In response to the sad passing of Gary Gygax last week, I was looking over one of his masterworks, the Tomb of Horrors. This is a D&D adventure created in 1978 for the purposes of testing the wit and fortitude of adventuring parties at game tournaments. "Testing" is used here in the same sense as the sentence "We'll be testing the dog for rabies." Let's just say the subject is not expected to survive the procedure. The Tomb of Horrors was a collection of deathtraps that ranged from the inexplicable to the unavoidable, and few players came away from the experience unharrowed. Their characters generally ended up as nothing but pink slurry, or greenish-gray slurry in the case of half-orcs.

Those few doughty characters and doughy players who survived the experience did so by the application of techniques like driving livestock ahead of them into the tomb to set off the traps, which strikes me as a bit less than heroic. I'm not an expert on fantasy literature, but I don't remember a scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf prods 50 head of cattle into the Mines of Moria to serve as Balrog bait.



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But you know, that's not a bad idea! In your standard D&D game, the main preparation characters make for delving into a structure with a name like The Crypt of Unending Soul-Devouring and Hefty Beatings is to pick up iron rations and a 10-foot pole. In real life, archaeologists spend months excavating a tomb just to keep from further damaging already-shattered pottery. You'd think that when your goal is not just tenure, but survival, you'd take at least as much care.

Here's what I think a more realistic approach to dungeon exploration would look like.

February 14, Year 803 by Gnome-Reckoning

We have been held up at the border for two weeks now, waiting for our dungeon-exploration permits from the Department of Interior Looting. Crossing the right palms with a few pieces of gold and a Potion of Virile Performance has sped the process up quite a bit, and we leave for the Dungeon of Repugnance in the morning.

February 20

After several days of travel we have reached the Dungeon, losing only one camel and three graduate students in the trek. One student was eaten by an owlbear, one was spirited away by pixies, and a third decided to get a job as a barista. We are hopeful that soon the priceless treasures of Appreh the Endless will soon be ours to mark carefully with index cards and put in storage.

May 16

We have nearly finished our initial survey of the outer flagstones of the dungeon entrance. Already we have made wonderful discoveries! Initial tests indicate that the stones may have come from an open pit quarry near the Elonges River, nearly two miles from here! Also, we were attacked by a Phantom Fungus and lost two more graduate students.

July 28

I'm very excited! The cataloging of the entryway has been completed, and a graduate student, Bill, will be entering the dungeon itself for the first time today! He requested a goat to herd into the dungeon ahead of him, but I pointed out that goats are valuable.

July 29

Both good and bad news. The good news is that we have discovered an actual Frummosh-dynasty-spiked, poisoned pit trap in the dungeon! The bad news is that Bill's bodily fluids have tainted the find. I will be adding a stern reprimand to his posthumous evaluation.

November 23

We finally discovered treasure yesterday, a small ruby set into the eye of a fascinating Glarbnark-era troll statue. I tried to impress upon the crew the importance of silence on the matter, but the news got out at alarming speed, and this morning we were awoken by Imperial Enforcers explaining that the dungeon was now under governmental protection and we were to hand over the ruby and leave immediately. A disappointment to be sure, but at least I'll make it home in time to present my paper at the 483rd Annual Flagstone and Cobble Symposium. It's sure to be quite an adventure.

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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a third-level ranger, a fifth-level illusionist and a split-level ranch home.

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