As shidoshi says... You must never limit yourself to one style... You must keep an open mind!
In other words there is no reason NOT to have these things show up in a campaign.
As far as being the 'whole' campaign? Never done any of those 3 as a 'whole' campaign. It would probably get boring unless you were very good at describing the environment in ways that tickle the players fancy.
I'm a fan of Nautical settings, myself, but I've never done underwater. Usually just boat stuff.
I am currently doing the preparation work for a setting in which the elven and dwarven kingdoms have just been founded, and humans are still one of the barbarian races, like orcs and lizardfolk.
Gods are the most powerful of nature spirits, like the Moon, the Ocean, and spirit of primordial darkness. There are no gods of art, commerce, or education. Also no heavy armor, crossbows, and greatswords. Spears, bows, axes, and shortswords are the game of the day.
I've been in a modern technology post-apocalyptic campaign, though it was heavily homebrewed and back in the days of 3.5.
That worked fine. The party was a rogue/technomancer with guns, a crazy sorcerer kid and me as a kind of werewolf ranger guy. We were on character points rather than classes and we drove around in a big stolen truck.
I've also tried to run an underwater campaign and that seemed like it'd go fine. Fell through early on for unrelated reasons. I had quite a few hombrew rules in place, including rules for Landwalking, where you had to make Landwalking skill checks to run and so on.
I do have vague plans for a campaign that mixes modern with bronze or iron age tech, but they're not detailed yet.
In the past I also came up with the beginnings of a game where the PCs are first generation mortals created by the gods, with no concept of morality and no technology or equipment of any kind. Didn't go anywhere with it, but might revisit the idea one day.
Most of my games take place underground, but some are natural caverns, some are artificial dungeons.
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Honestly, how many of you have played prehistoric/underwater/underground campaigns?
And are they even fun?
I've seen so much in the books about them, and some of the stuff seems neat, but mostly they look like a hassle.
Any opinions?
As a GM, I'm generally wary of theme campaigns -- I don't like painting myself into a corner. IMO alternative settings usually lend themselves better to individual story arcs within a larger ongoing campaign. The campaigns I've enjoyed running most include unusual environments, but in a way that allows me to change things up whenever I or my players get bored.
For example, the campaign I'm brewing up right now is starting as a modified Skull & Shackles AP, but the players will eventually gain access to an artifact that allows them to travel to other worlds/planes. One week, we might be under water. A few sessions later, they might be on another planet or in Hell. Think Time-Bandits on a ship.
I took a party to the moon once - using a mix of Dark Sun magic and Spell Jammer rules.
It was a very limited environment - get too far from the middle and the air started getting thin ... Lots of unusual monsters, next to no gear, and a detective story to solve to find an old spell jamming barge with a furnace helm that might get them back home.
It was fun for a few months - BUT it was restrictive for all of us. I wouldn't have liked to play that setting for much longer than that.
I agree with Vincent regarding entire campsigns built around specific themes, I generally include all such elements within a larger campaign, although I do have an affinity for horror based campaigns using all such traditional settings/themes incorporated as a part.
While I am the chief developer of the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror by Rite Publishing, and I subsequently run personal games out of the setting, it was designed as a plug-and-play island nation easily able to be inserted into existing campaign worlds that have a place in the ocean to fit it. It's not an entire world, rather a cursed region with it's own 'world rules' unique to the setting. So in this way, one could build an entire campaign within that setting, or simply include a visit as part of a larger campaign arc.