Traps 102 with Dr. Henry Jones, Jr.

Paramount Pictures

Last week, in Traps 101, I used Raiders of the Lost Ark to demonstrate a few basic things that traps can do in a dungeon.  I mean, besides maiming and killing.  This week, I'm also bringing in examples from Temple of Doom and Last Crusade, the only other Indiana Jones movies I recognize as canon (not that Crystal Skulls had any traps in it anyways).

Indiana Jones is an adventurer's adventurer, so it really makes sense that the temples and ruins he navigates are dungeons any GM would be happy to have created.  They have a cinematic quality to them (naturally) that boils the elements of a good dungeon down to a few tightly-implemented set-pieces.  For that reason, the Indiana Jones movies ring true as great D&D-style adventures despite the fact that there are no fantastical monsters and Indy himself doesn't wear armour or wield a sword.

"You're strangely dressed for a knight..."                 Paramount Pictures

So what else can we learn about traps from the adventures of Professor Henry Jones, Jr.?

Sandbox Campaign Part 6: "This is no mine. It's a tomb"

This is part 6 of my ongoing account of the sandbox campaign I am currently running.  Updates are frequent, if irregular, and at the end of each post I talk about one or more subjects pertaining to the adventure but more broadly applicable to all campaigns.  You can find the previous parts here.

After resting up from their encounter with the flail snail, the party crossed the stone bridge over the chasm and found a chamber abutting a stone wall, featuring a door flanked by two dwarven statues.  After dispatching a trio of cave scorpions, they were able to make out a dwarfish inscription above the door that read:

Into this place let no enemy creep 
douse all lamps and into darkness leap