HyveMynd
Supporter
Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
Preferred Game Systems: PbtA, Cortex Plus, Fate, Ubiquity
Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
Currently Running: The Sprawl
Favorite Species of Monkey: None
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 31, 2016 1:48:36 GMT -8
i actually play on Saturdays with the Type of GM who actually would Run Tomb of Horrors. a bit of an Old School Adversarial guy that converted over to Savage Worlds, so he could focus more on the Sadism and less on tweaking the stat blocks. If my choice is between that and F.A.T.A.L., I think I'd go with F.A.T.A.L. At least that way I know the rules are being sadistic, rather than the person running it.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2016 2:00:46 GMT -8
i actually play on Saturdays with the Type of GM who actually would Run Tomb of Horrors. a bit of an Old School Adversarial guy that converted over to Savage Worlds, so he could focus more on the Sadism and less on tweaking the stat blocks. If my choice is between that and F.A.T.A.L., I think I'd go with F.A.T.A.L. At least that way I know the rules are being sadistic, rather than the person running it. Only if you know what they rolled for anal circumference. Otherwise you won't know how much bashing damage you will do. (I'm making this shit up, if no one can tell.)
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Post by Kenigma23 on Mar 31, 2016 7:33:45 GMT -8
This brought a tear to my eye.
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Post by ayslyn on Mar 31, 2016 8:01:29 GMT -8
You're wrong though. ToH isn't controversial. A small subset of people insist on judging it on criteria that really doesn't apply. You don't judge a video game based on it's ultra-difficult mode. And you don't compare the ultra-difficult mode of a video game to rape porn.
And just to pile on, because this comparison is just so ridiculous.... FATAL tries to present itself as legitimate. Tomb of Horrors touts itself as the hardest meat-grinder ever.
As for WHY? The same reason some people play Dark Souls, two sequels later, or climb Mt. Everest, or do the running of the bulls.... To be able to say I TRIED THAT, or I BEAT THAT.
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Post by Kenigma23 on Mar 31, 2016 8:22:39 GMT -8
Should FATAL have a corollary in Godwin's Law?
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 8:24:18 GMT -8
You're wrong though. ToH isn't controversial. A small subset of people insist on judging it on criteria that really doesn't apply. You don't judge a video game based on it's ultra-difficult mode. And you don't compare the ultra-difficult mode of a video game to rape porn. And just to pile on, because this comparison is just so ridiculous.... FATAL tries to present itself as legitimate. Tomb of Horrors touts itself as the hardest meat-grinder ever. As for WHY? The same reason some people play Dark Souls, two sequels later, or climb Mt. Everest, or do the running of the bulls.... To be able to say I TRIED THAT, or I BEAT THAT. THIS Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 8:55:28 GMT -8
Old School Adversarial GM's - should be read as teenage GM's new to the hobby with the usual angsty issues of growing up and with a good dash of 'still learning appropriate interpersonal skills'. This statement can be translated 'I sick of hearing this bullshit about Old School Adversarial GM's: yes there were adversarial GM's, when I was a teenager!!!, and there are just as many teenage adversarial GM's out and about now; don't confuse growing up with 'that's what everyone was like back then''. FTR by the time 2e was out and story had taken center place no GM's. in my experience. were adversarial: because we had all grown up considerably. However, given my venerable years, that was before many of the commentators about 'this is how they played back then' weren't even born - funny how the 'adversarial years' of the hobby tends to correlate better with the observers age than reportable events. If you've encountered an adversarial GM it isn't because they are Old School - it's because they're immature individuals who have yet to resolve certain issues in their development as persons. If you listen to PodCast you'll see that the Host's adversarial years occur during their teens, and they later come to grow into the RPG understanding they profess as they mature as people. How many adversarial Pathfinder Society GM's have we heard about, GM's who weren't even a sperm in their Dad's vas deferens during the so called Old School Era . . . I think a lot of the negative comments in this thread are more to do with a desire to kick Gygax than any real or valid criticisms - cause it's not the guy can defend himself or anything, being dead. I love the way ALL the ill's of RPG's appear to be able to be laid at the foot of Gary Gygax. It's not like we could say a polite thanks or anything for his bringing this hobby into the world when he did - maybe show a bit of fucking respect for the deceased, for no other reason than that's what we (as a society) tend to agree to do . . . respect the dead. Walt Disney was a Nazi sympathizing racist anti-Semite but kudos to Disney Film's for Star Wars Ep7 and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Henry Ford, by all accounts, was a bit of prick but kudos to him for bringing the principles of the mass production assembly line to the manufacture of automobiles so that they were made available to all classes of people (It's not his fault that he didn't know his product would be implicated in contributing to Climate Change a Century later) Honestly, the way some people react to the name Gygax just reminds me of the character 'Spoilt Bastard' from Viz. Aaron
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2016 14:06:44 GMT -8
