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In a game of Dungeon! there is Slide Trap in Level 3 which says:
Gain 1 Treasure and move to any chamber on Level 4
What happens when I encounter a monster in the level 4 chamber, attack it insufficiently, the monster hits back, and I have to retreat a step? Where do I retreat?
Since the idea of the retreat system is to prevent you from passing a chamber by not killing a monster, we always play that you must go back the way you came. In case a trap brought you to a chamber you probably had no intention to pass that chamber anyway, since you did not mean to go to that chamber. So passing without killing a monster is not relevant in this case. We allow the unlucky player who ended up in the trap and who didn't kill the monster in the chamber to choose the path of retreat. It's not like it's that much of an advantage since the player never really intended to enter that chamber.
I don't know whether there is any official rule on this matter but this approach seems logical to me.
Now I do not know of an official ruling, but in this instance my group has always practiced that retreat is not the same as return.
That is to say the rules are telling you, that you are to no longer occupy the same chamber/room as the monster, not that you must go back the way you came.
I have not played Dungeon! but I have played New Dungeon which was a precursor to that game.
We always played that retreat simply means you move out of the chamber/room you are in, in whatever direction you fancy.
To pretend for a moment: While you are fighting a monster you are moving all around. Who is to say you are on the same side of the room as you started and near the same door you entered through?
We've encountered this as well. I remember reading that you are supposed to retreat the way you came in. This is probably to prevent players from "retreating" their way through a chamber past a particularly nasty monster to get to the treasure rooms beyond. In the case of a forced entry into a chamber due to a trap sending you there, it doesn't make a lot of sense to retreat back up the slide that dumped you there. We play that if you are forced to retreat because you entered a chamber due to trap, you retreat randomly down one of the passages into the chamber, chosen by die roll.
