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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7049012" data-attributes="member: 37579">Yes. They are not good shows. They are cheesy and cartoonish and very formulaic. But with the right amount of nostalgia and your brain turned off, they can be very enjoyable.I didn't say it was impossible to be fun. A skilled DM could make it into an enjoyable experience. Running the Tomb well requires a skilled DM as much as skilled players.It's because not everyone finds fun the same way that I started this post. Because I want people to find a way to have fun with the classics, even if they don't enjoy losing characters or have zero experience with Gotcha! dungeons or OSR gameplay. (After all, as originally designed, this was part of the original Greyhawk campaign. Tenser and Robilar went into it, and had they died those characters would have been dead forever. Just like Luke Gygax's character, who was used in the playtesting and ended up naked and dead forever. I believe that was Melf...) That's not context. That's the elevator pitch for the module. A description that belongs as much on the back cover. It's the introduction for the DM. And, that would be covered by "change the details". The "tomb" becomes a "barrow mount" and the "demilich" becomes a "spawn of Vecna". The nouns shift a bit and expectations change. If gamers don't know what they're getting into (and its reputation) then it changes the experience.Well, preparation and a 6th level spell from the players. Not that you can prepare as the only description is "traps and monsters" which is as vague as you can get. (The only useful information gleamed are the references to poison and bit about "even those who avoid the pitfalls", and really requires the DM to just read the section verbatim.)You use the term "seasoned group of adventurers" and "veteran gamers" twice in your replies. Odd, considering when the module was first run a "veteran gamer" would have been someone with two years of experience. When it was published, people would have had four or five years experience with D&D.Most of us at ENWorld have twice the time at the table as the gamers who originally faced the Tomb. And the benefit of decades of advice, trips, and tricks regarding dungeon crawling and dealing with traps. Plus, how can you devote "part of a session" to investigation and spell-casting when you're on the clock in a tournament? That's how the module was originally run. You have minutes to do your research and get what you need. Giving the party plenty of time to plan and research and prepare is far more "dishonest" as you put it.Which is the point. Everyone was laughing together and you, as an experienced DM, (and potentially with two or three times as much experience behind the screen as Gary) were making it fun and not approaching it as an adversarial challenge. You hadn't explicitly created the dungeon to humble your players. You were adding levity and enjoyment not found in the text.</blockquote>

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