Dune, Arrakis, Desert Planet...

The year is 10191...


With these words many an imagination was enflamed, many a dream ignited. Who among us would turn down a chance to play Dune, the RPG, given the opportunity?

Sadly, only one RPG was ever released, and unless you have both a scad of money to burn on the book, and a high tolerence for the not very Dunelike expirence, you will be forced to convert to make it right.  How to do this? Let me count the ways:

Spend $300 on a copy of Last Unicorn Games DUNE: The RPG, and cry at the crappiness of it...

Take the main rulebook from Fading Suns and a copy of either the movie or the miniseries and you are good to go.

Seriously, Fading Suns IS Dune with the serial numbers filed off.  Virtually nothing needs to be changed about the rules or the character creation system, just ignore the 'House Decados' and put 'House Harkonen' in it's place and you are good to go!  Ok, you'll probably want to make a rule about the Spice Melange and something about Worms, but that's minor shit.


Use the Burning Sands supplement for Burning wheel: Anecdotally this is Dune, in fact it's what caused me to check out Burning Empires, actually. Having looked over the PDF, I'd have to pass on it.  It matches too closely to Dune, with too many 'changed the names to protect the innocent' moments, it actually is more jarring than taking something like FS and porting it over. Besides, changing 'Spice' to 'Salt' is just silly.   That said, I can see Burning Empires being useful for a Dune game with just a little work if you like the scripted system. The built in planetary conflict rules would work great to represent a duel between great houses for control of Arrakis, actually.


GURPS: Best bang for your buck. But you'll have to work for it. Unlike Fading Suns and Burning Empires you can't just take the books as written and cross off some names here and there, you actually have to grunt out everything. Unlike the other two, it will give you exactly the DUNE you have in mind across the spectrum.  Of course it won't be hugely cinematic, but then Dune really wasn't when it came to killing people. When you start tossing around the high point values, only GURPS can reliably get the weirding way and the Kwizats Haderach in along side Bene-Geseret-as-Ninja from later books and not feel stupid doing it.  

Anyone else want to chime in?

Go buy the official Dune Encyclopedia and pick up your favorite generic RPG system. Seriously. It's that easy.

Quote from: jdrakehGo buy the official Dune Encyclopedia and pick up your favorite generic RPG system. Seriously. It's that easy.

Bah, you're no fun... that took no effort at all to say.


Besides that: They have an encyclopedia out? :eek:

Quote from: SpikeBah, you're no fun... that took no effort at all to say.


Besides that: They have an encyclopedia out? :eek:

It has been out for years, actually. I think my copy was printed in the mid-1980s.

[Edit: And, IMHO, it's a much better Dune RPG sourcebook than the licensed game was. Here's a link.]

I got my hands, with much effort, on a copy of the licenced game in PDF's format.

Sadly, it was in Italian.  

that being the case, I don't actually know for certain it was Last Unicorn Game's work or some Italian fan work that just looked really professionally done, if chopped up into subfiles.  I suspect the former.

However, I HAVE managed to read quite a bit on the actual book, and must say...

Blech.


that said, tell us what generic, or nearly generic, system YOU would use alongside said encyclopedia to run/play DUNE!

This may sound strange but I'd use d6 Star Wars. I'd spend some time creating templates with my players and use stuff from the books, movie -esp the costume design - and mini series...

Regards,
David R

The great irony about all that money being spent on hard-to-find copies of LUG's Dune is that, well, it's not very good and depends almost completely on would-be supplements.

The Dune Enyclopedia is a great, great reference and freaking massive; not sure if it's in print -- last time I checked into it it wasn't and eBay copies were crazy-expensive.  Luckily I found a copy a couple years ago at a local used book store for $8.

Anyhoo... Burning Empires would make a terrific Dune engine if you want desire the Burning Wheel-like experience of scripted combat and fairly rules-intensive (though, to be sure, they're all *good* rules).

 - Ian

Many generic systems are usable: Masterbook, True 20, Hero.  Myself, I would go for HeroQuest.  It accomodates the wild variety of advantages that characters can boast, it has the religion and community factors that are very important in Dune, it has the heroic dimension needed, and it's not too crunchy (for me.)

I've played it with Spacemaster and it worked great. There's even rules for tiering (or however it's spelled) in one of the sourcebooks.

I'm sure Fading Suns is largely Dune and could no doubt be used to play Dune.

But here's the thing. Fading Suns is so cool in & of itself, I would actually prefer to use it to play, well, Fading Suns.

There used to be a fan made Dune RPG floating around using the Legend of the Five Rings 1st edition system.  From what I remember (it's been a while and I only read it once) it looked like it would work very well.  Just never had any player interest at that time so I never gave it a run.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityI'm sure Fading Suns is largely Dune and could no doubt be used to play Dune.

But here's the thing. Fading Suns is so cool in & of itself, I would actually prefer to use it to play, well, Fading Suns.

I'm with you there. The first review of Fading Suns I read when it came out described something along the lines of "Dune with some 40K thrown in"... plus a mix of some other things they mentioned that I can't remember.

I also found the church in FS one of the more believable in any of the SF games I've read.

HeroQuest, as mentioned above, would be a good choice for Dune. I'd say Over the Edge, too, but I think you'd want a system where you can have a fairly big list of traits and skills and background elements and whatnot. Which HeroQuest does very well.

The original spacemaster setting was heavily influenced by dune, as in the "Voice psions" abilities.

Everyone is heavily influenced by Dune.

Wasteland of the Empire...


And the most valuable planet in the galaxy.

God I love that shit. I try to read all six of the Dune books around once a year or so, just to keep a charge in the GM batteries. Some of my best fantasy setting work was done while thinking about Herbert's "planet/empire as energy economy" concepts. The Sisterhood and Mentats spawned a lifelong love of fiction and settings in which human potential is trained past what we can imagine today. I nearly wet my pants when I read the Tleilaxu secret.

I just can't imagine how to run a campaign that would be half as cool, partly because a lot of the group isn't as into it as I am.