Flying Buffalo, $5.95, ISBN 0-940244-02-0
Fantasy, 2013 (Reissue)
Deathtrap Equalizer Dungeon will always have a place in history, at least where Tunnels & Trolls is concerned, because it is designed by Ken St Andre himself. Yes, the big man himself. This is more of a solo tabletop dungeon crawl, or “solitaire dungeon” as those folks call it. Hence, it resides in that lovely transitional place between gamebooks and tabletop games. This 2013 digital reissue, with new artwork by Steve Crompton also comes with the original scanned edition that had Lin Danforth’s illustrations.
With the usual irreverent tongue-in-cheek tone you’d be familiar with after emerging victorious from Buffalo Castle, this one presents the Deathtrap Equalizer Dungeon. It functions like a deadly theme park for solo adventurers, run by Umslopagaas of the Shiny Teeth—he will play the role of the sadistic DM of this campaign.
Umslopagaas continues his pitch. “Now, as you all know, this is an equal opportunity dungeon, licensed by the Chamber of Commerce of downtown Khosht, and in reality it is more of a pocket universe in a closed time loop than a conventional complex of tunnels and chambers. Everyone has the same basic chance of getting rich or getting dead. It depends on you. We allow you to take any magical weapons, protective charms, armor, etc. that you might already possess. There is only one catch. In situations where there is a conflict of interests or instructions, the Equalizer instructions take precedence. (If you have a magic weapon that is supposed to be unbreakable, and we say it breaks, then we broke your magic weapon.) Also, those of YOU who are shape-shifters will find that you are limited to humanoid form while inside.”
Yeah, if you’re really not familiar with the system in the first place, this campaign is not the best one to get into as a beginner. Nonetheless, it’s not as complex as it may seem in that paragraph. That’s one issue with this campaign, by the way, there are too many words used to describe things that could have been broken down in a more straightforward manner, and as a result, things can appear frighteningly complicated to newcomers.
Basically, there are 13 non-interconnected scenarios offered in the Deathtrap Equalizer Dungeon, and three different modes to play the campaign.
If you want to go hardcore and overcome all scenarios in a single setting, you pick the Ring of the Lion and start playing all the scenarios in order.
If you decide to just try one scenario, you pick the Ring of the Frog and are asked to make a roll so that you will be randomly assigned a scenario—once you successfully overcome that one, you get your rewards and then hightail out of the campaign.
If you are in the mood for RNG, pick the Ring of the Monkey and you will make rolls to determine which scenario you will get; your adventure ends when you get the same scenario that you had already overcome, and then you scram after collecting your goodies and what not.
This one can be pretty fun to play, although taking the Ring of the Lion is probably the way to go to get the most loot and bang for your buck. The encounters, however, are on the rather generic side—you kill, you get loot, yay—except for that one with the horny sorceress that asks you to give a shag if your Charisma is 8 or over. If you go that route, pray to the holy snu-snu trinity of Fierna, Belial, and Socothbenoth that you get the best roll on the boink performance scale and you’ll get one of the better loots for quality of life, especially if you are a wizard.
Like most classic campaigns, Deathtrap Equalizer Dungeon may feel like nothing more than a quaint diversion these days, but there’s nothing wrong with being quaint and fun. Think of this as a quick, less wacky mini-Grailquest adventure.
For a quick and amusing detour into the realm of hack and slash and some snu snu, call Umslopagaas of the Shiny Teeth, and you don’t even have to cheat that much!
Only… what’s with the Shiny Teeth anyway?
