Resident Evil, Resource Pools, and How Horror Can Wane

If you have run a horror game using the Dungeons and Dragons system, you may have found that the elements of horror diminish as you go on. Situations that might have evoked fear from the party early on do not affect them as much. Encounters feel more like a standard game of Dungeons and Dragons, focusing more on action and adventure instead of the tension filled adventure you are trying to cultivate. When this happens, you may ask yourself what is causing that to happen.

As I tried to better understand why this was occurring to me, I thought a bit about other situations where I have seen this shift in atmosphere happen. My mind immediately went to the Resident Evil series. I immediately saw how Resident Evil’s tones would change over the course of a play through, and wondered what caused the shift. I realized that the atmosphere of a story can be ‌ affected by the amount of resources available to its players. That when these “Resource Pools' ' were deeper and provided more resources, it would change the tone versus a game where the pools were more shallow. I was able to learn this, and understand what happened, both in Resident Evil, and in my TTRPG games.

Some Background

If you are unfamiliar with the Resident Evil series, I will go over a synopsis of the most recent game, Resident Evil Village. Please note that while this will be brief, there may be some spoilers.

It takes a Village

You start RE Village game as Ethan Winters, the protagonist from the previous game. Ethan, along with his wife Mia and newborn daughter Rosemary, have been moved to a remote village in Eastern Europe. One night, assassins break into the house intending to capture or kill the family. Captured then freed because of a freak accident, Ethan finds himself alone in the wilderness of Eastern Europe. He proceeds onwards and comes to an isolated village.

Over the course of the game, Ethan will run into terrifying gothic-inspired enemies. Feral Lycans, Soldats made of metal and flesh, as well as other horrific creatures throw themselves at the player while they try to get clues and supplies in order to save Ethan’s daughter. Resident Evil Village, like the games before it, has elements of resource management at its core.

When you start out, your options for dealing with opponents is limited. Early on, you have a knife, a pistol, and maybe a shotgun at your disposal for dealing with threats. Ammunition is scarce early on, causing you to need to either your rounds early on or end up in a dangerous position. This forces players to act carefully, using the surroundings to their advantage and dealing with enemies as efficiently as possible, even avoiding them when able.

As you progress, your array of ways of dealing with the enemy increases. Ammunition becomes more common, and you gain multiple weapons which you can use against your foes. Ethan is able to increase his health pool as well, allowing the player to take more damage when in combat. As the amount of each resource increases, you become a more dangerous threat to your enemies.

By the end of the game, you have an array of tools at your disposal for dealing with the threats you face. Hordes of enemies, increased in number and ability, get mowed down from a machine pistol. The need to sneak around as much has gone away, or at least reduced.

The game’s early themes of horror and suspense have transformed, turning from a tense horror to an action-horror. Where the players once had to sneak around in fear and plan how to take down individual opponents, they now mow down hordes of enemies.

Defining Pools

Now you can see that the theme has shifted a bit, and you might wonder why that happened. The game went from cautious and scary to an all out slaughter-fest. For me, I became focused on the tools that the game provided you with dealing with threats, both the variety and the amount. How the game provided a wider variety and more of each resource and that, by the end of the game, you had a deep store of resources to deal with most threats. I called these “Resource Pools”, seeing them as an ever deepening source of tools to solve problems.

Resource Pools refers to any sort of finite asset you have that you can use on dealing with a problem. In my example of Resident Evil, the key resources available are health, healing, Weapons, and ammunition. When you start out in the game, they limit you to all of those areas. Ethan’s total health meter is short, and it will be hard to find the herbs that heal him. Weapons as well are limited and are slowly trickled in over the course of the game.

As these pools deepen through increased weapons, ammunition, and health, how you deal with threats will change as well. Where a single enemy could have easily downed the player without some careful planning, your upgraded shotgun will take them down with ease. If an enemy reaches you, your increased health can take a few hits before you go down.

Since the deepening of Resource Pools changes how you deal with threats, it also changes the tone of the game. Early on, when your options are limited, threats will more easily scare the player. Since you have little resources to deal with the threats, the game will reward a cautious and safe play style. An unseen monster might end the run through or worse, drain your ammunition, and force a stealthier course of action in order to refill Ethan’s supplies. But by the end, however, that changes. You may have more enemies, but the amount of resources you have allows you to overcome most threats. If you run out of your preferred ways of dispatching an enemy, you may just have to switch to a different resource.

So my takeaway from Resident Evil is simple. For a tense, horror-driven situation, shallow pools make more sense. Having fewer resources means the threats can be much more scary. When you get more resources, the horror changes. It can still be scary, but there is more action and ability in them.

