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Tomb of Horrors - An Analysis by DMDave
🕑 Added 2021-03-10 16:00:04 +0000 UTCA big part of my job involves reading and analyzing adventures throughout the history of the game. As I'm starting to prepare my next module The Vault of Terror for GaryCon '21, I wanted to breakdown a similar module. So I chose Tomb of Horrors, the classic dungeon romp written by Gary himself waaay back in 1975 for Origins 1.
Originally, Tomb of Horrors was played as a tournament module. Basically, players were to test their wits against the dangerous dungeon. Whoever survived the longest was declared the winner. Tomb of Horrors has since been reincarnated in each subsequent edition, including Fifth Edition.
In this analysis, I broke down the various parts of each chamber into the following categories: encounters, hazards, obstacles, traps, tricks, and treasure. Some chambers only had one of these "complications" while others had multiple.
What's worth noting is the exceptionally high number of traps that pervade the dungeon. Over 53% of the Tomb of Horror's rooms have traps with which the parties will need to contend. On the other hand, there's not a whole lot of encounters here. Beyond Acererak, (the real one and fake one), there's only a handful of creatures to deal with, mostly weenies, too.
Finally, I took each of the areas' "complications"—in other words, the number of different features that an area had—and graphed it out. Interestingly, the rooms become more and more complicated the closer you get to the tomb's end.
Anyways, I hope this is useful for all of you in your own studies. Enjoy!
Comments
Ltbadger
gotcha. That makes this resource more valuable now
DM Dave
The prompts aren't related to ToH. They're for the new adventure, Vault of Terror.
Ltbadger
What was the significance of the prompts please? Some of the prompts make no sense to me.
DM Dave
Oh yeah. Gotta beat Ace in Joust. ;)
I'm interested in scheduling it but the Vault is well hidden in the schedule. Thursday 12pm games here: https://tabletop.events/conventions/gary-con-xiii/schedule#?query=&startdaypart_id=A67356F6-C14F-11EA-B204-FCB517DBACC0
Brad Thomson
The irony is that I just finished reading Ready Player One, for the Xth time, and this module is referenced as a significant topic.
DM Dave
I’m not sure but we’re slated for 12:00pm CST on the 25th.
Wow this is flippin sweet - GREAT JOB! Always appreciate these DM Tools!
Which event are you running at GC? I don't see the Vault of Terror on the schedule.
DM Dave
The work is never done!
DM Dave
Probably not with ToH since it was a 1e module. But definitely with the modern stuff. I do at least. Also, ToH specifically says that the party can rest anywhere in the dungeon as there's no random encounters.
This is great. I'm tempted to do the same breakdown for the Labyrinth of Madness just to quantify for myself how utterly and purposely ridiculous that dungeon was. Another small project to add to my backlog.
C.c. Snyder
I'm curious if designers of dungeons like these ever budget for how much could be done in a game day (long rest), a single gaming session, etc using the encounter builder. Do you ever program in a "break spot" or is it just slog through and suffer?
Doug M
This is awesome, Dave! Thank you for sharing the information, this is very cool.
DM Dave
I especially like how it gets wilder and more difficult as you go.
Love the breakdown. This is a really interesting approach to dungeon design and balance.
