Two of Mewgenics' most memorable areas were inspired by a brutal tabletop RPG

The Old School Renaissance, or OSR, has shaped how many people run tabletop campaigns and it also left a clear mark on Mewgenics. Two of the game's standout zones—the Desert and the Lab—are designed to work like a Level 0 funnel from Dungeon Crawl Classics. In that funnel approach players begin with several rudimentary, randomly generated characters rather than a single level 1 adventurer.

Those novices are sent into a brutal dungeon where traps and monsters whittle the group down; the survivor earns promotion to level 1 and only then chooses a class. Mewgenics adapts the idea by making its early Act zones a test of endurance. The Desert's heat mechanics limit healing and make weaker cats prone to being downed, encouraging players to cut ones that hold the party back.

The Lab steps up encounter difficulty, with threats that can kill or badly injure cats, spread disease, and punish parties that lack the damage needed to survive Act 3. It’s a neat example of tabletop design applied with nuance rather than simple nostalgia.

mewgenics, osr, dungeon crawl, level 0, funnel, desert, lab, heat mechanics, tabletop rpg, random characters