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

[Dr_Rictus]

Gary just posted this in another thread:

Some hundreds of thousands of PCs have adventured in the ToH, and not many have made it successfully, so it is most demanding of real skill.

See, not to get into the more general discussion, but that does not follow.

 

[lukelightning]

"Some hundreds of thousands of PCs have adventured in the ToH, and not many have made it successfully, so it is most demanding of real skill."

I doubt "hundreds of thousands" of PCs have done that adventure. And as far as being a test of real skill, it depends on what you mean. Does this mean skill in "beating" a game? Player vs. DM strategy? Resource management? It certainly isn't skill in roleplaying, unless you are playing Darth Vader and have hundreds of Stormtroopers to send to their doom (every strategy I've seen to get through this module is heavily supported by callous disregard for NPC life, as if they weren't people. It's fine to do this if you're a chaotic evil wizard, but what if you're a paladin? What if you just don't have hordes of hirelings?

It also presumes a world in which life is cheap. You die? Raise dead, poof! Oh, and everyone has at least one wish on hand...

 

[Crothian]

I doubt "hundreds of thousands" of PCs have done that adventure.

Actually it is probably more. Back in the day there were lots of D&D players and the modules sold very well. And in the 25 years it has been out I'm sure lots of more people have been introduced to the module.

 

[jokamachi]

It's as difficult as a game of Russian roulette with five our of six chambers filled with bullets.

There's no difficulty or skill involved. I would be interested to see how many of the people rating it highly have actually played and/or DMed it. I did back in the day, both ways, and really, it's an arbitrary death trap. ("Sleep gas fills the room. All characters fall unconscious. A wheeled juggernaut rolls out from behind a secret door and crushes them all to death.")

So all of your characters stayed together and entered rooms at the same time? You never took any slaves or hirelings with you as cannon fodder? Sheesh, I can see why you thought of it as arbitrary.

Think outside the box, man. That's what we had to do once our only surviving character escaped from the tomb after the first disastrous foray. Besides, who says an adventure need be run only once? It took us several attempts and many bodies to clear that sucker out. But once we had finished, it was a tremendous relief.

We had done it.

 

[Quasqueton]

Those of you who played it (as DM or PC), what was the hook to get you to go through it?

Quasqueton

 

[Crothian]

Those of you who played it (as DM or PC), what was the hook to get you to go through it?

Quasqueton

I tend to introduce it after a big plot reveal and the party has a bit of time to relax and do something different. So, they go looking for a legend or rumor to track down and I give them one that leads them here. I find that making it look like the players choose to come here works much better then leading them here.

 

[Numion]

So all of your characters stayed together and entered rooms at the same time? You never took any slaves or hirelings with you as cannon fodder? Sheesh, I can see why you thought of it as arbitrary.

Hirelings as cannon fodder? What if you played a .. um .. heroic good character? I don't find it disconcerting to use hirelings as detect traps wands, but is it good design that the module requires [evil] behaviour to avoid arbitrary traps? If this module was released today .. coooolldblloooded

Think outside the box, man. That's what we had to do once our only surviving character escaped from the tomb after the first disastrous foray. Besides, who says an adventure need be run only once? It took us several attempts and many bodies to clear that sucker out. But once we had finished, it was a tremendous relief.

Thinking outside the box in this case just means thinking outside the character perceptions, i.e. metagaming. "Hmm .. ToH is a pretty Gygax module, I better not sacrifice my character, but rather hire people to do the exploring for me! Excellent!"

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

So all of your characters stayed together and entered rooms at the same time? You never took any slaves or hirelings with you as cannon fodder?

Yeah, that's the other problem I've encountered.

That sort of exploration theory works fine if you're a tyrant of a large country or you've purposefully recruited hordes of goblinoid underlings that will bow to your every whim. It only really works if you've got a callous disregard for the lives of others.

Take a guess which side, in Fantasy literature, that usually represents?

Here's a hint: It ain't the good guys.

 

[jokamachi]

Yeah, that's the other problem I've encountered.

That sort of exploration theory works fine if you're a tyrant of a large country or you've purposefully recruited hordes of goblinoid underlings that will bow to your every whim. It only really works if you've got a callous disregard for the lives of others.

Take a guess which side, in Fantasy literature, that usually represents?

Here's a hint: It ain't the good guys.

Whatever, paladin boy.

 

[Crothian]

Well, the people I gamed with never resorted to such evil ways but they got through it. You don't have to sacrifice a city to get through this thing.