S1: The Tomb of Horrors (Live Version) -Part One

Welcome to Acererak’s Tomb.

The current home of Baron Sukumvit’s Deathtrap Labyrinth

and Pizza Parlor!

Looking for a fun way to spend the evening or week? Come on down to Acererak’s Tomb for good food and a once in a lifetime experience! No reservation required! And check out our brand new kiddie play area for wimps, pacifists, and NPC’s. We do special events.

Think you’ve got what it takes to be a true hero? Then try out our classic dungeon crawl built into the ruins of Acererak’s actual tomb. Make it to the end and your meal is on us.

(Dungeon crawl recommended for players of level 10-14. Please make sure you are in good physical and mental health before attempting the labyrinth. Deathtraps may cause death. Management assumes no responsibility for anything ever.)

So a few years ago, I was in the enviable and somewhat bizarre position to run a stage version of the classic S1 AD&D module The Tomb of Horrors. If you're not familiar with the module, it was the final resting place of the demi-lich Acererak, designed by Gary Gygax himself specifically as a means of killing high leveled characters. When so many traps are insta-death, it doesn't matter if you have hit points well into the triple digits, some things simply negate matter.

In hosting it as a stage presentation, I took the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure format and developed a PowerPoint presentation with internal hyperlinks and some severely limited animations to project onto a screen behind me while I read out a pre-written script. A victim from the audience would come up on stage and call out his or her choice of (usually) four options, which would then advance said victim's journey forward or result in their always humorous and always fatal demise.

Regrettably I can't recreate the experience on this blog; although I can direct you to comedian John Robertson's brilliant Youtube game The Dark Room, which was a primary inspiration for my own game. But until I figure out a way to make it available for public consumption, I thought it might be an enjoyable distraction to give you sort of the backstage tour.

Outside The Front Door

As the sales pitch above indicates, I'd decided that Acererak's Tomb had fallen under new management, in this case Ian Livingstone's trap loving overseer Baron Sukumvit (of Deathtrap Dungeon fame). Would-be adventurers were enticed with promises of a free meal, coincidentally the prize for any players who made it through my own creation.

At the front door, you were given the options of a main entrance, a side door to the right, a tunnel to the left, or to spend time in the kiddie play area (which almost nobody did). The play area served as a kind of warm-up, giving you three cycles to try out the slide, carousel, and see-saw before finally deciding that you weren't taking the game seriously. The see-saw gave you the first potential appearance of Jenny Mudge, who it's established is your only friend. Her character came from the Edward Packard CYOA book "Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey", and like her original counterpart, she's always a full step ahead of you and bailing you out of dead ends. The carousel gives you a clue for later. Depending on when in the cycle you visit it, you might ride the lion, the ostrich, or the moose, and each creature has a different carving etched into it (DO+US), (AZ+AR), and (NO+NH). I'm sure that will come in useful later. The slide gives you the opportunity to break your neck.

The Door to the Right

It's not made explicit, but the door on the right is the employee entrance, and it sticks you in a conversation with a purple bouncer. There is a way past him, but it requires a bit of trial and error in the dialogue tree maze. More often than not he'll just slam the door on you and send you back to the main entrance. A few adventurous spirits might die by sixteen ton weight or rhinoceros (???), but the savviest player is allowed access to the entrance through the back.

The dingy storeroom only contains a jukebox and an obvious exit which leads to the animatronic room (see below). Pressing one of the three buttons causes a corresponding reaction; Roll Over Beethoven squashes you with a steamroller, while A Whole Lot of Shaking Going On starts an earthquake. The one in the middle is the fun one. It seems you've just started an encounter on the wandering monster table.

"Well they’ll come out of the cavern, a swarm of hungry rats
A sorcerer lizard controlling giant bats
Or the Aasimar cleric is one of Tiamat’s"

Everybody now!
I said SNAKE, CATTLE, and TROLL! You've got a SNAKE, CATTLE, and TROLL!

