Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7588178" data-attributes="member: 4937">So, I'll grant you this much - S1 has an extremely narrow aesthetic of play, and if your priorities in play fall outside of what S1 has on offer, then tough, because it's not even going to offer much of a sop toward it.  Most modules, even if your aesthetics of play are somewhat narrow, you just have to wait an hour or two and you'll be catered to.   But S1 has one thing its doing and that's it - Challenge.  I suppose you could make an argument for discovery, but most of the module you don't actually want to discover.   And an argument could be made that it does a decent job of offering up Sensation, which is unusual in an adventure, on account of its evocative illustrations being so much an element of play.   But generally speaking, if you don't like facing difficult puzzles with few clues and almost merciless consequences, than this module is not for you.  And because of that, this module isn't really meant to be a normal part of any long running play.But the reason that I think that while all that criticism is valid it's still one of the best modules ever made is that ever since it was published, there has been many - perhaps dozens - of attempts to replicate or improve on the experience and the design, and they've all in my opinion failed.  So you have a module that has been copied so much that trap filled tomb  is practically a subgenera all its own, and here we are 40 years later and no one has made a better one.   And to me, the secret here is that everyone that tries to replicate the experience tends to create something that is much more a test of character ability than a test of player ability and which kills you both less fairly and less surely.  Tomb of Horrors isn't even the worst meat grinder that's been published.   Plenty of modules out there will kill more PC's than Tomb of Horrors simply by forcing you to flip a coin X times in a row and always get heads.   Tomb of Horrors largely dispenses with issues of chance and offers to kill you only if you make a choice.   You compare it with modules like Return to the Tomb of Horrors or Mud Sorcerer's Tomb, and it pretty much never proactively or actively kills you.   You have to be doing something.   It's never got a boogey man that's got a 65% chance of grabbing you, and if it does you die.  You have to make the decision to touch the boogey man, or otherwise decide to do something.   And that creates a singularly unique and, at least for me, very compelling gaming experience.  No published adventure I've ever played was as memorable in every detail, or as tense, or so regularly made you feel elation.  Tomb of Horrors is a masterpiece.  I'm notorious about redoing everything I encounter.  I'd leave Tomb of Horrors basically untouched.B4 and X1 are excellent choices as well.  X1 has been revisited as a setting probably more times than any other module.  Heck, my player's PC's are currently in the forbidden city on the Isle of Dread, having just slaughtered the cannibals in the 'Temple'.   Granted, pretty much everything else in the dungeon is different than the one presented in the module, which was I think X1's weakest point, and the Island has been reworked to my preferences, but it's a great setting.</blockquote>

Verification