We're Going To Do Return to the Tomb of Horrors and One Player has Freaked Out!

[Greylock]

There are 6 members in the party of levels 13, 14, 14, 14, 15, 15. We finished the previous adventure and low and behold the DM waggles Return to the Tomb of Horrors (2nd ed. AD&D) at us. There were several directions we could have gone in but this was the most obvious (and to most of the characters the "easiest" too).

This phrase is kind of key to me. It does make it seem like the DM was trying to put some fear in the players. If I felt my DM was setting my char or my party up for a fall, I would not be too terribly pleased about it. Maybe not so much if it was a casual game, but if it was a long-running game with some investment of time in the char I'd want to feel like I had a shot of surviving. I'll put it this way, if alsih20 "waggled" RttToH and said our party was about to run it, I'd be putting that big bag o' ants in his ac unit again.

 

[A'koss]

I think that this player who doesn't want his character run through the blender reflects well on their game as whole. IME, if a DM's game is kinda mediocre, players don't tend to develop as strong an attachment to their PCs. If the game is good, and you still love your character at 15+ level, I think that's sayin' something.

I totally understand players who develop strong attachments to their guys (especially if you've run the same guy for a year+), it's like your weekly favorite show on TV (*cough* Carnivale! ) - you just don't want to end.

Cheers!

 

[jmichels]

I too would be very hesitant to put years of time investment in one PC on the line just for a TPK fest. I mean the player has (more then likely) put lots of work into the character and doesn't want to see it all thrown away (dead and a Wish can't bring you back) by one missed roll or bad decision.

Also you say lots of people probably won't want to be resurrected or wished back if they die? Then the DM may be looking to wrap up the campaign. I would confront the DM and ask him that point blank.

If that is the truth I would clench my teeth and go for it. I'd rather the campaign ended with an *attempt* at greatness then by simply retiring. Carried out on your shield and not dying in your sleep after a full life and all that. I would definitely make a Henry V style speech before I went in though.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I played it. It was tough. Damn tough. Just get off finishing Wolfgang Baur's Kingdom of Ghouls and our DM tossed into Return to the Tomb of Horrors. None of us players having played the Tomb of Horrors but plugged into the RPG scene to have heard of it as reputed to be a meat grinder, we flinched at first...

But what the heck, we dove in.

We knew we were in real trouble when the bag of devouring my character had been keeping for 10 levels "just in case the stupid moment it could be handy" when my character, as the very first to act when that thing started to float, reacted and put the bag of devouring over it and cinched it shut...

... and it didn't get devourered. I remember my PC hanging onto the bag as it was pulled off the ground from the thing inside floating higher and higher, saying, "Oh my god you guys! We're in trouble now!"

Yes, it really was a bag of devouring. It was a useful garbage disposal for many adventures. Oh man. We almost did lose everyone, but went on and self-distructed later on utter accident. While in a demiplane, someone cast ropetrick and climbed in with a portable hole in his possession. BOOM! Hey, when you flee for your life sometimes you respond badly.

 

[Dog Moon]

Three Word: "Find...the...Path." [It's a spell in the PHB ]

"The recipient of this spell can find the shortest, most direct physical route to a specified destination, be it the way into or out of a locale.

The spell enables the subject to sense the correct direction that will eventually lead it to its destination, indicating at appropriate times the exact path to follow or physical actions to take. For example, the spell enables the subject to sense trip wires or the proper word to bypass a glyph of warding."


It tells you where to go and exactly how to get there, how to bypass all traps. Once I realized that my Cleric could do that, I did. We got to the end quickly and Find the Path then became banned from our group. I used that spell in that exact adventure that the DM converted to 3.0.

 

[howandwhy99]

I don't understand. If one character does not want to do what the majority of the PC group wants to, why wouldn't he simply take some time off? I could understand trying to convince your fellow PC friends to not walk into certain death. But refusing to go oneself is not cowardice, just common sense.

Perhaps the player could be a hireling?

 

[Breakdaddy]

I said what I would do, not what everyone should do.

Then you are a better person than I, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!! You are a STARK RAVING FOOL if you enter the tomb!!!!11 I DID SO MANY YEARS AGO and that is why I am the way I am now!!!!!!111!!11

 

[BlackMoria]

The players have heard of the reputation of the module and five are game? Good on them. They know what is coming and that may help them in the long run because they are not likely to go charging in to their doom, knowing the reputation of the module as a meatgrinder.

I love modules like ToH, RttToH, Labyrinth of Madness, A Paladin in Hell, The Crypt of the Devil Lich.....any module with reputation as a meatgrinder. I've played them all as a player and my characters have always survived without dying, which to me is the ultimate high.

The module is not a killer module unless the characters are unlucky, incautious, jump to conclusions, acted inappropiately, and forget about teamwork.

Modules like this get their reputations because the "kick in the door and charge" type of players drop like flies and are the basis of the reputation and the bulk of the body count. Smart parties can survive such modules largely intact..... I have seen it and experience it.

So, have fun with it. As for the player who doesn't want to play it - have him make a choice. The majority want to play it, so he is either in or out.... with his existing character or one made up for this adventure.

 

[Trainz]

The player should indeed create a new character of the same level and enter the tomb.

Some have mentioned true resurrection as a mean to survive, well having personally played the adventure, those won't help you out in many instances. Sometimes, something happens and your character is out out out.

At times, you don't even have the luxury of a save. You are faced with choice A and choice B. You choose B ? Boom, you're dead.

Personally, I found the whole adventure kinda pointless and tiresome, but for kicks played it till the bitter end. No-one had his original character when we finished it. After finishing it, the campaign was aborted, even though we "succeeded". The taint of that adventure was simply too strong in that campaign and no-one wanted to go on.

All that said, if the DM did a MAJOR overhaul, I would play it. ONLY if he did a MAJOR overhaul. Else, have fun guys, and call me back when you're done with it.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Can't speak for the Return, though I've gathered that it's supposedly nastier than the Original.

I did run a party in 2e through the Original. All of the characters were above the suggested levels (12-14), and the party had access to Wish. Their reaction? "Thank GHOD we had wish, and you don't Monkey's Paw butt-savers!" And they *avoided* most of the nastier traps.