Tomb: Cryptmaster expansion

Because it seems like so many of you enjoyed Tomb, I was surprised no one has mentioned the news of an expansion. Well, here's Tomb: Cryptmaster

Haven't played Tomb, but I do like the standalone expansion model. Wings of War uses it to pretty good effect I think.

Launius came up with house rules that make the game pretty fun. I'm not sure if it would ever be the first game I reached for, but it we had a few laughs and it was playable. Consequently I'm keeping my eyes open for a cheap copy of Tomb. If anyone tries the expansion, I'd like to hear about it.

Steve"Dungeoncrawler"Avery

I thought it sucked. So many other very similar games that are so much better...

Fuck TOMB. It's garbage. House rules, 14K gold cards, standalone expansions, giving me a $20 bill to play it...nothing is going to turn this piece of shit into a game worth your time.

It's not a bad concept...but the design is as bad as, if not worse than, the rock-bottom of the AT pile.

Tomb didn't need an expansion - it needed a whole new edition.
This just sounds like another version of the base game but "now with PvP combat!" That was the last thing this game needed.

Tomb was a stinky, stinky turd. I remember when Alderac or AEG or whatever they are called this week made damn good games...

Never played tomb, but I have no interest in doing so considering that Dungeonquest does everything Tomb does but quicker, easier and better.

hancock.tom wrote:

Tomb was a stinky, stinky turd. I remember when Alderac or AEG or whatever they are called this week made damn good games...

Like White Wolf, Alderac is slowly discovering that it takes different sets of skills to design boardgames and CCGs.

In its defense they tweaked Tomb in a few ways which I think make it better. The playing time is whats killing me most about this game.

A Super Boss can be added in every game, which if you kill, makes you the grand champion regardless of XP.

Mercenaries in one's party and join opponent player battles, and take a share of the loot, without being killed.

Party death. Complete party death is complete player elimination. So the game could be shorter.

Pvp fights which would be longer, but for each party member that dies a little pile of equipment remains (although AEG kinda whiffs over this mechanic and doesn't clearly explain) Was this in the base game?

Curses are a new element added to gameplay, used to piss off your opponents. They stick on you and you have a hard time shaking them. Some of the cards include "visiting mother-in-law" and "genital herpes."

I wanna try it out to see if it trims the time down.

Tomb is like a 6 out of 10 for me, as it stands.

thejinx13 wrote:

Curses are a new element added to gameplay, used to piss off your opponents. They stick on you and you have a hard time shaking them. Some of the cards include "visiting mother-in-law" and "genital herpes."

Well, so much for the 8-to-12-year-olds.

that picture makes me think of the dog-demons from ghostbusters

ubarose wrote:

Absolutely!!! Tomb had the makings of a good game for 8-12 year olds, if stuff was pulled out to make it "quicker and easier", rather than added. When I was growning up there were tons of cool games for this age range, like Dungeonquest, HeroQuest, Thunder Road, Dark Tower, etc, but now there are very few. I feel like in the effort to make boardgames a legitimate adult hobby, publishers have been throwing out the baby with the bath water by ignoring this market.

The core mechanics are for 8-12 year olds, the problem is all the crap they piled on top of it. It just complicates it beyond what the framework can handle.
Tomb is the FIRST GAME EVER where I don't want more variety, I want less. Another 86 charcaters?!?! How the hell can you come up with another 86 characters for such a simple system? I'll put any money that at least half of them are overcomplicated, broken or simply rubbish. Next time just give me 25 working ones that make the game fun. Ditto with the massive tomb stack. Whoever designed it had no idea about balancing the draw deck.

Mr Skeletor wrote:

ubarose wrote:

Absolutely!!! Tomb had the makings of a good game for 8-12 year olds, if stuff was pulled out to make it "quicker and easier", rather than added. When I was growning up there were tons of cool games for this age range, like Dungeonquest, HeroQuest, Thunder Road, Dark Tower, etc, but now there are very few. I feel like in the effort to make boardgames a legitimate adult hobby, publishers have been throwing out the baby with the bath water by ignoring this market.

The core mechanics are for 8-12 year olds, the problem is all the crap they piled on top of it. It just complicates it beyond what the framework can handle.
Tomb is the FIRST GAME EVER where I don't want more variety, I want less. Another 86 charcaters?!?! How the hell can you come up with another 86 characters for such a simple system? I'll put any money that at least half of them are overcomplicated, broken or simply rubbish. Next time just give me 25 working ones that make the game fun. Ditto with the massive tomb stack. Whoever designed it had no idea about balancing the draw deck.

You got a point there... I'm willing to give it another crack based simply on the main boss option with pvp. This might make it so brutal that winners are crowned simply because they were the only one left standing... in the meantime back to Road to Legend.

Unless they fix the "sit around and tank up" strat, this one is useless too.

You tank up in the base game. You kill everything. We were laughing our asses off at how ineffective the monsters were.

Tried the "weak" headstart. Didn't buy shit, the tank guy caught up quickly and slaughtered everything along the way, negating the head start. Stupid.

When I'm rolling a two fistfuls of dice, limiting my enemy's dice pool, AND capping off my maximum possible damage to myself, the game is a cakewalk.


I don't require absolute balance in my games, but COME ON.