There are three independent paths in the dungeon, each leading the characters through traps, skill checks, and ambushes to a mini-boss fight to reclaim one of the stolen valuables (there are some serious damage threats, although this is not to my mind something designed to just kill characters). It is a dungeon for the sake of having a dungeon. A wizard has created this dungeon and stolen objects of value for the express purpose of luring adventurers into the dungeon so he can kill/enslave them. Although it is not a “killer” dungeon like some of the rest in Tales from the Yawning Portal, it lacks any pretense of a “real” purpose.
White Plume Mountain ( Lawrence Schick, 1979) shifts to the old school side of the spectrum. The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is designed for 5th-level characters, so it can flow directly from The Forge of Fury. There are a ton of traps, but not of the “kill the characters immediately because they forgot to check this square inch of the dungeon” sort of traps. And since the characters accidentally fall into the lowest level of the tomb and then have to get out, the DM doesn’t even need to come up with a contrived reason why the adventurers would be pointlessly breaking into this ancient resting ground. It has a theme to it (an ancient Mayan/Aztec-themed tomb complex).
But it does present exploration, puzzles, and combat for the characters, with a smidge of non-combat interaction. From that date, you can tell that it is not a recent entry into the world of D&D. I also put The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (originally Lost Tamoachan Harold Johnson and Jeff Leason, 1979/1980) in this category. Even outside of the context of this book, it’s a good way to get characters up to 3rd level for those campaigns that don’t really start at level 1. Sunless Citadel, in particular, gives a great blend of adventure elements for an introductory dungeon.
These two adventures are re-implemented here because they are good adventures. They present varied combat encounters, traps and other exploration puzzles, and the opportunity for non-combat interactions with some denizens of the dungeon. Together they will take a party from 1st through 5th level. Each presents a dungeon that has a reasonable variety of opponents while maintaining a coherent purpose and theme for the dungeon. The Sunless Citadel ( Bruce Cordell, 2000) and The Forge of Fury ( Keith Baker, 2000) were the first adventure modules released for the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons (still the edition I have played the most and own the most books for). The leaders in the first category are the lowest level adventures – The Sunless Citadel and The Forge of Fury. This is normally where I would put a “spoiler” warning in a campaign or adventure review, but with seven adventures and no overarching story, this review is not going to delve into the particular surprises in a given adventure, or spoil any story points. This is part of what makes Tales from the Yawning Portal easily playable as a greatest hits album – the higher-level, super-tough, “grinder” dungeons weren’t designed to be parts of story arcs, anyway (and weren’t really designed to have all of the characters survive). All of the entries are true “dungeons” – it may not be literal dungeon, but each adventure features some grouping of interconnected rooms (dungeon, castle, cave, fortress, whatever) that the characters must make their way through. There’s some overlap, to be sure, but some are very clearly in one category or the other. When I look at the seven included adventures, they vaguely fall into two categories – dungeons that are “good” from a more modern roleplaying perspective, and old school dungeons that are classics of their era, but don’t really serve the same function one would usually expect from a modern adventure/dungeon. The dungeons do, however, nicely cover most of the levels, allowing a group to play through them like a deliciously geeky greatest hits album.
Rather than presenting an overarching story for characters to roleplay through, it presents seven independent adventures, each a re-implementation of a much-lauded dungeon from years past. Uniquely, however, Tales from the Yawning Portal is an adventure supplement, rather than a campaign supplement. Tales from the Yawning Portal is like most other Dungeons & Dragons 5E books in that it is a supplement that will let the DM run the characters from first level until somewhere in the teens.