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".

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[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."

 

[howandwhy99]

S1 is one of the greatest game modules of all time. It does however contain many flaws. A good DM can fix these and balance the module to fit capably within a well designed system. But I think most present day DMs don't even understand the basics of the actual original D&D game to begin to do so.

The flaws with the module are excused, I think, because this is the first adventure module of its kind ever. And it is exceptionally good in many respects that it didn't have to be. The wargaming sensibility of a 6-armed gargoyle more powerful than the PCs, but trapped in its room due to size. Hidden pit traps and multiple directions used over and over again and not boringly or with repetition (one secret passage is even hidden in a pit). Look at the pearl string of rooms themselves. There are more interesting pieces here than in S2 and every bit as challenging.

One of Gygax's flaws was he had a tendency to release the very highest level modules at beginning of a game's publication. Which makes it very hard to use such designs early on as all players are still new to the system and not adept to even judge the quality of such a high level, difficult, and complex design. Expectations of what the players can do because of intimate familiarity of a game's design is essential to crafting any high level game module. And even when completed it still must be developed / playtested by high end players proficient with that particular game. "Break this please"

I think the module would have been better served publishing it later after a few years of players getting PCs up to those levels and knowledgeable about the game. But I wasn't around at that time, so I don't know. Perhaps the potency of the wargaming community's hard won design philosophies could have been enough to justify early publication? I know there's plenty of solidly balanced game design in ToH that most people I know just flat out miss.

 

[GameDaddy]

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.

Not here it hasn't. Economics makes it possible to run Fiefs, Settlements, Kingdoms, and Empires. This has been an integral part of many of the campaigns that I have hosted as a GM, that goes all the way back to 1978. Judges Guild worked out some basic Barony rules for settlers arriving at your stronghold, seeking charters, business grants, and land grants. There was a base figure for annual taxation collection based on civilization level times the total population. These funds were then used to hire soldiers and police, and other government officials, and also reinvested with the settlers to generate additional incomes.

The players have to feed and house their workers and fighters directly, but can use the taxes as they see fit in emergencies as they are the Barons, after all. Too much taxation and the peasants rebel sabotaging tax collection efforts and killing guards, police, and government officials. Too little taxation and the community stagnates, with settlers relocating for better opportunities. Some players used magic to help their development, some don't.

Made the game more interesting too... What about that next great quest or adventure? Have to put it off, because just about now, your finance minister just came to you and told you that a neighboring Warlord had just raided the Western Castle, burned the settlement there, and killed about a third of your troops. The rest of your troops are currently holed up there under siege and are just hanging on, and by-the-way, there's a pack of Werewolves on the North Frontier that have attacked the farms there...

But enough of this... Back to the main thread...

Tomb of Horrors totally sucked. I played in it twice literally the day it was released, but never ran it as a GM. As a group we never played it again after that one evening too, so as far as an adventure module goes because of it's limited use, It was one of the most expensive we ever bought. Contrast this to B1 Into the Unknown, or B4 Lost City, Frontier Forts of Kelnore, or Hommlet, and even Forge of Fury which we used over, and over, and over again with slight variations of course... I still use these sandbox modules today, with brand new players, and they really enjoy it! You will never see me run Tomb of Horrors though, and here is why;

Tomb of Horrors is exactly what we never wanted in an adventure, It's just a death railroad, a meat grinder designed to tear up high level characters, It's the Kobayashi Maru of D&D where you literally have to cheat to win. It was the first of what is now known as misery tourism games, one where there is no positive outcome. It changed D&D made it much more about winning and losing, and much less about just playing the game. I could see it being useful at a convention game where players could get bragging rights about having survived the longest, in a Survivor type scenario, but for campaign play... pretty much useless, unless of course, you are a GM looking to kill off high level characters. This has no other purpose or use beyond that.

This pretty much ensured that TSR never got money for adventure modules or dungeons from me, as I judged them partly based on what they had created with Tomb of Horrors. This was just one other thing that held me back from adopting 1e AD&D as the standard, and what kept me out of the mainstream, where I continued to play and run 0D&D or B/X games. This is part of the reason I still prefer creating homebrew game material... because I can write so much better Adventures, and create much better Dungeons than this pile-o-steaming you know what...

 

[Zak S]

you literally have to cheat to win.

Again: are you assuming the people who report winning without cheating are lying?

