Unboring mimics: more than “gotcha!” traps
There’s a bad way to do mimics.
It’s also the most common way.
The adventurers are walking along and then, oops, they stepped on the wrong tile or sat in the wrong chair. LOL, better luck next time.
A person walking into a mimic-infested dungeon would be freaking out.
A player whose character is walking into the same place is probably frustrated. The GM has scattered an unknown number of mimics throughout the dungeon. It could be zero or it could be ten thousand.
It turns into a game of trying to guess where the GM stashed these critters.
Worse - the players might assume that the GM is doing some quantum trickery with them. The objects they stab are just objects, while the things they touch are mimics, with the GM making that up as they go.
The players might be unlucky, but if they even think the GM is cheating like that, it can undermine the game.
The best case is the players do the smart-but-boring thing of poking literally everything. You can’t blame them for doing what they need to to win, even if it’s the dullest option.
You can stop them poking everything by adding time pressure. If have to be selective with their pokes because they don’t have the luxury of inching their way through.
You remove the need for that by being fair, reasonable and interesting with your mimics.
Here’s how.
Mimic Psychology
Mimics aren’t generally smart because they don’t need to be.
Ambush predators usually have a decent brain. They need to know how to stay hidden, how to approach the target and when the perfect time to strike it. Mimics have it easier - they prey walk up to them and touch them.
I mean, it’s fantasy and it’s your world. You can have awakened mimics if you want. I’m just focusing on the vanilla version of the critters.
Mimics don’t need to anticipate prey behaviour or have perfect ambush timing. All they need to do is observe.
A mimic might infest a dungeon and imitate the closest thing it sees - a random floor tile in the corner. Then it waits and watches. No one approaches this extra floor tile, but everyone who passes through opens the door.
So the mimic becomes a door.
Of course, this random door is pretty suspicious. Based on the shape of the dungeon, it doesn’t lead anywhere. Also, the door is in front of a support pillar. The mimic eats one hapless explorer, but is quickly killed by an observant wizard burning it from across the room.
The other mimics learn. Doors are better than floor tiles but this still wasn’t good enough.
So they keep on observing and experimenting, getting better over time.
Mimics that don’t suck
The key to making mimics fun for the players - not just a way to arbitrarily whittle away HP - is to offer clues.
The first clues should be that there are mimics in the area at all. This is easy to do, even a little fun. A successful mimic might be a pillow in a quiet tavern. Then it or an offspring travels to a nearby dungeon - suddenly, being a pillow isn’t the best disguise.
After a few obvious mimics like that, the party knows to be on alert.
(Remember: you can stop them prodding everything by giving them a time constraint.)
Then the mimics should become a lot more successful at blending in, but they’ll still offer clues.
Some examples:
I already talked about a strangely placed door. Let the players see both sides of a wall, but only one side has a door on it. Or maybe the door is a few inches above the ground. The better you establish the rules of the architecture, the more subtle you can be. For example, maybe each wall has two doors on it or the rooms are symmetrical. Adding an extra door is a clue to observant players (not observant characters - players) that something is off.
Place furniture in ways that don’t make sense, like a chair in the middle of the room or two bedrolls that overlap. Have a throne room with an extra, off-centre throne. Sure, people might arrange things like that for whatever reason. Paranoid adventurers should still know to check things like that.
Have a desk with two identical chairs. Or a desk with no chairs. Or a desk up against a door.
Provide duplicates of things that should be unique. I mentioned a throne already, but also intricate murals, pot plants, chamber pots or designer gowns.
Duplicate blemishes, scratches and other unique markings.
Consider etiquette. A place setting with the wrong cutlery - such as two forks and no knife - is a nice clue.
Some of these are easier to do that others. The limitations of the game mean most tables will be either a rectangle drawn on a battlemap or an identical JPG. Add minor details to each, enough to make them unique. A simple colour filter on the JPGs will make duplicates subtle, but obvious to anyone looking for them.
It’s worth it, though. When a mimic gets the better of them, they’ll slap cringe at their own carelessness, not your arbitrary cruelty.
Anyway, thinking about how mimics think can be fun. They’re not that smart, but they are different.
It gets trickier with creatures that are both smart and strange. How do you give them plausible and realistic decisions when they think so differently from humans?
Well, one great approach is the AMAM framework. It shows you how to easily write for non-human creatures without them being just like you or completely random.
It’s perfect for Game Masters, authors or anyone creative.
You can find it here: