This was a while ago so it may already have received the response it deserves, but I just came across it.
"Whatever I am writing, I always hope to make the material inclusive and accessible... One of my writing challenges has always been finding a way to make history accessible and engaging to the reader; understanding history is important in real life and doubly so in Dune with the shifting political alliances, power struggles, and knowing the telltale signs of a Face Dancer that may save your life.
The books themselves were very white-cis-male-focused [my emphasis]
. I wanted to attempt to expand that world, bringing different marginalized groups to the front. My goal was to show the history of humanity is vast and inclusive, and to explore the struggle as one where we must all work together to succeed".
On one level, why am I surprised and why I don't I just face the wokeness and let the wokeness pass over me and through me?
I suppose it's because I do actually really love Dune, the novel and the 84 film both, and that is why I am so angry at this guy rubbishing it while cashing in on it, so he can cash in on it some more.
"White-cis-male focussed" - ok... apart from one of the main factions (Bene Gesserit) being entirely women. And female Fremen being clearly depicted fighting alongside men. The Fremen's "whiteness" is unclear to me. More generally, would it not be a bit odd to have people clearly belong to present-day Earth racial classifications in the year 10,191?
What if those classifications were no longer relevant or even in existence? What would you talk about then, Chris?
For the cherry on the turd, is it really that "challenging" to "make history accessible and engaging to the reader"? History is intrinsically fascinating, if you're at all interested in people on any level; that is, people as people in their own context, rather than treating the past as raw material to be twisted into an endless morality play to make political points or for commercial advantage.I was recently telling someone I would almost certainly buy the RPG, because Dune, even though I don't care for the 2d20 system. Now I know I would be giving money to someone who not only seems to have an issue with people like me, but who doesn't seem to like the story of Dune itself. Instead of all that passion and conflict and crazy mysticism, we are going to get a story about how "we must all work together to succeed".**Apart from not liking the 2d20 system, my more fundamental issue with a Dune RPG is, what are the PCs actually supposed to do?Either you try and engage with the themes of the Dune universe, species memory and predestination and the interaction of civilisation with the physical environment, or you don't.I am sceptical about the ability of pretty much any group to engage with the big themes in a satisfying way. Unless you are retelling the story of the books, the GM needs to come up with a story of equivalent power and scope, presumably happening at some other point in the future history, or it risks falling flat. I struggle to see it working.If you don't try and engage with the big themes then you could do spice smugglers on Arrakis or something. Which is fine, but you might as well be playing Traveller, except there is a mild fanboy thrill from using Dune terminology.I have seen the old LUG RPG and wasn't that impressed with the example campaign setup, of PCs as a house retinue (on some non-Arrakis planet) engaged in a petty feud about a lost baliset. I could imagine playing it and thinking, OK what's going on on Arrakis right now?? I read somewhere the PCs' doings should be the most important thing happening in the game world, at least as far as the players are concerned. Hard to do in Dune.