Dune roleplaying.


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Lundse
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Dune roleplaying.

Post by Lundse »

Hi, my name is Kristian, and I am a roleplayer.
(The storytelling kind, not buffer swords, Pokemon cards or whatever else has hijacked the term recently).

Anyways, I thought I'd let you know that here in Denmark, there have been two roleplaying games set in the Dune universe - and last weekend I ran one of them...

The first, which I have not tried, but may get a chance to look at is called, IIRC, "The Delta Pavonis Incident". It is a a live roleplaying scenario, meaning a large group of people (20-40, methinks) walk around and interact as their characters (except for combat, which is run by a stone-paper-scissors-competition-thingy). I do not know much about it, except that it takes place during Leto II reign, on a Guild heighliner lost in-between foldspace or something (setting it outside his prescience, meaning people have a chance to plot against him). People would then walk around in the cargo hold...

The second, called "Dune: The Fall of House Atreides" ("Dune: Huset Atreides fald" in Danish) is a classic intrigue-scenario. 5 players take the roles of conspirators against Paul, as his Jihad sweeps through the universe (think alternate Dune Messiah). The game had a few plot holes and that-would-not-fly-in-the-dune-universe-things, which I took it upon myself to fix :-) Luckily, I managed to do so without messing up the wonderful intrigue the scenario has become quite known for. The players had fun backstabbing each other...

As it was prepared and run by me and my players, the plot was: The Bene Gesserit (faking Jessicas handwriting, not with her as part of the conspiracy) conspire with the Guild and call the five players to a meeting in an abandoned sietch, where their plotting will be shielded by a guild navigator. The players are: Nerf (a Tleilaxu master), Serlac (the Corrino Duke after Shadam abdicated), Estar (the Duke of an upstart house that has managed to hoard spice), El Bars (a succesful Ix merchant and spokesman) and Jordan Grey (a sardukar colonel / facedancer copy).
The players are on Dune to meet with Paul, regarding their complaints about spice quotas, a ban on spice trade amongst themselves and the general inconvenience of having the Fremen run amok on ones planets. On this private audience, they will attempt to kill him using crysknives, which they get as part of a ritual, admitting them as honorary fedaykin so they can be allowed to meet Paul in private (which he wants them to do as a show of power in my story, as a sort of mole hunt for traitors in the original plot - which would be rather redundant for him as he would know by prescience).
Anywho... the players are also equipped with small "burners", Holtsman generators creating a tight beam of radiation as a sort of plan B - my invention, I wanted the players to have a chance (which one does not have in a knife fight with Paul) and I wanted a chance to send him into the desert blind at the end (because I had Brian Tyler's Inama Nushif on speakers and damnit if I was going to play Dune without playing it as the conspiracy unravels and house Atreides falls).
So, the players manage to accidentally call a worm when they visit an ecological testing station (Holtzman generators like shields, remember?) and go to a banquet with Irulan (who has a romantic entanglement with the Ixian merchant). The navigator is found and they are told they need a scapegoat (one must stay behind to take the blame as the others flee off-world). The ritual where they receive their crysknife is held by Alia, and they get to ask a few questions about their future (as the crowd does) - it is rather fun to play a ten year old preborn who berates a Corrino for asking whether his house will ever regain its glory :-)
During this ritual, the players had a chance to talk amongst themselves while one of them was away with me/Alia for the ritual - so noone quite knew if they had been betrayed by the others as scapegoat or not. Afterwards, as per their deal with the Bene Gesserit, the players sperm is collected in the... natural manner... by BG acolytes. The Tleilax's cannot comply (holy DNA not for Powinda eyes / no sperm) and must promise other favours.

At the meeting, I got to play Paul, which was absolutely terrifying - I was pretty nervous about doing a bad job. Also, I had to play the emotions of seeing Duncan Idaho again (did I tell you that in this timeline, Paul sent away the ghola and let him live as a succesful Ixian merchant?). It was fun to play the nigh-omniscient emperor who deigns to explain to the old-empire idiots why the Jihad must be, etc. (and I did not fuck it up, at least).
As the facedancer/sardaukar attacks, I cut to Duncan regaining his memories (focusing on his last moments at the ecological station). He averts the attack, and then gets to choose sides. The facedancer looses an arm, and I ask who was part of the conspiracy - Duncan tells everything, of course. I ask about Irulan, and as the facedancer attacks again, he gets an easy shot. Luckily, he does not take it, but asks a favor - that she is spared. I demand a facedancer to take her place at the execution, and go blind from the radiation. Duncan executes all but the Tleilax master (price for the facedancer) and I tell how Paul eventually goes into the desert as a blind fremen should.


Throughout the game, I got to tell details of the world as they became relevant. This was pretty fun, and I think it gave the players the ideas that this was a _rich_ universe that had been thought out in detail (3 players did know any Dune, and only one was a "real fan").
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inhuien
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by inhuien »

So you stayed true to the beginning and end of Dune Messiah and filled in your own, erm.. filling. Nicely done, one question, where's the Twins in all this?

Oh btw, I liked the AA type opening to the thread.
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Freakzilla
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Freakzilla »

Lundse wrote:Hi, my name is Kristian, and I am a roleplayer.
(The storytelling kind, not buffer swords, Pokemon cards or whatever else has hijacked the term recently).
My first thought was the bedroom kind, I'll be Duncan and you can be Murbella.

;)
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Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
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Freakzilla
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Freakzilla »

Honorary Fedaykin?

We need a spit take smilie...
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Freakzilla
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Freakzilla »

Baraka Bryan wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:
Lundse wrote:Hi, my name is Kristian, and I am a roleplayer.
(The storytelling kind, not buffer swords, Pokemon cards or whatever else has hijacked the term recently).
My first thought was the bedroom kind, I'll be Duncan and you can be Murbella.

