GURPS Dune

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I have problems with selective breeding leading to superhumans. A 20% increase in Attribute levels may be realistic for selective breeding, over the course of 20 or so generations,

Miles Teg's time is about 500-600 generations from now. Miles is further from us in the future than Menes of Egypt is in the past.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by beetle496

And exhale too. A lifetime supply for a navigator might only be a cubic meter.

Right, but the book has a few examples of characters “trained from birth” that nevertheless betray lifelong conditioning. So why not navigators?

I am supposing the Guild might actually have some tolerance for rogue navigators. In the long run, they come back. In the short turn, they do little harm. It never comes up in the books just because the Guild does not advertise the phenomenon.

Those examples all seem like mind control to me!

So, how would you model the use and effects with GURPS mechanics?

I think we are just disagree about the term “addict”. I wish I had used a softer word. As you note, the nobles all consume modest amounts of The Spice (to extend their lifespan). But its properties are such that they cannot stop taking it, right? I feel like that makes them addicts, but is it enough they all present the blue-tinged eyes? For a BG or noble, is it suspicious for them to have the tell-tale sign, or suspicious if they don’t?

Most of them would only die if they stopped taking it to the extent that they would begin to age at normal speed again.

They don't all have blue-tinged eyes, either. That's exceptional, again, mostly just a few super-heavy users and Arrakis-residents. At one point, Paul muses that his mother will soon display the blue-on-blue eyes as they flee into the desert, she doesn't have it yet.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by beetle496

Those examples all seem like mind control to me!

So, how would you model the use and effects with GURPS mechanics?

It's 'mind control' in the same way a child snaps to attention when he hears a certain note of anger in his parent's voice, or a sharp command from a drill sergeant jerks a green private around. It happens before the target even has time to try to resist.

But it only works momentarily, when you have time to think about it, you can choose to do something different. Jessica can order you to drop your gun in that just-so tone, and you do it before you think. For just an instant, you're a little kid and you heard your angry mother tell you to do something and it cuts past your conscious mind. A moment later you realize you shouldn't have done it, but it's too late.

In GURPS terms, it would be a command that has to be obeyed, as long as:

1. You can hear it. Deaf people are immune, full-blockage ear plugs will protect you. Probably, a device that distorted sound as it entered your ear might let you hear it safely, because it would throw off the frequencies and make if 'off'.

2. The user has to have had time to study the subject and get an idea of what they are programmed to respond to. This esp. true for someone from a different culture. The user must of course know a language the target speaks, and probably it would only really work well in the native tongue (-1 for other languages, maybe.)

3. The target has not been trained to resist it by the BG or someone, or otherwise a special case (I really, REALLY don't recommend trying Voice on Leto the Second, for ex).

Under those conditions, I would model it as a command that the hearer MUST obey, no saving throw usually allowed, but the command has to be something that can be executed in one turn.

Any longer than one turn and he or she has time to realize what's going on and do something about it. So 'drop the gun' works. 'Halt.' works. 'Silence!' works. 'Go to the engine room and selectively sabotage the power grid for decks six and ten and then go assassinate the chief engineer' does not. 'Shoot such and such' might or might not, depending on how long and involved it would be to shoot x.

But if you had a gun aimed as a prisoner, 'fire', would work, even if it was a loved one or something.

If someone has been hit with Voice over and over and over, he might begin to develop a resistance to it, that's what the BG tell their initiatives to use it sparingly. After a while, a person who's been hit with it repeatedly might start being allowed a Will roll to resist, initially at a high penalty but improving with exposure.

Also, a person intentionally trained to resist by the BG or Leto II or someone might get a resistance roll.

I hope that is not true! One of the appeals of running a Dune campaign over ST or SW is that it feels a little bit more ‘crunchy’.

It depends on your metric.

Dune's physics is on the softish end, but not nearly as much as SW. It's politics and sociology is far grittier than most SF. It doesn't pretend that religion is going away in the future, and the feudal empire isn't in any sense romanticized. Likewise, Dune eschews happily ever after, hard.

Herbert does have reasons for things being the way they are in the empire and afterward, and he considers what x implies about y.

[AllenOwen]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Quoted from the original Dune book :









Which would put the annual commercial spice output at 16 tons, not including :
-harvesting by the Fremen (most of them addicted) - a lot of it was used to bribe the guild into not reporting on the Fremen activities
-smugglers
-whatever the Harkonnen stockpiled on the side.

