Official Tomb of Horrors 3.5 conversion (merged)

[Psychic Warrior]

I wonder then, why the original Tomb is widely considered one of the best adventures ever by DMs. I don't think it's in spite of the deadly trappings, but because of.

Fixed it for you. I haven't really found a player who genuinely likes this one (or would take a long running PX through it). Really your arguement for no save stuff is just alien to me.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I wonder then, why the original Tomb is widely considered one of the best adventures ever. I don't think it's in spite of the deadly trappings, but because of.

It's also widely damned, too, as one of the worst of all time for precisely the same reasons many consider it one of the best.

Way back when, the "instant death, no save" thing was an element we seemed to enjoy, especially if we were the DM. But we were also 13 years old, and had a lot of free time to roll up new characters for hours on end.

By the way, if anyone wants to run ToH as is, with all the "instant death" stuff left in, I'd love to see how it goes. I haven't seen any reports of it being run like that in a long time.

 

[UltimaGabe]

By the way, if anyone wants to run ToH as is, with all the "instant death" stuff left in, I'd love to see how it goes. I haven't seen any reports of it being run like that in a long time.

I'd love to, I just don't understand 1e any better than I understand Gaelic quantum theory.

Well, maybe a little better.

 

[Illvillainy]

I'm glad I wasn't around for First Edition, after looking at this. :/

 

[qstor]

Since the Demilich is in the Epic Level Handbook, I thought it would make sense for the 3.x conversion to be higher than 9th level.

I downloaded now at work. Have dial up at home

Mike

 

[diaglo]

My conversion is better.

mine too.

i converted it to OD&D(1974) years ago.

 

[Ranes]

From the introduction to the conversion:

"The original version of this module was first used for the official ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® tournament at Origins I in 1974."

Origins I took place in 1975. And the original was written for Dungeons & Dragons (1974). It was only updated to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons when it was published in 1978.

The facts are historically interesting enough without distortion.

 

[Joshua Randall]

It's interesting how much the culture of D&D has changed since Tomb of Horrors first appeared. Back then, Gary Gygax could write a module specifically designed to screw over the players by kililng their PCs, and people thought it was a grand idea -- it fit in with the adverserial DM vs. player culture of the time.

These days, my perception is that the culture has shifted towards a collaborative one in which the DM and the players work together to create a fun game.

The original Tomb also uses many arbitrary tricks to deprive the players of their abilities; e.g., if you try to teleport or use extradimensional movement, you get shunted off to the Astral and pounded by demons. This sort of thing is generally frowned upon in modern adventure design, in which designers are instead encouraged to provide opportunities for the PCs to use their high-level spells and abilities, not prevent them from doing so.

(Which is not to say that all modern adventures follow this advice -- there are plenty that still arbitrarily block teleportation or scrying or flying -- just like the Tomb did, way back when.)

The Tomb is a museum piece, a relic of a bygone age, interesting for what it shows us about the way things were -- not they way they should be.

 

[Crothian]

I'm just pissed that they chose to give saving throws to stuff that originally had no save. The above example is just one of many instances where they chose to do this. We can't make it hard on th poor pcs, now. Bah. May as well call it the "Tomb of moderately scary stuff."

It is a conversion. One thing that people do when converting to a new edition is have the theme of that nerw eidtion be part of the module. Instant no save deaths are really not part of d20 so of course they got rid of them.

 

[Henry]

It's interesting how much the culture of D&D has changed since Tomb of Horrors first appeared. Back then, Gary Gygax could write a module specifically designed to screw over the players by kililng their PCs, and people thought it was a grand idea -- it fit in with the adverserial DM vs. player culture of the time.

The Tomb isn't quite a "screw the players" module, compared to the unofficial entries of the time, and that's even more an indication of the shift in player culture. REAL "Screw the player" games are spoken of in the 1st edition DMG (under the "Killer DM / Monte Haul DM" section), and I don't even wanna think about what those were really like.

When it was written, according to Gary, it was actually a true testament to skill at puzzle-solving, which was a more desired trait among the predominant players of the day, versus now. In Gary's (and many others') view, one of the desired traits of an experienced player was the ability to be cautious and tenacious in following a goal. As he explained once, there was a large prevalence of players at the time (both in his home groups and at conventions) who had high-level characters, and were quite boastful of their accomplishments. This module was the ultimate "Oh, yeah? Let's seen you try THIS!" of the time. While not every trap and danger had a work-around, a dead PC or hireling was ample testament to not being fooled twice by the same trap. From what I gather talking to Rob, Skip, etc., in Gary's home games, if you had a high-level character, it meant the player was crafty, inventive, and as cautious as a soldier on his fifth tour of duty in a war zone, yet wasn't perturbed by losing a high-leve character to the "fortunes of war."

Remember, that the whole thing, as designed, was passive. whatever you do in that module, you do it to yourself, by entering a certain room, or being careless with subtle signs that something's wrong, etc. It's meant to harm characters in such a way that sheer ego will drive players onward. Not much of an inflated ego? You have no business in the Tomb - let Acererak sleep.