Heighliners (The Dune Idea!)

[jeffel]

ToxicSlurpee said:


For three - Kanly, the Emperor, laws, and such. The game can't implement them Last I checked, but players could agree to it ahead of time. Problem is, there will always be SOMEBODY that glasses a plent with atomics and then whines when everybody else declares war on them. 'course, that could also lead to interesting things as the people that follow the laws all side against the people that don't. Of course, the Emperor would get tribute and such, and would have a mega amount of resources, but should never be powerful enough to take on EVERYBODY.

This doesn't sound that bad. As long as everyone who signed up was up for a highly political game, this would be just fine.

ToxicSlurpee said:
For four - You just KNOW somebody would be unhappy with a universe where only humans existed. Either allow other races and throw off the whole idea of Dune, or say "HUMANS ONLY." 'course, we could allow modifiers for different houses (Ix would have that nifty research bonus, Harkonnen would be uber-sneaky).

For five - What do you do with the Bene Gesserit, Spacing Guild, and so forth?

Actually, I would think that you would want to implement the Bene Gesserit, Fremen, etc as separate races. Each race would be "human", but with different races. In fact you could go the whole way and implement each house as a different race.
Fremen - Combat bonuses (especially ground)
Harkonen - Espionage bonuses
Atredies - Commerce and possible production bonuses
Corrino - Depending on the era you want, give them Shardukar (represented as combat bonuses)

The Space Guild could be represented by having massive "organics/cash" costs for building the highliners AND a massive upkeep cost for Highliners. Make the maintenence cost high enough and you could force the houses to disband or mothball them as soon as they perform their missions.