Modiphius is doing Dune

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Then just play generic sci-fi and screw the details?

If I buy any adaptation, or licensed setting, then authenticity remains absolutely key to me. Moreover, the challenge of game design is to make any given setting viable as a gaming tool and premise. Some games are more successful than others in that respect, but if an authentic design wasn't the key in certain adaptations, then we wouldn't have seen the actual game design developments found in Ghostbusters or Pendragon, for example. We'd all just be playing D&D, old school. Admittedly, that is all that some gamers play….
Because I think that considering game design through the prism of a setting like Dune can open up new ways to approach gaming. What's cool about Dune and how can we make that gameable?

I don't think that Dune actually needs that much twisting to make it a viable gaming experience myself. No more than The One Ring, for example, or even titles like Pendragon or Vampire. Indeed, we were unfortunate to see the last version of the Dune game pulled so early before it got any truction in the type of gameplay it was trying to achieve. According to one of the developers, there was an unpublished campaign that was "perfect" - which we never got to see.
I think Vampire is a good example of what I'm talking about actually. White Wolf didn't sit down and adapt Anne Rice, instead they took a lot of the themes from Ann Rice and thought through how to build a game around that that.

And as Tristram said upthread there's Fading Suns, which I'd completely forgotten about, not having played it in years, which captures a lot of the feeling of Dune.
But I believe I was thinking of something more planet bound.
 
I love the production values involved with CONAN, and John Carter looks the same.
Not overly sold on the core 2D20 system however, it looks a bit clunky.
I intend to use the CONAN book as source template and retrap to a BRP system (BGB/RQ/ Mythras)

I love the DUNE setting and think it will be the same here - quite well done in terms of production value and content, although with a clunky core 2D20 system. I will probably support DUNE rpg, but likely to use the corebook as a guide to play it in one of my usual systems.
If I actually play it. This may just be bookcase eyecandy for me, considering how difficult it may be to set a scenario in the actual setting without disrupting too much canon.
Makes me wonder when it will be set, and what type of scenarios/campaigns we'll see
 
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I don't think that Dune actually needs that much twisting to make it a viable gaming experience myself. No more than The One Ring, for example, or even titles like Pendragon or Vampire. Indeed, we were unfortunate to see the last version of the Dune game pulled so early before it got any truction in the type of gameplay it was trying to achieve. According to one of the developers, there was an unpublished campaign that was "perfect" - which we never got to see.
To try and clarify...

To my mind the most logical campaign for Dune would be to set up a house (sort of like the A Song of Ice and Fire rpg). That way you have plenty of character options, a Bene Gesserit, A Mentat, the head of the house, the weapons master etc. Then make the house responsible for spice production on Arrakis, with plenty of political intrigue involving the Bene Gesserit, A rival house, making alliances with the Fremen populace etc.
There's a clearly gameable scenario there - and it's clearly not generic - however unfortunately I've never seen a licensed property willing to put the PCs at the centre of the fictional story. And even if we did strip out the main characters and replace them with PCs - we know where this particular story is going, which means we need to change up the story, which means we're no longer really playing Dune.
 
Because I think that considering game design through the prism of a setting like Dune can open up new ways to approach gaming. What's cool about Dune and how can we make that gameable?

I think Vampire is a good example of what I'm talking about actually. White Wolf didn't sit down and adapt Anne Rice, instead they took a lot of the themes from Ann Rice and thought through how to build a game around that that.

And as Tristram said upthread there's Fading Suns, which I'd completely forgotten about, not having played it in years, which captures a lot of the feeling of Dune.
But I believe I was thinking of something more planet bound.
Mark Rein-Hagen hadn't actually read Anne Rice before he made Vampire…but that is another story. And to be honest I think that Fading Suns is a lot more kitchen sink in feel than specific to a Dune like experience. Dune is a major influence, but then so is Warhammer 40K and the World of Darkness games (Fading Suns was written by two White Wolf developers). I think they wanted to get it published as a sort of future WoD game in some ways, when there was a race on with other budding White Wolf sci-fi ideas - along with Exile and Aeon/Trinity.

To my mind the most logical campaign for Dune would be to set up a house (sort of like the A Song of Ice and Fire rpg). That way you have plenty of character options, a Bene Gesserit, A Mentat, the head of the house, the weapons master etc. Then make the house responsible for spice production on Arrakis, with plenty of political intrigue involving the Bene Gesserit, A rival house, making alliances with the Fremen populace etc.
There's a clearly gameable scenario there - and it's clearly not generic - however unfortunately I've never seen a licensed property willing to put the PCs at the centre of the fictional story. And even if we did strip out the main characters and replace them with PCs - we know where this particular story is going, which means we need to change up the story, which means we're no longer really playing Dune.
That's precisely how it should be done. It was the approach they attempted in Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium before, but unfortunately couldn't maintain the licence to continue.
 
