This is fantastic, Spike. Thank you for sharing.

Quote from: Majus;980045This is fantastic, Spike. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks, I enjoy the work

I'm rather shocked at how I just let this die... I thought I'd done more work on it?  Anyway, I was recently reading through the archived 'FATAL and Friends' threads, specifically for Fading Suns and Dune:Chronicles of Imperium, and so I thought I'd give this another look. Having re-read the posts I'm feeling about 50/50 on what I did.  I think my approach was backwards, especially early on, and based on Chronicles of the Imperium, my attitude on Minor Houses and the Faufreleches system was... glib and misguided.

I've got some personal business that will be taking up most of my time this weekend, but my intent is to do up an actual revamping of the Fading Suns rules, perhaps even hosted on Google Docs, and to set this as a campaign to actually be run (provided I get off my ass and put a group together again...), with an actual set of coded documents, which is what I should have done in the first place.    That will probably take some serious time/work and I may not get it up 'quickly', so I'll probably try to squeeze in some lighter, fluffy work in the meantime.  I'm still liking what I said about the military and the choice of setting period, along with the much more limited than I remember listing of Houses, so I'll mostly try to expand on that.

One problem that anyone should expect is that Herbert obviously stuck in something 'neat' like the Swordmasters of Ginaz, and left them at that because that was all he needed for his story. As a living setting for a game (as I covered before on a different topic (spice logistics, which, (sigh), will be revamped again I'm sure....), that's utterly inadequet, especially as seeing that in 10191, the Swordmasters of Ginaz are no more, or at least the school is no more.  Does that mean there are no other swordmaster schools in the galaxy?  Of course not, but Fandom being what it is, any non-canon swordmaster schools I create out of necessity (since i'm not Herbert, telling a single story of a single limited group of characters) will be viewed as some sort of fan-wankery bullshit non-canon wannabes.  The truth is that even in five books, covering thousands of years, we never even saw 1% of the setting, and thats an awful lot of gaps to fill.

Anyway. In the short term I expect to put up most of an improved coverage of Faufreleches and Houses Great And Minor, which will perforce touch upon the Landsraad as well, if only 'gently'.  That should be up in a few hours (maybe faster? I'm padding for time because even my 'short' posts tend to go on for hours and hours...), which will include some possible future mechanics to be adapted from Chronicles (the Last Unicorn Dune Game...).

As noted in the previous post, the Dune:Chronicles of Imperium game covered the Faufreleches system in a way that made me realize, in part, that I'd undersold the idea, and that I'd also been too conservative in my treatment of titles/ranks in Fading Suns.

I'll briefly sum up the Dune:CotI concept, then cover what it means for us here in Fading Suns land.

At the top is the Great Houses, to include House Corrino, they are ranked at 5
Under them are the Minor Houses and the Entourages of the Great Houses, ranked at 4
Under them are the various unaffiliated powers, the CHOAM administrators (To crib my own work), and such at 3
Under them are the freemen castes, merchants and common citizens, at 2*
Under them are the slaves, outlaws, and serfs 'non-citizens' at 1

What does that mean, aside from the fact that I handled minor houses all wrong?  Well, among other things it greatly simplifies titles and such. In fact, completely ditching the common F/S european style noble titles (British edition?), which is really only accurate to itself anyways, is actually a good idea. Characters should be buying their rank in the Faufreleches system directly, though perhaps with a few additional steps.  Baron Harkonnen and Duke Leto, and for that matter Emperor Shaddam IV are all social equals under Faufreleches, more or less, their actual titles are (Nearly) meaningless, or rather... aside from Emperor... only really have meaning within the Siridar Fief they originated in, and are utterly unrepresentative of power within the Landsraad and CHOAM.  For all we know, Shaddam IV is the Siridar Marquis of Salusa Secundus!

We can continue with the assumption that Kings and Emperors of various Siridar Fiefs may exist, but that simple Etiquette prevents the public use of such titles in the Landsraad, so you'll never hear them. Likewise, even in cases like Ix, where noble titles and fuedal rankings are rather passe, something that 'passes' for a noble title is still used by House Vernius for the same reason, though they may dress it up with Ixian titles (Comptroller-General?), as any given title is essentially nothing more than an Honorific saying 'Yup, I'ma Noble!'.  Depending on the House and Homeworld (Siridar Fief, anyway), the actual titles can be fairly exotic, though we can expect that a semi-standard ranking system is common (Count Rabban is beneath Baron Harkonnen, but Baron Harkonnen is equal to Duke Atredies, different Siridar, different  weight on the titles). One commonality however, is that a title comes with actual holdings. Paul Atredies has no title, but is only called 'the Dukes Son', because he has no holding of his own within the Siridar Fuedal system.  These are Mostly hereditary.

