True to its title, Dungeons & Dragons, the world's first roleplaying game, is strongly focused around the idea of exploring dark and dangerous places - caverns, castles, and desolate tombs filled with monsters, traps, and treasures. Of all the dungeon-diving scenarios published for D&D over the years, none is more infamous than Tomb of Horrors, an adventure module written by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax. RPG gamers who haven't played Tomb of Horrors firsthand may wonder: Why is the module so lethal to even the most powerful adventurers? And how exactly are players supposed to survive this deathtrap-filled labyrinth?

The original D&D Tomb of Horrors was first unveiled by Gygax at the Origins gaming convention in 1975, and it has retained its same deadly premise in subsequent editions of Dungeons & Dragons: an ancient, evil demi-lich named Acererak seeks to protect his tomb (and the treasures within) from meddling adventurers, electing to do so not with monsters but with a cruel array of traps and magical curses designed to exploit the greed and paranoia of seasoned dungeon delvers. Even high-level D&D player characters will die instantly if they take a single wrong step in this tomb. In fact, many players who brave this module get their characters killed just searching for the tomb's entrance.

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At first glance, Tomb of Horrors seems to go against every principle of RPG storytelling seen in Dungeon Master guidebooks and livestreamed game sessions - work together with players to tell a story, make challenges designed to be overcome, etc. Indeed, by current standards, a D&D module that instantly murders players who make a single mistake (with the Dungeon Master deciding what counts as a mistake or not) comes across as unfair and difficult for the sake of being difficult. When viewed in the context of old-school Dungeons & Dragons, a different species of RPG from modern D&D, Tomb of Horrors makes a lot more sense.

Tomb Of Horrors Was Built On Old-School D&D Sensibilities

dungeons and dragons tomb of horrors

The life of a fantasy adventurer was very cheap in the original 1970s Dungeons & Dragons fleshed out by Gygax and Dave Arneson in their Greyhawk and Blackmoor campaigns. The idea of "challenge ratings," balancing the difficulty of a dungeon against a party's current strength, was practically non-existent, so it wasn't unusual for players to run across monsters or traps that could slay them in a single blow. To make matters worse, old-school Dungeons & Dragons character sheets lacked skills such as Perception, Investigation, and Arcana for players to sense hidden dangers. To detect traps and monsters lurking in ambush, a 1970s D&D party needed to examine every inch of the dungeons they crept through, either by analyzing the Dungeon Master's scenery descriptions for clues or by prodding anything suspicious with thrown rocks or the infamous 10-foot pole.

In contrast to modern D&D, which has many ways for Player Characters to cheat death, the "hardcore" lethality of early Dungeons & Dragons encouraged many players of the time to hire NPC underlings to scout ahead, to prepare spells and items designed to trigger traps from a distance, to run away from impossible fights, and to create folders full of backup player characters just in case their current ones died. Many early D&D dungeons were presented to players as intricate puzzles to be solved with perception, caution, creativity, and a willingness to take a leap of faith when needed. Under this paradigm, Tomb of Horrors was simply a particularly hard puzzle for D&D players to solve, de-emphasizing spectacular monster battles in favor of deathtraps that would make Indiana Jones cringe.

Tomb Of Horrors Messes With Veteran D&D Players' Expectations

An illustration of the Trustworthy Jewel from Tomb of Horrors - a cut gem lying on the floor of a dungeon surrounded by skeletons.

Over time, 1970s Dungeons & Dragons players grew wise to the tricks Gygax and other Dungeon Masters of the time liked to pull, using 10-foot poles to poke for traps and hidden passages, checking treasure for curses, listening at the door to see if monsters were hiding on the other side, and blasting statues with fireballs before they could animate. In response, the traps and perils in Tomb of Horrors mess with, and even punish, normal player behaviors. Climb into the statue's large mouth to look for treasure? Get disintegrated. Search for the one treasure chest that isn't a trap? They're all deadly. Poke and prod the floors and walls of the entrance for traps? The ceiling crushes you.

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Handled poorly, the instant-death, counter-intuitive hazards in Tomb of Horrors can be outright frustrating for Dungeons & Dragons players, who may feel the Dungeon Master is punishing them for behaviors they were encouraged to adopt when they started playing D&D. To run this scenario fairly (as it were), DMs must quote Gygax himself, telling players Tomb of Horrors is a "thinking person's module," not a dungeon they can simply "murder-hobo" their way through. Additionally, Dungeon Masters must be very responsible with the scenery descriptions they share with players, using sensory details to hint at the location and nature of the traps lying ahead.

Tomb Of Horrors Was Designed To Be D&D Players' Ultimate Test

Dungeons and dragons Lich

Tomb of Annihilation, the D&D 5e version of Tomb of Horrors, moves the titular tomb to the jungle regions of the Forgotten Realms and gives the demi-lich Acererak an objective more complex than "lure adventurers to their deaths." He now seeks to use an artifact called the Soulmonger to drain away the souls of anyone ever resurrected with divine magic in order to fuel the birth of a new god. The layout and perils of Acererak's lair have been updated to reflect the new rules of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and the setting's theme of "forgotten jungle temples and gods." Still, like the original Tomb of Horrors, the Tomb of Annihilation is a deadly gauntlet, designed to be the ultimate test for experienced players who've overcome every other challenge over the course of their long-running D&D campaigns. If they perish in the tomb, players can tell stories of their spectacularly gruesome deaths. If they survive the tomb, they can boast and brag about their cunning and ingenuity. If they actually triumph over the tomb, they become legends.

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