A Role Playing Games Blog
Random musings
Roleplaying in the Dune universe
10November 23, 2009
Frank Herbert’s Dune is one of my favorite SF books. I’ve read several of the sequels but in my opinion the first book was the best. My father owned a hardcover version of the book that had the painting of a sandworm on its cover. From the first moment I saw this cover I was intrigued. Since then I have read the first novel several times. I also enjoyed Dune Messiah to an extent, but IMHO the story started to get a bit too weird for my taste starting with Leto’s transformation in Children of Dune.
But it seems although Dune and its sequels (and prequels) are very popular, transferring the story to other media almost always failed. The David Lynch movie was very ambitious but was not really close to the novel. Especially the Dune computer games by Westwood Games were big hits, but they were only loosely based on the story of the book, too, and only focused on war on Arrakis. There was even a pen & paper RPG set into the Dune universe called Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium by Last Unicorn Games. But alas the game was doomed from the very beginning. In 2000 a limited edition of just 3000 copies was sold at GenCon before the company was acquired by WotC. I am not sure if Wizards was just not interested in the franchise or if there were some license problems, but the game was eventually cancelled.
So, what can a Dune fan like me do, if he wants to run a campaign in the Dune universe? You can of course try to get a copy of LUG’s Dune game on eBay, if you are really willing to pay several hundred bucks for this very rare book. That’s even too much for a game collector like me. Aside from that you can search the internet for some fan-created games. I’ve found the following games while researching for this post:
- Dune – A Dream of Rain (aka D20une)
This 211-paged PDF is a complete Dune RPG based on the d20 Modern System. For a fan-product it has a pretty high production value and it contains several pages of background information. You can get a copy of the PDF for free at Scribd.
- GURPS Dune
The GURPS version of Dune is from the early ‘90s and sadly it shows. Although the rules themselves look pretty decent the presentation is in basic HTML. Obviously the creator of this Dune RPG has taken down the website some time ago, but the rules are still available using the Internet Archive. GURPS Dune has been written for an earlier version of GURPS (probably 3rd Edition) but it should be playable with 4th Edition with some major modifications by the GM.
- The Dune RPG
Another game I found on Scribd is called “The Dune RPG” and is based by the system that powers the “Legend of the Five Rings” RPG. From what I’ve seen the PDF is pretty much incomplete and needs some work from an experience DM to be fully playable.
There are probably dozens of other conversions floating around on the ‘net. If you know of any other Dune RPG written by fans, feel free to post the links in the comments below.
I think if I had to run a Dune campaign any time soon, I would just use a game system like PDQ# and be done with it. Why exactly PDQ#? Although Dune is not really part of the swashbuckling genre PDQ# was created for, IMHO PDQ# can be easily adapted to almost any genre. For example I used a mixture of PDQ and PDQ# to run my Ad Astra campaign some time ago. PDQ# is very easy to run and is extremely flexible as a system. Since Dune has a strong focus on melee combat, detailed rules about firearms are not really necessary. If you ask me, Dune is more about politics, intrigue and philosophy than combat anyway. And a narrative game like PDQ# handles this type of campaign probably better than more crunchy systems. Your mileage may vary, of course.
What do you think? Would you like to roleplay in the Dune universe?
Lazy Friday Video Post: Ballad of the Monster Manual
0November 20, 2009
Usually I don’t post two Lazy Friday Video Posts on one day, but this is a special exception! The following video, that I found on BoingBoing a few minutes ago, is just too awesome not to be shared immediately!
Monster Manual from Dan Meth on Vimeo.
Enjoy!
Lazy Friday Video Post: Dungeons & Dragons TV series intro
6November 20, 2009
I remember having seen a few episodes of this series a few years back and I still don’t understand why anyone thought this TV show was a good idea. And by the way, since when are Cavalier and Acrobat base classes in D&D. Or am I missing something here?
I think I have to wash out my eyes with bleach after watching this again. Be back next week!
400 posts milestone
9November 17, 2009
I was so busy in the last weeks that I almost missed that my blog hit the 400 posts milestone recently. And since my last milestone post in July much has happened in the RPG blogosphere. If you haven’t been living under a rock, you probably noticed all the drama around the RPG Bloggers Network recently. For some time now, Duane from A Terrible Idea is now in charge of the network and I wish him all the best!
As with my previous milestone posts I want to look back at the last 100 posts and share some statistics with you. Man, I love statistics! 
These have been the most popular posts since my blog hit the 300 posts milestone:
- My stance on D&D 4th Edition
One of the most popular posts in the last months was definitely my post about my stance on D&D 4th Edition. Of course D&D is always a popular topic, but this time I managed to post something critical about D&D 4E without the comments turning into a flame war. And that’s an achievement I am actually proud of. We all know how easily these posts can turn into quasi-religious debates.
- Breaking News: Roleplaying finally possible in D&D 4th Edition
Alas this post’s comment derailed into a flame war pretty fast. Some people obviously missed the Humor category and started arguing again. Aside from that I still love the Ryan Macklin’s Dramatis Personae power that started all that trouble again.
- Robin D. Laws interview
I can tell you that I was excited like a schoolboy when Robin D. Laws agreed to answer some questions about the Gumshoe system and his other works for my blog. The interview not only gave some interesting insights into the system featured in games like Esoterrorists and Trail of Cthulhu, but also was a very entertaining read. Thanks again, Robin!
- Why play old-school D&D?
That’s a question you probably hear or read regularly. There are a lot of modern games out there, so why should we bother with the granddaddy of all RPGs or one of its clones? In this post I tried to list some of the reasons why I enjoy playing old-school D&D once in a while.
