Quote from: Voros;944576I'm no expert as I've only read the first book and seen the movie about a billion times but that's what I thought as well. The Spacing Guild has a monopoly on space travel.

They have a monopoly on interstellar travel. And IIRC they turn a blind eye to a lot of shenanigans as long as they get paid.
Just don't start shit in one of the heighliners, or the monopoly will come crashing down on you.

Oddly enough. Battletech allways to me had an odd sort of Dune feel to it. Not a big one, but just some of the elements. Warring houses, Political Intrigue, A powerful faction that controls a vital element. Which of course is also elements from history which both likely drew from.

Quote from: Omega;944631Oddly enough. Battletech allways to me had an odd sort of Dune feel to it. Not a big one, but just some of the elements. Warring houses, Political Intrigue, A powerful faction that controls a vital element. Which of course is also elements from history which both likely drew from.

That and James Clavell's Shogun. They pretty much stole the "We 5 lords of these Houses are to protect the heir until his coming of age, but instead we FIGHT!" background straight.

Side note on the games influenced by Dune, Spacemaster second edition has many Dune touches though the shields aren't as good.  And they have a dohicky you can put on the end of a gun or laser to allow it to fire through the shield.

I'd probably go with Traveller.

Quote from: Omega;944631Oddly enough. Battletech allways to me had an odd sort of Dune feel to it. Not a big one, but just some of the elements. Warring houses, Political Intrigue, A powerful faction that controls a vital element. Which of course is also elements from history which both likely drew from.

Is there any reason why Dune couldn't have mechs?
Force fields bring swords back to the battlefield.
Suspensor technology lets you wear heavier armor to counter the swords.
Now you need heavier weapons to punch through the armor. You can't put suspensors on them because the weight is the whole point.
So you put servos in your gravity-suspended heavy armor to make it into powered armor so you can carry your heavy weapons.
An arms race follows, and the suits keep scaling up.
Before long you have guys walking around in sword-wielding battle-machines that can wrestle with sand worms.

(Forgive me if these are already in any of the later books. I've only read the first one.)

*edit*
(Of course, this is Dune. So I imagine they would instead just breed a race of 50 foot tall giant men and surgically implant the suspensors into them as they did with the baron so the giants can walk upright in defiance of square-cubed law without snapping their spines. And then they permanently encase the guys in armor to keep them loyal, so it's more like

Spoiler

Evangelion

Quote from: RPGPundit;944996I'd probably go with Traveller.

We're 10 pages in and I still agree with you (and my first vote). It is the only game that is obviously good, basically appropriate, and general enough that it isn't a massive project to shoe horn into the setting.

Quote from: Larsdangly;945001We're 10 pages in and I still agree with you (and my first vote). It is the only game that is obviously good, basically appropriate, and general enough that it isn't a massive project to shoe horn into the setting.

When you, me and Pundit have already agreed about some idea, there's something to be said about it!

Quote from: Cave Bear;945000Is there any reason why Dune couldn't have mechs?

The Butlerian Jihad would probably frown on it and prohibit it, even if they aren't directly thinking machines.

Shields are only part of the equation.  The other half is that the houses have nuclear weapons.  The great convention is the real reason everyone uses swords.  Lasguns detonate shields but they aren't used much because nobody wants to risk nuclear retaliation.  We see plenty of examples of the conditioning and fanaticism necessary to make suicide attacks, but there's an even easier solution to the blast radius greater than range problem.  Wire guided lasgun drones.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;945012The Butlerian Jihad would probably frown on it and prohibit it, even if they aren't directly thinking machines.

Plus, even the Emperor balks at allowing Baron Harkonnen to keep the artillery after the Atredies are defeated; something like "I need the metal for other projects".  If the Emperor of Space needs to recycle tube artillery, then having a crapload of battlemechs for each house lord is probably out, too.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;945019Plus, even the Emperor balks at allowing Baron Harkonnen to keep the artillery after the Atredies are defeated; something like "I need the metal for other projects".  If the Emperor of Space needs to recycle tube artillery, then having a crapload of battlemechs for each house lord is probably out, too.

Man has all the ores of thousands of planets to mine, and still he recycles... I guess that's why he's the Emperor of Space?

It's Beast Rabban who wants to keep the arty, and the Baron who is planning to recycle.

And I wonder what I can't remember because random Dune trivia fills so much of my brain.

Probably nothing as important.

okay okay... so now I'm thinking, based on this thread.

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. I never use any setting strictly "as is". So maybe the real question should be - "what is our kickass version of Dune and what new elements would we introduce?"

I mean -- c'mon!! Battletech + Dune? hello? That sounds fucking awesome. What are the limits we could introduce without ruining the setting?