"Additional Dune Role Playing Elements" Topic

As I said elsewhere, STAR BLADES is not Dune, though Dune is the heaviest influence on it. There were several elements of Dune that I purposely did not include, simply because I thought they would confine roleplaying possibilities a bit too much. For example:

The Navigator's Guild: If one all-powerful organization controls spacefaring, then space battles become impossible, and it becomes too easy for the player's to be pulled like puppets on strings. This makes for a good story, but stultified role playing.

Melange: The spice confers great mental powers, and I could imagine it being a really neat "magic item". However, it seems that if such a substance existed, it would go exactly like Frank Herbert predicts, and the stuff would come to
dominate everything, again, stultifying role playing.

Thought on how versions of these could be added in to the game?

Thanks.

As for the Melange – make it more readily available and lessen the powers it grants or make the risks of taking it much, much higher.

Variation on Spice: The great mental powers only go to those that have a special gene. to 99.999 percent of the population it is just spice. To that special few it is SPICE! with all the powers it entails. This allow for the BG and "rengade" families.

Reduce the power of the Navigators guild. The guild may be the only organization that can train folks to navigate hyperspace, but they don't have the resources to build interstellar ships. There are also enough guild renegades that the players can afford to hire one (or choose one as a character) for their own nefarious purposes.

Well, the Spacing Guild had to be involved to allow transporting attach craft. They didn't stop it as long as they got something in return.

Melange is just a commodity. There's no reason to avoid having it in a game -- like gold, diamonds or tetrachratractium.
As Saber6 wrote, it only had a profound effect on a small minority of people.

The Navigator's Guild: If one all-powerful organization controls spacefaring, then space battles become impossible

No, it makes interstellar space fleets impossible. The Spacing Guild had no problems transporting both sides in a conflict to a warzone (often in the same Heighliner), and Dune mentions combat ships. Plenty of opportunity for battles in planetary orbit.

If you start making things too Dune like, then you risk getting in trouble for stealing intellectual property rights. And since Dune has been licensed several times in the past to gaming companies it's not like it's not in someone's interest to come after you.

Eclectic Wave "If you start making things too Dune like, then you risk getting in trouble for stealing intellectual property rights. And since Dune has been licensed several times in the past to gaming companies it's not like it's not in someone's interest to come after you."

Dude, its a free game.

Dude, its a free game.

Tell that to the corporate lawyers on retainer. Having initiated several web-based copyright lawsuits for my old company, I know of what I speak. You can pay people to play your game and it still violates TM and copyright infringement.

CPBelt "Tell that to the corporate lawyers on retainer."

Sigh. You miss the point completely. How many times have I seen lawyers due exactly the technically correct thing at trial, only to get killed by the jury?

Point is: If I got a notice of violation, sure, I would take it down, make it less Dune-like, and put it back up. However, two points:

1. Nobody in his right mind is going to sue me for money damages on something as trivial as this

and

2. When the COPYRIGHT holder sends me a notice, then I'll take it seriously. TMP's meddling grannies can get bent.