Run modifiers
Optional rule changes applied at the start of or during a run — extra challenge, altered mechanics, or wildcard twists — that reshape how a run plays. Hades's Pact of Punishment and Slay the Spire's daily modifiers let players customize difficulty and variety, stacking constraints for greater reward or just for novelty. Designers use run modifiers to extend replayability, to give players control over challenge and variety, and to keep a familiar game fresh by remixing its rules. Key decisions: whether modifiers are player-selected or randomly imposed, reward coupling (do harder modifiers pay out more?), how modifiers combine (independent stacking versus curated sets), and how far they can deviate from the base rules before the game breaks. Pitfall: modifiers that only add tedium — more enemy health, slower movement — feel like punishment rather than fresh challenge; the best modifiers change how you play (new enemy behaviors, altered resource rules, added mechanics) so each combination is a genuinely different puzzle rather than the same game with the numbers cranked.
- Dev effort: Small
- Timing: Real-time or turn-based
- Common in: roguelike