What are your preferences?

Ah, you're talking about Sword & Sorcery! A warrior's worth is determined by the might of his sword arm, and magic is corruptible and dangerous, best left to evil wizards (and the occasional scholarly acolyte). I love the Sword & Sorcery (and also Sword & Planet) genres!

Actually, talking about the most famous oral epics of prehistory. Depending on how you define it, there was quite a bit of sorcery in some of them. In the Iliad, Achilles was immune to weapons, the gods kept showing up and protecting their favorites, and they made a point of how the Trojans refused to listen to their seer and it was a contributing factor in their loss. The magicians didn't usually throw spells (well, Circe) but magic was used to signify the role of the divine.

That reminds me that Green Ronin put out a Trojan war setting book some years ago. Never did get it to the table. Yet.

You're talking Ancient History with the Greeks, Sumerians, Egyptians and such. So yeah, super fertile ground for gaming!

Still, Vicky's comment stands -- there can be all kinds of cool stuff to do in the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Ages as well...

It seems from my question that most agree with you. Hopefully I can learn to use this site better and I will try to develop a setting more agreeable to the current interest.

Now you are speaking my language. This is my favorite. I had been running a campaign for the previous 10 years on another site that was an amalgam of ideas like Apocalypto, 10,000 BC, the Scorpion King, etc. The other site became so overloaded with advertising that it crashed and reset about every 3 minutes. I have tons of material for this.

I could not agree more. I despise romcom.

I will say that even middle ages is not overdone if you don't set it in Europe (or Japan). Islamic Empire, pre-English colonial India, Monkey King era China, pre (or alternative) Amerind, MesoAmerican, or Incan, Bantu conquest, South Pacific sea exploration works as well.

It's a decent volume that I, also, have never had the opportunity to run.

For me, Prehistory falls into the same trap as something like Numenera. There are fewer inspirations to draw on, and then you begin to wonder what’s within theme. The time scale is a little too far on either side to really know what is and isn’t on the table.

One day I'll run this - it goes quite deep into gathering resources and using them to do things. Scarcity is the thing! Your items are fragile and need repairing. A stone cutter is a precious thing!

But it isn't just about survival, I think it can lend itself to a wide range of stories and situations.

Famous last words! 😅

What I think it'd be cool to run right now (sadly I'm an absolute failure as a GM), would be an updated Paranoia campaign where climate change has driven everyone into the tech billionaires' underground bunkers and the population lives at the whim of their AI overseer (be it Claude or GPT).

Oh wow, this is exactly the same setting as the world created for The Untamed Wilds. It is basically what I have been running for the previous decade.

Paleomythic sounds cool! I may have to get a copy! And the cover reminds me of one of my favorite comic series, Turok, Son of Stone. In fact, Turok and Andar are in a lost valley deep in my homebrew world.

Then you must (or should) be excited for Fossilized Violence!

In Fossilized Violence, early humanity risks everything to fight back against evolving dinosaurs on primeval Pangeon. As you hunt, you’ll unlock 140+ pieces of equipment to give your cavemen a chance of surviving long enough to become an elder.

I think I’ve got 3-4 Stone Age RPGs kicking around. I have Paleomythic, Würm (more grounded), Primal Quest, Blood & Snow…

I ran PQ at one point, but it didn’t seem to resonate with my players, or me.