Quote from: Shipyard Locked;881786Part of the surprise for me was that Wick - a famously adversarial GM who peppers his books with advice on how to viciously screw with players without outright killing them - would resent a module like this one. So it's ok to torture players by fucking with their heads, their character's heads, their expectations of the game, and their sense of actual freedom and control, but PC death is going too far? :confused:

Wick's ideas about adversarial games in general are just kind of odd. For instance, Houses of the Blooded is written to incorporate a lot of PvP, and a lynchpin of that is porting in the FATE-style "compels" system where if you know someone's Aspects you can use those to get an advantage against them.

However, FATE is set up in such a way that generally PCs will know each other's Aspects, or will suss them out fairly quickly, and Aspects will be written fairly broadly so that they can come in under a range of situations and can viably provide both positive and negative effects (an Aspect with no downside to it won't generate any FATE points, an Aspect with no negative aspects to it can't have FATE points spent on it to help you out, so an ideal Aspect is one which will sometimes help you and sometimes hurt you).

Obviously, in a PvP game that's less than idea, so Houses of the Blooded encourages people to come up with very specific Aspects that are hard for the other players to figure out... at which point, the point of incorporating the Aspects/compels system is rather badly undermined. And of course the GM can compel people all the time because the GM knows their Aspects and can throw in NPCs who will tie into them.

It's an odd and clumsy way to incorporate them, and makes me suspect that Wick threw them in simply because FATE was in vogue and he was following the fashions of the time rather than because it actually worked well in that context.

It states that there are few monsters to fight, and lots of tricks and traps. It also emphasizes that this is a thinking players module and that hack and slash players will be unhappy.

It also advises DMs to not run it if their players are combat focused and do not like puzzles and traps.

That is all right there on page 1 after the background info paragraphs.

Quote from: Baulderstone;881767The only warning in it is that there aren't a lot of monsters so "hack and slay" types won't like it. It says that players who like using their brains will find it to their liking. It also emphasizes that the module teaches brainwork, so playing it will be a valuable experience.

That's not "made to kill off high-level PCs".

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;881763I think I first heard about it while Gary was developing it.

It's also worth noting that 14 year old Ernie Gygax romped through the place.  That's right, the module that still has Wick whining decades later got beaten by a 14 year old kid.

Also, notice Wickless has closed comments on that post?  Poor baby must have gotten some heat back.

Good on the kid, but for fairness' sake, he was a) older than Wick's friends, b) knew how the designer is thinking, and c) has probably played for far longer than his friends.

Besides, Wick got punched because he was being mean. Though that lack of self-control speaks badly about the other kid as well.

Heat is a guarantee. There's enough people on Internet that don't like when the games they grew up with are getting slammed.

Quote from: Warthur;881789Caveat: I don't have the original, just the one in the S1-4 compilation, so the original module might have had more warnings on it. But the one in the compilation talks about using characters from ongoing campaigns in the tomb and doesn't seem to say "by the way, most of the characters who go into the adventure will probably die". It claims that it's an adventure where smart characters will survive where foolish ones won't, though to be honest I'm not sure how true that is - there's a lot of stuff in there where "smart play" corresponds to "guess what Gary Gygax was thinking when he wrote this part", which isn't very helpful to anyone who didn't regularly game with Gary.

It's kind of like the old Deathtrap Dungeon gamebook, which was so sparse on clues that you basically had to guess which way to turn at various points and almost certainly would have to replay the gamebook a lot because of how arbitrary the deaths were.

Well, I guess Gronan was talking about some other edition:).

Funny you mention that, but if "Deathtrap Dungeon" is the gamebook I'm thinking of? I passed it on the first go, though I was probably lucky, too. Was it some stupid baron organising a "survive my dungeon" competition;)?
(I'm not sure, because I've read in Bulgarian translation, and the title might or might not translate back to English as "Deathtrap Dungeon". Don't have it on me to check).

