I'm talking about modules like Tomb of Horrors or Mines of Madness. 99% of their fun is premised on not knowing what's coming and reading up on them is basically cheating.

So is there a way to have any replay value from them? I ran MoM for 5E with half my friends and want to run it for the other half. But I don't want to leave out everyone from the first half, even though they already played.

Is there a way to get them to play without ruining the module (ie, that player pointing out all the surprises and traps)? Would the player just have to hang back and not say anything, or is that pretty much a waste of time? Have any of you ever replayed any old modules and found it fun the second time around?

I'm going through something like that right now. I am playing in one campaign where the DM is running a classic module that I have run many times. No one else in the group is familiar with the adventure and it is a really fun one.

I told the DM that I was very familiar with the adventure and volunteered to play a supporting role only. I agreed to never take the lead or make decisions in the adventure and just follow along with what the rest of the group wanted to do. So far its been fun watching them make all the choices.

As long as your players can keep their mouth shut and let the new crew guide the party through the adventure and still have fun then there shouldn't be a problem.

^That's what I thought would be the answer. But don't the other players still subconsciously look to you for the lead? Like if there's a decision to make, wouldn't they place a lot of emphasis on your own opinion?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;861451^That's what I thought would be the answer. But don't the other players still subconsciously look to you for the lead? Like if there's a decision to make, wouldn't they place a lot of emphasis on your own opinion?

They do anyway because I have been doing this for a long time. In this instance I was very up front with the rest of the group and told them I was strictly a follower on this one. It is only a game and I will happily follow our leader into a situation that I know may kill us all rather than spoil the discovery of this adventure for them.

I still remember all the fun I had when I first played this adventure. I wouldn't think of denying or ruining that experience for my friends.

I don't know the modules or your play modes, so I don't how well these would apply, but you might be able to

1) have the players who have done the module tell you what they know and then play characters who already have inside knowledge or were (or talked to (or studied the memoirs of) someone who was) there before (then you modify the adventure to reflect a future state where some adventurers had already been through it before).

and/or

2) have some players play as "adversary players", running the NPCs in combat and/or roleplaying one or more interesting NPC characters who exist in the module setting.

I don't think you can do it with Tomb of Horrors. That one isn't even a murder-grind, just deathtraps where either you know what to do and survive...or you don't.

Otherwise, yeah, I just ask the one player "in the know" to keep quiet about it. As usually that player is an older, more mature player, it isn't a problem.

And, of course, there's nothing wrong with changing a detail or two. You make make the only legitimate entrance to Tomb of Horrors a dark opening in the mouth of a carved demon head hanging on teh wall, with all other exists from the room blocked by invisible Spheres of Annihilation, for example.

I find that most gamers are very cool about replays. If its a module most of the group knows well, then if you tell them that you've mixed stuff up to surprise them, I am sure that would fly with the right group.

I have a "run once and only once" policy but that doesn't mean I don't revisit a module...but when I do, I actually update and modify it according to what the last group did, then run the new version based on the assumption that the prior group did their thing and stuff has since changed. That can mean that some denizens have been depopulated or displaced, the evil wizard at the end is now a gorgon witch who moved in after his untimely death, and the legendary artifact that was stolen a few years back has since been replaced by a new artifact of a budding demon cult or something.

I just ran Tomb of the Lizard King for the first time since 1987 recently in 5E, and some of the changes I made (which were minor): the lizard king revived after his last defeat and resumed lurking in the tomb while waiting for the stars to align; the new cult was now a cult to Orcus and the bandits were just, well, more bandits. The dragon was the son of the prior dragon which had dwelt there, occupying/squatting his predecessor's lair. Beyond that I changes a few names in the interest of making this module "in the future" and ran it as-is.

If I'd had a former player of the module in the group, I likely would have changed a few traps or details to screw with them, too FYI; such as the (warning 29 year old spoiler alert) illusory river with pits of acid....might have changed the illusion to something else, or suggested bandits or cultist lizard men would have drained swamp water into the hole to make a real river and filled it with crocodiles, or something else.

Our GM ran Tomb of Horrors for Halloween a couple years back and we didn't even get past the first hallway... so I'm pretty sure he could rerun that one on us (though we might revolt).
I've played in a few trips through Death Frost Doom and it's no problem playing a PC that doesn't have a clue about what not to touch... though I'm careful not to have any input when it comes to setting off the main trick.

If you've got someone like Exploder Wizard who is having fun anyhow, that's great; but I'm not sure how much I personally would want to go through basically a linear gantlet like ToH a second time. It's different as the DM running it, and likewise different to take "the back seat" to a new player in a campaign dungeon.

On the other hand, if an expedition got only partway through, then a new one could resume with a known route to the new starting point. That of course would not give new arrivals the same experience of the 'classic', though.

Really though, most traps and surprises in old modules are designed only to get players with no common sense.

Tome of Horrors really wasn't that deadly (much to EGG's lament, as he mentions in the forward to Return to the Tomb of Horrors). It had things that would kill you if you were dumb, like that sphere of annihilation that I guess some people mistook for an entrance, but that was easy to avoid (along with most other traps) with the trusty 10' pole. You didn't even have to fight the Demi-Lich, you could grab its treasure and run.

It's not like some of the modern OSR modules that are designed to screw over players acting normally. Or simply kills everyone on a random roll.