Shape Shifting

Basic Information

Shape shifting occurs when characters transform from one shape to another. This may be a result of magic, lycanthropy, or the "natural" powers of shape-shifting races or individuals. It may be a painful and horrible curse (see Body Horror) or just another useful supernatural power to scrawl on the "skills & powers" section of your character sheet.

Your basic categories of shapeshifters are:

• Doppelgänger - Creatures who can take any shape they want, and use it for nefarious purposes. A form of supernatural identity theft.
• Lycanthropy - A monstrous transformation involving the beast within. Often involuntary, possibly part of a curse or disease.
• Shape-shifters fast and wise animals - creatures who have more than one form that comes naturally to them. Often overlaps with a trickster archetype.
• Transformative Magic or punitive shapeshifting. Where someone is no longer in their original form due to someone else's magic. (Arguably not a shape-shifter, if it's a one-time transformation)

List of Shape Shifting Tropes

• Voluntary Shapeshifting - Generally a good power to have.
  • Animorphism - Animal-specific Voluntary Shapeshifting
  • Shapeshifting Lover
  • Our Werewolves Are Different
  • Swarm Shift
• Involuntary Shapeshifting - Generally not a good power to have.
  • Freaky Friday - Not so much as a shift as a trade, but still a change in one's body.
  • Attack Of The 50 Foot Whatever
  • Baleful Polymorph
  • Biological Mash Up - Two heads are better than one.
  • Gender Bender - And its consequences:
    • Attractive Bent Gender
    • Man I Feel Like A Woman
    • Mandys Law Of Anime Gender Bending
  • Glamour Failure
  • Fountain Of Youth
  • Humanity Ensues
  • Incredible Shrinking Man
  • Karmic Transformation
  • Thirteen Going On Thirty
  • Wolf Man
• Lycanthropy - can be voluntary or involuntary, depending on the treatment.
• Magic Pants - To secure modesty after your Transformation Sequence.
• Metamorphosis - A one-way, permanent change.
• The Mind Is A Plaything Of The Body - Your personality is changed by your new form.
• Mode Lock - Shape Shifting runs the risk of you getting stuck that way.
• Morphic Resonance - When your other forms still look like you in some way.
• Pinocchio Syndrome - A non-human wants to become human.
• Sense Freak
• Shape Shifter Baggage
  • Shapeshifting Squick
• Shape Shifter Showdown
  • One Winged Angel
  • Shapeshifter Guilt Trip
  • Shapeshifter Weapon
  • Super Mode
  • Tricking The Shapeshifter
• Shape Shifter Swan Song
  • This Was His True Form
• Transformation Comic
• Transformation Conventions - A new shape to match the personality.
• Transformation Sequence - Sometimes involves a physical change during the activation of one's powers.
• Transformation Trauma - Sometimes changing shape ain't pretty.
  • Painful Transformation - Taking another form hurts like the dickens.
• Warform - a transformation specifically designed to boost combat potential.

For transformations that require a significant change in mass, there would seem to be a requirement to balance this out somehow - ectoplasm may be the answer for those transformations where the shapeshifter gains mass, but where mass decreases things become trickier.

Sources

Bibliography

1. TV Tropes Wiki entry

2. Wikipedia entry

Game and Story Use

• Shape shifting player characters can vastly extend the range of their abilities, though their alternate forms might come with drawbacks of their own.
• Shape shifting enemies can be vastly more dangerous than normal foes, especially if the player characters don't know all the forms their enemies can shift into.