DM Tactics: Tomb of Horrors
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Dungeon master tips for Tomb of Horrors. Best to read the module once before watching, this video will help focus your DM prep. My tips combine both first edition and 5e, if you have additional advice you feel I missed, please leave your comment in the section below.
![S1 Tomb Of Horrors (D&D's Rite Of Passage) [ RPGmodsFan ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dpoOV0kuBn4/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Limbus Company - Teaser] Season5 - Oblivion](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8anKuEeZLeI/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey, this module was written as a tournament module when D&D was new. It was designed to be run in a single 4-hour session! I've actually made it to the end in about three sessions, but did play through to the end in a variant version at a convention in about 6 hours. The goal is to get as far as possible as a team before time runs out. This is a test of skill and teamwork to try and beat the dungeon.
I'd clearly describe what this dungeon is about to a group of modern players up front. I'd let them know that this is about dungeon exploration, let them know it's not easy, and that it's about challenging themselves to "think outside the box". This is more like an episode of "American Ninja Warriors", not "Friends". Can you meet the challenge? One more note: due to the nature of the scenario, I'd propose running it as a one shot.
The tone of the module is that its a dangerous place, themed like weird swords and sorcery/horror stories and Indiana Jones type tomb raiding. it's Conan or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, not The Hobbit or Critical Role. The builders of the tomb are evil and naturally are trying to kill grave robbers. You have crossed the threshold into the "underworld" where the normal, safe rules of the civilized world no longer apply! The Lich Acererak is a legendary "bogeyman" type figure, so be thoughtful, cautious, and expect the unexpected. The DM can evoke this ominous tone in their descriptions and presentation to increase the dramatic tension in the game.
Just a side note: when this dungeon was published, there were traveling exhibits of the treasures of King Tut's Tomb. There were tons of urban legends about the people who opened the tomb in the 1920s coming to untimely deaths because of "King Tut's Curse". So this kind of "unseal the tomb, and risk your doom" was part of pop-culture at the time, which made the theme even more popular.
I'd also orient the players on the style of play. They are not limited by 5E rules conventions. This was designed for Zero-edition and 1st Edition, where there were no skill rolls. If you wanted to find a secret door, or figure out a trick or trap, you described what you wanted to try to the DM. You had to *say* where you were looking, how you were manipulating objects, and were free to try anything just by saying it (usually the DM would make a spot ruling (while remaining fair, consistent but impartial), or consult the encounter description to make a ruling on whether the attempt works. Usually games rewarded creative thinking and strong tactics. The Players using their skill, tactics and wits to "beat" the dungeon, was the normal way to play.
Also pay attention to the DM's descriptions. There may be clues that bear further investigation. it's up to the players to notice this, and decide if any of this information is actionable (that's part of how you play the game). For example, when I run this module, at the entrance I mention a section of plaster on the walls that has been chipped off near where the players are excavating (maybe once or twice). If an observant player (who's listening) decides to examine it further, he gets rewarded with a more detailed description that indicates the walls are covered in plaster, and that it's removable.
Modern players, who depend on skill rolls, model their play after critical role, or play a lot of linear dungeons where they passively wait to have the next fully balanced encounter happen to them, assembly-line fashion, tend to fall into a casual approach to play, and are not experienced at playing in "challenge mode". That's what Tomb of Horrors is...challenge mode. If the right group of players are up for it, Challenge mode becomes Reward mode, because they enjoyed having their skills tested!
I started out hoping to finish the session in a shorter more one shot style. But you're correct this place isnt for the faint of heart and once my party started seeing members go down it turned into a crawl! Lol. Thanks for the detailed reply.
Quick piece of advice on the sphere of annihilation for any DMs of this dungeon. It's the number 1 most made mistake I've seen in Tomb of Horrors to the point that people think this is how it's supposed to work, but don't let characters crawl into the mouth of the great green devil and vanish!
As soon as anything enters the sphere it is immediately destroyed. That means by the time a character's head is halfway in to the sphere, they should go limp and inert because their brain is gone. Assuming that they were only leaning in at that point, their body should also fall in some way, making this very visible to the rest of the group as blood goes everywhere from the perfectly clean cut.
It's my opinion that it's a tragedy so many players have been conned out of enjoying the rest of the dungeon because a DM misunderstood how this interaction would play out and let the entire party crawl on in!
i know this comment was 3 years ago, but doesn't the tomb says that people get sucked in? at least the version i used said that the hole just pulls anything that touches it, and the actual tip the dungeon gives the players not to enter there is acererak's poem where he says the green is bad
@@pedroalmeida1456 It doesn't say anything about being sucked in, at least not in the original module. Maybe future versions changed that, but there's nothing to that effect in the OG printing.
I used to hate this module with all my heart. This all changed after i got into playing fear and hunger. I think it was after that i finally understood the appeal.
Watch8ng this gave me a great idea on how to work this not only into a campaign but make it the end goal. An entite campaign designed to slowly equip and prepare the players to take on the tomb. Info, magic items,maybe even small detailed maps of areas of the dungeon
That sounds like the best way to approach it, a few quests that unlock some key clues, then the final test to put them all together
Thanks for the heads up on room 8, I was reading the adventure recently and I was scratching my head.
I had a bunch of characters who played this some 40 years ago.
