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<blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 8275948" data-attributes="member: 7026594">It had two intended use-cases:1. High difficulty tournament play, which, as you say, has different stakes than regular campaign play, because the characters being used are much more disposable.2. High difficulty campaign play, on a purely opt-into-the-danger basis.&nbsp; Where PCs hear legends that this place is horrible and deadly and they choose whether to engage with it or not.&nbsp; It's not a campaign plot where the Tomb is about to conquer the kingdom and burn down your village.&nbsp; It's sitting in a swamp way in the middle of nowhere. You have to seek it out. Legends say it's a death trap, and if the players want to take it on, that's their choice and opportunity to prove their skill and bravery against an unusually difficult and deadly challenge.The idea that it was created to reign in overly smug players was, I think, Gygax hearing about players out in the wild (rather than in his own group) playing in Monty Haul games where treasure and levels came easy, and who had high level characters without, as far as he could discern, developing particularly advanced player skills or facing truly deadly challenges.&nbsp; This particular tournament module was designed to challenge players even with quite high level characters, into engaging with the fiction and using lateral thinking to avoid the deathtraps.&nbsp; To give players an opportunity to display their personal skills.IIRC when Gary tested it at home, Rob Kuntz' character made it through without dying and without a ton of spells, in part by employing a large number of orcish henchmen to help him cautiously explore. I've seen reports from other old school players that they made it through with minimal casualties, employing relatively low-level magics like Unseen Servants to help check rooms out and move stuff around while exposing themselves less to danger.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mannahnin, post: 8275948, member: 7026594"] It had two intended use-cases: 1. High difficulty tournament play, which, as you say, has different stakes than regular campaign play, because the characters being used are much more disposable. 2. High difficulty campaign play, on a purely opt-into-the-danger basis. Where PCs hear legends that this place is horrible and deadly and they choose whether to engage with it or not. It's not a campaign plot where the Tomb is about to conquer the kingdom and burn down your village. It's sitting in a swamp way in the middle of nowhere. You have to seek it out. Legends say it's a death trap, and if the players want to take it on, that's their choice and opportunity to prove their skill and bravery against an unusually difficult and deadly challenge. The idea that it was created to reign in overly smug players was, I think, Gygax hearing about players out in the wild (rather than in his own group) playing in Monty Haul games where treasure and levels came easy, and who had high level characters without, as far as he could discern, developing particularly advanced player skills or facing truly deadly challenges. This particular tournament module was designed to challenge players even with quite high level characters, into engaging with the fiction and using lateral thinking to avoid the deathtraps. To give players an opportunity to display their personal skills. IIRC when Gary tested it at home, Rob Kuntz' character made it through without dying and without a ton of spells, in part by employing a large number of orcish henchmen to help him cautiously explore. I've seen reports from other old school players that they made it through with minimal casualties, employing relatively low-level magics like Unseen Servants to help check rooms out and move stuff around while exposing themselves less to danger. [/QUOTE]

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