Dune PBEM

I'm sure Tom mentioned something about doing Dune PBEM ages ago, but it's never taken off as that I'm aware.

There's certainly a Vassal module, although it does look a little clumsy.

So, I think this is a really great idea, and I'd love to do it. So unless the last attempt died off for practical reasons (such as Dune being poorly suited to PBEM or similar) I fancy resurrecting it and pushing it forward.

Who wants to play?

Yeah count me in Matt.

I'm up for that as well.

Me too, but this time, we really need someone who's going to be comitted to keeping it going.

I am definitely in

I would be keen to actually be in a PBEM at F:AT that finished ;-p

And since I have a copy of the game that doesn't look like it will get played due to lack of opponents, unless Notahandle or MattDP can scrounge up the other five, then this might my only chance to play in the foreseeable future

Southernman wrote:

I would be keen to actually be in a PBEM at F:AT that finished ;-p

And since I have a copy of the game that doesn't look like it will get played due to lack of opponents, unless Notahandle or MattDP can scrounge up the other five, then this might my only chance to play in the foreseeable future

I hear you brother. I've tried to organize 2 games of Dune in the past few months to no avail. Hockey playoffs killed the first attempt and two last minute cancellations ( 1 a hangover) killed the other.

Dr_Mabuse wrote:

I hear you brother. I've tried to organize 2 games of Dune in the past few months to no avail. Hockey playoffs killed the first attempt and two last minute cancellations ( 1 a hangover) killed the other.

Oi !!!

Get the fuck over to the Galactica thread and take your girly turn before your sorry human ass gets toasted.

Some games work better than others in PBEM. Offhand, it seems like Dune would be about average. It doesn't have any good opportunities for simultaneous play, but it doesn't have any hideous chokepoints where there is a lot of back-and-forth play.

Southernman wrote:

Dr_Mabuse wrote:

I hear you brother. I've tried to organize 2 games of Dune in the past few months to no avail. Hockey playoffs killed the first attempt and two last minute cancellations ( 1 a hangover) killed the other.

Oi !!!

Get the fuck over to the Galactica thread and take your girly turn before your sorry human ass gets toasted.

Shit yeah! heh heh (blush)

Okay, well all of you check in with me at matt *underscore* thrower *at* hotmail *dot* com, get yourselves a copy of the Vassal module, the rules, and the player aid sheets and get reading! I'll get back to y'all shortly for setup. Be sure to read the "Using the Dune module" section under Help in Vassal - it's not straightforward, and everyone needs to be sure they're doing things right.

I'm up for playing what appears to be the most commonly regarded version of the rules, which includes all but one optional rule and none of the advanced rules. You can find a handy cleaned-up summary, incorporating FAQ clarifications, popular house rules (which we'll use) and the like, here:
www.starbasejeff.com/games/dune/dune_rules_starbase_v20.pdf
If we all download and refer to this, it'll save much confusion. That site also has a copy of the player aid:
www.starbasejeff.com/games/dune/dune_playeraid.pdf
And you might need a copy of the player shields for setup as well:
www.sorvan.com/games/dune/Shields/Shields.pdf

Having been through the rules myself, I have doubts about how well this will work PBEM. It seems workable, but it will be slow, especially with six. But let's give it a whirl and see. One thing we can't really do, as fas as I can tell, is stick rigidly to the Guild "turn interjection" rule as that would slow things down to a snails' pace. If the Guild player can interject at the appropriate point then fine, he takes his turn out of order. But if the moment has passed, he'll just have to wait.

Tom, you're only allowed to play if you publicly reverse your vote on the Diplomacy/Borderlands trashdome and include a copy of an email of apology you're going to send to the designer of Diplomacy, acknowledging his greatness and the immense contribution he's made to the hobby. Oh, and photos of you publicly burning a copy of Power Grid as well.

Matt, how do you want to dole out factions?

Dr_Mabuse wrote:

Matt, how do you want to dole out factions?

Was planning to do it ran-dom-lee.

I'll be interested to hear how it goes. I feel like it would be really slow and fiddly to do in a PBEM format, but if I'm wrong, I'd be up for participating in a future attempt.

Still waiting on an email address for lollocaust and mjl1783. Then I'll assign factions.