My current setting Artra is not strictly Neolithic, as it is a fanciful fantasy world where tech levels of societies range from Palaeolithic to early bronze age, but it definitely has this "the dawn of civilisation" vibe, so it is pretty similar.
Most of it is about presentation, but I made some actual rule changes too, most notable probably redoing the armour.
I was not satisfied with just a reskin, as I wanted wearing armour to be rarer. So there are just two categories or armour, light and heavy. Classes that normally have light armour proficiency have no armour proficiency, and classes that have medium have now light. The chart below shows how the ACs are calculated.
Armour
Name | Cost | | Armour Class (AC) | Mobility | | Stealth & Acrobatics | Weight | |
---|
No Armour | | | | | | | | |
No armour | — | | 10 + ½ proficiency bonus + dex modifier | — | | — | — | |
Unarmoured Defence Feature | — | | 10 + proficiency bonus + dex modifier | — | | — | — | |
Light Armour | | | | | | | | |
Leather armour | 50 sp | | 12 + ½ proficiency bonus + dex modifier (max 2) | — | | — | 10 | |
Composite armour | 200 sp | | 13 + ½ proficiency bonus + dex modifier (max 2) | — | | Disadvantage | 30 | |
Heavy Armour | | | | | | | | |
Scale armour | 350 sp | | 15 + ½ proficiency bonus | — | | Disadvantage | 50 | |
War panoply | 1500 sp | | 16 + ½ proficiency bonus | -5 | | Disadvantage | 70 | |
Shield | | | | | | | | |
Shield | 20 sp | | +2 | — | | — | 6 | |
I have also altered weapons and some other equipment, but that is more minor. But there are surprising number of stuff that is not available at the early bronze age tech level Artra caps at, and for pure Neolithic that would increase quite a bit.
I have wizards in the setting, but they're rare and their magic is new magic, based on writing, sometimes called scribe magic. Most people in the setting obviously cannot read or write. But for actual Neolithic, the idea of making wizardry to be weaver magic was really good one.
Also the size and scope of societies is important. There are no empires, people live either as nomadic tribes or at the high end in city states. For Artra I emphasised this, as I wanted POL feel, where there are vast stretches of wilderness between the cities, with all sorts of fantastic perils and beasts.
For metaphysics, I have tried make things to feel shamanistic or early polytheistic, with all sort of rites and sacrifices and communing with spirits, and avoid the weird Christian vibes the D&D polytheism often has, as that feels very medieval.