There is a cure:
1: spend words on more asset creation rules and tables.
2: spend less words on snowflake mitigation.
3: everyone realize that discourse and rhetoric should not be veiled insult confrontations, which is what some people are doing in attempts to shoot other people’s thoughts down.
FACT: their needs to be more asset fleshing out.
FEELING: well, you are just a juvenile newbie gamer and should just be more like the rest of us.
FACT: let’s see if we can sort it out and make it work for everyone.
FEELING: system is inviolate. SCREEEEE!!!
That’s how I see this progressing and it’s atypical basement dwelling courage and ego getting in the way of discussion.
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And what effect does spice have on a PC? Let’s say that one of your PCs wants to sample the melange. What happens to that PC? Do they suddenly see the future? Do they become hyper aware? How much did it cost and how did the PC pay for it? The entire Duniverse revolves around melange and yet no rules for its use or abuse?
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You can’t force someone to like a game/system. People have levelled all sorts of criticism against 2D20 as well as Dune’s more abstract approach to that system. Some people dislike momentum/threat while some people dislike that all assets are essentially the same with the exceptions of quality and keywords.
I feel like the approach taken with Dune was done largely to help players “tell stories” within the universe without getting bogged down by the X-32 Decimator Lasgun has +1 accuracy but takes an extra action to reload. Rather they just abstract the assets. A lasgun, a Crysknife, an Ornithopter: they’re all weapons that defeat/kill. The only real difference between them is really just the range at which they can do it. Some will disagree and some will demand more detail. What KIND of Ornithopter? whats its speed? how many guns does it have? does it have anti-tank missiles? some need to see that written in the rules and some don’t care.
this is 100% valid. The Core book does not appear to address it in any way.
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Fair point, but there is a whole heap of detail about it in the next book though.
For the most part, even in the novels it doesn’t have much direct effect unless it sparks an ability, in which case for game purposes its the ability we’re interested in.
It main doubles lifespan for those who take it regularly, but that doesn’t really have an effect in an rpg.
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Ironically, this sort of post is what usually makes such discussions much worse.
We are looking to expand all the detail in the game, but a whole chapter on Assets alone is (I feel at least) a pretty solid and reasonable amount of text. So it is not a fact we need more on them in the book.
I am more than happy to help people get to grips with what I appreciate can be something of a gear change in terms of expectations on the forum.
If by ‘snowflake mitigation’ you mean the small amount of notes on optional safety tools, 3 pages is also perfectly reasonable. I’m absolutely not apologizing for including them or the minimal amount of space that they take up.
I’m perfectly willing to accept the system may have flaws, all systems do.
But if it is being accused of flaws it doesn’t have because someone is not clear on how it actually works I am happy to address those. If people still don’t like it thats up to them.
With respect, that you thought it was clear, may go some way to explaining lack of clarity in the rulebook.
It is absurdly clear for game writers, and beta-testers - who have tons of experience with a system, even at the conceptual level - to think any given example is clear and obvious.
That is almost never the case; the way to work out if your explanations are clear and obvious is to show it to someone who has no experience of it; if they can’t get it you need to look at either a) how you are explaining it, or b) the thing you are explaining.
All of the replies I have had here telling me it is my fault I don’t get it seem to come from people already familiar with your 2D20 system.
Beyond this forum, which like all proprietary forums has the tendency to become an echo chamber, I haven’t found a single person who read through the rules once and understood them; whether you admit it publicly or not, that IS a problem.
It took me less than two hours to understand, completely, how the original WoD rules worked, it took me 3-4 hours to get my head around the full 5th Ed DnD rules. Even now, after 30 years since I last ran it, I could run MERP (one of the most crunchy, complex games ever) almost from memory.
But after 5 days of reading Dune I still have no idea how to run a session.
I respectfully suggest, that is NOT a problem with me; it is a problem with either a) the product, or b) how the product has been explained to completely new users (I have some experience of this, I wrote the instruction manual for the then Mayor Of London’s new Housing Management System back in the early 00’s).
Oh there is.
I am now rewriting the whole thing using the AGE System (a rules set that actually works) for my own game.
My players, like me, want to play Dune - but we also want a set of rules that works, and makes sense, and after 5 days of reading and re-reading the rulebook it is clear the Dune rules do neither.
Melange being severely glossed over was the only real mistake I see in the game. I would love to see a table on assets and asset creation and a glossary, but alas.
Melange is too important to put off to another tome. In canon, a briefcase of melange can buy a planet. At its highest price it’s over 600,000 Solaris a decigram. We even know how much the Harkonnens took out of Arrakis in a year. We know that Guild personnel are highly addicted to it as a wine and a gas to the point of having the Eyes of Ibad. Millions have died to produce it, houses have risen and fell from it, and when it’s supply is endangered, ALL the Great Houses dispatched armies to Arrakis to get it flowing again. And the Sardakaur were dispatched in huge numbers to take it back.