Ok that's where I got the 10 billion Solaris figure.

What actually kills a spice addict? I don't think rapid aging does it. Guild Navigators use so much spice gas they need a lot.
The Dune Encyclopedia, which is semi canon, says that spice stimulates growth of K-K cells in the brain, and when the spice is withdrawn, these cells begin to die, resulting in insanity followed by death. Nothing about rapid aging, and seems to imply the speed at which you die is directly proportional to how addicted you are. The more addicted, the faster you go insane and then die. It doesn't take much, and Navigators take a lot.

I don't see how a Guild Navigator would go "rogue" or "freelance", given the strictness of the caste system, but whatever. I would not do it in my game.

I can see how PCs might be members of a noble household, working to advance the house's goals. PC's are the Mentat, the Warmaster, the house physician, the swordmaster, spymaster, etc. Or work for the mentat, spymaster, etc. Duncan Idaho, Gurney Halleck, Thufir Hawat, Thufir's men, Gurney's men, etc.

I can see PC's being the ruling members of a house. Duke Leto, Paul, Lady Jessica, etc.

I can see PC's starting out as slaves for a house, not necessarily the Harkonnens, but I'm sure there are other houses that are almost as bad. The game starts with them trying to escape, or foment rebellion, or evading their former masters when they escape. Gurney Hallack,again

I can see the PC's being smugglers having to use Guild Hieghliners as a method of transport. Risky, as the Guild won't like it (or maybe won't care, as long as the smugglers pay their fee), since the smugglers might not want or can't afford to pay. Hence the risk, and therefore, the adventure. Esmar Tuek

You could play members of the lower castes on a planet, but why? Seems boring to me.

Due to the nature of space travel, Dune does not really serve as a sandbox, where you have a ship capable of folding space, and have to rely on the Guild. One way you can do this, is the PCs are members of a house's staff. Maybe you all work for the house spymaster/master of assassins, and are given a ship that will allow you to travel, and enough funds to pay the guild to transport you where you need to go. Maybe you are given considerable autonomy; keep your receipts!

A slightly more fleshed out example:

House Smallhouse is attacked by House MenacingTBadperson, damage is done, lives lost. House Smallhouse is too weak and small to retaliate overtly, so they send a small group of assassins to hunt down the members of House MenacingTBadperson responsible for the attack, wherever they may be. They will be given operational funds to travel where they need to travel and whatever else they need to do the job, but they must keep receipts!

The above is the basic plot of Munich.

But whatever. I would be more interested in GURPS mechanics for the Voice, or stats for weapons, or martial arts styles. Stats for Sardaukar, etc.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by AllenOwen

I would be more interested in GURPS mechanics for the Voice . . .

Look at Voice of Command, on p. 49 of the Discworld Roleplaying Game. You can be confident that Terry Pratchett had read Dune before he created the original ability, and the GURPS implementation seems pretty solid.

[AllenOwen]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Look at Voice of Command, on p. 49 of the Discworld Roleplaying Game. You can be confident that Terry Pratchett had read Dune before he created the original ability, and the GURPS implementation seems pretty solid.

Ha! Gives me an excuse to get Discworld :)

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Quoted from the original Dune book :

Good memory! Thanks.

[A Ladder]

Originally Posted by AllenOwen

But whatever. I would be more interested in GURPS mechanics for the Voice, or stats for weapons, or martial arts styles. Stats for Sardaukar, etc.

Here's my crack at The Voice.

The Voice
You can make your target follow a single simple suggestion. This ability functions much like Suggest on p. B191, except that it costs no FP and only requires you “register” your target for 1d seconds. Then make a Quick Contest vs your targets Will and your The Voice (skill). Your target will obey for 1 second plus 1 second per margin of victory. Modifiers as per Suggest on p. B191.
Built As: Mind Control (Takes Extra Time 2, 1d Seconds Of "Registering", -20%; Suggestion -40%; Reduced Duration, minutes to seconds, -35%; Nuisance: Cannot Concentrate -5%; Based On (Will, Skill: The Voice) +20%) [10]

Skill: The Voice (Will/Hard)

(GM’s should restrict players from purchasing this ability to only those characters that have Bene Gesserit training).