So lets address a mistake, and that being the role of Minor Houses. I'm going to disagree with CotI here, in that they weight the 'known' (depicted in the books/movies) Houses of the Landsrad as being somehow greater than others.  Wealth and power come from CHOAM holdings, as well as military might, but power in the Landsraad is purely political, and thus highly influenced by social abilities and alliances. All houses in the Landsraad are major houses, and any is capable of rising to be a threat or a player, depending on the capabilities of those holding the seats.

In keeping with CotI (and presumably greater canon), MINOR houses are houses that serve beneath the Great Houses, within the Siridar system, and lack seats of their own in the Landsraad. My own inclination is to suggest that they HAVE seats (and CHOAM holdings...), but are held in proxy state by vassalage, but I believe that contradicts the intent.  Minor Houses are related to their  Greater House, and in some cases may even become the Great House, and can work against their Lord towards that end, a dangerous game.  Minor Houses exist entirely within their own Siridar Fief, while Great Houses operate on the scale of Empire, if that makes sense.

Note that I am also contradicting CotI on the subject of Noble Titles, simply because Dune, the book, simply doesn't work that way.  Duke Leto only holds Caliban OR Arakis, while BARON (four steps below him on the political scale, at the very bottom of the Siridar Lords chart) not only holds more worlds (Geidi Prime, Lankiveil AND Arakis (at times), but is otherwise his complete equal in almost every measure.  If the classic feudal system implied in CotI existed, then we are missing, at the very least, another (presumably rival) Duke, whom Harkonnen would be in Vassalage to.   If CotI were correct then the entire Kanly between Harkonnen and Atredies is as relevant as the Mayor of Omaha being in a pissing match with the Governor of California, with the President of the United States using said Mayor to unseat the Governor....  its a fucking goofy analogy for a fucking goofy situation, so clearly Chronicles is wrong. Never mind that Count Rabban outranks Baron Harkonnen in this scheme!   (For those unaware: Count Rabban is, for much of the first book, the heir to the Baron, and is in all ways that count (and don't count) his junior, his vassal, his pet thug. In the CotI scheme, a Count is two full rungs up from Baron, halfway to being a Duke.

The reason this works out, title wise, is that titles are tied to planetary fiefdoms, while rank is tied to one's place in the Faufreleches, with very little mobility up or down.  House Harkonnen was all but exiled for their cowardice at the Battle of Corrino (the source of their Kanly with Atredies), but could not be removed from their place in the Faufreleches system, nor their Siridar Holdings, and so survived until they regained a measure of power.

Siridar essentially means 'planetary', by the way.  Baron Harkonnen is the Siridar Baron of Geidi Prime, while Duke Atredies may, or may not, be the Siridar Duke of Caliban. Seeing as Leto had to give up Caliban (even temporarily) for Arakis, we can presume his ties to Caliban are... politically/legally... less than the Harkonnen ties to Geidi Prime.  Again, disregarding the new stuff (which, in this case, I haven't read this portion anyway...), we can assume that Atredies received Caliban as a reward (possibly taken from Harkonnen) after the Battle of Corrino, so even after ten thousand years they only hold it at the sufferance of the Padishah Emperor, even though their titles, political power, and CHOAM holdings are inviolate.

This further follows, not just as a matter of tradition but actual Landsraad Law, that despite the complete destruction of House Atredies, Paul is still Rank 5, a Duke, and once he's proven his heritage, can claim legally everything that belongs to the House.  Even the utter destruction of the House, and the personal enemity of the Padishah Emperor cannot change that, so far as the Landsraad (and the rest of the legal structures of the Empire at that) are concerned.

