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."

 

[Zak S]

Even as a tournament style module I think it sucks.

It's full of trial and error death.

The dungeon design is wonky.

There isn't anything intresting in it that isn't a "gotcha you died!"

Trial and error death is interesting if you like thinking of ways to safely perform trials.

 

[Lwaxy]

I loved playing through this. And we did play it with a long standing group. We did have a deux ex machina to rise our chars several times though. For some reason, our wizard never once died though. We were a bit higher in levels than suggested if I remember right, and 6 people.

 

[Paraxis]

I am not a fan of tomb of horrors myself, but we should take a moment that John Wick says crap like this to get attention, he is not a good game designer and not someone's opinion that should matter on what type of adventure you and your group enjoys. So don't give him the attention he so desperately wants and just have fun.

For those unaware he makes statements like this " Why? Because the designers had given up the ghost. D&D was not a roleplaying game. It was a very sophisticated, intricate and complicated combat simulation board game." and "Can you successfully play D&D 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th edition without roleplaying? Yes, you can." and "The first four editions of D&D are not roleplaying games. You can successfully play them without roleplaying. "

I doubt he has every played through tomb of horrors as he seems to not even think D&D is a roleplaying game.

He makes statements like the above to get people to visit his blog and think his opinion matters, it doesn't.

 

[dwayne]

I played through this up until the end and a few of us did get killed one permanently but only because he was careless. We took a long time and made a few missteps along the way but in the end we made it more or less in tact. It did take a while to get one of our characters beck from another plane and to raze another back from the dead but you got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet.

 

[pemerton]

Criticism of ToH is not a new thing. Sometime in the past few years I found online a copy of an Alarums and Excursions play report from the original tournmanent (Mark Sawnson in Alarums & Excursions #4 September 1975) - maybe someone posted it on a thread here.

Anyway, some relevant extracts:

The dungeon that Gary had brought along was being run in a tournament - all parties with identical characters (ranging from a MU 12 to a Fighter 4 - with strength of 18). . . .

As I started to say- there were no wandering monsters (damn few monsters at all, in fact), plenty of traps (too many) and very few experienced players. It was run by Gary's son, who devoted no effort to keeping the characters in character. However, we did just as well as the other Friday night group . . .

Another, later party, possibly aided by rumors or led by someone who understood pits, elf proof plaster [the GM did not let elves notice secret doors concealed behind plaster, which this player had not anticipated] and the unpopulated nature of Gygax's dungeon - got the whole treasure. Sigh.

From this experience I deduce a couple of lessons.

1) Don't run D&D as a tournament. 2) Always shatter plaster unless you are in the dungeon of nasty minded people such as I who might put poison gas behind it. 3) Play a Gygax game if you like pits, secret doors and Dungeon Roulette. Play a game such as in A&E if you prefer monsters, talking/arguing/fighting with chance met characters and a more exciting game. Of course, the game may not have been typical, but Gary can defend himself. I felt no real desire for a second, similar game.​

I've never run or played ToH in D&D. I did restat it for Rolemaster once, and used it in a game, but once the players worked out that their PCs were in the Tomb of Horrors they pulled out.

I don't think it's the worst module that I own. It's certainly not the best. Just confining myself to Gygax modules I have got far, far more fun play out of the G-modules (especially G2) and D1-D2. (I don't think I've ever used D3, but at least on reading I would rate it well above S1 also.)

 

[neobolts]

Yikes. Harsh game.

Jack Chick tried to warn you. LOL

 

[Celebrim]

I don't think it's the worst module that I own. It's certainly not the best. Just confining myself to Gygax modules I have got far, far more fun play out of the G-modules (especially G2) and D1-D2. (I don't think I've ever used D3, but at least on reading I would rate it well above S1 also.)

So, I understand that a person's emotional response to a dungeon is subjective and differs from person to person and from experience to experience.

But speaking as a DM, one of the things that strikes me about S1 is just how difficult it is to successfully replicate the dungeon. There have been tons of attempts at replicating S1 - it's probably the most copied dungeon design in the history of the game - but most of them have been terrible, usually because they think that killing the PC's is all that is going on in S1 and they think they are being clever by killing PC's. A good example is Grimtooth's Traps, which tends to have traps that punish players for looking for tangential solutions or proactively being creative or the city of Moil in 'Return to the Tomb of Horrors' which is far more lethal than ToH (and really, has to be) but proactively kills the players in ways that make ToH seem perfectly fair and reasonable. Considering how many people have attempted to make S1 (including me in my younger days before I understood the module), and just how hard it is to do it well, I vote S1 to the highest levels of dungeon craftsmanship.

But G2 (indeed the whole G series) on the other hand always stuck me as something that your average senior in high school or freshmen in college could and did create. The are straight forward designs that are practically nothing more than implementations of an entry in a monster manual, 'Hill Giant tribe, found in lair, maximum numbers and numbers of servitors'. They play largely as straight forward tactical slogs of the sort Gygax was fond of - large numbers of demihumans, variously armed and equipped, with boss monsters that are slightly tougher than their comrades. The trope shows up again in B2 and in the first part of WG4, and in T1-4. I think it appeals to Gygax's love of D&D as a tactical skirmish level wargame. Some parts of those modules are inspired, but I never thought much of their basic design. If you want combat oriented dungeon crawl as opposed to D&D as wargame, Paul Jaquays was doing it better with works like Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia.

Lastly, Tomb of Horrors stands up well in terms of the stories its created. Everyone has a story. Sometimes, like with Wick, the story isn't very pleasant, but it is powerful in a way that 'we killed 80 hobgoblins', 'we killed 40 bugbears', 'we killed 20 ogres', etc. just isn't.

 

[DocSun]

I read the article and ya know what. It is funny as hell. That last convention antidote is now one of my favorite moments along with the dread gazebo. That stupid orb man. Still a fun, if somewhat unfair run for a one shot game.

 

[ExTSR]

Gotta hand it to John Wick; nice PR move for your blog. Everybody's reacting, even me. ;>

I think there are two misconceptions.
it's actually not that tough... traps are just a nuisance, not something that could kill you. So why bother to poke something first to see if it disintegrates anything it touches, just leap in.

Hear here.
I especially liked his start, the 3 entrances.
So you just walk in like it's a tavern in town? Absolutely no information-gathering?

This is a high-level game. Try starting with Find The Path (specify "the location of the being, or remains thereof, for whom this Tomb was created"). It'll be up for a couple of hours (10 min. / Lvl) unless it gets Dispelled.

So I agree with Mr. Wick; 12-year-olds (apparently with Int & Wis of 3-5, in this case) shouldn't go play here. Probably should keep an eye out for dangerous playground swings, too.

Frank Mentzer

(ps: I have a lot of young fans. I accordingly choose not to wallow in vulgarity and obscenity. But that's a style thing, and Mr. Wick is welcome to follow his own path. As for myself, I don't have to do that to get attention.)

 

[TerraDave]

Uh, we had a lot of fun with it. We played it in a slightly different way then it was written, but in D&D you are allowed to do that. Thats why there is a DM.

It has a certain goal in mind and does it extremely well.

In a campaign, if played "straight", then it should be optional for the PCs, and while they shouldn't know the twists and turn, they should know it is truly dangerous. (And would have access to the resources to know that.)

And one of EGGs PCs did in fact play it in their campaign, and did beat it.