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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GQuail" data-source="post: 3843632" data-attributes="member: 30709">This could degenerate into a somewhat OT rant (especially since it's the 3.X adaption of this adventure that came up in this discussion) but the statement that people should come to an RPG session not to have fun, but to learn lessons, is one t hat really sticks in my craw.  ultimately, RPGs are about "fun" for me.  Now, I appreciate that "fun" is a kind of vague thing that's hard to pin down, so other people finding things fun that I dn't is OK.  But if you're telling me that a player group running an adventure having a crap time is the point of the adventure, then the adventure really ain't that hot, and I'd go as far as to describe that as "potential campaign killer"I get that Tomb of Horrors was purposefully designed as that: a sort of "so you think you're so tough?" by Gygax for his pro players.  I also get that it fits into some elements of 1E tone that players of that game consider important.  And, when most people encounter it now, they must know exactly what it is going to do: or at least, the DMs must be playing it with that purpose in mind.  I don't think it' sunfair to say that anyone surprised by the fatalness of the adventure is in a small minority indeed.  ;-)The party in question has people who have done it before, remember; so by your reasoning they've either already had their "learning experience" and so should find this easy, or they're just "stupid" and it's their own fault.  And yet, not only are they struggling, but their DM is finding the whole thing dull and willing it to be over.  This sounds like a pretty solid failure to me, one which the party is struggling through more out of social politeness and an urge to preserve the otherwise fun campaign than anything else, rather than a character building exercise they will pat themselves on the back about afterwards.  But I think part of the problem (as described in the original post) is that the players are playign the 3.X update - and much of what goes on in the Tomb of Horrors is, ultimately, modelled on more 1E thinking.  I have a feeling that when you come against the four-armed gargoyle, the "count to ten and then collapse the ceilings", the "touch it and it turns out to be an artifact that kills you" and other such stuff in a game that has otherwise been in the far more gentle 3.X style of CR-based play, it ends up feeling a lot more arbitrary than it did in 1E.  (And even in 1E, Tomb of Horrors has those who consider it not especially logical)</blockquote>

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