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And to be honest I think that Fading Suns is a lot more kitchen sink in feel than specific to a Dune like experience. Dune is a major influence, but then so is Warhammer 40K

And in an ouroborosian manner, 40K was also hugely influenced by Dune. Not just the God Emperor, but even the line between Sardaukar and Space Marine is a lot thinner than first glance.
 
I'd never play it but I might consider buying it if it would make a good sourcebook for a ruleset I like better. I'd have to see what was in it and how good/bad the writing and art is.
Same here: it will really depend on how visually NICE of a book it is (great artwork, layouts etc...) and if it is a good sourcebook for the setting. To be honest, I'm over-saturated with rule systems at this point. I've got so many that I like to scratch different itches. I don't NEED any more rule systems any longer.
 
And in an ouroborosian manner, 40K was also hugely influenced by Dune. Not just the God Emperor, but even the line between Sardaukar and Space Marine is a lot thinner than first glance.
Oh absolutely. And the Adeptus Mechanicus having the monopoly on technology and space travel is monopolized by that super duper Psyker guild... Reminds me of something from Dune that I can't QUITE put my finger on...
 
I had a feeling, from Chris Birch being all hinty hinty that they had Dune.

Obviously it will be 2d20. It will have Momentum, Fortune and whatever they'll call Doom this time round.

Expect a kickstarter soon.

And then wait for Modiphius to implode under the weight of its licensing demands
 
I think 2d20 is kind of boring. I was thinking of the right word last night but that about sums up my feelings.
 
This definitely has my interest. Not too familiar with the 2d20 System, but for an active Dune Line, I'd be willing to run it using FATAL if that is all that was on the table. The setting totally trumps the mechanics for me here.
 
Same here: it will really depend on how visually NICE of a book it is (great artwork, layouts etc...) and if it is a good sourcebook for the setting. To be honest, I'm over-saturated with rule systems at this point. I've got so many that I like to scratch different itches. I don't NEED any more rule systems any longer.
Yah, that's me too. I get the idea that not every game can / should be forced into a single ruleset, but for my purposes, I could pretty easily force them into two or three rule sets. :smile: I don't think I'd miss out overly much by not having yet another ruleset that does things ever-so-slightly "better" for that particular setting.
As far as buying it as a sourcebook for setting info, etc., I feel like there's already plenty of that out there, in the form of wikis, non-RPG books, etc. I really don't need to drop any money on this to play a Dune campaign, so I feel like I'd just be spending money on yet another shiny RPG book that caught my attention, but that I didn't really need, and never really used ...
 
It's eye candy for me. I might grab it, depending upon other costs.
But these days I tend to GM just a few systems, I really don't want to learn too much more.
I could totally port DUNE into BRP or Fate Core, so yeah a good Wiki is all I really need for it.
I definately won't be playing anything in 2D20, it's just too clunky for me these days
 
I think the two big "waiting to see" aspects for me are 1) the artwork (it really should be unique, if they're smart they'll look outside of the industry for someone doing unique stuff) and 2) how much the game is going to inject the godawful Brian Herbert books into the mix.

But, I mean, outside of just a trophy purchase, as far as running a game in the Dune universe, I think I could get by just fine with the Dune Encyclopedia and original books. Personally, I'd probably set it during the time of the God Emperor, with players as part of a rebellion.
 
The Metabarons Universe Guide (a massive setting book for... d6 I think?) is pretty fantastic and dense. I would love a Dune book like that.

Ever since the Jodorosky's Dune documentary I've been considering getting into Metabarons. Have the collections lined up on my amazon wishlist but havent pulled the trigger yet.
 
Ever since the Jodorosky's Dune documentary I've been considering getting into Metabarons. Have the collections lined up on my amazon wishlist but havent pulled the trigger yet.

They have a lot of cool ideas, but they're... kind of weird. Less so if you've read the Incal first, which begins almost like a generic sci-fi setting reminiscent of Blade Runner or the Fifth Element. That one adds on the Mystic, Chantric stuff a bit more gradually.

I noticed a lot of stuff that he wanted to include in his vision of Dune he instead transplanted into the Metabarons.

