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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Because somebody in your club got the idea in their head from somewhere that old school Dungeons and Dragoning is a cool fun experience that you're going to have a blast with. And I hope you do! Good luck. Considering the original proposer of the idea is the guy who super antagonistically GMs Dungeon World because he views it as old school, yeah, you got the nail on the head. Hope it turns out well, too.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:57
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If everyone is 100% clear what they're getting into it can be fun to just laugh at stupid ways you died. Like, treat it like a joke, have your players play dumb characters, giggle when Zorplax The Halfling Bard gets his lower half dissolved by a black hole for no reason.
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Mar 20, 2015 22:02
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Well Covok please let me know how it goes, in any event.
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Mar 20, 2015 22:12
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Tomb of Horrors is one of those grog touchstones where a bunch of old shits tell you how hardcore they were to survive it and then you go look at the actual module and start laughing a lot and saying "No, no way, no one could survive this. This is garbage poo poo for idiots." No, straight up some people I game with went into Tomb of Horrors cold and won without anybody dying and getting the secret ending where you genuinely kill the demilich for good. It took them 4 in game days and like 14 irl hours. They effectively wrote an algorithm that they followed square by square, to take no chances and leave absolutely no chance of anyone being killed. Anything risky was stuck to a rat and thrown in a sphere of annihilation. They used Geoff the Safety Skeleton and a load of dogs to scout. It sounded like great fun to do once and then never again.
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Mar 20, 2015 22:38
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Isn't that funny? That's exactly what the group who beat it told me they did, except with sheep instead of dogs.
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Mar 20, 2015 22:50
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What exactly is the story of the Tomb of Horrors, anyway? Everything I've heard about it makes it sound like a Pathways into Darkness prequel or something. (Also would tacnukes and thermobaric bombs count as a "solution" to it?")
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Mar 20, 2015 23:00
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It's a ridiculous nigh unbeatable dungeon designed to punish PCs. That's all.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:01
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To expand upon what Lord Frisk said: It was a dungeon adventure module that is basically the ultimate expression of "GM vs Players". Every single thing in it is designed to kill players, and the module punishes you harshly for not being psychic/super careful with your wording/reading the adventure before you play it. There's things like "this room has a locked door and a statue with an open mouth in it." And if you reach into the mouth, the logical place to check for a key or a switch of some kind, your PC instantly disintegrates. And there's one room where if you touch a thing you summon a high level demon, which your players have literally zero chance of defeating in combat, and it destroys you all with fireball spells. It is a shining example of a sadistic era of gaming history.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:07
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It was specifically written as a tournament module, which is why it's one giant pile of bullshit. It's basically the only possible case where the giant bullshit pile could possibly be justified.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:08
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There's also the fact that the players will initially be given a false dungeon to go to (that kills them) and also there's a false ending where the players fight a very very tough monster and get some treasure and return home thinking that they've won (that's not actually the hyper-deadly REAL ENDING monster with the fabulous riches) There's no "algorithm" that you can devise that lets you realize you didn't just face the real boss or actually win a fight against that son of a bitch or whatever. It's complete bullshit and anyone who says that they beat it had some kind of help or just threw characters at it until they beat it because it's loving fatal beyond reason and almost impossible to get the true ending without multiple wipes. Like, if you look at the OG Monster Manual and see the Lurker Below and Rot Grub and Gas Spore and say "oh yeah this is my kind of poo poo" you'll probably love it because you're a power-tripping jerk DM doofus who owns all the Grimtooth's Traps books and wears a novelty T-Shirt with Godzilla on it. You prick. Lemon Curdistan posted:It was specifically written as a tournament module, which is why it's one giant pile of bullshit. It's basically the only possible case where the giant bullshit pile could possibly be justified. Against the Giants is also a tourney module and it is not bad at all, albiet extremely 1980s AD&D.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:14
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I believe the fluff behind it is that a demilich needed to kill shitloads of people to please his god so literally built a giant death dungeon purpose built for murdering adventuring parties and sent out a call of "Hey, I have loads of treasure and am evil as gently caress! Come get me!"