;)

why do i always have to be the woman?!!

er.. that is to say.. umm :oops:
We all switch places when I ring the bell...ding!
~The Beastie Boys
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Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
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SadisticCynic
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by SadisticCynic »

Freakzilla wrote:
Baraka Bryan wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:
Lundse wrote:Hi, my name is Kristian, and I am a roleplayer.
(The storytelling kind, not buffer swords, Pokemon cards or whatever else has hijacked the term recently).
My first thought was the bedroom kind, I'll be Duncan and you can be Murbella.

;)

why do i always have to be the woman?!!

er.. that is to say.. umm :oops:
We all switch places when I ring the bell...ding!
~The Beastie Boys
:lol:
Ah English, the language where pretty much any word can have any meaning! - A Thing of Eternity
Lundse
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Lundse »

inhuien wrote:So you stayed true to the beginning and end of Dune Messiah and filled in your own, erm.. filling. Nicely done, one question, where's the Twins in all this?

Oh btw, I liked the AA type opening to the thread.
Pretty hard balancing act - I wanted the players to have fun and I wanted to keep (at least) the flavour of the original. I realized that on some level I would only be satisfied regarding the latter by reading the damn thing aloud, so once I made peace with having to do some violence to the story, it sort of worked for me...

The twins I was imagining 'as of-yet-unborn'; had the Duncan player tried to kill Paul, he would have gone into the desert broken - before their conception.

The whole meeting-with-knives was farfetched, but needed for the plot. I thought 'honorary fedaykin' (which does make one want to spit, and not out of reverence) would sort of show how fremen religion and culture was becoming corrupt and hollow. I should probably have gone with 'honorary fremen' instead...


As for other kinds of roleplaying, Freak, then I think I would feel really, really, really fucking weird bringing sand, stillsuits, baron-possesed babes or murderous militant amazons into the bedroom. Psychotropic drugs is a 'maybe', though...
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SadisticCynic
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by SadisticCynic »

Amazons could be fun. :P
Ah English, the language where pretty much any word can have any meaning! - A Thing of Eternity
Lundse
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Lundse »

SadisticCynic wrote:Amazons could be fun. :P
True.
But while a bit of power play (feints within feints in the bedroom?) might be fun from time to time, fanaticism is just too big a turn-off for me...
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Freakzilla
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Freakzilla »

Lundse wrote:I should probably have gone with 'honorary fremen' instead...
I think that's still pushing the envelope a little. Maybe sometime between DM and CoD would be more believable. Just offering a little constructive criticizm.
As for other kinds of roleplaying, Freak, then I think I would feel really, really, really fucking weird bringing sand, stillsuits, baron-possesed babes or murderous militant amazons into the bedroom. Psychotropic drugs is a 'maybe', though...
Sand is bad.

Pshycoactive drugs... it's amazing how a thing can be horribly ugly yet unbelievably beautifull at the same time.

:shock:
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~Pink Snowman
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SadisticCynic
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by SadisticCynic »

Lundse wrote:
SadisticCynic wrote:Amazons could be fun. :P
True.
But while a bit of power play (feints within feints in the bedroom?) might be fun from time to time, fanaticism is just too big a turn-off for me...
I was thinking of the implied youth and lithe physique. :)
+ Amazons :wink:
Ah English, the language where pretty much any word can have any meaning! - A Thing of Eternity
Lundse
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Lundse »

Freakzilla wrote:
Lundse wrote:I should probably have gone with 'honorary fremen' instead...
I think that's still pushing the envelope a little. Maybe sometime between DM and CoD would be more believable. Just offering a little constructive criticizm.
True, true. It is an example of having to chose plot over setting. I should have liked to read Dune+Dune Messiah aloud afterwards :-)
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Redstar
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Redstar »

I used to have sexual roleplays of the Pokemon variety over AOL, in my much younger days.
Lundse
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Lundse »

Redstar wrote:I used to have sexual roleplays of the Pokemon variety over AOL, in my much younger days.
That sort of think is on a need to know basis. And frankly, I do not need to know :D
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inhuien
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by inhuien »

Lundse wrote:
Redstar wrote:I used to have sexual roleplays of the Pokemon variety over AOL, in my much younger days.
That sort of think is on a need to know basis. And frankly, I do not need to know :D
And thought we'd seen the last of fucking furry things.
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GamePlayer
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by GamePlayer »

Now where is that picture of the furry with the Butler from The Shining? :)
"They can chew you up, but they gotta spit you out."
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Freakzilla
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Freakzilla »

GamePlayer wrote:Now where is that picture of the furry with the Butler from The Shining? :)
It made me think of that pic of the giant inflatable Pikachu with the children entering through it's crotch.
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GamePlayer
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by GamePlayer »

Quick! Everyone into Pikachu's vagina! :)
"They can chew you up, but they gotta spit you out."
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Tleszer
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Tleszer »

GamePlayer wrote:Quick! Everyone into Pikachu's vagina! :)
:puke:

My innocence is gone. :cry: :cry: :cry:
DUNE, as interpreted by a blue man with a green tushie
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Redstar
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by Redstar »

I thought the simplest explanation was usually right? I was Ash, the girl Misty.
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EsperandoAGodot
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Re: Dune roleplaying.

Post by EsperandoAGodot »

Buddy, if you were operating by Ockham's Razor, you would have just been you and she would have been her. :ugeek:
DUNE - Chronicles of the Imperium
A free-form, forum based RPG
http://boards.theforce.net/non_star_war ... 346/p1/?11
Launched and ready to fire.
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