Has anyone tried a primordial D&D setting?

[I'm A Banana]

YOINK. Well, except for the "lead the world" bit.

Well, I did it with a very "Garden of Eden" kind of feel. The PC's played the roles of various race's Adams and they named beasts and explored the Garden and discussed treaties with each other and had children and the like. I did it in a very narrative style (the Serpent arrived in the Garden, and the PC's had to try and stop it....it ended, of course, with the Fall), but I could see it working really well as a more open-ended kind of thing ("You're plopped down in The World. The World is seven minutes old. Whatever you do, you'll be the first. What do you do?")

IIRC, my players also went for some odd racial choices (we had Haze from Oathbound, a Bugbear, a Pixie, and a Human)....but that was just part of the fun.

 

[Schmoe]

<snip> I could see it working really well as a more open-ended kind of thing ("You're plopped down in The World. The World is seven minutes old. Whatever you do, you'll be the first. What do you do?")

That's very similar to what I want to do with a campaign. Basically, the campaign would start very close to the dawn of sentience, with no gods, no cities, and lots and lots of unexplored wilderness. In this time, the powers of the world would be strange aberrations, demons, and horrid beasts. The idea is that the player characters represent the beginning of possibility for the sentient races, and their actions shape the history of the world to come. In time, they would come to be seen as living legends or gods by the people of the world (although they would not actually be gods), and their actions would directly affect the portfolios of the religions that sprang up. They would do things like "defeat the Beast of Urlasma, who devours the souls of the enlightened, thereby enabling a new age of discovery."

I probably won't do it now, as I no longer have the time to commit to such a project, but I still think it sounds like a neat idea.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That's very similar to what I want to do with a campaign. Basically, the campaign would start very close to the dawn of sentience, with no gods, no cities, and lots and lots of unexplored wilderness. In this time, the powers of the world would be strange aberrations, demons, and horrid beasts. The idea is that the player characters represent the beginning of possibility for the sentient races, and their actions shape the history of the world to come. In time, they would come to be seen as living legends or gods by the people of the world (although they would not actually be gods), and their actions would directly affect the portfolios of the religions that sprang up. They would do things like "defeat the Beast of Urlasma, who devours the souls of the enlightened, thereby enabling a new age of discovery."

You got it! Though my world was less concerned with the horrid beasts angle, and already had gods, I used it to establish the baseline for a game I ran later, using this game as the history for it.

 

[ProtoClone]

You got it! Though my world was less concerned with the horrid beasts angle, and already had gods, I used it to establish the baseline for a game I ran later, using this game as the history for it.

Exactly what I was thinking for our primordial campign.
I want to thank all of you for your info and expierences on this subject. It has helped us figure out a direction of where we want to go with this. It has also helped us invision this a little more.

 

[ssampier]

No, but I was considering an antediluvian campaign. It sounds very D&D to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antediluvian

 

[Slife]

Isn't Rangerwickett running something like this currently?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Primordial? An era of oozes or aberations... no.

Prehistoric? Yes.

 

[elforcelf]

Hmm,thank you anyway. Maybe we can get a thread started on doing this setting.

 

[Woas]

Primordial? An era of oozes or aberations... no..

Heh, that is what I thought of when I read the thread title. Something like: "As you kick down the muchas membrane, three dinoflagellates attack from behind small pebbles. Quick Fred, whats the AC of your Yeast?" "Umm, 78... 70 of which is my size modifier."

As to the OP. No, i've never done the above, nor have I ever done a prehistoric game either. All my games are medieval/renissance or later time periods. Although I would like to try a bronze/early iron age game.

 

[GreatLemur]

PC races were lizardmen based any of the 10 standard dragons plus a few of the others, using ideas from Goodman's CG to Dragonkin. At this point their alignments were not set (they didn't draw the attention of the gods until later) and their magical abilities were fairly poor (limited spell selection and in d20 terms multiclassing required and no caster level above 6). In addition to the pitance of magical items (potions mostly), they used rituals to improve and alter themselves (PP's Factory or GR's Advanced Gamemaster Guide have useful rules for this). Current day dragons don't do this because they are "perfect". I never did come up with a campaign theme beyond exploration.

Aw, man, that does sound like fun. I really dig that. Lizard PCs, primitive technology and magic, a largely undiscovered world, biological enhancements, and freaking aboleth nations (so very Lovecraft)? I'd love to play a game like that. Hell, now I'll probably spend all day thinking about how I'd run such a campaign.