Character Creation: Stone Punk

Ooga-booga. Zug-zug. Swobu. No, wait, that's orcs from Warcraft. 

The Game: Stone Punk
The Publisher: Planet Nine Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: None, but it's pretty simple
Books Required: Just the one

I mean, it's...fine, I guess? It's an RPG where you play cavemen. Lots of attention paid to resource gathering, which is fine, but then there are tribes with weirdly sophisticated societies (even a currency, kind of), and it winds up feeling more like a fantasy RPG than anything else. 

Like, there's dinosaurs running around with the cavemen, and that seems like such a deliberate choice but it's never addressed. Even if you were to say "we know this is off by tens of millions of years, but dammit, dinosaurs are cool" or "we took inspiration from the 1982 cinematic masterpiece Caveman and dammit, there were dinosaurs there" but nothin'. 

And, not to harp on this again, but I have no idea why the -punk suffix is there. There's no establishment to fight against, there's no punk aesthetic. I dunno. I think there are cool directions this could have gone in and instead it looks like someone went "you know what would be cool? Cavemen" and then wrote a D&D setting. I don't mean to say this game is terrible - the artwork is cool, the mechanics seem well-explained and simple, and there are a bunch of scenarios. I just wish it was about something. 

And the fucking PDF isn't bookmarked. Blargh.

Well, let's make a caveman. We start by picking a species: I can be a Sapiens, a Neandrathal, or a Denisovan. Think I'll be one of those. They're equally luck as they are adaptable, whatever the hell that means. Anyway, it sets my Health 22, my Speed at 10, and my Luck at 4.

Now we pick a Class. Brute, Hunter, or Shaman. Um, let's be a Hunter. 

And now we pick a tribe! This basically cooks down to what biome we live in. Heh, there's a Beach Tribe.

I'm reminded of a bit that Trevor Noah does about how the reason white people tried to conquer the world is because the climate where they lived was awful. As evidence, he presents the idea of two guys on a beach in the Caribbean saying "we should make boats and go force everyone to do the Calypso." Anyway, I'll be Beach Tribe. 

And...I guess that's it? Wow, there's really no customization here at all, huh? How boring. Well, I'll name my guy Monda. Monda hunts fish with a spear, and has learned many lessons over the years, such as "if you throw your spear too far you'll lose it" and "if you see a fish that's bigger that you, it's time to go back to the beach." He doesn't trust those newfangled "boat" things some of his tribe-mates are talking about. You try standing on water, you'll fall on your ass, that's just math. 

Done! And hey, that's 10 for September.