions coming at GMs about world creation, around then.