You're wrong though. ToH isn't controversial. A small subset of people insist on judging it on criteria that really doesn't apply. You don't judge a video game based on it's ultra-difficult mode. And you don't compare the ultra-difficult mode of a video game to rape porn. And just to pile on, because this comparison is just so ridiculous.... FATAL tries to present itself as legitimate. Tomb of Horrors touts itself as the hardest meat-grinder ever. As for WHY? The same reason some people play Dark Souls, two sequels later, or climb Mt. Everest, or do the running of the bulls.... To be able to say I TRIED THAT, or I BEAT THAT. I would if that was the only mode of play. ToH doesn't have difficulty levels. I'd also bear in mind the intention of the game. When you die in a game of super hexagon (so hard...) you haven't lost months worth of work. Some games are built with the intention that you will die a lot. Kobolds ate my baby has you roll up several at once because they are going to die. Paranoia has its clones for the players. No where on the cover of ToH does it tell you not to insert this in a campaign. No where does it say to make 5 characters because they are going to die in rapid succession. There is no context, and that is the problem. All these other games cue you into how things are going to go. ToH interrupts a normal D&D game with, "OMG WHY!?". If I stuck my arm into a statue and it disintegrated as per a sphere of annihilation I'd consider smacking my GM up the backside of his head. Its one of those giggling gm moments where he gets to go. "I gotcha, yeah! In your face!" And that just isn't cool. The key to Dark Souls is that people buy it knowing what it is. They come back for the sequel because they like it. The people who play in the rpg's aren't the ones who buy the modules. The GM is the one that buys them. Unless there is a reputation of the module involved, most players don't know anything about it. Tomb of Horrors sounds like a reasonable module name, and unless I had heard of it before I wouldn't know to object until something batshit crazy happened. That's because I didn't pick the game. Someone else did. If that someone else doesn't know better than things get out of hand. "But see, it says so in the module!"
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 15:43:29 GMT -8
You're wrong though. ToH isn't controversial. A small subset of people insist on judging it on criteria that really doesn't apply. You don't judge a video game based on it's ultra-difficult mode. And you don't compare the ultra-difficult mode of a video game to rape porn. And just to pile on, because this comparison is just so ridiculous.... FATAL tries to present itself as legitimate. Tomb of Horrors touts itself as the hardest meat-grinder ever. As for WHY? The same reason some people play Dark Souls, two sequels later, or climb Mt. Everest, or do the running of the bulls.... To be able to say I TRIED THAT, or I BEAT THAT. I would if that was the only mode of play. ToH doesn't have difficulty levels. I'd also bear in mind the intention of the game. When you die in a game of super hexagon (so hard...) you haven't lost months worth of work. Some games are built with the intention that you will die a lot. Kobolds ate my baby has you roll up several at once because they are going to die. Paranoia has its clones for the players. No where on the cover of ToH does it tell you not to insert this in a campaign. No where does it say to make 5 characters because they are going to die in rapid succession. There is no context, and that is the problem. All these other games cue you into how things are going to go. ToH interrupts a normal D&D game with, "OMG WHY!?". If I stuck my arm into a statue and it disintegrated as per a sphere of annihilation I'd consider smacking my GM up the backside of his head. Its one of those giggling gm moments where he gets to go. "I gotcha, yeah! In your face!" And that just isn't cool. The key to Dark Souls is that people buy it knowing what it is. They come back for the sequel because they like it. The people who play in the rpg's aren't the ones who buy the modules. The GM is the one that buys them. Unless there is a reputation of the module involved, most players don't know anything about it. Tomb of Horrors sounds like a reasonable module name, and unless I had heard of it before I wouldn't know to object until something batshit crazy happened. That's because I didn't pick the game. Someone else did. If that someone else doesn't know better than things get out of hand. "But see, it says so in the module!" Except the very discussion that ToH has generated across the internet, including this forum, invalidates the whole 'only the GM who buys the module knows what it is'. If the GM buying it and running it is a knob jockey about it then that's because the GM is a knob jockey not because the module made him/her 'do it' or the systems prevalent in the day turned him/her into an arsewipe by magic . . . if RPG's really had that sort of power over how people behaved back then then maybe the Jack Chick paranoia was justified. Aaron 'The Devil made me do fuck all, I don't need his help to be a bastard - I own that shit'
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mrmanowar
Apprentice Douchebag
Posts: 74
Preferred Game Systems: Ones that I own.
Currently Playing: AS&SoH, AD&D various editions and Manowar CD's
Currently Running: D&D 5E, AS&SoH (Started!)
Favorite Species of Monkey: The ones that rhyme with donkey
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Post by mrmanowar on Mar 31, 2016 19:49:17 GMT -8
OK, my last comment on this already borderline ridiculous thread... Tomb of Horrors is NOT for those who think they can combat mash everything. It is tactical, it does require cleverness to maneuver. Neither the author (Gygax, nor I) can keep an adversarial DM/GM from doing what it is they do. So having said that, how can you gauge the merits or failures of a module based on a personal adversarial DM? I don't know. If you don't like it, that's a subjective opinion, not an objective one based on the problems and trials contained in the module. If your character dies, so what? It's a piece of paper with pencil markings on it. Mine died when I went through it the first time.