So maybe some rules on its use, abuse, and value would be in order?
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I very much agree this should have been a core book concern. It needn’t be that complex, just 1 page would have been enough.
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Fair enough. I’m not saying ‘you have a problem so its your fault’ but I am saying many experienced gamers come at it with certain expectations that hamstring them getting to grips with this one. Once these expectations have been addressed most people have found the system not only simpler than they thought it was but enjoyed the level of player involvement and narrative inclusion.
I remain happy to answer questions if you would like further clarifications on the specifics of rules.
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As to spice, I’ll accept it may have been useful to include more rules detail.
But in terms of the corebook it is more a maguffin that drives adventures than an item of equipment that requires detail.
We should have added a specific Spice asset, I’ll accept that would have been helpful. But the book is not absent of detail on spice, what it is and how important it is. What is missing is a rules section, which, given the narrative aspects of the game, isn’t really necessary. As an item, spice is basically just a valuable (which is why is it added as an option for a valuable Asset (p212).
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Andy, it needs at most a paragraph. I personally believe it is immediately addictive and functions like a residual poison, maybe requiring less regular dosages, maybe a balance to SPICE ADDICTION trait is another trait or asset that supplies regular doses.
I can see how hard it is to play and run prescience but it’s a significant issue and it allows PCs to influence the meta plot by setting up plots of their own.
MAYBE Prescience as a skill focus allows success to remove threat from the GM and return it to the players pool. Make the requirement 3 successes, and for every additional success you take away a threat and add a momentum. Not game breaking but it does influence the future.
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Ah, “snowflake” being thrown around. I wondered how long that would take. The sign of a true intellectual argument, right there.
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I love it when someone tries to bait a person into an argument on intellect or lack of it. Sure fire way to get a post shut down. If snowflake and it’s use hurt your feelings, reach out to me directly so I can introduce you to some more.
Yup, that would make sense.
We can’t amend the corebook to that degree now but that basically where we’ve gone in the next book.
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Right, you can knock that off right now.
A certain amount of childish name calling from either side is regrettable,
but outright threats are when we start banning people.
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Yeah, I get you are not saying “it is my fault” and I am sorry if that is how it read; but that is the sub-text of some the other replies I have received.
Over the period of the pandemic I have purchased more RPG books than in the previous 5 years or so; I think I have purchased 10 different games, and only two of them share a core mechanic - Alien and Forbidden Lands, so I have spent a lot of time reading different rules sets, that do things differently.
So the only thing I really expected was that by the time I had read Character Creation, Core Rules and Gamemastering I would have all I need and sufficient understanding of the system to be able to run a session or two; and to do that in the Dune Universe… …that’s it.
I have now read Core Rules, Conflict, Assets and Gamemastering three times each, and I still have no point of reference for running a session.
And simply saying “well Dune is more abstract than you may be used to, you have to rethink how do things” doesn’t really cut it - ALL of that should not only be spelled out A,B,C style in the Rulebook, but there should be side-by-side Narrative vs Rules examples.
There is a narrative “example of play” but as it is nowhere near the rules, nor references them it is - as a tool to assist Players or GMs trying to learn the system - next to pointless.
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I would not make a good gladiatorial duelist as I want to eliminate the dancing around and get to the point. No playing to the crowd for me
I agree this could have been done better. The fact that its placed before the rules, makes it meaningless when reading the book front-to-back for the first time. I’m also with you on the reading the rules part: they are not the easiest to understand. I’ve been playing RPGs for almost 30 years, but i’ll admit that most of them are whats called OSR style games. Thus far, Dune would be my first real forray into not only 2D20 but this somewhat unexpected super-narrative keyword driven freeform type of game. But as I read through the rules I start to conclude that while i’m confident that i’ll be able to come to some kind of understanding about the rules I start to see how most of my players likely won’t. One of my players might enjoy it, but the others might just well firmly reject it. They’ll start hearing things like “move an asset” or “an asset is also a trait” and their heads will explode. Modiphius’ Dune is rather advanced stuff, I feel it takes a risk. With the film coming out soon, more players will discover Dune and this RPG and many are going to come to the same conclusion that RedneckRPGer has. It wont surprise me to see players asking where they can find copies of Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium from Last Unicorn Games.
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It’s confusing if you try to apply other games mechanics to it: I realized it’s best to use the 2d20 systems close to it to get what you need. That’s what I did. Weapons in Dishonoured were useful.