Neolithic Hero

[Vestnik]

Has anyone ever done a game in a Stone Age setting? Just seems like it could be an interesting genre if you fiddled with the world abit, perhaps adding shamanistic magic or whatnot.

[austenandrews]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

I've never done it but I've always wanted to. Not sure I could interest any players in it, though.

[assault]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

Has anyone ever done a game in a Stone Age setting? Just seems like it could be an interesting genre if you fiddled with the world abit' date=' perhaps adding shamanistic magic or whatnot.[/quote']

 

Neolithic covers a lot of ground.

 

You could easily have cities (like Çatalhöyük), and even literacy. You probably wouldn't have much in the way of large organised states, which is actually a good thing, since you can cram more variety into a smaller area that way.

 

Around the relatively advanced areas, you could have more "barbaric" areas, and beyond them you could have good old fashioned hunter gatherers. And not all of them have to be modern humans.

 

One possibility would be to go with "mythical pre-Dynastic Egypt". Essentially, this would be like Old Kingdom Egypt, except pre-unification, and without metal. Another might be to do with something Polynesian flavoured, which would allow you to divide the world up into nice little islands with only limited interaction with each other.

 

One problem with Neolithic settings - apart from players getting their heads around them - would be that a lot of the communities would be fairly insular. You would have to work out how each group would react to small groups of strangers wandering about over the landscape. There would, of course, be trade routes in a lot of settings, which might ease this problem. Language could be another problem. PCs who travel too far away from their home area could rather quickly find themselves unable to talk to the locals. And that could be fatal.

 

One theme that might be worth considering would be a struggle against "Chaos". That is, for humanity to be able to be able to escape "barbarism" and develop its civilisation. "Chaos" might be represented in this either by savage humans, possibly led by an Evil Warlord, or else by a non-human species. "Snake-men" might be an appropriate choice.

 

This would give you lots of scope for some good old fashioned Sword and Sorcery. And if you have Snake-men or something similar, you could hand out some metal weapons as treasure...

 

EDIT: At which point you are playing Fantasy Hero, not a separate genre. Oh well.

 

You can always play something more historical. FH would still be useful.

[SCUBA Hero]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

I have not run a neolithic game, but if I do, I plan to use BTRC's Dreamtime as a basis, and recommend that.

[Vestnik]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

I have not run a neolithic game' date=' but if I do, I plan to use BTRC's Dreamtime as a basis, and recommend that.[/quote']

 

Dreamtime?

[input.jack]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

Ive run several prehistoric campaigns over the years. Some were "fantasy prehistory" with stone-age Orcs and Elves, some were "fractured timeline prehistory" with Humans, proto-humans, and dinosaurs all running around together, and some were more "historical prehistory" with all of the people and animals being taken from more or less a consistent period of time (giant sloths, dire wolves, cave lions, and so on, but no dinosaurs).

 

In my experience, Ive learned that HERO is an excellent game system for running these campaigns. Ive also learned that most Players prefer there to be SOME extraordinary element to the campaign, be that dinosaurs or shaman magic.

 

The big impediment to games with dinosaurs and people is that its -very- hard to explain how the people survive contact with the dinosaurs. One method Ive used is to assume that ALL dinosaurs are deathly afraid of fire. that way, a ring of torches or a central bonfire will keep your PCs safe at night (relatively). One of the games I was in assumed that dinos actually shunned daylight, allowing the Humans to move around in the day, but making night travel a BAD idea (but that seemed a bit contrived, to me).

 

Just remember that there are a LOT of stone-age cultures that did a lot more with it than just the old "loincloth and club" routine. Ploynesians have already been mentioned. The Native American cultures were all techically stone-age when first encountered, and think of how diverse and rich in culture THEY were! The tribal African cultures were mostly stone-age (although some had iron), and again displayed a dazzling wealth of diversity and depth to them.

 

Different regions should have different sub-cultures (I like the Tree People, River People, Mountain Folk, and Plainsrunners kind of divisions), each with three or four things that make them stand out. (The Tree People make their clothing out of leaves and vines, and can blend in with the foliage. They pain their faces in stripes and other camoflage patterns, and can run full speed along thick branches. The River People wear small shells as jewelry, are all lithe and strong from swimming, and can hold their breath for several minutes. The Mountain Folk wear claws and furs from predatory animals which serve as theyr totems, and are remarkably strong and fierce, but just as remarkably loyal if you can befriend them. The Plainsrunners wear soft chamoise leather leggigns and loincloths, and can run for two days without stopping. They worship the wind and wear feathers, believing birds to be the Wind's messengers). Giving your cultures a few "hooks" like this can really set them apart in the minds of the Players.

 

And then, of course, there are the Lizard Men

 

Hope this helped.

[Vestnik]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

It did! Thanks mucho.

 

Thag, Cave-Man GM

[SCUBA Hero]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

Dreamtime?