Example: an important lord (the first Metabaron, I think?) get castrated from a battle injury. It becomes part of his identity. One of the sacred sisters of a power order of Space Priestesses (...) falls in love with him and betrays her superiors by letting him have a child anyway through space magic. Henceforth, all Metabarons must first lose a limb before they can be awesome too (pain and loss is the start to enlightenment or detachment or something like that).

Fascinating stuff.
 
Wonder what my pristine copy of Dune, Chronicles of the Imperium would go for?
 
I know the game wouldn't be this ambitious, but a high level political game between Houses of the Landstraad would be an awesome way to approach Dune. Like the Old School D&D endgame as the starting position.
That's the game I see working best as a boardgame, with the major characters ensconced on different planets... seldom, if ever, meeting.
That 'overgame' could generate situations for PCs acting as their agents... that way I can play as not-Duncan Idaho.
 
That's the game I see working best as a boardgame, with the major characters ensconced on different planets... seldom, if ever, meeting.
That 'overgame' could generate situations for PCs acting as their agents... that way I can play as not-Duncan Idaho.

This actually reminds me of the set-up of the highly under-rated game Shadowlord.

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Now I love David Lynch movies, but aside from some stylish visuals, it really is a terrible adaptation of the source material. It introduces things that just aren't in the book at all - the sound-based weapons, for example, or the 'telepathic' Bene Gessert - spins out into it's own weird themes, couldn't adequetely find a way of developing exposition without excessive use of inner monologue, has characters acting in more melodramatic ways rather than the expedient ways they act in the books, and wasn't a finished, coherant story largely because they couldn't squeeze the material into a two hour film. Lynch himself has disowned the movie as he lost control of the final cut, while he wasn't really that keen on science fiction anyway.

In short, it was a studio film that went wrong and while it remains interesting, it is still something that could be hugely improved upon.

I agree with this. I always appreciated the artistic design (which you see they adopted in the Children of Dune Syfy series after the horrible art-direction of the first series. Ironically I liked those mini-series too as they were more accurate to the books). And I loved the soundtrack - c'mon Toto and Brian Eno? I'm there.

Downside - they're going to incorporate the 14 garbage prequel books from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson into the game... UNGH... that might be a dealbreaker for me.
 
I think 2d20 is kind of boring. I was thinking of the right word last night but that about sums up my feelings.
I haven't played it yet but I am concerned that it is contrived to force players to interact with its momentum/threat mechanism. I'm not convinced they work, but could be wrong.

their books are also annoyingly oriented toward supplements. Infinity especially; it contains skills and talents for flying spaceships but no actual spaceships nor space combat rules. That is a huge NO NO in my book.
 
OK, guys, let's be honest with ourselves...:grin:
Every single one of us, bar the three people who have too much other games, is going to run Dune with your favourite system! Am I right, or am I right:shade:?
The actual system by Modiphius is going to be just an excuse. The truth is, you want to run/play Dune. And you're going to find a way.

And here's the second Kicker: that wouldn't have changed if they had picked Savage Worlds, Mythras, or whatever else. OK, maybe the people who run it by the book would have been slighlty more...but that's only the people who would be likely to run it with the same system anyway.

Now, the part about incorporating stuff from the pre-quels? That's serious business, and it's the opposite of what Modiphius did with Conan! Who wants to take a guess about the reasons:skeleton:?
 
I agree with this. I always appreciated the artistic design (which you see they adopted in the Children of Dune Syfy series after the horrible art-direction of the first series. Ironically I liked those mini-series too as they were more accurate to the books). And I loved the soundtrack - c'mon Toto and Brian Eno? I'm there.

Loved the soundtrack.

And heck, it's inspired some kickass music in the years since...

https://soundcloud.com/ninthplanetfromthesun/killing-word-2
 
I could be tempted to pick up Modiphius' Dune - but only for campaign material/adventures/random ideas. No chance in hell I'd use the 2D20 rules.

Whether I'd get around to running a Dune campaign... well, that's a different matter. I've had a copy of Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium for 17 years, and I ran one session of it, 16 years ago...
 
I think 2d20 is kind of boring. I was thinking of the right word last night but that about sums up my feelings.
My impression of 2d20, after playing in a Mutant Chronicles campaign for a few months is that it was annoying.

I was cool with the lifepath chargen, and the core book was pretty to flip through. But, I really disliked the adversarial role of the GM in gameplay. It was a distraction, and made me a lot more conservative in-play, because I didn't want to fuel the GM's threats.

