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Systems that handle mutation?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2026
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I've run a couple games in D&D 5e with mutating cultists. The party fought a bunch of cultists, and most of them had pretty pathetic stat blocks, but sometimes after the party killed one I'd change it out for a tougher monster's stat block and describe how it violently mutated.
Behind the curtain, this is pretty useful because you can always decide when an encounter needs more oomph. The players can never be sure if a weak enemy is really a weak enemy or if they'll become more powerful as a result of trauma. Just like Resident Evil. It's also a technique that's broadly applicable to any RPG system.
I lean on Resident Evil a fair bit when I'm designing games. They've got a lot to teach about dungeon design, like how to use backtracking instead of simply branching paths. I also like how puzzles aren't too clever for the average player, or how they signal that locked doors might be opened not by a key but a key item.