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Is TOMB OF HORRORS the Worst Adventure Of All Time?
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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 7694274" data-attributes="member: 22779"><p>Been thinking about this thread for a while, and this is how I would critique the ToH:</p><p></p><p><strong>The Good</strong></p><p></p><p>1. ToH is fantastically inspirational. There are just some excellent ideas in there. And, I would say that few if any other modules have been burned into the collective zeitgeist of gamers as much has this one has. Show someone a picture of the Green Demon Face and everyone knows exactly what you're talking about. I'd say there are extremely few modules with that level of instant recognition. So, obviously this module touches on something in our collective experience. And, IMO, many of the traps and puzzles are pretty interesting without being reduced to pixel bitching. The tension in the module is very high. You have your player's undivided attention when you run this module and that's a very, very good thing. Of all the criticisms you hear about ToH, no one ever says it's boring. </p><p></p><p>2. I can't think of another module that has inspired DM's to the level of this module. For example, how many other forty year old modules <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?477507-See-The-Tomb-Of-Horrors-Modelled-In-3D" target="_blank">get modelled in 3d?</a>? One of my earliest gaming experiences was watching my older brother run this module for his friends (I was a bit too young at the time to play). I remember quite vividly when the players came to the series of secret doors that have to be opened in a specific way or a spear trap shoots out and tags you.</p><p></p><p>My brother had the players actually get out of their chairs and demonstrate how they were opening the doors. I was observing LARPing in 1979! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /> To this day, I've rarely, if ever, seen this level of immersion from any other module. And that's a very good thing.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Bad</strong></p><p></p><p>1. Like anything, nothing is perfect. The module does suffer from some extremely arbitrary choice points where the players really have no way of knowing which is the right choice. It becomes less a "thinking man's dungeon" and more "Can you brute force calculate the answer before you run out of HP?" module. The above mentioned secret door/spear traps section is a perfect example of this. There's no clues whatsoever. So, you basically just have to run through every possible solution until such time as you open the door. And each time you're wrong, you take damage. There's rather a lot of this sort of thing and the module, again IMO, suffers for it.</p><p></p><p>2. Metagaming. As was mentioned, the module is more or less unsolvable if you use it as written. A group using pre-gens without any outside knowledge will almost certainly fail to complete the adventure. It's frustrating to say the least. Which, in practice, means that virtually no one actually goes through the module as written. [MENTION=80711]GameDaddy[/MENTION] above mentions bringing a <u>17th</u> level wizard into the module to resolve it. This is far, far outside the scenario parameters (and likely would make the module pretty easy to solve to boot). In my own experience, we had a group that had played the G series and had an intelligent sword that detected secret doors. Makes the module pretty darn easy. Or, you get the bag of rats solutions that people talk about. IIRC, Gygax's own group saw Robilar do pretty much this exact tactic. And, likely, he was not going into the module without any foreknowledge.</p><p></p><p>--------</p><p></p><p>Conclusion:</p><p></p><p>Is the module the worst of all time? No. Not in the slightest. There are far, far worse modules out there. The worst that can really be said about ToH is that it's a pretty linear module with no role play interaction (there isn't anything to talk to) and fosters a very strong sense that players should game the game, rather than role play their own characters through the scenario. OTOH, it is very inspirational, filled with all sorts of very, very memorable events that players still talk about and remember forty years on. That, right there, makes it a very good module.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 7694274, member: 22779"] Been thinking about this thread for a while, and this is how I would critique the ToH: [b]The Good[/b] 1. ToH is fantastically inspirational. There are just some excellent ideas in there. And, I would say that few if any other modules have been burned into the collective zeitgeist of gamers as much has this one has. Show someone a picture of the Green Demon Face and everyone knows exactly what you're talking about. I'd say there are extremely few modules with that level of instant recognition. So, obviously this module touches on something in our collective experience. And, IMO, many of the traps and puzzles are pretty interesting without being reduced to pixel bitching. The tension in the module is very high. You have your player's undivided attention when you run this module and that's a very, very good thing. Of all the criticisms you hear about ToH, no one ever says it's boring. 2. I can't think of another module that has inspired DM's to the level of this module. For example, how many other forty year old modules [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?477507-See-The-Tomb-Of-Horrors-Modelled-In-3D]get modelled in 3d?[/url]? One of my earliest gaming experiences was watching my older brother run this module for his friends (I was a bit too young at the time to play). I remember quite vividly when the players came to the series of secret doors that have to be opened in a specific way or a spear trap shoots out and tags you. My brother had the players actually get out of their chairs and demonstrate how they were opening the doors. I was observing LARPing in 1979! :D To this day, I've rarely, if ever, seen this level of immersion from any other module. And that's a very good thing. [b]The Bad[/b] 1. Like anything, nothing is perfect. The module does suffer from some extremely arbitrary choice points where the players really have no way of knowing which is the right choice. It becomes less a "thinking man's dungeon" and more "Can you brute force calculate the answer before you run out of HP?" module. The above mentioned secret door/spear traps section is a perfect example of this. There's no clues whatsoever. So, you basically just have to run through every possible solution until such time as you open the door. And each time you're wrong, you take damage. There's rather a lot of this sort of thing and the module, again IMO, suffers for it. 2. Metagaming. As was mentioned, the module is more or less unsolvable if you use it as written. A group using pre-gens without any outside knowledge will almost certainly fail to complete the adventure. It's frustrating to say the least. Which, in practice, means that virtually no one actually goes through the module as written. [MENTION=80711]GameDaddy[/MENTION] above mentions bringing a [u]17th[/u] level wizard into the module to resolve it. This is far, far outside the scenario parameters (and likely would make the module pretty easy to solve to boot). In my own experience, we had a group that had played the G series and had an intelligent sword that detected secret doors. Makes the module pretty darn easy. Or, you get the bag of rats solutions that people talk about. IIRC, Gygax's own group saw Robilar do pretty much this exact tactic. And, likely, he was not going into the module without any foreknowledge. -------- Conclusion: Is the module the worst of all time? No. Not in the slightest. There are far, far worse modules out there. The worst that can really be said about ToH is that it's a pretty linear module with no role play interaction (there isn't anything to talk to) and fosters a very strong sense that players should game the game, rather than role play their own characters through the scenario. OTOH, it is very inspirational, filled with all sorts of very, very memorable events that players still talk about and remember forty years on. That, right there, makes it a very good module. [/QUOTE]
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