Surprised he's passing the blame buck to the module rather than how he acted after everyone  got creamed.
 I guess that gas hurting his fee fees later on stills fuels this rage.

Quote from: Omega;881793It states that there are few monsters to fight, and lots of tricks and traps. It also emphasizes that this is a thinking players module and that hack and slash players will be unhappy.

It also advises DMs to not run it if their players are combat focused and do not like puzzles and traps.

That is all right there on page 1 after the background info paragraphs.

Which is still pretty far from:

QuoteAnd TOMB OF HORRORS was CLEARLY labelled as a way to kill ultra high level characters, and Gary never made ANY bones about it.

Still, given that Wick laughingly killed off all his friends while running what he gleefully described as the Deadliest Dungeon Ever, I don't know what Wick was expecting.

Personally, I found it funny that the lesson Wick took was that manipulating your PCs in to a deathtrap was a bad idea, so instead, manipulate your friends into into not getting killed. Wick can't conceive of a GMing style that involves not manipulating the players.

Wick is actually right that the flavor text on the mouth is is shady. It's designed to put he idea of climbing into the mouth into the players heads. It goes against the introduction to the adventure which warns against giving any kind of clues through descriptions, instead remaining completely neutral.

I suppose you could argue that a player should hear the description, then realize the GM is manipulating them into climbing into the mouth, so avoid doing so. I've seen that kind of thing at the table. Of course, then you aren't playing a PC in a D&D game anymore. You are a playing a game about meta-analysis of the GM's descriptions.

Then again, meta-bullshit like that is the kind of thing that Wick loves. Just read the companion article to this about the best adventure ever. It concludes with this anecdote from Wick about what an amazing GM Tracy Hickman is.

QuoteSee, I had a plan. I wanted to throw a spanner in the works. I'm a Discordian, I can't help it. So, when it came time for my turn in the Breakfast, I announced, "I cast a spell that directs all damage and danger to me, making all other players invulnerable to damage for this many rounds..."

I rolled the d6. The only part of my plan that could screw with me. Dice never liked me, but for some reason, I rolled a 6.

"SIX ROUNDS!" I announced. "FOR SIX ROUNDS, YOU—TRACY HICKMAN—CANNOT KILL ANY CHARACTERS!"

I also made sure I was at the end of the line so my "spell" would have the maximum effect.

The crowd cheered, thinking someone had thwarted the Mighty Tracy Hickman at his own Killer Breakfast. I tore up my character sheet. "I DIE HAPPILY, KNOWING I HAVE DEFEATED THE GREAT HICKMAN!"

And for a moment... for a brief moment... Tracy was stumped. I left the stage, getting a few high fives. I was on top of the world.

And then, the Great Tracy Hickman smiled. "I can't kill any characters..." he said. So, he handed the GM staff over to Laura. "Can you run the game, honey?" he asked.

She smiled and took over. "Of course," she said. And preceded to kill everyone on stage.

I succeeded in thwarting the Hickmans for a moment. Just a moment. And that's victory enough for me. But the fact of the matter is, Tracy and Laura are amazing GMs. Because they can think on their feet... they can improvise... and they understand what makes a great story.

It seems like everyone had fun, so that's cool, but I don't see any roleplaying taking place. It's also the kind of killer adversarial play that Wick is screaming about in Worst Adventure article, which were released the next day.

I don't demand that people enjoy only one style of play. I find that a little boring, to be honest. Still, if you are going to make the kind of sanctimonious judgments about games that Wick does, I'm gong to hold you to a different standard.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;881802Surprised he's passing the blame buck to the module rather than how he acted after everyone  got creamed.
 I guess that gas hurting his fee fees later on stills fuels this rage.

It's also funny that he decries the manipulative nature of the flavor text while taking time boast about how he manipulated the PCs with reverse psychology in the hook that he added to the adventure himself.

Quote from: AsenRG;881800That's not "made to kill off high-level PCs".

