[Adventure] Tomb of Horrors (AD&D); Where mettle falters the butt doth suffer persecution

[Adventure]
Tomb of Horrors (1978, Green Cover)
Gary Gygax (TSR)
Level 10 – 14

In the far reaches of the world, under a lost and lonely hill, lies the sinister TOMB OF HORRORS. This labyrinthine crypt is filled with terrible traps, strange and ferocious monsters, rich and magical treasures and somewhere within lies the evil demi-lich.

With those dread words Gary Gygax heralds what is unquestionably one of the most famous and simultaneously hated adventures ever made. Lauded as the most difficult, the most unfair dungeon of all time, its very mention is enough to inspire wailing and butthurt wherever it goes. A select few reviews hold it up as the pinnacle of oldskool gaming, many more moan piteously at the degradation and torment they suffered in their infant years at the hands of sadistic thirteen-year old dungeon masters. Seven Seas-designer John Wick has publicly stated that he was raped by ToH. Tomb of Horrors raped his butt. Bryce Lynch wakes up screaming and covered in cum every night [1], haunted by charles dickens-ghosts of a thousand terrible adventures that take it as inspiration. Some trollop on Rpg.net gave it a 1 for substance. ‘WAAAAAH’ it states [paraphrased], ‘WAAAAAH IT RAPED MY BUTT.’

In the OSR it seems respected if not necessarily remembered fondly, with the Dungeon of Signs review standing out as the most thoughtful one I could find on short notice. As a reviewer, how you feel about Tomb of Horrors is probably one of the most useful benchmarks one can have in divining one’s vision on gaming. Therefore it should come as no surprise that I fucking love Tomb of Horrors and it would be a feather in my GM-crown to raise a group to the skill level where they actually stand a chance of beating it. No one I game with EVEN COMES CLOSE.

From whence the difference in perspective? How can different people get such radically different impressions from the same game? Generational inbreeding would seem to be the obvious explanation, only I know for a fact not every detractor of Tomb of Horrors originates from rpg.net. For long seconds I pondered until I arrived at last at the truth; the Tomb of Horrors problem is context.

Let me tell you a story. The year is 1975. DnD is booming, elves have one gender, there’s tits on the cover of Eldritch Wizardry and Lorraine Willaims is but an ominous cloud on the horizon yet all is not well in Lake Geneva. Robert J. Kuntz just had his 14th level Fighter take a dump in the severed neck-stump of yet another dead Red Dragon. “What else have you got Gaygax?,” he sneers, as he pours his coffee over yet another of Gary’s dungeon maps in celebration. “Nothing,” Gygax says, swallowing sadness, returning home and angrily plowing his wife and giving up halfway through. “What’s wrong,” she asks but he just shakes his head, weeping angry tears.
Every goddamn convention Gygax is accosted by hordes of primordial catpiss men, crusty and hoary with body odour in a way our modern mind can no longer fathom, telling him what a limpdicked bitch game he has and asking him whether he can’t come up with something tougher for their 20th level fighter with a +5 Vorpal Sword and making dicksucking motions. At first he is patient, but eventually he figures that if he is going to ever look at himself in the mirror without flinching ever again, he’d better goddamn lay down the law on these ruffians. “There are only two types of men in this world. Dungeon Slaves,” he says himself as he looks in the mirror, clenching a fistful of polyhedrals until his hands bleed while Nine Inch Nails plays in the background, “and Dungeon Masters. Which one is it Gaygax?” So he sits down and makes the ultimate dungeon, a dungeon that tests the player’s D&D skills until they snap. You think you are hot shit? You are nothin.’ Nine billion dead monty haul characters later, DnD is saved, the king is back and Gygax plows his wife like never before. [2]

It is in this light that I will judge Tomb of Horrors and no other. A true challenge for experienced players of levels 10-14, possessing vast storage of magic items, and requiring mastery of AD&D’s comprehensive assortment of spells, abilities magic items and tricks. Invisible tetris. Nightmare difficulty. Platonic killer dungeon style. Goddamn I am excited.

The premise of Tomb of Horrors is a brilliant bit of meta-fiction. Just as the actual module is meant to be a test for only the most skillfull players, the tomb proper is a gauntlet, a true trap meant to attract only the greatest of adventurers and whittle them down until only the most formidable remain. These are to be food so the Demi-Lich can continue to exist in his beyond deathless state. The Demi Lich is itself transcendent, an antagonist beyond anything in the MM.

