So I didn't want to threadjack the Thunderdome about the D&D Adventure games...so I made a new thread.

I saw 'Hotseatgames' defending his love of AEG's Tomb and wanted to jump in the fray! I agree, the game is rough around the edges, but whenever it hits the table we have enjoyed ourselves quite a bit.

So...why all the hate?

Because you can tank up and there's no tension.

We tested with one of us going in "almost nekkid" to race out to some early points. I waited and armed up.

He died several times; when I made my way into the dungeon, I did so without threat of death, and killed everything I ran into with ease. The early advantage was all gone.

I never played Cryptmaster so I don't know if they fixed that. I like AEG very much on the whole, but Tomb was a flyin' miss for me in a big way.

The rules were originally written by Simple Jack, and then translated to "The Queen's English" by Corky from Life Goes On.

If you got the FAQ and play with the Cryptmaster rulebook, but play the base game, it's wicked awesome. I'm not sure how Ken managed what he did, but that was pure fucking luck. The game is awfully wicked to people who don't spend a lot of time buffing and creating a strong party, at least generally. I've played it maybe 10...maybe more like 15 times and I never thought "well that was easy!"

If you play with 4, there's so much theivery and fuckery that waltzing through anything is simply impossible. PvP is just nasty, almost like Dungeon Run..let someone else fight the big baddie, then come up behind him with a fast thief and steal his groovy new Ballcrusher Hammer.

Add to that the powers that let you get subtly involved in other people's battles, and you have a game that can ruin a friendship a' la Cosmic.

No Pete, I'm saying the dude who went for the speed advantage lost. I tanked up, took my time, then waltzed through with ease. That's exactly the point I was making. And there was not enough fuckery from the other player to stop it (fuckery in base Tomb is in fact very, very minimal...I think you could steal, but if you got caught--and you would--one of the grieved party's tanks would smash your face in.)

I'd be interested to play with Cryptmaster, I suppose- I am in the playtest credits for the original, so I got my copy free, but the actual PT I did was very early in the process. We experienced all the problems that Ken & Superfly describe combined- too easy to tank up + confusing rules + not much actual PVP REQUIRED- you could but it was pretty pointless. I have a HUGE soft spot in my heart for the characters and setting, as they were borrowed from one of my favorite CCGs, but out of the box the original Tomb could be annoying for sure.

Ken B. wrote:


Gotcha. Yes, you really need to tank up or it's pretty much over. But that's how it should be...if you run into a decrepit crypt loaded with zombies and traps and shit, alone, you deserve to die. If you take your time preparing incantations, gathering a party, and then entering, you deserve to fare better.

I mean, it's like being surprised Bruce Jenner got turned into pudding by Manny Pacquiao in a boxing match: one side is simply unprepared :)

And a note: I don't know who you play with, but I've played with all kinds of folks, and there was some serious fuckery. Lots of stealing. LOTS of PvP combat. And the caught Rogue in a pickpocket attempt only suffers ONE attack, it's not like the Rogue is going to sit and get beat to death. One attack.

I'd bet you played before they put out the timing FAQs and 'fixed' the game. Sounds like you were playing it wrong, which is like 99.999% of the people who played it since the rulebook was so terribly badly written.

I played it just after GenCon the release year in a dingy hotel room in Dallas with a Denton cop and the guy who does the Heroscape GenCon tourney, and that hooked me. All of us are true bastards. It was awesome. I thought the cop was going to draw his service pistol and blast the other guy!

I only have the base game of Tomb and didn't have too much trouble with the rules (most had already been answered in a FAQ on AEG's website).

I think Tomb rocks as a strictly two player experience. That is how we usually play it. It maximizes the treachery you can cause and keeps the game time down to about an hour...sometimes a tad longer. It also makes the "seeding" of the crypt cards very important. For example, you might be able to sneak two treasures into a crypt near the Inn and then make a break for it on your first turn. After you collect the loot, quickly teleport back to the inn and continue to beef up.

The base game also has ton of backstabbery and fuckery in it. In the tactics deck there are cards like "Ambush", "Burn the Inn", "Shatter Steel" etc... The Prayer deck has stuff like "Blind, "Oath Bound" and more. Not to mention the treasure cards themselves when equipped can have devious effects on other players. With rogues in your party and all the inn/treasure cards you have ample opportunities to screw over the other player(s).

Like I said the game is far from perfect. I dislike how all the characters you recruit are double-sided tokens instead of cards. I also felt like the markers for your party could have been miniatures or something else. Also the rules could have used a re-write. Like I said before, I prefer to play it two player and probably wouldn't play it with more than 3.

I think Tomb has some excellent ideas and if AEG were to ever revisit it with Second Edition that combined elements of the base game and Cryptmaster it could be a real hit. The game is a mixture of a dungeon crawl, a race game, a take that card game and more. I probably need to pick up Cryptmaster before it goes out of print for good.

They've been developing the L5R version of Tomb for what seems like forever...I'm hoping they nail it this time.

Heh yeah, there have been so many iterations of the L5R board game it's not funny.

I have both games, with all the cards mixed together. I never use the mercenaries rules; they just didn't seem fun and were confusing. I do agree that the Cryptmaster rulebook fixes a lot of the issues with the base game.

There is also the issue that many times, monsters will draw spells that are simply unusable, but that random chaos is a huge part of the game's charm.

As for hanging out at the INN and loading up... I like to keep it at a minimum. To me, spending 5 turns at the INN is not my idea of a good time. We keep 3 of the initial 5 draws, and I generally equip them and shove them out the door.

I'm curious if the L5R version is even still in development; seems like they would have canceled it by now. I think it was supposed to come out 2 years ago.