Long story short I'm attempting to put together a D&D game set in a pseudo upper paleolithic era.
I've got a good grip on how to do weapons, classes, magic, and the like, but I'm at a loss on what real plot hooks the party could encounter.
There will be limited shamanic magic, which is important to note. But what really could be going on in the world? Mass migration to find more hospitable land? A "slay the big baddie" type game ported to stone ages? Maybe something more political relating to warring tribes?
I hope this thread stays alive until I'm done with my shift. Anyway, I ran a stone age Call of Cthulhu game for a spell. Remember that the basics of life can be an adventure in this setting: -Finding shelter for the night -Hunting a dangerous animal to keep it from killing the herds you're following -The best source of drinking water is being used by a pack of wolves -A rival group of hominids has cornered a Mammoth, but its too big and strong for them to finish off. Can you trust each other to split the kill if you work together?
Kevin Harris
Look up Wolfpacks & Winter Snow a Veeky Forums regular made a D&D based game set in that time period and got it published. It's supposed to be pretty good.
Lincoln Richardson
everyday survival as a hunter gatherer comes to mind... they wouldnt have a $/gp/whatever system, it would revolve around food and the daily task of not dying or starving at any given moment. Shit, these ppl barely had caves or some simple structure, they didn't have home bases or anything
Grayson Evans
>some group of other people is raiding and pillaging your group to sacrifice to their giant stone heads >a smoking hole in the earth is slowly unleashing serpentmen and growing wider >the ur mammoth has died and the herd is funeral marching through your region
also this, its got a lot of useful content
Liam Adams
I like the looks of this. Thanks, user. Going to download a .pdf and give it a read.
I'm definitely going to include all of the struggles of everyday life.
>A rival group of hominids has cornered a Mammoth, but its too big and strong for them to finish off. Can you trust each other to split the kill if you work together?
Something like this is exactly what I'm looking for. I want something that takes things a little deeper, something to take a step further than basic survival. Although survival will always be first priority, I want the players to have something a little bigger to work towards when they start to pick up some levels and experience.
I'll re-make this thread later tonight if it dies. I would love to see what all you did for your game.
I love all of these ideas, thank you.
Austin Smith
Look up some of the mega fauna. Perhaps the "big baddie" could be a massive creature or perhaps a small horde of them
Brody Morgan
It seems a bit of a King Kong or Godzilla trope, but this user is 110% right. The big baddie would usually be the biggest apex predator in the area. Humans/hominids whatever wouldn't be the apex predator in this age (real close). What helps this stay fresh is the whole hunter gatherer aspect of life: move to a new area, new apex predator
Liam Green
Both my players love monster Hunter and I know they'd love something like this desu
Hunter Nguyen
I hope your friends in the game are good at role play, cause it's a lot of fun in these games. We spent an entire session where every time we weren't in combat, we struggled to make fire. Even something as silly as the character failing and just saying "ok... hitting my penis with the flint rock won't make fire.... hrmmmmmmmmm" just makes it so hilariously fun
Ayden Reed
A big bad tribe with an evil cannibal shaman leader has left the land desolate. Part 1. Party leads their tribe to a new land, discovering all sorts of new creatures and making alliances or enemies of new tribes.
Part 2. Big bad tribe comes to new land, players must use their new resources to fend off that shit before your new homeland is destroyed!
Isaac Reed
I'm in the early planning stages for a palaeolithic campaign myself. Read Harari's Sapiens. It presents an awesome bird eye view on early peoples. My campaign came from me reading the 4th edition DMG where it says a base assumption for most D&D worlds is they are old, as in there were empires that rose and crumbled before the grandfather of your hero was born. Try to imagine what it would be like to have no giant's shoulders to stand on, but to be the original giant, to be there when Prometheus steals the fire from the gods to help the mortals. There are no legends because you and your deeds will become legends.
My idea is basically "Babylon 5: Stone Age Boogaloo". There are two (or more) factions which are at war with each other. But they never fight or speak directly to one another. Instead the players and all mortals are there standins. They fight and die for these "angels" and "demons". The players hopefully will later on find out how they and all mortals were manipulated. They have to secure the help of great old elementals/primordials to shut down both of the "angels"/"demons". If they succeed mankind will be free to chart its own course and their story will be called the "war on heaven" (much like we have the monomyth).
What system will you be using? Might want to steal that.
Tyler Watson
*their Also look up megalania and Australian mega fauna.