[Plane]

Originally Posted by beetle496

The navigator could have sequestered a lifetime supply ahead of time.

Do you recall anything about what the shelf life / storage time is for that? Been years since I read series but I can't remember if that was mentioned anywhere.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Something else to keep in mind that's part of the background of the world, though Herbert didn't usually emphasize it, is that the various BG and Leto the Younger breeding activities have had race-wide side effects. Over the course of Leto's multi-millennial reign, the average reaction time, alertness, speed, strength, etc. of the race all sharply improved. At one point, a Duncan Idado ghola who had only the physical baseline common to Paul's day discovered that even an aging bureaucrat was out of his league physically.

I feel like a bad fan for not remembering this, should definitely reread series again. I had read everything up until Mentats (still hadn't done that) pausing around the Sisters supplement.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

The BG also make a point of using the Voice sparingly, because if you use it all the time, people will start developing mental defenses to it.

That or just start killing BG on sight or ignore the Butlerian Jihad and start building Droids to Order 66 you. The BG want to be somewhat respected/feared but still underestimated.

Originally Posted by beetle496

And exhale too. A lifetime supply for a navigator might only be a cubic meter.

I have to assume that breathing/digesting spice somehow denatures it as it affects the body to slow aging / create prescience so that whatever byproducts are produced by metabolizing it don't have the same effect.

Otherwise you wouldn't need to keep taking it or buying it, you could just easily re-consume it from waste products.

If this were possible the the navigators never would've been scared by the Emperor controlling Arrakis or threatened by nuking the supply.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Miles Teg's time is about 500-600 generations from now. Miles is further from us in the future than Menes of Egypt is in the past.

I'm wishing I owned a copy of Heretics to actually find the passages describing his enhanced speed. I can't remember much about it other than him beating up HMs and I can't remember how much faster than normal humans they were meant to be.

I mean... maybe it's assimply as BG being x2 to normal humans, HMs being another x2 (x4) and MT being double that (x8) so maybe he just has 80 DX or something?

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Under those conditions, I would model it as a command that the hearer MUST obey, no saving throw usually allowed, but the command has to be something that can be executed in one turn.

Any longer than one turn and he or she has time to realize what's going on and do something about it. So 'drop the gun' works. 'Halt.' works. 'Silence!' works. 'Go to the engine room and selectively sabotage the power grid for decks six and ten and then go assassinate the chief engineer' does not. 'Shoot such and such' might or might not, depending on how long and involved it would be to shoot x.

But if you had a gun aimed as a prisoner, 'fire', would work, even if it was a loved one or something.

If someone has been hit with Voice over and over and over, he might begin to develop a resistance to it, that's what the BG tell their initiatives to use it sparingly. After a while, a person who's been hit with it repeatedly might start being allowed a Will roll to resist, initially at a high penalty but improving with exposure.

Also, a person intentionally trained to resist by the BG or Leto II or someone might get a resistance roll.

Since a lack of resistance roll isn't really possible in GURPS terms, I'd just say model it as a large enough penalty to reduce the effective will of an average person to 3 (so -7)

There would always be a SLIGHT chance of it not working (if they rolled the critical success)

That's only if you had it be non-contested though.

If you decide it as a Quick Contest then even a 3 wouldn't guarantee success. You could just have the BG be so good that they'll always tend to have a Margin of Success big enough to create a Margin of Victory.

As for guys who resist better over time, there is the "Increased Immunity" limitation, but since that only applies if they successfully resisted... NOT if they failed...

So allowing people who failed to resist better I think is probably easiest to just have them buy Resistance (Voice Only) as an advantage.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Plane

Since a lack of resistance roll isn't really possible in GURPS terms, I'd just say model it as a large enough penalty to reduce the effective will of an average person to 3 (so -7)

There would always be a SLIGHT chance of it not working (if they rolled the critical success)

That could be used to represent a failure on the part of the BG adept to get it right.

The nature of the Voice is such that an untrained person really can't try to fight it, but you could use the resistance roll to represent a failure on the part of the BG in the event of the critical success.

Now a trained person is another matter, they could try to resist.

So allowing people who failed to resist better I think is probably easiest to just have them buy Resistance (Voice Only) as an advantage.

An Advantage like that really doesn't fit into the Dune world, except for someone who was part of one of the breeding projects maybe.

But this is a case where a technological defense ought reasonably to be possible.