Resource Pools in DnD

We have confirmed this happens in a video game, but you might ask how this relates to Dungeons and Dragons. DnD, at its core, is a game about becoming all-powerful heroes. You start off weak, but accumulate power through magic items and character levels. By the end, a high level party can accomplish a lot. The joke about how a party starts off killing rats in the tavern basement and ends the game by killing a god (or gods) rings true in a lot of cases. In a lot of the games that I have seen end at a higher level, the party bands together against amazing odds, saving the world.

Over this time adventuring, a group of player characters will accumulate a wide variety of resources. Abilities and feats come with increasing in level, which also brings increased health pool. Magic items will often result from quests, allowing the player the possibility to push their abilities even further in a given day. These all together deepen the pool of resources at your disposal.

In a standard Dungeons and Dragons game, I would consider any finite resource that can solve a problem part of the resource pool. Items that the party gets a limited use of over an adventuring day, and can draw upon in order to resolve challenges they face. Some examples include some of the obvious options, such as spell slots, sorcery points, and other limited per day or per rest abilities. Health and hit dice can also add to this, since HP allows a character to withstand a certain amount of damage. Magical items and potions also deepen this pool, either granting new abilities or augmenting existing ones. A Pearl of Power can give a caster back a spell in a day, for example. A Wand of Magic Missile will give the wielder an extra amount of castings per day, which can be useful in many situations. All together, these items make up the resources that the party will call upon in order to progress through the game, using them up as they move forward.

A Tale of Two Dungeons

Now that we have identified what goes into a Resource Pool in our game, you can see how these pools empty over the course of an adventuring day. The party needs to spend these resources in order to overcome obstacles, but the rate at which they drain their pool can vary. As an example, we can look at the design of a standard dungeon encounter.

As a party moves through a dungeon, they will encounter various challenges. Creatures, traps, hazards, and puzzles will be between the party and their ultimate goals. The denizens of whatever tomb or cavern the party is entering will attempt to repel the party. Assuming the encounter is of an appropriate difficulty for party composition and level, the party will need to spend a certain amount of resources in order to take down the enemy. The magic users will cast spells, and the martial fighters might use abilities to more quickly take down the enemies. Every hit from the opponents can cost the party members at least health, and sometimes more if the monster has a specific ability.

Most dungeons will also have traps and hazards in them. We intentionally made the former to slow or stop enemies, while the latter are a product of the environment. Despite a difference both will operate similarly with the party. Unless identified and negated, traps and hazards will damage the party, and cost them resources. Even if they are noticed, sometimes more advanced traps will require some sort of expenditure of resources in order to get past them without taking damage.

Ultimately, the party will get to the deepest place in the dungeon. They will have spent resources in order to get there. Depending on your play style, they may or may not have regained some of those resources through a Short Rest. But they will face the last obstacle of the dungeon, usually some sort of boss monster. At this phase, the party will often spend most of their remaining resource pools on downing the monster before perishing themselves. 

Pool Theory at Work

Now understanding how a dungeon can, and will drain resources on the party, let us look at a couple of examples that highlight how resource drain plays into an encounter. We return to our hypothetical dungeon from above.

Our first situation will be one where the party has had great fortune when delving. They have not had to draw on most of their resources over this dungeon. We can even assume that the party somehow achieved a Long Rest before this boss fight. Maybe it was a specific character ability, such as a cleric gaining favor from their deity. Maybe it was some luck and ingenuity from the party. Whatever it was, in this example we assume the party has an almost full Resource Pool before the fight.

In our second situation, we can assume the opposite happened. The party rogue might have had bad luck and missed a few traps. Maybe some kobolds could get the drop on the group, using their advantage to down one or more party members. Maybe they tried to take a Short Rest, but were interrupted by friends of those kobolds, looking for revenge. (Seriously, don’t mess with Kobolds). However it happened, they have used more resources than they intended. They are looking rough, but will not leave without finishing their fight.

Assuming that you do not change the fight in either situation, Example 1 is going to have a much easier time. Their resources are plentiful in all regards. The spell casters have all their spells, the martial fighters have their abilities, and everyone has their HP at full. They have more in their Resource Pools that they can throw at their challenges, in this case a monster, and because of it, they can hit much harder. If the party knows that this might be the “final challenge” of the dungeon, then they might be inclined to throw everything they have at the boss, ending it much more quickly than expected.

Example 2 is going to be a much rougher fight. Beaten and bruised, those shallow pools are going to have the party scraping the bottom of their Bag of Holding to see what unused item could assist them. The party will have to be a bit more conservative with their choices as they try to balance dealing and mitigating damage from the enemy. If they are not careful, this fight could turn into a TPK easily as well. All around it will be a much tougher fight.

