Trajan's Treacherous Trap

Did You Know?

• Stefan Jones reviewed the game in The Space Gamer No. 37 and did not recommend it unless the player was rich, could not find anyone to game with, and could not buy any of the numerous solo dungeons available.
• M.T. Lunsford reviewed the game in the February–March 1988 issue of D2 Report magazine, noting it as a simple but slow game that the publisher was winding down.

Development and gameplay

Trajan's Treacherous Trap was a hand-moderated fantasy role-playing game by mail, similar in design to Flying Buffalo's solo dungeon adventures. Rick Loomis called it a play-by-mail version of Tunnels & Trolls. Players started as fighters armed with a sword, and submitted multiple-choice orders on turn sheets roughly a page long. Loomis ran the game, adjudicating each turn using Tunnels & Trolls rules. The setting was a three-level dungeon with an exit on the bottom floor, described as a devilish trap meant to kill 999 out of every 1000 entrants. Loomis warned that escaping would be costly and difficult but promised a large reward. By mid-1979, about 90 players were involved. In the April 1982 issue of The Space Gamer, Loomis noted that despite running for over a year, no one had found the entrance to the second level. As of 1988, only a single player had ever survived the dungeon.