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Mar 20, 2015 23:17
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Specifically, a tournament module created for a scene where the people playing in the tournaments were complaining about the modules up to that point being too easy. The way the structure worked, you got more points for getting further in a module. Actually completing a module basically caps out your ability to score points, which is undesirable. So tournament modules are, in theory, supposed to be too long to complete (at least within that single graded session.) But there's no adventure so long that a wizard can't short-circuit it, so the other way to make sure the players didn't finish it was to just be bullshit hard.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:17
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:There's also the fact that the players will initially be given a false dungeon to go to (that kills them) and also there's a false ending where the players fight a very very tough monster and get some treasure and return home thinking that they've won (that's not actually the hyper-deadly REAL ENDING monster with the fabulous riches)  I'm...becoming increasingly convinced that a lot of these D&D modules should be handled by the Thief going "I stole tactical nukes from another dimension" and using their Use Magic Device skill to arm them to blow when the party is out of the area.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:18
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It's all a cheat anyway, so I guess you can just throw your arms up and declare that you win.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:19
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Our very own SomethingAwful did a review on it if you want to go down the rabbit hole a bit. http://www.somethingawful.com/dungeons-and-dragons/wtf-tomb-horrors/1/ Read this ridiculousness (and it really only captures a small part of the adventure's lethality) and realize that it's just total and complete garbage that can't be solved with some bullshit "algorithm". Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Mar 20, 2015 |
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Mar 20, 2015 23:25
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There's already a fairly exhaustive list of free rpgs: http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/category:tabletop-game It's definitely missing things but it is a useful resource.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:28
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I feel like Tomb of Horrors is funny as gently caress, but only if you get your players to get into a "Losing is fun!" mindset. What's really weird is how people put it at the top of the list for D&D modules. I'm new as gently caress to tabletop gaming, having only been doing it for like 2 and a half years, so I dunno what a good D&D module would be. However, I definitely know the gimmicky trap dungeon made for tournaments is not the best.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:34
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Covok posted:Considering the original proposer of the idea is the guy who super antagonistically GMs Dungeon World because he views it as old school, yeah, you got the nail on the head. Hope it turns out well, too. I mean this isn't a good idea, but at least it's not your bad idea. If you had longer to prepare I'd think you should have launched a contest for goons to make up tournament style modules for different games.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:42
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Tomb of Horrors is one of those grog touchstones where a bunch of old shits tell you how hardcore they were to survive it and then you go look at the actual module and start laughing a lot and saying "No, no way, no one could survive this. This is garbage poo poo for idiots." Yes. Even letting my players make "Knowledge: Gaming" skill checks to try to avoid catastrophe, a couple of them probably would have died if not for the guy who said "hold on, any time you think you figured out the right answer in here it means you are about to die, do something else." Haha. SunAndSpring posted:I feel like Tomb of Horrors is funny as gently caress, but only if you get your players to get into a "Losing is fun!" mindset. My group even did it right in a sense, as they happened to have dragged a half-dozen other people into the Tomb with them by accident, and they managed to get a few of them killed in believable fashion while of course really just checking for traps. Good times. Also I am excited to see some love for D20 Call of Cthulhu. It obviously had unavoidable flaws due to its base system, but it really was pretty fun to run under the very limited circumstances where you do not want to spend even 5 minutes teaching a new system.
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Mar 21, 2015 00:05
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Oh btw I'm absolutely down with people playing Tomb of Horrors and knowing it's idiotic, but holding it up as a Good Module or treating it like anything other than Player Death Funhouse or pretending you're "good enough at D&D" to beat it without dying is just moronic. Don't do that. And especially don't construct a tournament around it, ESPECIALLY with people who have never played D&D before, ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY with an adversarial prick of a DM! He should be laughing right along with you as you are teleported naked to the start of the dungeon for the third time.
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Mar 21, 2015 00:08
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Quarex posted:hahahahahah I recall looking at a map or something that there were a ton of times you had to climb down into a spiked pit trap and find the secret door to actually progress.