For all that, there is some Upward Mobility in the system. No real 'downward' mobility, as we've demonstrated (and note that any healthy society needs both. Sparta famously only had downward mobility, and ran out of 'elites', which is a big faaking deal in pre-modern military terms.  In Dune the problem eventually becomes a top-heavy society too full of 'powerful' people with no real purpose or even ability, choking the life out of the system. As I noted in the earlier posts, the Emperor Shaddam is in fact the only observable moron in the entire setting (with Rabban being his closest intellectual peer... Rabban is less 'stupid' than 'thuggish', however)

We can assume that anyone may raise someone of a lower Caste to their own caste (within the five ranks observed) with little difficulty. A Landed Peasant may make a Serf on his land into a fellow peasant, a peasant may be raised to the Guilds, etc.  This sort of raising tends to default to hereditary, so when Gurney Halleck is raised from Slave (rank 1) to Householder (Rank 4), his children will be rank 4 automatically, even if they never serve (though what they will do for MONEY becomes an issue, thus 'solving' that problem in the short term).  Having been so raised, even if Halleck were to fall into the hands of the Harkonnen, or when he serves with Smugglers after the fall of Atriedes, as he does), he doesn't legally fall back to the Maula Caste (rank 1), though that would mean very little to Harkonnen.

The other element of Faufreleches is that power flows downwards absolutely. A Caste 5 can straight up murder anyone of a lesser caste without question, barring only patronage and so forth.  We can assume that it continues down, so that our hypothetical landed peasant can straight up murder a serf on his farm, only subject to oversight from those above him. Law exists only between members of the same caste.

This, in fact, is part of what makes those sumptory laws I discussed earlier so very important. You NEED people to understand your position so they understand the legal and political implications of killing you, or otherwise abusing their perceived power. If someone mistakes you for a member of a lower caste they might very well kill you over a perceived slight, and the legal fallout of that is small comfort to the dead.

Many organizations 'cross' lines. The Suk Doctors are generally all Rank 3, but the Suk Medical School itself is Rank 4, as are its most senior members.  Doctor Yueh is 'effectively' Rank 4 because he serves Duke Leto (Rank 5) personally, but in this case its probably not hereditary per se (that is, his children, if they took up doctoring, would be first choice for future Atreides dukes... or not, but would otherwise be treated as Rank 3, as befitting the children of a Suk Doctor).   You might say there is a formal and informal element to the system, based on Patronage (Again with Halleck: Due to the fact he was born a slave, in order for him to serve as Master of Arms his actual Caste has to be raised. A Slave in the House Harkonnen is still a Slave, though anyone outside of the House would treat them better than they would a Slave out in some random cornfield out of respect for the Baron at the least. Obviously this also has something to do with HOW the person serves. Yueh is a "hired hand", Halleck is full fledged member of the Household).


If that all sounds muddled, understand that the Faufreleches system was barely touched on in the twenty or so books that are out. It exists, its hereditary and restrictive, moving up is somewhat easy (Halleck), moving down is not (Harkonnen)... almost everything else is me patching the holes. (the actual ranks, and their names, I'm pulling from Chronicles of the Imperium, which has some official recognition from Brian Herbert)

For the purposes of Game, the Rank system is 'unified' for the purposes of Faufreleches, so you need to have the minimum Rank for your position, and a maximum set to your actual duties (that is, under the rank of your patron). A secondary system covering 'internal rankings' remains, but in many cases will be unimportant (such as Suk Doctors and Mentats, but not Bene Gesserit).

On potential element is that one's place in the system is not entirely set by birth.  If Paul Atreides goes off an joins the Navigators, he actually can lose his place in the Faufreleches.  Of course, he also removes himself from the potential role as Duke Atreides, which leads me into my next bit.


Something I touched on earlier was the role of Gender. I've gone a bit more gender neutral that CotI does, but mostly by suggestion.   One significant reason you only see male inheritance of titles in the Landsraad is actually the Bene Gesserit, who collectively are held as a non-competitive rival House in terms of political power and role.  The Empire doesn't really go in for 'serving two masters', what with all the treachery and backstabbing that goes on, and the Bene Gesserit teach all the noblewomen their ways... its mostly as a check on Bene Gesserit power that the nobility actively works to prevent women from taking political seats of their own, rather than out of a sense of patriarchal oppression.  Likewise if a noble signs up for service in CHOAM directly (not a Directorate Seat, but actually full service 'work') or joins the Spacing Guild or any other organization, they are generally treated as having voluntarily abdicated their noble titles and such... and on the rare cases they are brought back must formally renounce their duties and obligations to their former organization before they can inherit. Its a big deal, which is one reason why most nobles prefer to work within their own House... just in case.