Difficulty by Scarcity

In reality, these two extremes rarely happen, but they ‌make a point. When your party has many more resources at their disposal, they will have a much easier time solving their problems. Spells and abilities obviously make a lot of problems easier, but total HP does as well. In a battle, a character might be less worried about taking a hit if they are almost full on HP. Traps and hazards might not be as scary either, only being a slight impediment instead of a deadly disaster. 

The players will act differently as well in this situation. A deep pool will be more likely to rush into danger, knowing that they have the resources to shrug off an attack. A wizard knows they can boost their AC with a shield, or the paladin knows they can smite their foe into oblivion. Compare that to a shallower pool, not even entirely empty. The wizard can deflect these attacks, but for how much longer? Our paladin only has a few smites left, and after that cannot end the fight quickly. 

Simply put, draining a party’s resources will cause their challenges to be more difficult than usual. Sometimes, it can even help to encourage creative problem solving or open the door for some rule of cool opportunities. With the barbarian out of rage for the day, they may opt to damage themselves, trading their HP in order to maintain the ability to take hits and do more damage. A wizard might ask if they can trade Hit Dice or Points of Exhaustion in return for being able to cast one last spell. These moments of desperation can breed some of the best creativity at the table.

That being said, do not always keep your party barely able to continue forwards. Parties that are constantly outmatched and drained resource pools will play defensively. They may get frustrated with the situation, since it can crush that hero fantasy that is at the core of DnD. Make sure that while you drain these resources, you give the party ample opportunity to use their abilities to the fullest. As they level, they become more of a threat, and they should get the chance to show that off. Finding the perfect balance will take time, and knowing your table.BODY 7Now that we finally understand the cause, and how that affects the game, we can tie this all back into the atmosphere. Resource management can be a powerful element in storytelling. Asset scarcity, shallow pools can amplify the fear and horror elements.

Just like in Resident Evil, a lack of supplies will cause the players to be more cautious about how they approach a situation. The same goes for a TTRPG game. Having shallower than normal Resource Pools will limit the amount of tools a party has to throw at challenges. It will make obstacles more challenging, and that feeling of scarcity can help maintain and amplify those elements of horror. Simply put, the players having fewer resources to throw at a problem will make the situation a bit more scary.

This idea can also be applied to non-horror situations as well, on both sides. The fewer options the party has to throw against foes that they come up against will make them feel less powerful, but the opposite is true as well. If you really want to highlight places where the characters should feel all powerful, try to make sure they have full resource pools to push that narrative. When the players bring more power against their foes, they will feel like heroes. If the atmosphere you want to pursue leans more towards the power fantasy, it makes sense to give the party more options and allow their pools to get deep. Ultimately, it depends on what results you want.

CONCLUSION

The quantity of finite resources, Resource Pools, can emphasize or alter the horror atmosphere in a game. As we saw in the example of Resident Evil, the early levels have more tense moments because of the lack of tools. When Ethan is sneaking through a Victorian Castle with only six rounds of bullets in his pistol, it makes every shot count. And when you are out of bullets, it becomes a scary dash as you desperately try to survive until you can refill your gun.

Total resources, or Resource Pools, represent this occurrence. When you start out, your pools are shallow more easily. As the game continues, more weapons and other resources are added, and the pool deepens. By the end, those pools are vast and deep, and the scary moments in the game are reduced, replaced instead by action horror moments.

This transitions over to your DnD table. As we saw in our example, a party with more resources is going to take down threats more easily, while one with a shallower or more emptied pool is going to struggle. This struggle can help elevate the moments of fear and tension, as well as being a powerful tool for pushing your players to new creative heights. So now that we know about the relationship between assets and atmosphere, the obvious next question is how do we deal with it? How do we maintain shallow Resource Pools while presenting an enjoyable experience for the party? Having set the groundwork and definitions I will use, that will be something that gets covered in my next post, which will be out next week! In that post, I will go over how we can take the concept of Resource Pools and use it to amplify both Horror and the difficulty in gameplay in both a fun and fair way.

Final Thoughts

If you, like me, love the idea of running Horror in 5e, I highly recommend checking out my other post on My Tips for Running Horror in 5e. It has a few quick options that will allow you to better create and maintain an eerie atmosphere for your players to adventure in.

Do you find resource drain to be difficult at your party? Let me know when it has come up.

Do you have a solid way of draining party resources in order to ramp up for a big fight? I would love to know as well.

Either way, let me know the below. I always enjoy hearing from you. Thanks for reading, and see you again next week!