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Mar 21, 2015 00:11
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I ran the 2nd Edition module Return to the Tomb of Horrors for a charity stream last year and it wasn't nearly as hard as it seemed. The most interesting part was the first section where the group needs to access the original Tomb of Horrors through a city of Necromancers. The city is filled with hundreds of level 1 wizards, who explicitly all memorize Magic Missile, which makes a direct assault pretty suicidal unless you do what my party did, which was launch a week long bombing campaign of fireballs, fire elementals, and cloudkills to burn the low level necromancers to the ground. They had an epic spell-showdown with the 18th level caster vampire headmistress flying above the city during the final assault. I don't think the designers realized that Rebuke Undead is a thing though, because the party cleric press-ganged the trio of lower-level vampires and the headmistress' custom flying skull with at-will flame bolt powers into a dungeon crushing force. Did you know almost none of the traps in the original Tomb of Horrors or the City of Moil/Fortress of Conclusion in Return do anything to Undead? A ton of traps are poison, cold or negative level giving, and 90% of the monsters are undead that can be rebuked. The designers did not seem to consider this, since the rest of the game was a cakewalk.
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Mar 21, 2015 00:17
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But if you use Rebuke Undead then you're eviiiiiiiil....
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Mar 21, 2015 00:21
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Covok posted:Considering the original proposer of the idea is the guy who super antagonistically GMs Dungeon World because he views it as old school how do you antagonistically gm dungeon world without the players giving up and taking turns kicking you in the fork before leaving
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Mar 21, 2015 00:23
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Mince Pieface posted:Did you know almost none of the traps in the original Tomb of Horrors do anything to Undead? The place is run by a lich so it makes sense.
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Mar 21, 2015 00:24
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The funny thing is, a Necromancer with Rebuke Undead would have more reason than anyone to try to kill Acererak, and it makes absolutely no sense that a bunch of Necromancers would be helping him. If Acererak succeeds in Return to the Tomb of Horrors, the result is that all undead everywhere are directly under Acererak's control, and all the other Necromancers are out of a job.
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Mar 21, 2015 00:25
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Did anyone else watch TableTop do Cards Against Humanity? I got about halfway through whilst playing on BGA in another tab. It was painfully unfunny, and it genuinely didn't feel like most of the players were actually enjoying it.
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Mar 21, 2015 00:28
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Covok posted:How does the list look so far? Any big ones I'm missing? I know I didn't get all of them, but there are a lot! Definitely not a "big one" but maybe consider adding Last Stand. The core book is free (http://tinyurl.com/LastStandCollection) and there are some preview rules from the supplement which are complete enough to be usable (https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzBGv7T2YMphclZKbE5CSV9SdEk&usp=sharing). I can't speak to the balance (not enough experience in general) but character creation is fun and it's not like anything else I know of. Also wassup upstate buddy.
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Mar 21, 2015 00:40
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Covok posted:How does the list look so far? Any big ones I'm missing? I know I didn't get all of them, but there are a lot! Here's Solar System, the system behind The Shadow of Yesterday.
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Mar 21, 2015 00:45
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thespaceinvader posted:Did anyone else watch TableTop do Cards Against Humanity? The main application of Cards Against Humanity is weeding out who in your social group is quietly racist.
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Mar 21, 2015 01:08
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thespaceinvader posted:Did anyone else watch TableTop do Cards Against Humanity? Nobody actually enjoys CAH.
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Mar 21, 2015 01:32
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Benly posted:The main application of Cards Against Humanity is weeding out who in your social group is quietly racist. I did have some fun playing Cards Against Humanity the one time I ever did, but honestly maybe less fun than my friends and I used to have playing Apples to Apples in the same spirit that you are supposed to play Cards Against Humanity. I remember we slowly weeded out all the cards that seemed like they could never possibly have offensive or horrific subtext, because the idea of playing that game seriously seemed ludicrous. AHhahaha the developers of Cards Against Humanity honestly expect us to believe they were not inspired by Apples to Apples. Well wait, I guess is it really "inspiration" if it is "wrote over the original cards with Sharpies?"
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Mar 21, 2015 01:33
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Lemon Curdistan posted:It was specifically written as a tournament module, which is why it's one giant pile of bullshit. It's basically the only possible case where the giant bullshit pile could possibly be justified. Not quite. It was written because Ernie Gygax and Rob Kuntz were complaining that everything in Greyhawk was too easy so Gygax decided to write the hardest fair dungeon he possibly could to prove them wrong. They cleaned it out on the first attempt because they knew what Gygax was like and how he thought (and there's a basic algorithm that will get you through all the traps). Gygax then introduced it to the rest of the world as a tournament module - and the rest of the world wasn't used to Gygax' more tortuous inventions.