This is also the reason why so many marrigable women (Princess Irulan) are merely trained to the standards of a Full Bene Gesserit, but are not actually 'robed', so to speak.  If Irulan 'joins' the Bene Gesserit fully before she is married, she cannot pass the titles and CHOAM holdings of House Corrino to her Husband (she is disenfranchised, and lowered to Rank 4, or even 3), though it is not uncommon for married women, particularly in stable poltical positions (IE no contest for heirs) to join the order later in life, donning the robes and 'resting' their Faufreleches caste on their Husband.

Beyond that, however, Dune's Imperium can be pretty open for women, as demonstrated in earlier examples.


Houses and Families:

Most Houses, Great and Minor, are made up of multiple families and bloodlines, in fact Atreides collapsing to only one small bloodline (for generations at that!) was part and parcel of what allowed Corinno/Harkonnen to destroy them!  Note that Harkonnen have at a minimum the Harkonnen, Rabban and Ruatha lines at that time, any one of which may control the Siridar Barony (the Great House itself), depending on any number of factors. Yet, as observed, even House Harkonnen, with its three families, tends to be small.    Traditions of inheritance tend to be near inviolable, which is why Leto doesn't marry and Paul refuses to bang Irulan, but its not that clear cut.  Loyalty to the House is generally a virtue even among the Harkonnen, and a weak heir may chose, for the good of their House, to forfeit (or alternatively be 'strongly encouraged and/or murdered' to forfeit) in favor of a more capable cousin.   Due to the possibility of vicious infighting Houses are always trying to balance the security of multiple possible heirs vs stability of one single heir. The answer is generally to spin off 'distaff' lines of non-inheriting families into the Minor Houses.

This is the great unspoken element of Dune (and is strongly supported in CotI, for the curious), that House Atreides wasn't destroyed on Arakis, per se. Count Fenring on Caladan was there in part to keep the Minor Houses under control (as well as forcing Leto to Arakis personally), so that when a 'new' Atredies assumed control it would be weak and unsteady for generations, no threat to House Corrino. THis also means that in many ways Baron Harkonnen was accepting a personal victory in the endless Kanly (killing Leto) over a permanent, but unacheivable, victory over the House... and no doubt Shaddam preferred that, as he could use the 'new' House to keep Harkonnen in check for generations to come.   Of course, the exchange here is that a new, weak Duke may also be able to claim Siridar status for the House, making it that much harder to 'remove' them from Caladan in the future...


Fostering and Friendships:

The game would be no fun if Nobles had no interactions aside from mudering one another and paranoia levels of infighting.  We know that there are freindships between houses, often due to familial relationships (Richese and Atredies due to Leto having a Richese mother (or... grandmother?), but there is more to it than that.  While the Heir to any given title may be heavily protected, non-inheriting nobles are encouraged to spend time in the galaxy. Paul is taught swordsmanship by Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck because he is the only possible heir,  Davis Richese, second son of the third concubine of the Duke of Richese, studies on Ginaz, possibly getting better training and rubbing elbows with his peers, as well as men of lesser castes who have full permission to kick his ass (at least in training), giving him a different outlook. Sure, Davis may, through any number of circumstances (including ambitiously murdering his relatives) rise to the Ducal Seal eventually, but until he does he has a pretty free reign to wander and socialize. Its not worth the hassle for someone from Ix to kidnap and torture him to death, and it probably won't even rise to a proper Kanly death, but it may result in a 'friendly' duel or two along the way.

When dealing with families, the primary motivator is the carrot, not the stick.  Among peers the general consensus is that any noble worth his spice is out for his House (which is the source of his wealth, power and privilege), and himself... and not necessarily in that order.  Even Baron Harkonnen doesn't resort to threats (much) to get Rabban and Fey'd to do what he wants, he dangles the position of Governor of Arakis and Heir to Harkonnen respectively, so a 'minor' noble of a Great House has as much independence as he wants.  Again: his wealth, power and spice are all gauranteed by the laws of Faufreleches, and while it is possible to simply murder him, its not entirely free of consequence.

But Houses have enemies, often ancient enemies, so even a minor figure rarely goes anywhere without an entourage, consisting in part of Householders and so forth, but also 'parasites', such as a Smuggler using him as cover, and if his own 'value' is low enough, other minor nobles with their own entourages...

... and thus we get a classic set up for a Fading Suns adventuring party!


