Through Dungeons Deep delves into the art of role-playing, showing players and Game Masters how to have more fun and excitement with fantasy role-playing games.
First published during the original Dungeons & Dragons boom, this book was an instant classic and is now part of the old-school revival. Long out of print, the original edition sells for several times its cover price. This Norton Creek Press reprint makes the book available (and affordable) again.
Robert Plamondon wrote Through Dungeons Deep after realizing that the most important part of role-playing games—role playing—is barely mentioned in gaming systems. When it is, role-playing is often confused with "following the rules." But role-playing really boils down to make-believe—or perhaps "interactive fiction" is the right term—and the real fun in role-playing games comes from unlocking your imagination.
But it's also important to carry a length of rope and wear shoes you can run in.
Although the table of contents is a bit of a mish-mash, reflecting the author's converting it from a list of potential articles for Dragon, the book is well-written and the content remains surprisingly relevant, thanks in large part to the OSR, which has turned this into a guidebook of how to play in old-school dungeons. There's also interesting material on gamemastering and campaign design, though it's a bit more scattered and has largely been superseded by more comprehensive books on the topic.
A little dated, but still one of the most practical books of advice for players of fantasy role playing games I have ever read. The advice for GMs is more limited and far more seems to have been written on that topic since, but what is there is still excellent.