Dune and Lazguns vs Shields

Dune has been big lately. I have seen so many article about it. Recently, a friend told me they were impressed with the rules for adapting Lazguns vs Shields because it had these rules:

  1. Everybody else will come down on you and your House like a ton of bricks. They can and will end you.
  2. You have a 50 / 50 chance of EITHER the lasgun OR the shield blowing up.

I’m going to explain why I think these are bad rules and are bad because they are misguided and are addressing the wrong thing.

What Is The Rule?

Dune has a kind of famous rule, as much for its impracticality as its effect:

  • When you shoot a lazgun at a target protected by a shield, a nuclear explosion is created at the target or the shooter, and so no one uses lazguns against shields. Instead, it’s a setting that relies on melee combat and slow-moving projectiles.

Now, look at what this rule really represents in the setting:

  • No-one uses lazguns against shields.

It’s clear that Frank Herbert wanted a setting with some of the trappings of sci-fi, but wanted heroic fencing duels not gunfights. This rule was created to justify that, and it works only when every character in that setting is created by and has the mind of one person – the writer.

This rule would be broken immediately if you have anyone other than the creator in the setting. If you have a group of PCs in the game, they will be immediately thinking about how they can use nuclear explosions (and patting themselves on the back – often justifiably – for how clever they are being).

In an RPG rules manual, the game mechanics have to come up with rules to address this potential exploit, because that is what many players will see – a potential exploit. That’s why those two rules above exist.

The Big Problem With These Rules

On the one hand, you have players looking for ways to take advantage of the ability to place nuclear explosions where they want them, and to work around the existing rules to stop them. For instance:

  • Everybody else will come down on you and your House like a ton of bricks. They can and will end you.

You should be able to imagine ways to take advantage of that rule, or at least to exploit it to deviate the planned adventure for that evening. This might cause the GM to pull their hair out.

And then there are situations where people use a Lazgun vs an opponent they don’t realise has a shield – or try to create a situation where “we didn’t realise our target had a shield, honest guv.”

So this Lazgun vs Shields effect works only when you have player buy-in – when all players have agreed that this should be a rule in the setting, and it makes things fun. But what happens when you don’t have buy-in, bu play anyway? Or lose buy-in during the session (say, when a player decides to kill off their character).

Imagine you have a player who doesn’t care whether their character lives or dies, or worse, is trying to get themselves killed and doesnt care who they take out with them. Of course, they are going to shoot someone with a shield.

Here is a mechanic tailor-made for flashy player-death, and if you want to take out your own group, is there a better way to do it?

What Should The Rule Be?

Some GMs may bridle at this possibility, and argue that the people who do this are playing the game wrong. And they are right!

Look at what the rule is really for – ensuring that conflicts are not solved with gunfights, and there is lots of flashy, fancy melee fighting. This is what the rule should be:

  • Lazguns exist, but cannnot be used against anyone with a shield.

It’s perfectly fine to include some supporting text which points out this is a game, like:

  • This is a game. It has been found that firing lazguns at a shield causes a nuclear explosion, so it is agreed that no-one ever does this . Yes, it is a silly rule and in reality, people would try to exploit this, and maybe they already have, but in this game, in the present time, that doesn’t happen. This GM will never use this exploit and players cannot. It’s a game, deal with it.

Now, if a player ever tries to use this exploit, whatever their reason, you tell them, “Sorry, you can’t do that – it’s a rule.”

If a player intends to be disruptive, they are going to be disruptive anyway, but the GM has rules text to support them against this particular avenue (which is what the above rules were all about).

Now, you have the rule working as intended, and have game text to point to when players try to exploit it. The game will play out as intended.

In Conclusion

When adapting media to an rpg, don’t just look at the text, look at the intended effect. Then come up with rules that support that intend4ed effect (or accept that it will not work as intended – that might be a good thing too sometimes).

Now what about every ship in the Traveller rpg coming with a nuclear bomb in a setting with pirates and ships owned by itinerants paying mortgages. Over to you.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.