TheRetroArcade
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Posts: 1,957
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
Can you fit a cat through a funnel?
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Easily the biggest influence on how I've run tabletop RPG campaigns over the last few years has been the OSR movement. Short for Old School Renaissance (or Old School Revival, depending on who you ask), it's a subgenre of games that look back on the origins of D&D and bring forward ideas that had become unpopular in the modern hobby—such as lethal dungeons, morally grey heroes, and an emphasis on player problem-solving over stats and rolls.
Apparently it's also been a big influence on the best game of the year so far, Mewgenics—with one specific element having inspired two of the game's most memorable areas.
Edmund McMillen has previously mentioned the OSR TTRPG Dungeon Crawl Classics being a touchstone during development, and co-developer Tyler Glaiel has gotten a little more specific on his X account. "The Desert and The Lab are both kind of intended to act like a level 0 funnel," he says.
The Desert and The Lab are both kind of intended to act like a Level 0 Funnel (which is a thing from DCC) https://t.co/rEmRrw6SloFebruary 22, 2026
What's a level 0 funnel, you might ask? It's a particular style of adventure design created for Dungeon Crawl Classics, and it bears a little explanation.
DCC deliberately takes a lot of OSR ideas to their extremes, for a 'gonzo' feel, and in particular it dials up the lethality for early characters. An important part of that is that you don't start with a level 1 character like you would in other D&D-derived systems.
Instead, you start with four level 0 characters—randomly-generated adventurers so green they don't even have a proper class yet—and then send them into a brutally difficult dungeon for their first adventure. This is a 'funnel', because as these fledgling heroes are killed off one-by-one by traps and monsters, you're filtering down to the one strongest and/or luckiest hero in your stable. If that one can make it out alive, they get promoted to level 1 and choose a class, having truly earned their place in an adventuring party.
Though not quite as harsh, the Desert and the Lab are designed to serve a similar function in Mewgenics. Via the Desert's heat mechanics, which limit your healing, and the Lab's jump up in encounter difficulty, these first zones of Act 2 and 3 serve as a tough test of which cats in your party have real longevity and which are holding you back.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
In the Desert, your weakest cats are likely to keep getting downed without easy ways to ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
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Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
Easily the biggest influence on how I've run tabletop RPG campaigns over the last few years has been the OSR movement. Short for Old School Renaissance (or Old School Revival, depending on who you ask), it's a subgenre of games that look back on the origins of D&D and bring forward ideas that had become unpopular in the modern hobby—such as lethal dungeons, morally grey heroes, and an emphasis on player problem-solving over stats and rolls.
Apparently it's also been a big influence on the best game of the year so far, Mewgenics—with one specific element having inspired two of the game's most memorable areas.
Edmund McMillen has previously mentioned the OSR TTRPG Dungeon Crawl Classics being a touchstone during development, and co-developer Tyler Glaiel has gotten a little more specific on his X account. "The Desert and The Lab are both kind of intended to act like a level 0 funnel," he says.
The Desert and The Lab are both kind of intended to act like a Level 0 Funnel (which is a thing from DCC) https://t.co/rEmRrw6SloFebruary 22, 2026
What's a level 0 funnel, you might ask? It's a particular style of adventure design created for Dungeon Crawl Classics, and it bears a little explanation.
DCC deliberately takes a lot of OSR ideas to their extremes, for a 'gonzo' feel, and in particular it dials up the lethality for early characters. An important part of that is that you don't start with a level 1 character like you would in other D&D-derived systems.
Instead, you start with four level 0 characters—randomly-generated adventurers so green they don't even have a proper class yet—and then send them into a brutally difficult dungeon for their first adventure. This is a 'funnel', because as these fledgling heroes are killed off one-by-one by traps and monsters, you're filtering down to the one strongest and/or luckiest hero in your stable. If that one can make it out alive, they get promoted to level 1 and choose a class, having truly earned their place in an adventuring party.
Though not quite as harsh, the Desert and the Lab are designed to serve a similar function in Mewgenics. Via the Desert's heat mechanics, which limit your healing, and the Lab's jump up in encounter difficulty, these first zones of Act 2 and 3 serve as a tough test of which cats in your party have real longevity and which are holding you back.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
In the Desert, your weakest cats are likely to keep getting downed without easy ways to ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?