PreHysteria

Prehistoric (comedic)
Fantasy Core Games
2012

So it turns out that I have a bunch of games I downloaded and either never read, or completely forgot about. This is one such game.
As one may guess, this is a caveman-themed game—which there really don’t seem to be too many of—and also seems to be intended by the creators to be played while drinking heavily. But I don’t drink heavily so I’ll be reviewing it totally sober, which in retrospect may have been a bad idea.

Setting: 1/3 [−]
PreHysteria takes place in a notedly scientifically-inaccurate world where humans and dinosaurs live in a constant struggle for survival.

Character Creation: 3/5
PreHysteria uses a simplified version of the D20 system, so I’ll only be addressing unique or variant aspects of the rules. The biggest difference is that attributes are generated with a single d6 roll—with a second roll to one attribute—and rather than a score and modifier, the full attribute as added to rolls, also Constitution translates to directly to hit points. Where things get interesting is players must select 5+INT words from a list of twenty-five—things like “rock,” “food,” “smash,” etc.—which are the only words players are permitted to use when interacting with each other. Of course this is incredibly stupid, but definitely in a fun way. Characters also gain caveman skills—which function as an ability rather than like traditional skills, which are not used—like fishing and fire stating.

Mechanics: 1/5
So as stated, this game uses simplified version of the D20 system. Which it absolutely did not need to do as Charisma, Wisdom, and—other than gaining bonus words—Intelligence are literally never used. Basically, the only thing that’s ever really explained is combat. They don’t use the skill system, even leveling up—aside from gaining skills—is only addressed as a joke. It’s like they couldn’t decide if the wanted to make a unique system or use an existing one so they did neither.

Writing and Presentation: 2/5
Thee writing in this book is clever and fun, and really makes me wish the game were better. Overall PreHysteria very much has the feeling of being a game designed by a writer. It seems like much more attention has been paid to trying to be funny than to conveying the rules, and the rules that are there seem places mostly out of convenience of the writer. There’s also issues like the “Leveling Up” section, which basically says “there are no leveling up rules, lol.” Which begs the question of why they bothered with the preceding section on experience points, unless they just really wanted to use that Whose Line is it Anyway? Reference. There’s also the occasional editing error like alternately using “AC” and “DEF” for the same thing and referencing that players can keep a skill slot open for skills that require two, without ever saying any skill requires two slots.
Aside from such things that are just more annoying than bad, the overall writing and layout is good, nothing fancy, but good—and I think this might be the first book I’ve reviewed that actually has what seem like intentional page breaks.
The only art there is are a few cartoon cavemen. I guess they fit the theme and all, but they just seem arbitrarily placed wherever there was room, or space that needed filling.

Content: 2/3 [•]
Okay, I don’t have anything negative to say here, the game provides sufficient equipment and monsters for what it is.

Final Remarks
Honestly, I don’t have any catty remarks about this one. It’s not really good, it’s not really bad, it’s not really anything. It just kinda makes me sad.

Base Points: 6
Character Creation: 2/5, Mechanics: 1/5, Presentation: 3/5
Adjustments: −1
Setting:  −1, Writing: +0, Content: +0

Overall Score 33% (5/15 Points)
A caveman role-playing game.