And all the people who are reporting from tournaments, games, etc are helping them lie in order to deceive you?

How deep do you believe this conspiracy goes?

 

[GameDaddy]

Wasn't talking about cheating exclusively at tournaments, was talking about cheating in general... Also, I'm not accusing anyone here, just made some observations about what actually occurred at our gaming table, Cheating increased dramatically at our gaming table as I watched players trying to figure out completely new out-of-game or metagaming ways to get through the Tomb of Horrors alive...

You should write a whole new total deathtrap adventure like Tomb of Horrors, there's a couple of completely new generation of GMs who would pony up some serious cash just to run a game like this for their gaming peeps, just so they could kill every character in the party, and feel smugly superior without actually having the chops to create such an adventure on their own.

Better though, to create a much higher quality of adventure where the players at least have a chance out of the gate of winning, if they play well, are creative, or if they are exceptionally good at teamwork.

 

[Zak S]

Wasn't talking about cheating exclusively at tournaments, was talking about cheating in general... Also, I'm not accusing anyone here, just made some observations about what actually occurred at our gaming table, Cheating increased dramatically at our gaming table as I watched players trying to figure out completely new out-of-game or metagaming ways to get through the Tomb of Horrors alive...

So when you wrote:

"you literally have to cheat to win."

you actually didn't meant that at all and meant to say

"revealed the willingness of players in my group to cheat because it was hard"?

 

[werecorpse]

Hey Zak S. What were you referring to a half dozen or so posts up when you said that you couldn't believe in 2016 there are people who still do "this"?

 

[Zak S]

Hey Zak S. What were you referring to a half dozen or so posts up when you said that you couldn't believe in 2016 there are people who still do "this"?

Pick apart the practicalities and economics of things built by crazy wizards for inexplicable crazy reasons (in-world) and transparently to create a challenge for players (out of world) as if the quality of the product depended on that.

 

[GameDaddy]

So when you wrote:

"you literally have to cheat to win."

you actually didn't meant that at all and meant to say

"revealed the willingness of players in my group to cheat because it was hard"?

No, with the original as written, you literally had to cheat to win.

This was my total experience with it...

We had about fourteen peeps show up for this game, one GM. High School. Friday Night Party. We would drink, and party on, and play. He started with a party of 8, I didn't play in the first round, just rolled up a 10th level character instead. I wasn't even finished before the entire first party was dead.

I played in the second round and died before reaching the Chapel. The GM claimed no one could survive, so I sat out the third round and just watched another group of fellow players try again. While this was going on, The other players tried real hard to get the GM completely drunk. They also tried many different tricks to get him away from the table so they could get a look at the module to foresee what was coming, because no one could even guess. We just knew it would be lethal.

Back then there was no websites to go through that contained detailed walk-throughs, nor were there I-phones and androids to look up cheat codes or player tip sites.

The second time, I brought my favorite 18th level Wizard. I had spent about three years of weekends playing this Wizard, and had actually worked him up from 1st level...

Lasted longer in the second round. Made it to the Portal, and then got hosed by the Sphere of Annihilation. No save allowed. That was simply a Dead Wizard Walking. 18th level. Three years of gaming done. ...in 30 minutes.

I quit playing for the night after that, just went back to the party-in-progress instead. later on, the GM loaned me the module so I could get a look at the whole adventure. No one else ever ran it.

The players that did finally make it through that night played almost until dawn. They just kept dying, and rolling up new characters, and going to the next deathtrap, until they died. Wash, rinse, and repeat until they met the Lich. And they all died a couple times there too...

 

[Zak S]

No, with the original as written, you literally had to cheat to win.

This was my total experience with it...

So are you or are you not saying that when other people say they beat it without cheating they were lying?

Because "You have to cheato win" ("have to") and "My experience" ("we had to") are conflicting statements.

 

[GameDaddy]

So are you or are you not saying that when other people say they beat it without cheating they were lying?

Because "You have to cheato win" ("have to") and "My experience" ("we had to") are conflicting statements.

A player could win if they knew what was going to happen ahead of time. How would they know, unless they had looked at the module?

Play it often enough and you could "Win", by leaving a trail of corpses behind. If you actually had to work your characters up to tenth level, instead of just rolling them up I'd say no way.

Most of us back then actually worked our characters up, and wouldn't use a character in a game or adventure unless they had legitimately survived.

Iron man. For tabletop adventures. Imagine that.