Oliver Allen
Just D&D 3.5 with a lot of stuff up to player creativity as opposed to just rolls. I've been DMing with these players for a very long time so they know the system isn't as important as the roleplaying in this case. Classes will likely be Generic's from UA and Adept being the strongest possible caster. I don't want the players to have too many unique abilities that would interfere with the survival aspects, but I don't want them to feel like they're just playing a commoner campaign either.
I do appreciate your input though, I like the idea of playing during the age legends are created.
Nathan Carter
Never heard of Generics. Will look them up.
You could read Vellum by Hal Duncan (if I'm not mistaken). All of its plot lines focus on memetic mutation and some of them have nice proto-/early human stuff in them, too.
Aaron Green
The party's tribe have to migrate to another region due to a glaciation or another natural (or maybe not so !) disaster.
Asher Sullivan
It's generic classes from unearthed arcana if I wasn't completely clear, btw. You can find everything on the 3.5 SRD
Grayson Nelson
It may not be great, but you can probably get some ideas from Far Cry Primal.
Landon Morris
I actually own this game but never played past the tutorial. The general idea of unifying the smaller tribes against the cannibalistic evil tribe isn't a bad idea desu
Isaiah Long
SOMEONE KNOCKED YOUR FIRE OUT GO KILL HIM
Levi Morales
JOIN MY QUEST FOR FIRE
THEY SEARCHED ACROSS THE LAND
Hudson Brooks
It's pretty damn fun at times.
Also I like the idea of the Izila as an enemy. They've basically learned the secrets of agriculture, and are becoming more "civilized." Having a strange foe with this magic might be neat.
Noah Jenkins
Certain themes from african mythology fit, like pic related and this: >Shamans are also judges of crimes. Legal oral tradition is easier when you can invoke ancestrals and ask them about precedents, the deceased victim may be called to testify, and in some places non-human spirits may as well.
But perhaps they kill people for a good reason yet savage reason? >The whole idea behind human sacrifice is that human blood is the only thing that keeps the god's powers running, and the god's powers are the only thing keeping thousands of titanic skeletal demonic horrors from descending upon the world and devouring it. pastebin.com/5VLdcYzg >Aztec Mythology info taken from a Veeky Forums thread
Colton Phillips
So, my Call of Cthulhu mini-campaign was based on the scenario "Cursed Be the City", about a group of Neanderthal pcs discovering pre-human ruins exposed by the retreating glaciers, and all the horrible things that live within. While I had fun with the monster stuff, the most compelling bits were just them wandering around looking for food/water, and a place to bed down for the night. Good kindling for starting a fire can be a vital resource, and one that gets quite scarce in some areas. Fire itself is an interesting tool, it's extremely useful but can also be the pc's "Nuclear Option" in forested areas or against small settlements. One of the better moments in my campaign was when the players discovered a series of cave paintings left behind by a dead tribe. They "investigated" the series of images, slowly figuring out that these people had been worshiping a horrible beast whose appearance co-aligned with the visibility of certain patterns in the stars. Of course, they looked out at the night sky to see that same pattern burning bright above them...
If I was to run it again. I'd happily go full pulp. Look at some of the more outlandish theories about early hominids, like the "Boskop Man". He was almost certainly just an odd-looking hominid, but the idea of a race of diminutive, hyper-intelligent hominids coexisting alongside Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, and Flores Man could be really fun. I liked the idea of Boskops being pretty rare, and whole tribes of other hominids worshiping them for their knowledge/sorcerous powers. You can come up with wacky ideas of what someone with a genius level intellect would devise in a stone age setting.
Gavin Thomas
Read Wolf Packs and Winter Snow ya goof
Josiah Rogers
People up in the frozen north of Europe were making bracelets with African sea shells.
Which means, that during the fucking ice age, there were people living off sea shell trade from Africa to Europe.
Just play a bunch of shell traders that will perform local heroics for a price.
Elijah Richardson
Wolf Packs & Winter Snow. Revised edition just came out.
Throw in Neanderthal and Half-Breeds are additional race options. Just something to add flavor if some of the games other anons do not have it.
Robert Allen
Make sure men are stronger than women and rape is common, after all this was before radical feminism
Christian Phillips
That actually sounds like it could be a very fun arc to use. Thank you for posting it! I haven't researched much about weird theories but I think I will now.
Anthony Moore
They get raided by a new tribe in middle of the night who make off with one or more of their tribes women. So they go on a quest tracking the attackers and try to get their women back. Classic kidnapped princess plot except stone age altho considering its a small tribe I guess the stolen girl could be a players sister or something instead of a love interest