There’s no old fucking man in a tavern begging you to help out his dog which is lost in the Tomb of Horrors. Its well hidden, remote. It keeps its distance. Scraps of lore culled from sages, framents from Legend Lore spells. Most people tend to agree, its going to have your fucking characters for breakfast. Have you designated an heir for your keep? Then its time to take that 12th level fighter out of retirement for one last glorious hurrah. You can have him enjoy old age, but there will always be some lingering memory that when ultimate challenge stared in his face, he flinched like an old woman. You will always wonder ‘was he tough enough?’

This almost coy reluctance is what adds to TOH’s menace. Today’s dungeon designers would probably make it a giant fire-belching skull fortress covered with impaled 20th level Paladins on it [3]. There’s no such pretense with Gygax. A remote island in the Vast Swamp, a Hill covered with brambles. Stones on the top in the form of a skull. No random encounters. The last safe moment of this adventure. Begin. Rooms look innucuous. Even in those with seeming hazards the danger always comes from some unexpected corner. The lethality of Tomb of Horrors lies not in its use of save vs death but in its utter refusal to telegraph its attacks clearly. Danger is always concealed, or comes from an oblique angle.

Gygax was always very meticulous in how he set up his modules and this one is no exception. From the first second he telegraphs that Tomb of Horrors is not going to be an exciting romp through Dragon canyon, involving Sword fights and Sorcery. Instead a gruelling ordeal of roadblocks awaits, each one either deadly or debilitating, each obstacle requiring solution before the next one may be attempted. You need patience, contemplation, relentless energy, a calloused soul, inured to dissapointment[4]. You need to sustain that for multiple sessions, with mere trinkles of treasure to keep you going. A Dark Souls mindset. A Darkest Dungeon Mindset.

The first design element that comes to mind is one that is credibly laid at the feet of many dungeons afterward by the tenfootpole.org school; This dungeon limits player abilities (though nowhere near as much as is often stated). You will find adamantium doors proof against any sorcery, sorcerous bolts proof against any enchantment, effects that cannot be magicked around but must be tackled head on. The Tomb will have its way. As a general dungeon design principle? Rigid and desincentivizing of creative problem solving. As an ultimate challenge for high level characters that tests their skills in the CORE of DnD? Perfectly acceptable and probably necessary. High level DnD is vastly different from low level DnD. Standard solutions exist and are available for most mundane problems. Knock. Find Traps. Detect Magic. Tomb of Horrors tests you by stripping you of some of those advantages and forcing you to rely on your wits. If there is a method to ToH it is that you need to change how you approach obstacles because it always thinks two steps ahead. The big fuck you, Ethereal Travel, is tackled by having you attract Demons. Its a hindrance that prevents you from curbstomping the entire dungeon but you can still use it effectively, its drawbacks must simply be taken into account.

In short, while Bryce’s claims that this element ruined a generation of GM’s with terribly designed modules and turned them into pedophiles are understandable and entirely accurate, this blame should not be placed at the feet of Tomb of Horrors itself, which contains a set of tools for an entirely different situation then most modules, but the folly of man, who misunderstands and misinterprets the greatness that is bequeathed upon it.

There’s an unconventional mechanic to some of Tombs traps that I am eager to actually implement. Anytime there is a reliance on reaction time (e.g. you hear a click and feel the ground rumbling) instead of a saving throw the GM is merely to count and check when the players respond, then take their movement speed and calculate if they can avoid the hazard. This mechanism keeps players on their toes and alert and is an excellent counterpoint to the more obvious hazards, which are generally circumvented more methodically with careful experimentation.

The deadliness of Tomb of Horrors is legendary but a careful reading shows much of the beginning lethality can be circumvented with careful preparation and the abilities of high level spellcasters. A 10th level cleric’s Slow Poison spell can keep characters alive for 10 hours, enough time to rest and pray for a Neutralize poison spell. Find Traps is 2nd level. Augury is 2nd level. Contact Outer Plane is a 5th level wizard spell. The insane potential of high level characters unfolds before one as some dreadful, lovecraftian butterfly and only a deep understanding of the fundamentals of DnD allows for the design of a dungeon that walks the narrow tightrope between countering gamebreaking powers and utter arbitrary shitfuckery. Beyond an unlucky set of rolls as you encounter the first pit trap, there is no excuse to die in the first 4 rooms. Tomb of Horrors is merciless but it is seldom unfair or arbitrary.

Quoth Gygax ” Accounts relate that it is quite unlikely that any adventurers will ever find the chamber where the demi-lich Acererak lingers, for the passages and rooms of the
Tomb are fraught with terrible traps, poison gases, and magical protections.”

