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| by DeviantArtist Stephen Daymond |
Architecture - This is basically Find Traps/Find Sliding Walls/etc of the older versions. While architecture as such probably hasn't been invented yet, similarly interesting environment factors can come into play, like figuring out if a cliff is too crumbly to climb safely. Maybe call it Enviromental or something like that.
Bushcraft - I kinda want to split this into Hunting and Gathering, since I imagine those two activities taking a lot of time and being split up among different specialists in the tribe.
Climb - No change needed.
Languages - If you assume that language is a fairly new invention and that everyone speaks a slightly different dialect of the same ur-tongue then the LotFP "roll to understand the new guy" rules actually make more sense. No change needed.
Open Doors - Since doors probably haven't been invented reskin as Feat of Strength or something like that.
Search - No change needed.
Sleight of Hand - No change needed, but with no pockets to pick this might not be the most useful skill to develop, though I'm sure some enterprising player can get some use out of it.
Sneak Attack - No change needed.
Stealth - No change needed.
Tinker - Locks don't exist yet and mechanically fiddly traps are probably rare as hen's teeth, but I like the idea of a skill that rates technological prowess. Flintknapping, bowmaking, even basket-weaving could fall under this category.
A few other things in LotFp would need to be changed as well. The MU would need to be modded to lose the books and lab. How demihumans would fit into the scheme would need to be addressed. How one earns XP in a world without an excess of hidden riches is another issue.
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Posts
This would be a fascinating twist on the more usual campaign. I'd probably cast the magic users and/or clerics in a shamanistic light, and have the study and lore book replaced with fasting, taking hallucinogenic mushrooms and vision quests.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I would split the bushcraft into hunting and gathering, but I'd probably recast Tinker as Craft and roll Architecture into Hunting, as reading the lie of the land, setting traps and so on.
What do you picture the fantasy elements of the game being like? "Caveman RPG" alone falls a little flat for me, but I've always liked the idea of mythic cavemen, acting out the proto-kernels of later legends. Or cavemen vs. Lovecraftian prehumans. Or cavemen on spirit quests. Anything that adds a little zest.
ReplyDeleteMythic cavepeople is definitely the angle I had in mind. The world would be full of creatures, entities whose definition in the world hinges on how the PCs deal with it. Did they slay it? Then it is some sort of monster. Avoid it but now it is hostile? That's a demon. Befriend it? That's a friendly spirit or fairy. Make some sort of pact with it? That's a god.
DeleteWay cool.
Delete"The MU would need to be modded to lose the books and lab. "
ReplyDeleteReplace with fetishes and entheogens.
I'd have the MU from somewhere else where they are maybe already into the neolithic, like a proto-Egypt.
ReplyDelete"entheogens"... RPGs just taught me another new word!
ReplyDeleteThe whole "entities whose definition in the world hinges on how the PCs deal with it." thing is awesome.
I would play! :D
ReplyDeleteIf there is some text-form online campaign of Lamentations of the Stone Age Princess, I am in.
DeleteUm, this is awesome, and relevant:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Hok-Mighty-Manly-Wade-Wellman/dp/1440451990
Who doesn't want to play a cro-magnon riding a shark while brandishing a sword??
Jeff. Weird dude. I literally just posted something about this. Had I read your post first I would've just linked made a link because yours makes better sense.
ReplyDeleteNo way dude! I just got done reading your post. I thought it was pretty dang neat.
DeleteAw shucks, Jeff.
DeleteClerics = shamans - spiritual guides for a group.
ReplyDeleteMagic users = witch doctors/sorcerers - plumbing the secret world for their own purposes.
Both use similar techniques (rattles, bones, shrooms, etc.). But shamans can just chat up the local spirits for power, while witch doctors have to be sneaky and steal, trick, bribe, etc. others for power. But once the witch doctor gets a power they can bind it into their fetish item and use it to cast spells without further spirit negotiation. Of coufse steal the fetish and you steal the power.
Very sweet.
ReplyDeleteThe way they're discovering new contemporaries of Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals, (i.e., Denisovans and Red Deer People) you may have your demi-human situation covered. Also, Hobbits in Indonesia.
Heck, you could even have remnant Australopithecines stand in for Ogres and Goblins--or at least, that would be the likely caveperson attitude.
Homo Erectus overlapped with Homo Sapiens, if not actually anywhere near Cro-Magnon times, and were stronger, dumber, and supposedly more likely to kill and eat you than be your friend. Having the "Other" race be a closely related but inferior species that you've ousted and displaced is interesting; it gives them a bit more pathos than usual.
Deletethis is one case where I'd guess survival skills would be so important that they might be worth splitting up further: herbalism, animal handling (domesticated dogs may go way way back), fire lore. Architecture touches a lot of human activity - could be a stand-in for camp defense, finding or placing dwelling/ritual sites, even politics (understanding how placement of signs shows you who's in charge).
ReplyDeleteI guess you're going for really really primal - a world with few pre-existing moving parts. This is the mythology of the architect, as revealed in Harold and the Purple Crayon. But maybe that's a post for another forum.
I've been working on a game like this on and off for the last few months, mostly doing research on the subject of early human societies. I want it it have a fairly authentic feel, because I think that will heighten the tension when really strange stuff starts to happen. I wanted to call the game "Cavemen and Cthulhu", but that kind of gives away the surprise.
ReplyDeleteThere was an article in Dragon magazine back in the 80's that discussed a Stone Age D&D game.
ReplyDeleteI say throw in the Monolith from 2001 Space Odyssey as the first "god" the primitive PCs encounter.
Atook aloonda Flame Princess!
ReplyDeleteI played the Land Of Ogg RPG once. It was good smart/dumb Ringo Starr caveman fun.
ReplyDelete"I had an idea this morning for a short RPG campaign where the PCs are survivors of a stone age tribe broken up by some sort of disaster, like a bigass storm wrecking their camp and scattering the clan."
ReplyDeleteTornadoes gettin' you down Jeff?
The exploration xp could be cool, as could getting xp for monsters, but only if you find out they taste good.
ReplyDeleteYou could also have a list of things that have been invented yet, but you can only invent something if you hit a problem that would need it. Fail a tinkering roll and you still haven't invented it, try and invent something else (or give someone else a turn), xp if you succeed and survive to take the story back to camp.