Yeah, I wasn't saying otherwise.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;881802Surprised he's passing the blame buck to the module rather than how he acted after everyone  got creamed.
 I guess that gas hurting his fee fees later on stills fuels this rage.

Punked by auto correct again.

The above "gas" should read "gygax".  being called a wannabe community actor, not even an actual community actor must have felt harsh!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;881760Crom's fucking hairy nutsack!

So Wick is an insecure whiny little puke who's still snivelling over something that happened to him when he was 12.

He should put some of that million dollars into therapy.

And TOMB OF HORRORS was CLEARLY labelled as a way to kill ultra high level characters, and Gary never made ANY bones about it.

Waah, waah, waah, waah, waah.

This is 110% God's Own Truth.

I did many foolish and embarrassing things decades ago when I was twelve years old. Most of them I've completely forgotten about today... I certainly don't blame a D&D module for them.

EDIT: If the worst trauma of a person's late childhood/early teens was playing an imaginary fantasy game that didn't go well, they're a very fortunate person who had a charmed childhood and they should be grateful for that. Seriously, no joke.

I don't really have anything to say about John Wick, but I'll say that I've played Tomb of Horrors twice, once when I was 12, and once a couple years back, and my attitude toward it was completely different when I realized 1) it was designed to be a deathtrap, and b) we weren't using a character I'd been playing for two years and which I'd put a lot of work into.

Shameless clickbait by an attention whore. End of story.

To tell the truth, I think Wick just makes some of this stuff up. That whole story at the end of him playing a thief as everybody else gets killed has the whiff of bullshit to me. And bullshit that somehow manages to be weirdly self aggrandizing and weirdly petty at the same time. Neither of which is super surprising if you have read more than a page or two of Wick's writing.

Still can't believe they made a movie about that dude.

I rather enjoyed the Alexandrian's rebuttal:

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38212/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-john-wick-lies-about-the-tomb-of-horrors

Summary: John Wick was either mis-remembering the adventure or was flat-out lying about it.

This post reminded me of the below article:

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38212/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-john-wick-lies-about-the-tomb-of-horrors

Apparently the Tomb of Horrors module Wick used to pull quotes from is some "Unofficial Ultimate Revised Edition". And still, most of the adventure he quoted doesn't pan out as he explains it anyways.

About what I'd expect from someone who thinks giving a character immune to disease a disease is the height of "playing dirty".

Quote from: Manzanaro;881818To tell the truth, I think Wick just makes some of this stuff up. That whole story at the end of him playing a thief as everybody else gets killed has the whiff of bullshit to me. And bullshit that somehow manages to be weirdly self aggrandizing and weirdly petty at the same time. Neither of which is super surprising if you have read more than a page or two of Wick's writing.

It's irrelevant to his main point, so I didn't bring it up before, but what is the deal with him blaming anti-D&D sentiment on Oprah? That show didn't even debut until 1986. The part about stores being ashamed to carry D&D didn't ring true either. You could buy D&D in large chain toy and bookstores before the anti-D&D crowd even picked up steam. The idea that the store he bought it as was ashamed to carry the stuff has the feel of invented persecution to add drama.

As for the story of him playing the thief, it could be invented. The part about the PCs leaving their stuff behind doesn't ring true. First of all, if the guy that claimed to have read the module said that maybe I should drop all my stuff before getting in so my stuff would be okay if I died, I would be unlikely to climb in the mouth.

Then what about the second guy? The only reason that he would climb in is because he believed guy #1 got teleported away. Why would he climb into a one-way teleporter without his gear? It doesn't ring true to me.

Finally, if your argument is that it's the worst adventure ever, don't close with an anecdote about this time you had a lot of fun playing it.

Quote from: Necrozius;881828I rather enjoyed the Alexandrian's rebuttal:

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38212/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-john-wick-lies-about-the-tomb-of-horrors

Summary: John Wick was either mis-remembering the adventure or was flat-out lying about it.

I mentioned the mouth description in my previous post. I should have known better to take Wick's account as accurate.