Look here; it's the fifth product on the list. It's a slim (48 pages). It's a setting for BTRC's CORPS system, not an entire game in itself, although you probably don't need CORPS to converts Dreamtime to Hero System.

[Lucius]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

I'd definitely play it.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wonders, why not go all the way back to paleolithic?

[assault]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

The palindromedary wonders' date=' why not go all the way back to paleolithic?[/quote']

 

Neolithic gives you a bit more room to maneuver. You can do all the paleolithic stuff, and still have villages, towns, elaborate tombs, temples and whatnot.

 

If you are going to be historically accurate, you would lose some funky animals, neanderthals and so on, but who cares about historical accuracy?

 

FWIW, horticultural areas in pre-colonisation Papua New Guinea often had hunter-gatherer groups living on their fringes. I gather this was not uncommon. In other words, paleolithic and neolithic societies routinely coexisted.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

You might find some useful information in this thread about Stone/Bronze Age gaming.

[Dog Soldier]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

I've always thought a game set in something like the Mississipian Culture only older with the giant creatures of 30,000 years ago would be cool. Individual cities primarily built of wood and earthworks. Use of fire instead of axes. Dugout canoes providing the primary means of trade with rivers and streams being the primary trading routes.

 

I tried to do that once long ago but I couldn't get enough player interest.

[austenandrews]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

Neolithic gives you a bit more room to maneuver. You can do all the paleolithic stuff, and still have villages, towns, elaborate tombs, temples and whatnot.

 

If you are going to be historically accurate, you would lose some funky animals, neanderthals and so on, but who cares about historical accuracy?

If you're throwing out historical accuracy, why not have towns & temples in a paleolithic setting?

[assault]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

If you're throwing out historical accuracy' date=' why not have towns & temples in a paleolithic setting? [/quote']

 

The economics doesn't work, for towns at least.

 

Granted, there are some food sources rich enough for populations to settle down fairly permanently, and in relatively large numbers, but populations in the thousands, rather than low hundreds, would be unlikely.

 

Examples of such food sources would be things like large stands of wild wheat, fish and other seafood in certain areas, and so on.

 

Of course, if you are going to have "snake men" or similar non-humans in the environment, they may very well have cities, agriculture, metal and all the other neat stuff humans don't have.

 

I like snake men. Anyone who shows up in the work of both Robert E Howard and HP Lovercraft can't be all bad. Or rather, they can, and be very bad indeed...

[austenandrews]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

The economics doesn't work' date=' for towns at least.[/quote']

I was being facetious. The distinction between paleolithic and neolithic includes the size of construction and settlements.

 

My foremost guideline for world-building - if it's cool, it's worth figuring out how to include.

[Lysando]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

I'd highly recommend Dreamtime as well, it does a good job of capturing the spirit of what that age might have been like to live in. It also has the interesting idea of taking the player's character sheets away from them after they create them. The idea being that it helps to create the atmosphere of not being able to read, and having to keep everything in your memory.

 

I'd also recommend GURPS Ice Age, the PDF for which is now available from Warehouse 23. The anthropology is a bit dated, but there is some useful info for running a realistic campaign.

[Lysando]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

But thinking about this in Hero terms....an idea would be to make characters pay for everything in character points. Your axe, your dugout canoe, your bow and arrows, your talisman that keeps the scarey things away, it all has to be paid for in character points. This would emulate the fact that you wouldn't own much, and that each thing you do own is a very powerful tool to help you to survive, almost magical in its capacity to stand between you and death.

[assault]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

I'd also recommend GURPS Ice Age' date=' the PDF for which is now available from Warehouse 23. The anthropology is a bit dated, but there is some useful info for running a realistic campaign.[/quote']

 

I must say that the words "Ice Age" are a bit of a turn off for me. They tend to imply a specific setting that I find uninteresting.

 

Let's just say that if I did play in such a game, I would more or less immediately head south.

[Curufea]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

I'd highly recommend Dreamtime as well' date=' it does a good job of capturing the spirit of what that age might have been like to live in. It also has the interesting idea of taking the player's character sheets away from them after they create them. The idea being that it helps to create the atmosphere of not being able to read, and having to keep everything in your memory.[/quote']

There's no mention of the Rainbow Serpent - is there any Australian mythology in it, or is Dreamtime just the name?

[Dog Soldier]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

For flavor and perhaps even more realism how about the introduction of things like a Universal Sign Language for communications with traders, universal symbology for marking things and perhaps even heliographic or smoke communications for long distance? Give the players the potential to have some additional skills and possibly equipment. A good piece of flat, reflective quartz, some marking colors and that sort of thing would be interesting.

[Kristopher]

Re: Neolithic Hero

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48348

 

Here's another thread on this subject, more or less. I posted a list of Wiki links there, and the info at those links is good enough to at least get you started.