Michael's RPG Shelf: Ask the Dungeon Meister (06 January 2020)

Hello out there in RPG-ville! How's the ol' dice bag hanging today? Keeping up on all your spell research? Are you ready to defend your home turf in the event of a siege? Prepared to dominate a battlefield using nothing but cantrips? Mooned any Beholders lately?

Let me know in the comments.

After what can only be described as 'the mistake' that was my first attempt at answering fan mail, today marks the second instance of yours truly answering your questions about the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Send your letters, inquiries, and maps to houses of ill-repute to: Ask The Dungeon Meister, c/o @modernzorker! And please, I cannot stress this enough, don't send me boxes of garbage shipped "postage due". Rest assured, both I and my Boots of Groin Kicking +5 will hunt you down. Especially if you keep writing, "You cannot track me. You cannot find me. Love, @blewitt" on the invoices.

Right. With that out of the way, let's dig into the ol' mailbag, shall we?

Dear Dungeon Meister,

I'm in a quandary. I want more than anything to introduce my players to the infamous Tomb of Horrors module ever since I read your write-up on Tales From the Yawning Portal two years ago. My problem is my players are savvy enough to know not to get within a hundred miles of anywhere called "The Tomb of Horrors". They also aren't the sort to put up with me telling them that's what we're playing, take it or leave it.

Please, for the love of Krom, have pity on me. I must crush my PCs, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentations of their players. This module is my one chance, my one opportunity, to seize everything I ever wanted. How do I go for it? I refuse to just let it slip (Yo!).

Sincerely,
Tombed and Doomed

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Dear Tombed,

Ah, truly a Dungeon Master after my own Charisma stat. Pleased to make your acquaintance. So you want to introduce your players to the most infamous, feared, and controversial meat grinder in tabletop gaming history? You have my total attention.

You also have my sympathy, because as you pointed out, getting your players anywhere near the Tomb of Horrors is like trying to single-handedly bathe a dozen cats. Railroading them over to the entrance won't do either. Really, there are only two good ways to get your players interested in attempting the dungeon, so let's focus on those.

1) Inspire Them To Want To Try It

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Some players are keen to tackle the hardest challenges the DM can hurl at them. Most players are curious, especially if they are slightly familiar with the concept of the meat grinder module, and have wondered about how it works. But nobody gets up the notion to send their PCs marching merrily to their deaths, especially not when you're talking about characters as high-level as are necessary to tackle an adventure like Tomb of Horrors. While the original scenario was keyed for characters of levels 10-14, its 5E update in Tales From the Yawning Portal suggests "Only high-level characters stand a chance of coming back alive,". Given that the Giants trilogy which precedes it in the book is intended for 11th-level PCs, it's safe to presume 5E Tomb of Horrors is meant for levels 12 and up.

Unless you started your group at level 10, that's a colossal investment of time potentially exposed to senseless destruction in pursuit of a few hours' entertainment. Nobody wants to throw away beloved PCs on a whim, but you might be able to entice players to walk right in if you do one of two things:

• Allow them to create completely new characters of an appropriate level specifically for the adventure.

• Let them to use their current PCs, but with the understanding that they have "saved the game" beforehand, so when the entire party suffers complete destruction, it doesn't actually wreck years of actual game time.

Of course, either one of these has a secondary effect of making players less cautious and therefore reduces the potential tension, which is the exact opposite of what Gary Gygax was going for when he wrote the thing. Gygax wanted players to feel on-edge the whole time they're in the Tomb, not running around like idiots with no cause for alarm. Nevertheless, it is possible to play Tomb of Horrors this way, and if you are dealing more with curious players as opposed to ones champing at the bit to pit their wits against one of the dudes who literally invented Dungeons & Dragons, one of these ideas might be all you need.

2) Guide Them There Without Them Realizing It

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One of the chief downsides of Tales From the Yawning Portal is that, aside from kicking things off with The Sunless Citadel which leads directly into The Forge of Fury, and the three obviously-linked adventures present in the Against the Giants section later on, none of the adventures is actually connected to any of the others except by DM fiat. Considering these adventures were published and spread out over a period of nearly four decades, this isn't surprising, but it means that if you want your campaign to develop organically, you need something better to guide your players from one to the next. That's why, in my opinion, the single best way to get your players to walk willingly into this...

Source: My own scan.

...is to introduce them to this:

Source: My own scan.

Now, there are two rather sizeable down-sides to this suggestion. The first is that Return to the Tomb of Horrors was created for 2nd Edition, which means you'll have to do your homework if you want to port it to 5E. The second, however, is more nightmarish: Return has been out of print for twenty years, and commands a ridiculous price on the second-hand market for a physical copy. Thankfully you can snag a digital version from DriveThruRPG.com for a mere ten bucks, so if you can skip your morning Starbucks run twice, you'll have saved enough to own one of the nastiest campaign sets ever boxed.

That's right: "campaign". Return isn't just some dumb retread of the original adventure pushed out as a cash grab, it's a months-long campaign set in the world of Greyhawk that will see PCs . As long as you don't mention the thing's name to any of your players, you're golden. By the time the name "Acererak" or "Tomb of Horrors" comes up, the PCs will be so hopelessly enmeshed in the plot they'll have no choice but to gird their loins and push onward of their own volition.

No railroading necessary.

May All Your Hits Be Crits,
The Dungeon Meister