Grimtooth’s Traps Ate! (1989) is the fourth volume in the series. I know, I know. Steve Crompton is back on art duties for most of the book and it is both a welcome return because some of the dynamic framing of Traps Too returns, but also a disappointment because Crompton seems either rushed or not as into it as he once was. Which, it is volume four of a collection of preposterous user-submitted traps. How much longer can this go on, really?

Maybe nine volumes? The names and various publishers are confusing, but I think there are five more after this, dear god: Traps Lite, Dungeon of Doom, Traps Bazaar, Museum of Death and Tomb of the Warhammer (those last two are from Goodman). There are two collections as well as of this writing in 2023, and I think Goodman has announced another coming soon.

I’m good with four. The formula is thin here, the laughs intermittent. The trap on the back cover is a good encapsulation — it looks like a rope up a tall shaft but if you tug on it, you pull the pin out of a connected grenade, which then falls on the person below. Boom. Ha, get it — they want to kill the player characters. That’s the joke. Like, you, the GM, have total control over the world, so you can just use a silly trap to justify dropping a grenade on someone for laughs. Ha ha.