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Mar 21, 2015 02:22
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I'm curious. I found my old collection of Magic cards while going through my stuff to clean out my old room this week. Where would I take them to get them appraised? I know at least a few of the cards I have are valuable and I have no idea how to find out what they're worth or sell them, not having played since high school.
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Mar 21, 2015 02:43
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All right, what is this loving magical mystery algorithm that's supposed to get you through the Tomb of Horrors? How does that even work?
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Mar 21, 2015 02:49
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Kai Tave posted:All right, what is this loving magical mystery algorithm that's supposed to get you through the Tomb of Horrors? How does that even work? "Check out this mysterious problem-solving algorithm! Dungeon Masters HATE it!"
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Mar 21, 2015 02:51
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Kai Tave posted:All right, what is this loving magical mystery algorithm that's supposed to get you through the Tomb of Horrors? How does that even work? Bring as many hirelings and animals as you can, drive them in front of you to set off and identify the traps.
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Mar 21, 2015 02:53
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Night10194 posted:I'm curious. I found my old collection of Magic cards while going through my stuff to clean out my old room this week. Where would I take them to get them appraised? I know at least a few of the cards I have are valuable and I have no idea how to find out what they're worth or sell them, not having played since high school. Go to Coolstuffinc.com and look them up by block. That's low going rate, and you could probably ask 125% of the CSI offer provided the cards are clean and undamaged. Selling individually will get you more money, but also more hassle.
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Mar 21, 2015 02:57
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Kai Tave posted:All right, what is this loving magical mystery algorithm that's supposed to get you through the Tomb of Horrors? How does that even work? If they find the hint poem and follow it, and then always ignore the door you can see and look for a hidden one, it's not to bad. That's how my group beat it with only 2 deaths way back in the day when we just ran it for the hell of it.
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Mar 21, 2015 03:04
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neonchameleon posted:Not quite. It was written because Ernie Gygax and Rob Kuntz were complaining that everything in Greyhawk was too easy so Gygax decided to write the hardest fair dungeon he possibly could to prove them wrong. They cleaned it out on the first attempt because they knew what Gygax was like and how he thought (and there's a basic algorithm that will get you through all the traps). Gygax then introduced it to the rest of the world as a tournament module - and the rest of the world wasn't used to Gygax' more tortuous inventions. A lot of the earlier stories about ToH weren't so much praise as shared trauma. The way a group of friends will go "remember the time we [did this incredibly stupid thing]?" and everyone winces and laughs and wonders how any of you survived until adulthood. Very few people I've met who actually played in that era enjoyed ToH, but all of them had gotten murdered by it and thus it was a shared cultural touchstone. If you happen to be a Red Sox fan, its the D&D equivalent of the ball going through Buckner's legs. Later players hold it up as something more for the same stupid cargo cult reasons they hate Monty Haul GMs and muchkins without actually understanding what either is or why they were actually a problem for the early games. It reminds me of why I'm continually disappointed and aggravated by OSR. Early RPGs - mostly D&D but there were a few other late 70s/early 80s games accompanying it - had some very different assumptions about play style, and thus many odd rule concepts to accommodate those assumptions. Starting around AD&D and 2nd edition, D&D moved away from some of those ideas, and most other games followed suit or were moving in the direction typified by White Wolf. Modern indie games are doing some very cool and different things to be sure, but there's still a lot of untapped potential in the half-formed concepts in original D&D that didn't survive into later editions. Things like balance through differential advancement rates, henchmen and followers, running guilds and/or castles, or even the treasure-as-xp concept. I don't know if any of them are actually good ideas, or if their falling by the wayside was necessary to improve game design. But reassessing those ideas with some modern design concepts and techniques could yield some interesting results. If OSR really was anything other than a bunch of wannabe grognards getting off on random tables and trying to copy Gygax's writing style, if it was actually a game design movement, it would be mining the hell out of those oddball ideas and building entirely new games around them. The closest thing to that is Torchbearer - which naturally draws a lot of OSR ire. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Mar 21, 2015 |
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Mar 21, 2015 03:05
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