I said SNAKE, CATTLE, and TROLL! You'll beat a SNAKE, CATTLE, and TROLL!

With a saving throw, WISDOM will make your spot check roll

A secret passage opens up, revealing an unmapped area of the dungeon, which I graciously admit to, and place you in the best possible spot for you to continue (i.e. the treasure room). We're going to leave this path for the time being and pick up the loose ends as the other route converge.

The Main Entrance

Like the original module, the main entrance is your best bet to navigating the tomb. But unlike the original, you stand a much greater chance of defeating the place through blind luck. Take the original FIRST TUNNEL; presented here in full color glory.

   

    A. Walk on the path

    B. Walk off the path

    C. Walk on and off the path

    D. Walk like an Egyptian


I tend to think of major sections of my Choose-Your-Owns as branches, and typically the first encounter or two will favor success, i.e. three possible choices will keep you alive. The middle section of the branch will lower the rate to half, and the last few encounters will be a one-right-answer thing. In early encounters you can almost guarantee that the silly fourth option will grant some sort of passage. Choosing to 'Walk like an Egyptian' grants a seemingly unimportant chant.

Slide the key in the screen

Lift the plaque

Slip your arm in the cul-de-sac

Light harms the soul

(Oh Wey Oh)

So strike a blow on Acererak

That may prove useful later.


The Left Passageway

In order to make the game function I had to take a couple of creative liberties with the map. The original adventure had the left passageway as nothing more than a dead end, but I saw no reason why Baron Sukumvit couldn't have had his golems knock down a wall, even if it did leave a potential threat of a giant rolling boulder.

Navigating this passageway would ultimately provide a roundabout way of getting to the end of the FIRST TUNNEL where the tomb's iconic Devil's head resided. But not before wandering into the old throne room, now having been renovated into a giant chess board and split across the middle by a barrier.

A purple horse thing (recognized by 96% of the population as a knight) approaches you and asks you to fill in for him while he makes a phone call.

The Treasure Room

Getting to the treasure room is the most advantageous course of action, although not the only way to progress. Most players went through the coat check girl, for whom I did my very best Harley Quinn impression. Jenny Mudge had to bail you out of one predicament via a phone-a-friend option. You also might have been rescued from the coat closet by Superhero Café if you were thinking ahead.

The treasure room is a little mini-game based on Let's Make a Deal. I give you a key and you can open one of three chests with it (or just walk away with the key). Whichever chest you choose, I'll show you one of the remaining two to rub in your face what awesome prize you didn't win (notebook paper, a trip to the store, or a strange object that nobody has been able to identify). From there you have the choice of keeping the chest you chose or switching to the third one. Two out of three times, switching is the better choice as it takes you to the inner tomb. The remaining third of the time is too graphic to even think about. So don't.

The Second Tunnel

No pizza parlor is complete without a singing robotic bear, and I was quite pleased that the sight of Freddy Fazbear sent an uncomfortable moan through the audience. And dare I say I did a pretty decent Aaron Fechter as Billy Bob impression, even if Looney Bird's appearance was more of a jump scare. Surviving this would take you to the hall of disks where you might face plant the wall if you weren't paying attention.

It was easy to get turned around here, but a little luck and a cameo by Red Fraggle would lead you into the arcade. Chances are if you'd gotten into the arcade you wouldn't have ever gone to the treasure room, so I gave you another chance at acquiring a key, which you stood an equal chance at losing in the next room. In case you haven't figured out by now, keeping the key was the better scenario, even if it looks like the ending is just ahead.

Incidentally, the skeleton isn't pointing to the game console, but to the row of animals above it. Remember the etchings?

Defeating the pseudo-lich got you to the 'good ending', and when I performed this game it took a collective two hours for anyone to reach it. The game was designed to stop there if the player didn't have the key. The young lady who was playing at the time had held onto her inventory, but sadly we were out of time. It's a pity, because I'm quite fond of the home stretch. Unfortunately the free version of blogger.com doesn't like it when I add images to my posts. So why don't we come back tomorrow to finish it off?