Enough tooting my own horn, let’s have a look at the statistics now:
- Total number of posts: 415 (including this one)
- Total number of approved comments: 1661
- Number of (unique) visits: 89,334
- Active WordPress plugins: 30
- Technorati authority: 126 (Wow, that must be because of the Technorati relaunch)
- Google Page Rank: 3 (no change here)
- Cups of coffee consumed by me during the writing of that post: 0
- Word count of this post: 481
I am currently going through some kind of winter slump, but I think I should get to my 500th post in early 2010 nevertheless. Thanks to all my readers! I couldn’t have done it without you!
Lazy Friday Video Post: Vintage D&D Commercial
4November 13, 2009
Now I understand why people believed D&D was utterly evil. This commercial from the 1980s makes me shiver!
And did we really wear these clothes back in the ‘80?
Confessions of a lazy GM
8November 11, 2009
I am a very lazy when it comes to preparing roleplaying sessions. When other GMs plan and prepare for weeks I usually make some preparations just mere hours before I start running a game. Sometimes I don’t prepare at all, hoping that my improvisation skills save the day. If everything else fails, a nice tavern brawl keeps the players occupied for long enough to give me some time to make up something in the back of my head.
Of course this doesn’t work in every game. I am currently running a Savage Worlds game using the Rippers plot point campaign. And if you ask me, SW is perfect for the lazy GM, especially when you use it to run any of the plot point campaigns. In most cases you sit down at the table, read the next plot point description and the rest is done by hand waving.
You have to be thinking on your feet all the time, making up NPCs on the spot and coming up with encounters on the spot is vital for the lazy GM. And alas this doesn’t work in every game. You should never try to run an investigative game that way. It just doesn’t work. Ok, if you have read every murder mystery novel on the planet you may be able to pull it off, but in most cases it’s near impossible to be successfully lazy when investigative games are concerned.
But especially when you and your players favor action over complicated stories, you can easily have a lot of fun without hours of preparation. And being a lazy GM although helps you in well-prepared games or when you are running and commercial module. When things go awry, you can always rely on your improvisation skills, that you have trained while being the lazy GM, to save the day.
There’s even a reason why being a lazy GM can also improve your game. Some GMs tend to meticulously plan their adventures which may lead to the focus being shifted from the players and their characters to the background story and the NPCs. If you don’t plan ahead you usually rely on your players to drive the action while you improvise on the spot.
Recently my group asked me to run “Trail of Cthulhu” on New Year’s Eve. I fear I will have to do some preparation for this session after all. As I wrote before, it’s extremely hard to pull off a great investigative game without some preparation. But in the long run I will probably always be a lazy GM. 
Morality
2October 28, 2009
It’s the 28th of October, so I still have a chance to take part in this month’s blog carnival hosted by Games of State. The topic this month is morality, in-game and in real life and luckily the carnival announcement comes with a handy list of questions for us to answer. Here are mine:
- What are your limits as a player?
Part of playing roleplaying games is combat, so killing NPCs is usually unavoidable, sometimes even wanted. While I would never kill in real life, I don’t think about it much, when my character fights real evil or is attacked. But I usually try to find peaceful solutions, even when playing a fighter. Sometimes a bit of intimidation goes a long way.
I totally abhor torture, even in a game. I once almost attacked a fellow player character because he wanted to torture a prisoner.
In most cases my in-game and real life moralities match. My in-game me is probably a bit more violent than I am in real life. But that comes with the job description of being an adventurer in most games. - How evil can you be?
Not at all. I utterly fail at playing evil characters. I tried it, I just can’t do it. Even the evil Tremere vampire I once rolled up kept doing good deeds. As a GM I can play really evil NPCs but as a player I am always the goody two-shoes. I’ve played some characters that looked foul but were fair, much like Strider appeared to the hobbits when they first met. But they always have their hearts in the right spot, even if they don’t look the part. - Do you just like to play by alignment or do you like a more realistic moral system?
If you ask me rules for alignment/moral systems in games are totally unnecessary. But when the game forces me to pick an alignment I usually chose something that fits my character best but use it as some kind of recommendation, not as hard rule. As a player you should never feel restrained by an alignment to do something that fits your character’s concept.
But I think my players and I never cared that much for alignments. - What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done as a player?
I once played a privateer captain in a homebrew fantasy campaign. When one of my crew (a NPC) who has been my protégé betrayed me, I had him nail to the ship’s mast where I let him die. This probably crossed the line, but I thought it was what the character would have done in this situation. Usually he was not as cruel. - How much difference is there between your real life morals and your in-game morals?
I think I already talked about this. Most of the time, my characters’ morals are pretty close to my real life morals. - If a God mandates Kobolds are evil and must be destroyed, could your character kill a Kobold pup in cold blood?
No. I once played a paladin who was attacked by a couple of orcs. What my character didn’t know when he killed them, was that these orcs had been a family that left an orc baby behind. So my paladin took care of the baby until he found someone who was willing to raise it.
Even when I play religious characters (which seems to be kind of odd for an atheist) I tend to question dogma (which is not that odd for an atheist). When the GM is nice enough and the god is reasonable this poses no problems. But I would be willing to face the wrath of a god in any game if my personal morals contradict those of the god.
I’ve to admit it’s not easy writing about this topic because questions of morality are usually very personal. And sometimes a player character’s action reflect on the personality of the player. As always I am very interested in your comments. So feel free to post your thoughts below.
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