(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").