MC3e, at least, was such a prime example of what I call abstract rules complexity. Presenting abstract rules to cover situations like range, weapon magazine capacity, etc. - except, the abstraction ends up producing far more page count (bloat) in rules and special cases than using fixed, realistic values. Why use abstraction if it doesn't make things easier and faster in-play? That was one of the main things I found annoying about MC3 (and I'd hope that wasn't something that spilled over into other 2d20 Rpgs).
 
My sole experience was one demo game and an after-game read-through of the quick-start pamphlet so keep that in mind.

You have an ability score (IIRC, roughly 3-18). You have a skill (IIRC roughly 1-5). You roll 2d20 but do not add them. If a d20 rolls under your ability score, you get one "Success". If it rolls under both your ability score and your skill, you get two "Successes". Thus, by rolling the standard 2d20 you could get up to four successes if you were really lucky (In the demo I played in no situation arose in which we could roll more than 2d20. I don't know what the rules are in the finished game.). Some actions require 5 or more successes... you can only pull them off by giving the GM points of Doom in exchange for extra successes. Doom points can be used by the GM to screw PCs over or fuel the special abilities of Big Bad NPCs. Things get more complicated- MUCH more complicated- if you attempt special maneuvers in combats, likes disarms or similar.

It's all very... 90s. The system slowed to a crawl whenever anybody tried anything more complicated than "I hit it with my axe". I hope it was just a case of a bad GM but reading through the quick-start afterwards didn't make anything clearer.

I played session of the Star Trek game, and it was a slog. Every action was an complex dicepool building exercise involving multiple layers of abilities and several metacurrencies. I just want to take a tricorder reading! This shouldn't be an extended mechanical exercise!

My feeling was the system only operated on the scale of complex actions, which sucked in Star Trek, where you perform a lot of small procedural actions in the course of a mission. Therefore it made every small action you took into a complicated one. My problem wasn't that the system was a pain when anyone tried anything more complicated than hitting anyone with an axe. It was that hitting someone with an axe seemed as complicated as any other choice to resolve.

I'm curious what you meant by it feeling '90s. I tend to think of the '90s as more rules light in both elegant (Over the Edge or Unknown Armies) or functional but kludgy (Storyteller) ways. More than anything, it reminded me of Cortex+, although that seemed tighter to me. I haven't actually played it though.

If the system is adapted properly, it might work better for Dune, playing nobles who are taking actions on a more strategic level. If you are only taking big actions, a system that only has a complex system of resolution might work better.

Yeah. Much as I loved the book, I'm tempted to agree.
What I would actually prefer in this kind of case, is a game that was a bit of a knock off of the setting - desert planet - monopoly on a precious commodity - prophecies and religion and all those sort of trappings - but with the story more open and adaptations to make it a bit more suitable for gaming.

When it comes to gaming I much prefer settings inspired by particular media rather than faithful adaptations. In the latter case I always feel constrained to play around the edges of the story.

I also tend prefer knock-offs to licensed games when it comes to RPGs. As you say, I feel constrained, and I game designers often feel constrained by the weight of a license as well.

Still, I am playing in an Adventures in Middle-Earth game that robertsconley robertsconley is running at the moment, and it is great. It can be done, but its tricky.
Mark Rein-Hagen hadn't actually read Anne Rice before he made Vampire…but that is another story.
I read Anne Rice about a year before the game came out, but I don't think that you needed to read Anne Rice to be influenced by her at the time. It was in the air.

And to be honest I think that Fading Suns is a lot more kitchen sink in feel than specific to a Dune like experience. Dune is a major influence, but then so is Warhammer 40K and the World of Darkness games (Fading Suns was written by two White Wolf developers). I think they wanted to get it published as a sort of future WoD game in some ways, when there was a race on with other budding White Wolf sci-fi ideas - along with Exile and Aeon/Trinity.

Fading Suns is definitely a kitchen sink. Still, Dune is one of the biggest pots in the kitchen sink (Am I using the metaphor correctly?). It's relatively easy to make it they most flavorful spice in the stew. Crap. Now I am mixing metaphors... It's relatively easy to take that pot out of the sink and cook with it alone. I think that worked.
 
I’ll be honest. I was disappointed after Conan was announced and 2d20 is what we got. It tainted my perception of the game, rightly or wrongly, after that.
 
Ah there was a board game that was going to be the Dune game but was re-skinned into something else later on due to licensing issues. Was it Twilight Imperium? Gah I can't remember which.