To extrapolate from there, how one deduces that Gary sucked or whatever based on this one module while IGNORING his vast volume of work is ludicrous to me. Was he perfect? No. However this module had a specific purpose in mind which I already stated and then to bad mouth him is some kind of asinine schoolyard child level of petulance.
I don't know how to make it clearer. When this module came out, it was a tourney one-shot. Meant to be deadly, it forced people to think, not hack and slash. The concept of "role-play" largely as defined today didn't exist. That concept of taking on personas and such goes back to Coventry and what they did, prior to Dungeons and Dragons existing. To try to recolor and redefine a module that was a product of it's time born out of a wargaming background and then give it the elements of modernity and then take on the wild card of adversarial DM/GM's?... Well now objective meets subjective.
To all who think they can do better or have done better... and have created a product that cannot be defined by the time it is released, release it. Put it out on DriveThruRPG or release it as a pdf. This silly commentary of "ToH sucks or is related to FATAL" is utter nonsense driven by the opinions of those who would criticize rather than create. If you can do better, then do so. That's how the Arduin Grimoire, Tunnels and Trolls and Judges Guild stuff came to be. Those products bettered our hobby. So did Chaosium with theirs. This ranting against Gary does us all no good. At least Stu has the integrity to come up with MoT. How about the rest of you? Anything creative coming?
My last word on this topic.
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Post by ayslyn on Mar 31, 2016 21:15:14 GMT -8
You're wrong though. ToH isn't controversial. A small subset of people insist on judging it on criteria that really doesn't apply. You don't judge a video game based on it's ultra-difficult mode. And you don't compare the ultra-difficult mode of a video game to rape porn. And just to pile on, because this comparison is just so ridiculous.... FATAL tries to present itself as legitimate. Tomb of Horrors touts itself as the hardest meat-grinder ever. As for WHY? The same reason some people play Dark Souls, two sequels later, or climb Mt. Everest, or do the running of the bulls.... To be able to say I TRIED THAT, or I BEAT THAT. I would if that was the only mode of play. ToH doesn't have difficulty levels. I'd also bear in mind the intention of the game. When you die in a game of super hexagon (so hard...) you haven't lost months worth of work. Some games are built with the intention that you will die a lot. Kobolds ate my baby has you roll up several at once because they are going to die. Paranoia has its clones for the players. No where on the cover of ToH does it tell you not to insert this in a campaign. No where does it say to make 5 characters because they are going to die in rapid succession. There is no context, and that is the problem. All these other games cue you into how things are going to go. ToH interrupts a normal D&D game with, "OMG WHY!?". If I stuck my arm into a statue and it disintegrated as per a sphere of annihilation I'd consider smacking my GM up the backside of his head. Its one of those giggling gm moments where he gets to go. "I gotcha, yeah! In your face!" And that just isn't cool. The key to Dark Souls is that people buy it knowing what it is. They come back for the sequel because they like it. The people who play in the rpg's aren't the ones who buy the modules. The GM is the one that buys them. Unless there is a reputation of the module involved, most players don't know anything about it. Tomb of Horrors sounds like a reasonable module name, and unless I had heard of it before I wouldn't know to object until something batshit crazy happened. That's because I didn't pick the game. Someone else did. If that someone else doesn't know better than things get out of hand. "But see, it says so in the module!" Except, again... No one is blindly wandering into ToH. It's exactly what it says on the tin. This is the original Killer Dungeon. It was billed as such. People going into it knew it's reputation. People these days know it's reputation. No one climbs Everest, thinking it's Beacon Hill. No one is going into Tomb of Horrors thinking it's a kiddie dungeon.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2016 21:40:23 GMT -8
To be frank I wrote this thread originally because I was tired of hearing advice from so called 'experts'. Gygax was a stand in for the know it all gaming establishment. It was the AngryGM's dumb advice that made me come up with the idea. I was listening to season 1 of the podcast as well were they were talking about Mike Mearls as well. My point was to empower newbies to figure things out for themselves instead of looking to popular/industry personalities. I could give a shit about Gary Gygax.
My point was that none of these people are infallible. They all make fuck ups (sometimes major). I consider to,b of horrors one of them. You may not. I'm sure you can all find some bone headed comments or mistakes by the likes of Gygax, Mearls, or Wick.
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Post by ayslyn on Apr 1, 2016 6:59:33 GMT -8
If you think that we believe these people to be ultimate authorities, and/or infallible, then you haven't been paying attention to anything.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2016 23:37:03 GMT -8
If you think that we believe these people to be ultimate authorities, and/or infallible, then you haven't been paying attention to anything. Empower newbies. Are you a newbie?
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