EDIT::: bah, I 'rushed' it I guess, seeing as how I got side tracked or something and cut short the whole Fostering thing I was looking at.  Clearly allies will send not-likely-to-be-an-heir around to foster for a few years in a different house, possibly even hostage swaps mandated and regulated by the Landsraad for houses that are at odds, but still short of Kanly. In other words, there are unspoken reasons why the various Nobles of the Imperium have reasons to make friends and allies, eh?  THat's the quick and durteh of it, but since there is scant(no) evidence in teh books, any way you want to work it is as good as anything I write up, and probably feels more natural anyway...








* Technically there are no Freemen in Dune, so Landed Peasantry and so forth, though the exact level of 'not-free' varies wildly depending on the world and ruling House.

on a Note, since I'm tweaking the rule-set specifically to make it more 'Dune' than 'Fading Suns', I've been somewhat tempted to tweak the rules in other ways. Simply put: Fading Suns is more than 20 years old and  frankly wasn't designed by geniuses (they worked with White Wolf frequently, for god's sake!), so its got some cracks. Its light and fast enough to get away it, but that doesn't mean it can't be patched.

One example is the Spiritual/Social traits, which wind up being very useful in the system, but are inevitably horribly gimped because a: They are lower priority in design (intentionally or not), they are capped lower than other attributes by being set against each other on the same 'scale' as other attributes.

So, for example, a 'High' Extrovert score tends to be 5-6, rather than 8-10, as it is set in opposition to Introvert. This makes social checks and some Psychic powers more difficult because they use the same mechanic, or it means that 'Social Monsters' or psychics are weakened in Artistic traits (among other things) and OTHER psychic powers that rely on Introvert instead.

The simple solution in my mind is to a: Put aside 5 or so Attribute points JUST for these three pairs (Six additional attributes), while allowing people to yes, improve them with regular system, and b: setting the 'opposed' scale to 15 instead of 10, allowing for a somewhat more balanced pairing.  

I favor this simple fix off the top of my head (no play testing... I haven't played since 1e, honestly... much sadz) as simply cutting them removes an interesting set of mechanics, and requires reworking great portions of the skills/powers system, while more complex fixes (breaking them up and treating them like other attributes, for example) expands the attributes to absurd levels and misses that 'traits' like Passion/Calm and Faith/Ego actually generally have less value in the system except to measure your personal value system in an interesting, dynamic way.

The more complex fixes may make more sense (collapsing introvert and extrovert into one trait that is treated like a normal stat (Social?), creating a more aggressive opposition mechanic than simply limiting how high each pair can go collectively, etc), but then we're getting into 'Pay me money to be a game designer' territory, and frankly who's got the time for that noise?  



Another potential area I've got to look into is the damage mechanics, specifically with the 'power' of armor and the reported uselessness of shields (as 'rarely' does damage rise to the five successes necessary to trigger shields in teh first place.  I've noted in other 'reviews' from the same source that their grasp of mechanics is not always on point, but occassionally a facile mis-reading of something along the way, so I need to go over that portion myself to see if I see the same problem, and if so what is the most obvious fix.

On the other hand, providing the current work in progress as a 'how to Dune with Fading Suns' doesn't necessarily imply I have the mandate to punch the rules in other ways. In theory a proper character should be compatible between systems (pure FS/Dune FS) even if perhaps difficult to explain (like... Faufreluches rank...) to a Fading Suns Character.

Well, now I wish I played fading suns.

I wish Fading Suns had a better system.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1079602I wish Fading Suns had a better system.

I picked up "d20 Fading Suns" which gives it a workhorse system, but to my disappointment doesn't even attempt to be a complete game - I'd still need to buy actual Fading Suns stuff. Anyway it all felt much too metaplotty to me. But if you're going to run Dune then d20 FS might well be handy.

Don't mind me, I'm working in a Word Doc, as mentioned earlier, to give an updated Character Creation bit... for some reason I decided to be a bit more comprehensive than necessary, which means I spent a lot of time working on stuff I didn't need to, and now I'm a bit meh about doing the part that needed doing in the first place!  I'll get it up later this week, I'm sure!

Quote from: S'mon;1079616I picked up "d20 Fading Suns" which gives it a workhorse system, but to my disappointment doesn't even attempt to be a complete game - I'd still need to buy actual Fading Suns stuff. Anyway it all felt much too metaplotty to me. But if you're going to run Dune then d20 FS might well be handy.

yeah, I remember the d20 book being a huge disappointment.