Rate S1: The Tomb of Horrors (corrected poll options)

[Burocrate]

8 out of 10, Old School! Thin on back-story, fleshed out in later products. Ran it once, teen-age power gamers, one & all. Of the three main characters in the party; one walked into the sphere of annihilation, one was reduced to ashes by the cursed crown and the last departed the tomb sex-changed and naked to get re-enforcements. Allowed a cameo appearance of a "Gamma World" character with micro-missile launcher and laser rifle. He died as soon as his weapons ran dry. The cavalry arrived, restored the bag of ashes to his former glory and took on the lich. Much real time later, the survivors collected the dead and the treasure and swore to never look for a lich again. Killer module to be sure, but never forgotten.

 

[danbuter]

I gave it a 2. There were a couple cool spots, but it really needed toned down a bit on the traps.

 

[Angel of Adventure]

I sense some disagreement with my comments . . .

It seems that, according to some of you, my comments about this mod sharpening gamin' skills is somewhat in dispute.

Let me just say a couple of more things -

1) The ToH cannot be beaten by luck, only carefully moving around and picking up on the clues. If you rely on luck you will probably be dead within your first hour.

2) The real, acutalized fear of immenent death for you and your friends will make you a bettter gamer. You will be forced to make better decisions and work better together as a group. (Let's face it, most all encounters usually end with all the PCs living and all the monsters dead. ToH turns the tables on this, but all PCs know this going into it.)

3) Per cheating, this is certainly one mod that knowing all the secrets may not save you. You must still make smart decisions and make sure your fellow PCs do the same. Per meta/powergaming, ToH is not any kinder to those who can build kick butt characters on paper. It still comes down to what you do, not what you are capable of. (Per the accusation that I, or we, cheated in this mod, these cannot harm me. My friends and I beat the ToH, fair and square, and we are mightier for it!)

Later,

AoA
(Ducks behind a rock before the tomato impacts with his face.)

 

[BiggusGeekus]

(ducks behind a rock before the tomato impacts with his face.)

OK, but how would you handle this:

DM: You see a door.
BG: I check for traps.
DM: You find none.
BG: I poke it with a stick.
DM: Nothing happens.
BG: I open the door, very slowly.
DM: You die horribly.

In my case I died in the first few minutes going down the wrong entry hall. If there were clues to which hall I should have used, I don't remember them. I am willing to confess I could have shoved a cow down the hallway or something. However, this was the first challenge of the module. So, I'll admit that maybe checking for traps every 10' or so (which I did) and advancing may not have concieveably been a good idea, though I'd personally argue otherwise. But there were still plenty of traps that could kill party members just after a bad roll. And this was 1e. Even after being raised, you got to see your CON score drop down and down and down, making it even easier to die.

I don't think I'm whining. But I do think that the standard 0.25 chance to automatically fail to see and disarm a trap does not warrant multiple party deaths.

The fun in ToH seems to be more like a horror movie. You know you're gonna die, you just don't know how. In a game like Paranoia, I think it's great. For a one-shot adventure, I can see how that's fun. For a character I've been building up for a year or more? I don't get it.

You may now return the tomato volley.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I ran it as is back in 2001 and the party of 5 had just one death, everyone else made it through and had a lot of fun with it.

All I can conclude, then, is that you changed the module to include more saving throws or someone had a copy of the module under the table they were peeking at.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

It seems that, according to some of you, my comments about this mod sharpening gamin' skills is somewhat in dispute.

Let me just say a couple of more things -

1) The ToH cannot be beaten by luck, only carefully moving around and picking up on the clues. If you rely on luck you will probably be dead within your first hour.

2) The real, acutalized fear of immenent death for you and your friends will make you a bettter gamer. You will be forced to make better decisions and work better together as a group. (Let's face it, most all encounters usually end with all the PCs living and all the monsters dead. ToH turns the tables on this, but all PCs know this going into it.)

3) Per cheating, this is certainly one mod that knowing all the secrets may not save you. You must still make smart decisions and make sure your fellow PCs do the same. Per meta/powergaming, ToH is not any kinder to those who can build kick butt characters on paper. It still comes down to what you do, not what you are capable of. (Per the accusation that I, or we, cheated in this mod, these cannot harm me. My friends and I beat the ToH, fair and square, and we are mightier for it!)

Later,

AoA
(Ducks behind a rock before the tomato impacts with his face.)

So true. ToH challanges you as a gamer, not your character as much. Some don't like that, some do. I think from Gary's writings its obvious that the early days much of the adventure was to challanges the players to make them think more and be better gamers.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

All I can conclude, then, is that you changed the module to include more saving throws or someone had a copy of the module under the table they were peeking at.

Or maybe they were top notch gamers who made the right choices? :\

 

[Psychic Warrior]

So does this thread count as a blantant attack on TSR and Gary Gygax? I heard that that can get a thread closed.

 

[Crothian]

All I can conclude, then, is that you changed the module to include more saving throws or someone had a copy of the module under the table they were peeking at.

Nope, the no save deaths stayed the same and no one knew I was going to run it until one of the player about 4 rooms in figured out what I was running and started cursing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

1) The ToH cannot be beaten by luck, only carefully moving around and picking up on the clues. If you rely on luck you will probably be dead within your first hour.

This is simply not true. There are only clues to a few of the traps. That might save you from the mouth trap. There are plenty of traps that have zero clues to them.

2) The real, acutalized fear of immenent death for you and your friends will make you a bettter gamer. You will be forced to make better decisions and work better together as a group.

Why does it take capricious death traps to make your players fear for their characters' lives?

3) Per cheating, this is certainly one mod that knowing all the secrets may not save you.

Since most of it is a binary "you live/you die" situation based on knowing what's going on, actually, it can. The only time this isn't really the case is in the final fight with the demi-lich.

You must still make smart decisions and make sure your fellow PCs do the same.

Open Random Door A instead of Random Door B is not a smarter decision, it is a random decision.

I'm really getting the feeling that a lot of the supporters, if they've played or DMed or even read the module at all, have done so with a DM who consciously went through and toned the module down a great deal.