The first part of the dungeon is also the most confounding in terms of possibilities. You are bombarded with sensory impressions of hieroglyphics, a process not exactly aided by thick chunky blocks of text that Gygax favored that need to be digested in advance and memorized, a fatal flaw in other modules, barely a hindrance in this one as players are unlikely to advance more then one room every hour or so if lucky or skillful. This section lures you in by confronting you with a glittering path, which ancestral memory would dictate is safe whereas straying from it is death. FALSE. There are weird, hard to find secret hinges that lead to…pit trap! Careful observation unveils a vaguely mocking riddle full of clues, what better way to get players pumped for the dangers ahead?

The opening of Tomb of Horrors confronts you with myriad ways to go but nearly all of them dead ends or traps. Even here Tomb is still pulling its punches, with some traps landing you in a situation that is not immediately fatal, merely debilitating, at times even deigning to offer cryptic riddles with the possibility of minor advantage later on. There is the possibility of deaths, certainly, but a TPK is unlikely, as the lack of random encounters means characters can almost always retreat. False doors or punishing hallways with magic dart traps are meant only to slow down, and are unlikely to kill high level characters, though perhaps an incautious wizard or two will be culled. What is really needed to complete the tomb at this point are retainers, preferably charmed ones.

The next major nexus, the Hall of the Spheres, is still not Tomb of Horror at its full power. Effective use is made of crawlways, something I wish to see more often in DnD. Nothing quite evokes childhood fantasies of exploring buried places like claustrophobic tunnels, sometimes with hidden doors in places where you’d least expect them. The first red herrings are thrown at the players, confounding mysteries that seem of significance but are merely there to waste time or lure people to their deaths. The challenge level ramps up from thereon out. By now you the brain should be acclimatized to the new normal, which is that where in normal game design hints are meant to advance the game, here they are generally traps meant to kill you. This is what separates ToH from a  difficult but otherwise normal dungeon. ToH deliberately sets out to trick you, and uses your ingrained dungeoneering instincts against you. You get a little time to adjust to this change before Tomb ramps up its difficulty from high to lethal.

There is one fantastically placed secret door that must be found in order to continue and it is literally in the last place you’d look. I am in awe of it. Its great. Theres a series of three doors, with pit traps immediately behind them. You MIGHT at this point, still fall for one, probably not the second and there’s no way you will fall for the third. THAT’S WHERE THE SECRET DOOR IS. IT’S IN THE TRAP. BULLSHIT you say! LITERALLY THE LAST PLACE YOU’D LOOK. But…there’s another secret door in a trap before that (granted it’s hidden) AND it’s mentioned in the bullshit riddle. You have Contact Outer Plane to narrow the search damnit.

At around room 16 the game confronts you with the first honest to god Potential TPK since the opening and its not THAT bad, more menacing then utterly lethal. A nice countdown with an added possibility for some magical trickery and it’s all good. You ask yourself…is Tomb slowing down? Then another favorite of Tomb of Horrors that would become a staple of 16-bit video games…the fakeout!

There are no less then Two, possibly Three Fake Acereraks in Tomb of Horrors (one of them a normal corpse). The fakery of each one is telegraphed, accounted for, obvious in retrospect, but its yet another example of brilliant design. In the first case, it prompts a confrontation (somewhat underwhelming), followed by a precipitous escape and elation…followed by realization. It functions as a benchmark, punctuating the grind. The second time it serves as an anti-climax…spurring on a new expedition. Throughout the Tomb, the possible confrontation with Acererak should serve as a looming threat on the horizon.

Now might as well be the time to discuss the way you advance in Tomb of Horrors, which is almost exclusively by secret doors. Secret doors will become your new best friend, your closest confidante, your lover even. You will get to know them better then you know yourself. In the hands of a bumbling oaf like Raggi you get the second half of Grinding Gear, a monotonous slog as characters brainlessly stumble about and headbutt the walls until they roll a 1 or run out of food. I am A-goddamn-SHAMED I ever compared that piece of shit to this FUCKING MASTERPIECE. There are TWO secret door in this entire 33 room murder factory that has to be brute forced when all comes down to it. EVERY other door is located near a dead end, has some alternate means of detection, is telegraphed or can otherwise be discovered by investigation. The ONE secret door is located about 2/3rds of the way and can be found relatively quickly with a systematic search. The other one leads to Acererak but has a noticeable feature. You do not even necessarily need to use B1 style gridmapping to find hidden areas though it could conceivably be useful.

