>Running caveman one shot
>Setting is primordial Africa (Tall grass)
>Has dinosaurs+Large mammals+Large Birds
>Has weird stuff (Like Monster Hunter creatures)
>Group plays as communal cave man unit
Any ideas for encounters? Looking for cool creatures to
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How about not dinosaurs. Or Monster Hunter stuff, for that matter. Actual cave-dweller-contemporary fauna was interesting enough, and there's more tan enough of them to fill a one-shot.
Caveman fantasy
One of the guys is going to be a witchdoctor type of caveman. He can do basic healing and leads worship to rain god. So there's Caveman magic
It's caveman fantasy, not flintstone fantasy.
Shaman's who can call on smokeless fire and beast totems are absolute aces. But why do you need dinosaurs when you have smilodons, dire wolves, and narrow ravines full of charging aurochs?
Maybe suggest some, then? "Anything but the obvious" is all subversive and highbrow and all, but tends to be shit in practice.
When in doubt, just use dire versions of existing critters. Something that's obviously a wolf but JACKED can sometimes be as satisfying as a dinosaur or fluffy wyvern-ish thing.
For encounters, I'd probably play up the savagery and competition of the area. Players attack a herd only to have another critter try to punk their kill, resulting in a three-way tussle, for example. Or the players come across something trapped in a tar pit and have to figure out how to get the delicious meat out of there, but they're not the only ones who have noticed this opportunity.
Because dinosaurs are great and make every setting better?
Hell, if the dinosaurs survived you could make a race of sapient evil lizard people too. Or deep morlock-like cavemen who haven’t seen the light of day and commit night raids against their lightward kin
I know very little about caveman fauna. If you could post a list of stuff to Google image search and maybe post a couple pics of your favorites it would be a solid.
See, Trogs or the One's that Dwell Below or whatever, are great. Ancient Ones appearing to chant to the Singing Star on a mountain top? Perfect.
But saying you need actual dinosaurs in a paleolithic setting is like saying you need dragons in a Vampire: The Masquerade game. It's a non-sequiter. Especially in the incredibly limited possibility space you need for a one-shot.
>Any ideas for encounters?
Deinotherium, the extra giant elephant
But this is good advice. Consider emphasizing the caloric battle of species that's well on its way to be on the top of the food pyramid, but isn't there yet.
Consider something like having the adventure start with an involved technical challenge like a mastodon hunt, and have that lead to a more esoteric adventure with Subterranean Saurians or what have you. Throw in an encounter with a murder of land-birds that will kick your feet with their giant ass for flavor.
I was also thinking of not making this a One-Shot and making calories into something you need to worry about. Caveman Fantasy seems like something I would like to continue playing for a while.
what system are you using?
I have brain worms, so I thought of Ryuutama right off the bat. Not a great fit, but I might look at systems with a strong land-nav and survivalist component, and think about structuring it like a hex-crawl if you take it beyond a one-shot.
I was thinking about light-sources, since, without being able to render tallow and soak it into rags for torches (to say nothing of lanterns), cavemen didn't have access to mobile fire outside of burning branches. Some sort of sacred tree with particularly slowly burning foliage might be an interesting resource, if you decide to emphasize stuff like Hyborian ruins or Troglodyte lairs.
Homebrew. Was going to keep it simple like a caveman.
I'm allowing them to create 4 caveman skills. If someone doesn't take something relating to fire proficiency then I'd be surprised.
Instead of a spellbook, your spell caster needs to sleep in a cave covered in runes. New runes in the cave are new spells in the spell book.
There's plenty of interesting and underused Cenozoic megafauna that you can plop into your setting.
Don't use dinosaurs. Don't be that guy.
You should take a look at Wolfpacks and Winter Snow for ideas to steal, then. It does some neat caveman stuff.
also grim survival, weird body horror, tribe-building and pre-human post-humanism, if you're into that.
Ever read the RPG "Totem"?
Plot Twist: the cave men player characters are merely on a primitive planet in a interstellar empire. The Gods will come on thier chariots of Fire to take the greatest champions to live with them in the stars.
There is a D20 era weapons and armor rpg book called From stone to Steel that has comprehensive Stone Age weapons and armor.