Check Out The First Dune RPG Art Preview

Modiphius has shared its first preview of the upcoming Dune tabletop roleplaying game -- it's a piece of art!

Polygon has some more information. The game will use Modiphius 2d20 System (as expected). You can create your own House or join one of Dune's existing major Houses.

Modiphius has a diverse team on this project. Chris Spivey, who you may know from Harlem Unbound, told Polygon that "The books themselves were very white-cis-male-focused. I wanted to attempt to expand that world, bringing different marginalized groups to the front. My goal was to show the history of humanity is vast and inclusive, and to explore the struggle as one where we must all work together to succeed." Khaldoun Khelil, another member of the team, talks to Polygon of his experiences in the Sahara desert -- "“Herbert was also very concerned with the environment, and the his focus on water and the desert as a living place has a special place in my heart as I’m half Algerian".

 

[imagineGod]

I do not think anybody here is saying every single game must be D&D. Just that many more people already know how to play D&D type games. Also, many people like the Dune universe, just like many people like Stargate (it had like 10 seasons on TV, each of at least 10 episodes).

Considering all the above, the creators of the Stargate RPG chose to bring the new edition to D&D 5th rules.

For now we are all just speculating. Maybe, once both games are published, we can then compare the sales of that Stargate RPG including its Kickstarter pledges versus the pre-orders for Dune. Then we may actually see the evidence whether the non-D&D choices for Dune were financially savvy or not.

 

[aramis erak]

Considering all the above, the creators of the Stargate RPG chose to bring the new edition to D&D 5th rules.

For now we are all just speculating. Maybe, once both games are published, we can then compare the sales of that Stargate RPG including its Kickstarter pledges versus the pre-orders for Dune. Then we may actually see the evidence whether the non-D&D choices for Dune were financially savvy or not.

I'm interested in both... I backed SG1, and have playtested for Dune... and plan to preorder.
Direct comparison, tho', is horribly conflated with the fandom size of each, as well as the expected boost for Dune when the new movie releases. Right about the time the preorder opens.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I'm interested in both... I backed SG1, and have playtested for Dune... and plan to preorder.
Direct comparison, tho', is horribly conflated with the fandom size of each, as well as the expected boost for Dune when the new movie releases. Right about the time the preorder opens.

The new movie isn’t releasing till next year now. It was pushed back because of Covid.

 

[Cergorach]

I think a lot of us have filled in the skin color of the Dune characters based on the original movie (1984), and the computergames (which imho also took a lot of cue's from the movie). In the same way Nick Furry will always be Samual L. Jackson and 'God' will always be Morgan Freeman in my eyes...

As for Herbert not writing inclusively... What do you expect of a white man born in 1920, in the US, with no internet. If not for actually mentioning skin color, how would an African American be different from a white American, not exactly a different culture... Quite a few of my non-white colleague's have very western (first) names, now go a couple of thousand years into the future, how would you even know based on a name or a sci-fi/fantasy culture what kind of skin color someone has without the writer explicitly describing that? I also doubt that someone in the US in 1960-1965 would get any good books on the current culture in other parts of the world. Historic culture, maybe...

The question becomes: What do you want to portray? A realistic future society or a current politically correct distribution of skin color? Based on the US or the world? A realistic future society could be an absolute mixture of all skin colors when everyone breeds for a couple of thousand years. Or it could be that in the intervening millennia integration as we now know it fails by accident or design. Heck, the Bene Gesserit could be a bunch a nazi nuns that have been breeding the ubermesch for millennia... My recolllection of the initial six books was that things were not that black & white (pun intended), you can imho pretty much fill in the skin color of the Dune universe in whatever you want, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the Tleilax were as blue as Smurfs... ;-)

Could you cast the important Dune characters in different skin colors, sure, but you better make sure that you have very strong and compelling 'actors'. Imho that would work in movie/television, but a lot less in illustration, as it's just a different illustration of an already established character vs. someone actually playing a character. Imagine someone casting David Hasselhoff as Nick Furry instead of Samual L. Jackson! Oh.. Wait... I cannot unsee that, it's just extra bad that they actually cast DH as NF! But that illustrates my point very well. A famous white actor was cast as Nick Furry, but imho a very strong actor (Samual L. Jackson) made a much better fit for that role in the end...

I think that Mophidius doesn't have a challenge due to how Herbert wrote the books, but more due to how the later movies, series, (computer) games made his universe look like his universe was predominantly white. I'm curious how the previous Dune RPG dealt with that...

 

[Corone]

For the game, we've taken the attitude that with whole planets to recruit from, every House has a mixture of pretty much every ethnic background among their agents, and that is isn't an issue. Your allegiance to your House is way more important than skin colour to pretty much everyone in the Imperium.
My honest apologies if that picture didn't offer that representation to anyone. I'd not considered the figures to be white, more a mixture of tanned skin tones. Either way, we have more art on the way which will hopefully show this.
In general, we are looking to support diversity in all its forms in both the setting and the art (even under cloaks, veils and face masks).