At around 2/3rds ToH takes off the gloves and reaches full, unadulterated Toh level. The traps that kill your players no longer resemble anything recognisable and have qualities that are all but impossible to anticipate. A bouncing room with tapestries that are actually polymorphed constructions of Slime and Brown Mould. A mythril door that if scratched, can flood the entire dungeon with blood. The FUCKING throne CROWN TRAP. GENIUS. There is barely marked corridor trap that can very easily result in a TPK. I said CAN because the chance that it actually triggers is not 100%. It is at this point that all bets are truly off. Nothing can be trusted except the PCs precautions, paranoia and their understanding of how Tomb “thinks.”

The traps increase in intensity until the penultimate trap has the potential to lock the entire Tomb in a failure state from which there is virtually no recovery…but as per usual you get multiple recovery attempts before that happens. Effects are as varied as everything else, some traps are merely obstacles, harmless as long as they are not directly tampered with, others are meant to wear you down and are almost unavoidable but never lethal, yet still others are like landmines, unobtrustive and deadly, or vast and ponderous. A veritable menagerie of deadly and brilliant shitfuckery whose nature becomes increasingly opaque and confounding.

One of my big gripes with putting pit traps in random hallways is that it incentivizes players to waste time by checking every single fucking tile of the game. That’s boring. Tomb of Horrors does this exactly never. All the pit traps in the game, with the exception of those in the entry hall, are placed just shortly after an interactive dungeon element (e.g. a crossroads or a door), shaking everyone awake and giving them time to get back in the game.

The final fight and confrontation with Acererak is among the most lethal in the Tomb and fits seamlessly with the theme of the entire dungeon. Once again, rushing headlong into peril will most likely result in immediate lethality for the players whereas preparation and strategy will bring possible success, and once again, the Tomb uses misdirection to confuse the players into thinking the danger lies in some other place.

The rewards for success are suitably colossal, a titanic hoard suitable for high level characters that should serve as a nice symbolic representation of their true success; beating the Tomb of Horrors without John Wick having to nursemaid you through it.

Tomb is a difficult product to recommend. As a straight one-shot it will likely decimate any potential explorers quickly and mercilessly, and its slow, methodical pacing makes it impossible to complete in a single session. Running it for new players risks destroying their conception of what DnD is supposed to be in ways more damaging then one can articulate. I’m not even sure a normal DnD player would even enjoy this.

But if you have yourself a couple of “thinking module” chaps with hard eyes, steel in their guts and high level characters I say fucking go with it. Make it the goddamn chocolate-and-fudge coated capstone of a long and hard campaign, have everyone set their affairs in order and make their will and run that badboy the way its intended. Risk it all for immortal glory. And as they emerge, basking in evenlight, laden with wealth, the lives of dozens of retainers a fleeting memory, you can pat yourself on the back for training your players to a level of ability reached only by a seldom few.

And for godsake don’t run it as a 5e or a 3e conversion. The plethora of extra carebear powers and the revamped detection skills completely fuck with the way ToH is supposed to operate. If you are going to run this thing run it ah la carte, no sixpack, no infinite respawning character carousel.

To those that dislike or even hate Tomb of Horrors I say that is perfectly fine. It’s by no means the be all and end-all of what high level DnD is about. Hell, I’m not even sure its for me. But I’ll be damned if it is not a shining example of fiendishly clever design, packed to the brim with lethal, unconventional, BRILLIANT dickery that does exactly what it is meant to do, push your players to new heights of skill, force them to get every last erg out of their spells, and spit polish their dungeon-crawling procedures until they fucking shine. It stands in a category all on its own and has not truly been surpassed. Even Return ttToH, while possibly superior in the classic module sense, never quite reaches the level where it forces players to change how they play DnD if they want to beat it.

I’ve seen tougher modules then ToH, but I don’t think I’ve seen modules that are hard like ToH is hard, meticulously crafted and requiring the type of finesse, patience and precision that ToH demands. ToH is an absolute fucking classic and if you ever build up a collection of players that you think have a decent fucking chance to make it through you should absolutely run it. *****

[1] The latter for entirely different reasons that have nothing to do with Tomb of Horrors but I felt I had to include this detail out of journalistic obligation
[2] Paraphrased from Gygax’s Foreword in Return to the Tomb of Horrors by Bruce Cordell
[3] Just kidding, that would be the 90s. I guess Tomb of Annihilation is a pretty good indication of what a 5e ToH looks like.