Tabletop game about dinosaurs

user, I'm about to reveal to you the terrible secret of Veeky Forums:

If you want a cool game about [THING], you'll have to make it yourself. The only thing stopping your cool game from existing is the fact that you haven't made it yet.

So... Engine Hearts with dinosaurs.

Id play that. Well, that or something a little more serious (like having your dinosaur character eaten alive by raptors because he/she couldn't run away fast enough).

>tabletop game about dinosaurs
>where you play as dinosaurs instead of humans

>Why hasn't this been done yet?

1: Because big stupid animals make for shitty protagonists.

2: Because playing a Dinosaur would require focusing 100% on shit that make the average D&D casualty flip the table, like constantly scrounging for food, getting ambushed by things you have no realistic chance of fighting off, and randomly dying from stupid shit like sliding down a muddy bank and getting stuck.

Have you seen the fucking threads about stuff like wilderness survival in role-playing?
>Our DM is retarded, he makes us keep track of water and having the right clothes instead of just plopping us down in another dungeon.
>If I wanted realism I wouldn't be playing games, hurdurr
>I should be allowed to have everything in this flashy anime picture because it looks cool, what do you mean impractical, it's a game...

Imagine the average players response when they get an Allosaurus on their trail because they forgot to mention kicking dirt over their shit or something.

4: Because the thing that makes any monster cool is the contrast, if everyone's a dinosaur, it's not as fun as when you have humans to compare them to.

5: Because dinosaurs don't have stuff, the main reasons people do retarded shit like intentionally going into harms way in role-playing games is to get stuff, protect their stuff or steal someone else's stuff. Tell your players that in the next game you're running, nobody is going to have gear and see how well that goes over.

Of course, none of this matter if you just want to run Land Before Time talking cute dinosaur hijinks, but at that point you might as well use an existing game and just say "everybody dinosaur now."

>6. The reason why no one wants to play with me is because they're all stupid assholes, not because of my abrasive personality.

>it would not be fun to play through something resembling this

>big stupid animals
However you came here, go back to the 1800s.

On this note, what are some solid survival games? I've heard Torchbearer is good for this. Any other decent systems?

1: Don't do that then.
2: Don't do that then either. Every game is going to be shit if the players are not on board with the general tone of the game.
4: Contrast can come by showing the differences between the PCs and NPCs; the dinosaurs can be the last of their kinds in an area dominated by pesky fucking mammals.
5: Loot doesn't have to be the main feature of the game, it's not a requirement for an RPG, and there are systems out there (albeit ones that are generally quite divisive, I'm looking at you Fate) which basically go, hey, gear doesn't matter that much.

Though I'd still rather run it as Land Before Time talking cute dinosaur hijinks, because cuteness and hijinks seem to basically go hand-in-hand with any game my group goes near.

too hard to relate to :^)

6. you just realized there's no 3

Then don't just have the game be about dinosaurs surviving in dinosaur times.

Get weird. Have aliens invade and the dinosaur PCs have to fight them off. Have it be post apocalyptic and they have to fend off encroaching human raiders.

There are plenty of things you can do with the PCs as dinosaurs instead of just having them be dinosaurs

because there isn't a need to make a tabletop game about everything. You don't need to outline a campaign for every tv show you watch or book you read. Every time I see the monthly has anyone ever made a dark souls ttg thread I cringe.

I'd consider working on that project.

You'd have to decide what direction you were taking the game though.

Hyper-realism,
Cute-dino-hijinks,
Realism, but with heightened intelligence and more complex language,
Sci-fi + Dinosaurs,
If I was making this project, my first thought is to do it as a fantasy. Dinosaurs, but intelligent, communicative, and in a world with magic. That would allow you to have some more of the role-playing progression that I think that you'd want, and it adds more story hooks. Since you don't have civilization, all knowledge and magical lore would be rare and need to be quested after, you could still have powerful antagonists of the intelligent and bestial varieties.
And when I say magic, I don't mean fireballs and lightning bolts necessarily, moreso, powers that set you apart from the rest of the world. Perhaps like Earthdawn's adepts, or a toned-down Exalted.

Been Done.

drivethrurpg.com/product/152101/OneDice-Raptors

>Why hasn't this been done yet?
>Because dinosaurs make good monsters, not so much protagonists.

>being so wrong on so many accounts
>they didn't read West of Eden

So good. One of my favorites. Spent years tracking down the trilogy in used book stores.

...

>not playing as the astrosaurs

Local Lib had all three books.
They were great. I loved them.

I could imagine a punched-up Bunnies & Burrows variation with dinosaurs working, but I'd like the option to have mammals or fantastical prehumans. If only to gussy it up.

Those books were the shit

SPACE DINOSAURS

That's from EVO isn't it?

It just hit me, couldn't you pull off the Land Before Time with Ryuutama? It's mostly about traveling and that's what they did in the movie. Combat is discouraged, since trying not to die also involves not getting yourself hurt.

>roll to eat grass

Silly user, I'm not going to make you roll to eat grass. I am going to make you do a perception check though, because you thought it would be funny to move away from the herd.

The fact that it says EVO P. didn't tip you off?

RIFTS.

Seriously though I don't think there is enough of a market out there. Vidya just scratches that I want to be a flesh eating beast itch better than pnp.