Oddly enough they did something unexpected and they dug down on top of the
skull hill and hit the top of the room of pillars and ended up breaking through the roof.
They exited the way they came though the party of seven was now down to 4.
I like making customizations on the modules I run. Dropping in is a good way to get players where you want to be. I'm imagining dropping in from the top to cave with stupid gas :) lol. Thanks for comment
One of the issues I would see in digging down that far from the top of the hill is that taking into consideration the height of the mound over the entrance level, then the number of staircases going downwards, the throne room would be nearly 150 feet below the top of the hill. Did they dig that deep? They must have been dedicated :).
One thing I did is that when players tried to cheat by digging, using Passwall, or some other method of bypassing, I usually had an extradimensional surprise, like an ethereal demon, mentioned at the beginning of the adventure, suddenly appear in the passageway and attack. Every 10 feet of tunneling brought a chance of fiendish retribution for "violating" the sacred abode of Acererak!
One specific thing I would recommend if they tried digging from the top again, is to remind them harshly that this is a tomb, possibly even a mass grave considering how huge the mound is at the top, and thinking of how many hundreds of people were slaughtered just after constructing the place. After about 10 feet or so of digging I would have them encounter skeletons, a lot of them, who then would animate and attack, not to mention some of them being preserved zombies, mummies, shadows, wraiths, specters, ghosts, undead oozes, non-undead oozes, and other even more horrifying things the deeper they dug. This should encourage them not to pry into things they were not meant to, or to continuously "poke the dragon"...
@@justifan Great ideas. The party was mostly Dwarves so the digging idea was hard to put off as they argued such hard tedious work was pure joy to them even though it took three weeks.
@@joycekoch5746 Cool, make sure the thousands of gold pieces they took from the tomb turn into chocolate Ex-Lax (oh, what an evil Lich!) ;)
@@justifan Or let them enjoy the reward for their clever thinking and hard work.
Seems like a level 3 dungeon, will put it before the CR15 encounter
I’ve run this a number of times. Not a big fan of this approach. I think there are some mistaken interpretations here of what “old-school” or Gygaxian DMing is about.
Just to clarify, in section (9) the complex of secret doors, characters are not getting shocked by electricity. They are being shot with crossbow "bolts" not lighting bolts. We know this because the module says that the bolts deal piercing damage (5e). I like the idea of players getting zapped by electricity though. Justin Alexander, in his reworking of the module, traps these rooms with a magic missiles, which I think is another cool idea.
You sir are correct, I think I ran it as lightning because in my version I wanted to zap them a bunch of times without explaining how these things reload, then forgot in this recap =P thanks for comment.
Also, in 1st Editon, players rolled to detect a secret door. It was up to the DM as a designer to decide if the door opened right up, or the PCs needed to figure out how to open it. This was a normal expectation at the time (remember, the PCs are trying to "beat" the dungeon). These doors each have a trick to opening them, so the players would need to engage in questioning the DM further for more details, and then try to open the doors. There were no investigation rolls.
I'd straight-up tell modern players this expectation, maybe making the first door not be trapped so they can get used to this practice. Starting with the next door, they keep getting shot with crossbow bolts, so the quicker their wits, the less damage they take. I'd relentlessly keep shooting them until they withdraw, get quicker (maybe by helping each other find the trick to opening the door), or come up with a creative strategy to protect themselves from the bolts (casting "protection from normal missiles", "mirror image", having a high-level monk catch the bolts in mid air, etc).
I would let them use investigation rolls -- they'd get a hint if they made it, but if they were way over the required DC, then I might just tell them the solution. If the investigator got hit with a bolt, then i'd up the DC. If the PCs come up with creative ways to use their investigation (I use my magnifying glass, I use my dwarven stone-knowledge, etc) then they could get a bonus to their chance. I would not let them just spam investigation rolls (I don't do this in 5E now). They get one roll, and I let that one result ride.
One more note about the secret doors. Many of the traps encountered at the start of the module, foreshadow what's coming later on, when the difficulty level ramps up. Finding secret doors that have special tricks to open them happens a lot in the latter half of the module at various key locations.
By having this hall of redundant, mostly harmless secret doors, this is training the players to keep an eye out for secret doors with special triggers later on. This is 100% intentional on Gygax's part.
Why play this module? What is the funny?
It’s a piece of history and if you complete it, bragging rights
Subscribed! And chance of sharing your maps for roll20?!?! Dming for my first time haha and this is what im running
well when I ran this module half of the group was trapped inside the skull and only the Clr and Wiz remained. They outsmarted the construct by throwing cloths over it so the line of effect was broken. They then wrapped it in cloth, tied everything up and left the dungeon.
Imagine how jealous H.H. Holmes is of Ascerak's Tomb.
Great vid man, thanks for that! I am happy to see you had the same thoughts as me regarding this module, like having to mix both original and modern 5e to make it more... "true" to Gygax's original intention, and also how to run room 8.
Quick question for you: How many players were in the party originally and what level were they?
We ran a party of four, using premades from the original. So mixed level was pretty interesting, but a lot of the leadership was put on the high level cleric
Brilliant video. Love your work man. May someone send me a link to the original ToH PDF?
Google works, or I think the pdf is like 5$ on dmsguild.com
Nice video. Subscribed.