Prehistoric Campaign?

[StoneCipher]

Given the existence of dinosaurs, has anyone ever run a pre-historic campaign? I've always muddled around with the idea, even including homebrewed primordial magics and witch doctory. Is there a book that exists for this purpose as well?

[Flickerdart]

Would be kind of difficult to swing a game with no humanoid races, language, or tools. Unless you mean "prehistoric" as in the Flintstones.

[StoneCipher]

Yeah I meant like the stereotypical unga chunga humans and the like.

[Extra Anchovies]

If you're willing to try a non-D&D, non-PF d20 system, there's always Mongoose Publishing's Conan: The Roleplaying Game. Unlike Pathfinder, it's a d20 OGL-based system where they actually made some innovative and significant changes to the rules.

The magic system is entirely redesigned to be less about chucking fireballs and more about sacrificing virgins on the sacred altar and using the resulting magical energy to destroy someone's soul from half a continent away, which makes it much more suited for witch doctor sorts (there are also magical herbs that improve your magic when you inhale their fumes, and most of the powerful spells require some ritual or another). There's only one spellcasting class; almost all of the others are either sneaky types, fighty types, or some combination of the two. Magic items are supposed to be extremely rare and almost unique; little to no rules for creating them, and no long lists of wondrous items, rings, or weapon abilities.

Character hit points advance much more slowly after tenth level (no more than +3 at each level, based on your hit die), so even high-level PCs still have to worry about most combats (especially against groups). Armor provides damage reduction (and lots of it), and there are rules for dodging and parrying (with the AC bonuses for each determined in part by class and level). There aren't as many feat options due to there being only really two sourcebooks after the core rules, but between the eight core classes there are lots of possible characters (multiclassing is encouraged; no XP penalties or the like). Also, most of the feats allow the use of a particular special ability in combat (e.g. feigning death when struck in order to get surprise on your next attack), and lend combat a lot more flavor than it often has in 3.5.

It's great for low-magic games, even if you choose not to set it in the Hyborian Age; the differences between it and 3.5 are big enough that it takes some getting used to if you're used to WotC d20, but if you want a game with high action and low magic, it can be a lot more interesting than 3.5 or PF. Dinosaurs' stats would be easily transferrable from 3.5 to Conan The RPG, because monsters' statistics are much closer to the normal d20 version (only on AC, natural armor boots defense rather than granting damage reduction, etc).

ETA: Switching systems might be a bit more than you're willing to try; however, whenever I think about running a low-magic or low-tech game I end up going back around to thinking about using the Conan RPG, so I thought it might be worth bringing up.

[StoneCipher]

I'd love to play other games, but my current group does not want to take the time to learn a new system, unfortunately. I was just curious on if anyone's ever done a D&D caveman game and if it was successful or lacking. I'd probably not make a campaign around it since, well, what kind of large story arcs can cavemen have? It'd probably be a one-shot or a few games worth of play just for funsies.

[hamishspence]

Would be kind of difficult to swing a game with no humanoid races, language, or tools. Unless you mean "prehistoric" as in the Flintstones.

Smart dinos maybe? "Lizardfolk" - but actually dinofolk.

[Flickerdart]

I'd probably not make a campaign around it since, well, what kind of large story arcs can cavemen have?
How about every single founding myth ever told?

[Extra Anchovies]

How about every single founding myth ever told?

Exactly. Also, depending on how prehistoric you want, you could maybe take some ideas from various cultures' folklore; as long as the players aren't familiar with the story or stories you're basing their adventures on, there are LOADS of ideas to plunder, especially if you want to have particularly epic adventures (e.g. traveling to the land beyond the horizon and freeing the Sun and the Moon from imprisonment by an evil witch-queen).

[StoneCipher]

I'm not familiar with caveman lore, so I guess I have some things to look up on. Seems like it could be quite interesting.

[Phelix-Mu]

Athas has some interesting stuff for primal/primitive civilizations, what with it's scarcity of metal and increasing rarity of friendly magic in the world. Unfortunately, the default fluff is pretty heavily post-apocalyptic/near-apocalyptic, so you'd have to ditch a fair number of the basic setting premises to arrive at a civilization level that was "prehistoric" without inheriting the "doomed" flavor of Athas. Although, with fairly low-level play, much of said doom can be largely ignored, as it only becomes relevant at a larger scale (regionally, planet-wide).

An important thing to consider is that the default existence of magic in 3e approximates much of modern technology, at least for those that have access to it. Whether it's sending, teleport, or all manner of high-end divinations, such tools would quickly and profoundly render the challenges of prehistoric life null and void (and potentially for large numbers of people, and, at high-op, the entire world). Thus, the stability of such a prehistoric setting would probably require toning down some spells and making access to magic items more rare than the basic rules assume.

That said, there is a wealth of stuff here to draw from. Whether it's shamanic vision quests, coming of age rituals, taking part in creation myths, or just the proverbial "inventing the wheel," the dawn of civilization is a very fertile time in which to set adventures. The rules would need to be tweaked appropriately, but they are already in need of such, so it's actually highly feasible.

[Coidzor]

Pathfinder has a bunch of primitive/fragile weapons and armor for it.

IIRC the DMG has some information about stone and bronze weaponry and there's stuff like shell armor somewhere in the 3.X milieu.

You'd have things like clubs, maybe stone or ceramic(!?) maces, stone handaxes, flint and obsidian knives and spear blades/tips, possibly slings, throwing sticks, maybe early bows?

The Real World Weapons and Armor thread might have some more ideas about what we killed with in cultures that never left the Neolithic and what we know about Neolithic precursors to early metal-using cultures/societies in order to further narrow things down before adding in things like early magic use and the like.

Although, early magic use or sponsorship by things like Dragons or Elves might explain the use of metal to some extent by certain groups.


How about every single founding myth ever told?

Imagine, if you will, being a human from a neolithic culture swept up in the war between Elves that lead to the splitting off of the Drow.

Or the first human to answer the call of Moradin and enter the mountains to be endarkened, to combine Discworld and default fluff. Or just the first human from a farming neolithic citystate to make an agreement with the dwarfs to trade them agricultural surplus for their metal tools and thus improve your city's ability to defend itself and demand tribute from its neighbours while also enabling agriculture to be revolutionized by using things like metal plows.

Or the human to lead a rebellion against the dwarves who enslaved them to tend surface farms for them, fleeing the mountains with metal tools and subjugating the metal-less peoples or intermarrying with them to form the basis of the next wave of human culture or even found the first human citystate.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Go watch Yor; The Hunter from the Future (or Spoony's review of it) and that should give you a few ideas.