All that I know is that the Bene Gesserit player's win condition was different than the others. At the very start, they would write down which other faction that they wanted to "win" and put it in an envelope (like in Clue). At the end of the game, that note is revealed. If the winning player was the correctly predicted one, the Bene Gesserit player won instead. HAHA
 
There was a Dune boardgame and it is considered a classic although long OOP.
 
I’ll be honest. I was disappointed after Conan was announced and 2d20 is what we got. It tainted my perception of the game, rightly or wrongly, after that.
It might have been worse:tongue:.
Besides, even had they announced a game using a much more popular system among the folks here, there would have been some who love it, some who grudgingly accept it, and some that feel all miserable. On top of that, that would have created a lot of temptation for those who are happy with the choice to tell the miserable ones that they "just can't appreciate d20/SW/d100/Fate"! (Been on both sides of this one, and you know what? It sucks no matter how much you like your favourite game that's also the designer's favourite. And yes, it took me some time to realize that!)
In a way, 2d20 is better than many other options. At least it doesn't have very long statblocks (especially compared to high-level d20), so all of us get more setting material:grin:!
And nobody is much happier than the rest of us.

ETA: the above doesn't mean you shouldn't be happy when your favourite system gets picked to power a certain product. I'm just saying that a not-so-popular on the Pub system might have saved us a flamewar or two!
 
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Ah there was a board game that was going to be the Dune game but was re-skinned into something else later on due to licensing issues. Was it Twilight Imperium? Gah I can't remember which.

Rex from Fantasy Flight Games is a recent edition of the old Dune board game from Avalon Hill with the Dune license stripped out and reskinned to use the Twilight Imperium setting. I recall that it is widely considered inferior to the original, but I can't tell you why.

All that I know is that the Bene Gesserit player's win condition was different than the others. At the very start, they would write down which other faction that they wanted to "win" and put it in an envelope (like in Clue). At the end of the game, that note is revealed. If the winning player was the correctly predicted one, the Bene Gesserit player won instead. HAHA
That's kind of funny, but doesn't that mean that the player picked by the Bene Gesserit has absolutely no way to win from the start? I can see a lot of people being irritated by that.
 
My impression of 2d20, after playing in a Mutant Chronicles campaign for a few months is that it was annoying.

I was cool with the lifepath chargen, and the core book was pretty to flip through. But, I really disliked the adversarial role of the GM in gameplay. It was a distraction, and made me a lot more conservative in-play, because I didn't want to fuel the GM's threats.

MC3e, at least, was such a prime example of what I call abstract rules complexity. Presenting abstract rules to cover situations like range, weapon magazine capacity, etc. - except, the abstraction ends up producing far more page count (bloat) in rules and special cases than using fixed, realistic values. Why use abstraction if it doesn't make things easier and faster in-play? That was one of the main things I found annoying about MC3 (and I'd hope that wasn't something that spilled over into other 2d20 Rpgs).
The complexity in 2d20 does seem incongruous to me. YMMV

However as regards the threat points, from what i've seen of the system I simply cannot conceive how you'd ever need to use Dark Symmetry/Doom/Threat. I know there are a couple of instances where it's generated compulsorily (reactions, oddly).

I'd like to try Conan (and Infinity), the character generation in Conan is really interesting. Infinity is just a mess of charts.
 
I also tend prefer knock-offs to licensed games when it comes to RPGs. As you say, I feel constrained, and I game designers often feel constrained by the weight of a license as well.
Just for me, I'd most likely mine it for ideas to rip off for Traveller. I have no real interest in playing in the actual setting, be it Dune or Middle-earth or Marvel Comics New York City. Knockoffs are sometimes brilliant. But I love knockoff toys, too.
I read Anne Rice about a year before the game came out, but I don't think that you needed to read Anne Rice to be influenced by her at the time. It was in the air.
I've never read any Anne Rice books or seen any of the films but I understand the gist of what its about. I think it would be very difficult not to have absorbed it whether you wanted to or not. Kind of like that Twilight series I could not avoid learning about...despite my best efforts. :grin:
 
Just for me, I'd most likely mine it for ideas to rip off for Traveller. I have no real interest in playing in the actual setting, be it Dune or Middle-earth or Marvel Comics New York City. Knockoffs are sometimes brilliant. But I love knockoff toys, too.

I've never read any Anne Rice books or seen any of the films but I understand the gist of what its about. I think it would be very difficult not to have absorbed it whether you wanted to or not. Kind of like that Twilight series I could not avoid learning about...despite my best efforts. :grin:
Yeah, I have never read a page of Twilight nor seen any of the movies, but if I was forced a gunpoint to run a Twilight-themed game, I could probably do a passable job at it.
 
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