I want Dune 2 as an RPG. Players create a house, select characters from various factions, put them together...

I want Dune 2 as an RPG. Players create a house, select characters from various factions, put them together, and vie for the power to control Arrakis about 100 years before Paul arrives on Dune.

What is the proper system to play this in?

It would require come hardcore refluffling, but the Game of Thrones rpg by Green Ronin would do the politicking and fuckkery of Dune pretty well

I don't know it, but it seems like an RPG trying to do that would also be able to try to do this. Would you be willing to give me the down-low of it?

With a focus on inter-house struggles, Reign jumps to mind. As a colossal GURPSfag, I’m contractually obligated to shill GURPS (use Boardroom & Curia for building/stating/running houses; City Stats and Mass Combat may also be useful).

He who controls the Spice controls the Universe!

Burning Sands, Jihad. Burning wheel supplement. That's if you want PCs to frequently interact with each other, act on their believes and such. If you want a strategy game with role-playing, pick a boardgames probably.

Traveller.

I hate that system. But in regards to making a house and shit it may be your best bet

Knee-jerk answer is the actual Dune rpg "Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium", which allows you to be any house, housless etc.

That user appears to have died, so here's some basics from A Song of Ice and Fire RPG (Game of Thrones edition)

It's a roll and keep system, where players roll a certain amount of dice based on their abilities and keep another number.

So, a player with 4k2 ("roll 4, keep 2") rolls 4 dice, and chooses the two highest. In the game, this is distinguished by your skill and any bonus dice.

The dice are added along with any modifier, and compared to a target number.

that's the fundamental mechanic of the system, like d20 is for D&D.

The system is designed around the idea of the players creating a Noble House of their own to inhabit the world of Westeros, and compete against other houses. As such, House design is an entire chapter, and the assumed first session of the game: creating a house, and determining who will fulfill what role and their connection to the house.

Intrigues are treated a lot like combat, with a defense score and "HP pool", as well as varying tactics and abilities to be used, so it's nominally well-suited to a game rife with political shenanigans, since a tense negotiation with the duke uses essentially the same resolution model as if you'd attacked him.

The two biggest issues I would say for the system are this: First, the game is, obviously, designed for a different setting (one at a vastly different tech tier), so a fair amount of homebrew would be involved to transfer/convert skills/qualities, and so forth.

The second is that the advancement rules are a little...stupid.
-The only factor in determining a combat's difficulty presented in the system is the highest AC of any enemy present. this number does not scale with party ability.
-Rewards all draw from the same pool: an encounter awards money, XP, or Glory, and assumes one at a time.
-The ratios are somewhat wonky as well: assuming half of your rewards are XP based, a given story will award players roughly 10 xp...
[cont]

10 XP is enough to gain a bonus die in an ability. (so maybe you have Fighting 3, you could add "crysknife 1", meaning when fighting with a crysknife, you roll 4 dice, and keep 3.)

It's 30 to increase a basic ability (like Fighting 3 to 4), and 50 to gain a Destiny point, which you can use as a luck mechanic in-game, or turn into a quality. (Comparable to how Refresh works in Spirit of the Century or the Dresden Files RPG.)

So a 'story' of 7 narrative-advancing (the game notes if a scene doesn't actually progress the narrative, then feel free to not give any reward for it) scenes, awards 10 XP. It will likely take at least one session to play.

This creates a system where if you buy specialities, you're getting one every session, but if you want something better, you may spend several sessions not really increasing in abilities.


It's not a bad system, it's just one that, if not properly read, understood, and explained, will cause a LOT of headaches. A lot of Veeky Forums games just said "fuck it, you get 10 XP per session, and I'll give out money and glory as I see fit."

Most players aren't smart enough to pull off a Dune game. Most would try and brute force their way through the super intelligent "plans within plans"/war of assassins/Long double reverse con bullshit the Dune setting is known for.

This. Book is expensive as hell, but I'm pretty sure share-thread has a PDF of it.

Someone put together an ORE splat for running almost exactly that, but I can't for the life of me find it. Name had something to do with the Landsraad or something.
Even without it ORE would be my go to anyway, fairly lethal and has a system for group/guild/house combat.

I like Gary Numan too!

The best kind of 'Use GURPS' post: It actually explains what bits to use.

Didn't Dune serve as a major influence for Warhammer 40000?
Cause that one does have a handful of RPGs out there

>Players create a house, select characters from various factions, put them together, and vie for the power to control Arrakis about 100 years before Paul arrives on Dune.
You mean when the Harkonnens had absolute control of the Pan and Graben and official Spice harvesting?

This. But then again, to vie for control of Arrakis is already fundamentally to vie for dominance of the Imperium under the Emperor, so that he rewards/collars you with stewardship of Arrakis. So to become the greatest non-Imperial house is not any more difficult because the Harkonnen's occupy Dune.

You can be wrecked if you can't meet CHOAM quotas. And the main reason the Emperor gave House Atreides Arrakis was because he suspected them of raising an Army the equal in skill to his Sardaukar.

The Harkonnens were only really concerned with the resource wealth of Arrakis, while Leto I and his inner circle saw far deeper.

Unless you streamline the complex planning into simple mechanics

Exactly, this is why the Emperor tended to give stewardship to the most dangerous house that threatened his power the most.

It was the golden explosive collar; it made you rich, kept you busy, and put your House in incredible institutional jeopardy.

Pathfinder

>Re-Reading Heretics of Dune
>Realize the Tleilaxu literally made the Duncan able to make any woman unable to live without his dick

There's actually a fan made GURPS sourcebook for Dune if you look at the Dune 1D4chan page.

Warhammer 40k is the biggest hack in SciFi and fantasy history.
Pretty sure it stole anything that wasn't a trademark.

It's nothing compared to the male counter to the Honored Maters later on.

Which I'm pretty sure is exactly what I'm talking about.

Unless you mean some shit that happens in Brian Herbert books, which doesn't count?

Man, I just know the SECOND I run a Dune campaign with any players who have read even the first book they'll be setting up mini nuke traps with lasguns and shields. It will be used for literally EVERY problem

Setting it in,say, the Heretics/Chapterhouse period means Lasguns for all and no shields.

Kind of, but Dune only loses by that comparison

When I ran my game I used a reskinned Chronica Feudalis. Unsurprisingly it has that medieval feel and all you need to do is change bows to guns, ride to pilot and a few others to bring it up to the modern. Also, as a plus the rulebook is a joy to read.

>other noble houses think you used nukes
>they accuse you of violating the treaties about nukes and bring out their *real* nukes to destroy your holdings in retaliation

Then what's the fucking point? Then it's just you saying "I want to do something really complex" and you roll some dice and then your Gm says "You succeed/fail at doing something really complex."

The whole point of Dune is that it is a complete fucking mess of plans within plans and backstabs and plotting and all sorts of long term stuff. By simplifying or streamlining that you ruin it.