Through Dungeons Deep

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Through Dungeons Deep is a 1982 guide to fantasy role-playing games written by Robert Plamondon. It explains what role-playing games are and helps both players and new game masters understand how to play and run these games. The book focuses on Dungeons & Dragons-style play and offers practical guidance for creating characters, exploring dungeons, fighting monsters, and handling treasure and magic, as well as designing campaigns and world details.

What’s inside
- Part I (for players): what role-playing games are, how to create a character, how to build a base, and how to explore dungeons, with guidance on monsters, combat, treasure, and magic.
- Parts II–III (for new game masters): how to become a GM, design philosophy, creating campaigns, refereeing, building non-player characters and monsters, traps and treasure, world design, scenarios, adjusting rules, managing player interactions, and creating a pantheon of deities.
- Appendices: reviews of various games available at the time, reviews of RPG magazines, and notes on using miniatures.

Publication and history
The 324-page hardcover was published by Reston Publishing in 1982, with cover and interior art by Signe Landon. After Reston folded, Norton Creek Press reprinted it in 2009, and in 2020 Plamondon released a self-published PDF edition.

Reception and significance
Many reviewers praised the book as a helpful, practical guide for both new players and beginning GMs, especially for those running large campaigns. Some criticisms noted that it centers on D&D and doesn’t cover every game system, and that it omits a few topics readers might expect. Historians highlight its snapshot of early tabletop RPG play—before stricter rules became dominant—and its value to fans of the early hobby and the Old School Revival movement.