Tomb of Horrors from a Player Perspective Instead, find joy in this, because it is very likely to happen, and if you can find some joy in it, you might just be able to describe the death in a way that the player or party enjoys as well. So don’t feel bad when you hit the first Total Party Kill or the loss of a unperceptive squishy. Remember that this dungeon was built to be ruthless and to test players and their skills not just their skill to play the game, but to play the characters as well. Looking at the events and the some of the overall traps, you as a DM should have a good amount of fun describing this dungeon and its effects on the characters. The good news is that it isn’t too disturbing, it is just something that you as a DM will need to skip over and may come back to eventually. That being said, there is a feature or two in the dungeon that seems out of order, where as a DM I said “Why in the world is this feature be numbered before these other features.” To me, this seems more of a slip up in design than anything. Don’t worry though, the book is well laid out to the point where it isn’t super cumbersome to navigate between all the feature, but be prepared to jump around. Sometimes these overlap, but it is not uncommon for one room to have many traps. Most of the numbers that are on the map, are not rooms but are traps. That is on purpose because this dungeon is different than many I have ran before. Now, I keep saying “feature” and not “room”. But then again, if the character doesn’t make it past feature four… well.I guess that is just as humiliating. Don’t worry, it is ok and perfectly normal to feel bad for your players, that feeling will soon pass after you have read past feature four, that's where you learn that the first four features were actually built to give the characters a “dignified” death instead of the humiliation that could happen later. Tomb of Horrors from a DM’s perspectiveĪs you read through Tomb of Horrors as a DM you will find yourself in a state somewhere between perpetual gasping and maniacal laughter at all the evil situations and traps that are laid before you. This is what has drawn me to the tomb, I have wanted to play through it for a few years now and was very excited to see it was getting ported to the fifth edition. The adventure quickly gained renown as a particularly murderous and unforgiving dungeon, and it became a proving ground for players to show their skill. The adventure is said to have originated in Gary Gygax’s home campaign, but its first public appearance was at the first Origins game convention in July of 1975. Tomb of Horrors is the epitome of Gygaxian Dungeon Design, and it is a fun way to travel back in time to the era where DM’s and players were not necessarily on the same team. Alright, so a little background on Tomb of Horrors.