Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7692936" data-attributes="member: 7006">To figure out whether something is objectively "bad" (or even more to the point "the worst of all time")... you first need to establish what exactly it is trying to do (or what the author contends they were trying to accomplish with it.)  You then can look at the resulting item and begin to figure how how well or how poorly this item actually is what the author/creator was going for.The Tomb of Horrors has a very specific purpose as a module.  It has a very specific style it is going for.  It has a very specific thing it is trying to accomplish.  Thus it behooves all of us to then look at the module and ask ourselves whether it does what it sets out to do.  If it comes even slightly close to it, then it cannot be considered "bad" and most certainly cannot be considered "the worst of all time".Notice here that I've put absolutely no moral or personal judgement on whether someone should enjoy the item.  Whether or not the item floats the boat of the person looking at it has no consequence when trying to make an objective determination whether it is bad or good.  If you don't like or appreciate the aesthetic of horror movies, you quite possibly might look at the original 'Halloween' and say "that's a terrible film!" (especially if you're putting it up against things like 'The Godfather' or other film of that ilk that you love.)  But it's not.  We all know it's not.  In fact, it regularly voted as one of the greatest horror films of all time.  Thus, it cannot ever be called an objectively "bad" film... and ABSOLUTELY cannot be called "the worst film of all time".  And if someone does that, they obviously have little to no qualifications to making objective analysis.The same holds true for The Tomb of Horrors.  You might not like, appreciated, or enjoy the aesthetic of the module and what was the author's intent... but if you want to have your criticism taken seriously, you have to put your distaste to the side and figure out "Does this module accomplish what it set out to do?"  And if you look at all the artwork, the maps, the creativity, the writing, the deviousness of the traps, the going against the grain of the tropes of the time, and also the possibility and style required to actually succeed... I don't know if there's any of us who could honestly say "Nope, it doesn't accomplish what it's trying to do."And therefore it isn't objectively "the worst module of all time."</blockquote>

Verification