While most of you may well have ordered and got this by now,
I thought it worth highlighting the Preview going out with preorders today.
The 82-page preview pdf includes the full rules and conflict chapters from the Core Rulebook as well as an introduction to the Dune setting. An adventure ‘Desertfall’ is also provided, with six pre-generated characters, all elite agents of House Atreides. Desertfall takes the player characters to the planet Arrakis as the vanguard of their House as they assume power on Dune. Under a cover mission, they are there to check the Residency for enemy agents. If they fail, the family of Duke Atreides may be in deadly danger. Desertfall may be played on its own, or as a prelude to the Core Rulebook adventure ‘Harvesters of Dune’.
Once the corebook is out in pdf we won’t be including this anymore and it won’t be going out to anyone but preorder customers.
We had great fun with a version of this in the play tests.
My players only got almost killed once, though the poor gambling den… It didn’t deserve what they did to it.
My group and I did NOT enjoy Desertfall until I aggressively revised it, sadly, and was very close to killing any interest in the game. At a glance though the addition of a second agent who is not based in the Residence is a significant improvement, as it’s pretty much what I had to crowbar in. Fortunately my changes went down a storm and they are very interested in revisiting the game in the future
In brief, I cut out most of the red herrings (which seem dangerous in RPGs), tweaked the remaining ones into plot threads to loop back into the main plot, expanded the role of the gambling den and water market. I then turned one of the water sellers into a Harkonnen catspaw who smuggled the materials into the Residence for the assassin, had several encounters that ended with the players discovering her dead in her house and fighting off a Harkonnen team cleaning up loose ends. This led to an interrogation and some other stuff that finally led to a tense running battle between the assassin and the players in the Residence to cap it off
Cool!
You might be surprised to learn that seems to be how many people run it.
The gambling den is designed to allow you to expand it a little more and I’ve been a little surprised how many people have picked up the Harkonnen spy angle from the water seller and really run with it. I like the idea of her sending resources into the Residency.
If you’ll pardon the pun, the adventure is designed to offer a sandbox approach so it can go a few different ways.
I created a Harkonnen agent at the Landing Port which had a similar role in providing access for spies into the city & residence.
The other area I expanded, based on where my players focussed, is a gambling den tied to Arvio which I used to expand the underworld & smuggling aspects.
I also had a secondary background element for Talia of the Caladan underworld following the Atreides to Arrakis. Mainly to explain why she knew people on a different planet well enough to have them as Assets.
In general I will read per-made adventures and then liberally steal ideas and scenes from them for my own games, but never run them as written.
Though this is partially because my player group will come up with left field ideas all the time and I have to think on my feet.
This is one of my concerns, too. - I am of an age where my eyes (even with glasses) are not what they were decades ago. A PDF version I can zoom in as much as I need to read it comfortably, but if a printed book has too small a font in use for the main text, it is stressful and tires my eyes very soon.
I wish more RPG products would be produced with some regard for readers of such a (developing) disability.
I agree, I think designers are not very accepting of people with poor vision (even video games have this issue). My vision is terrible and even on my laptop I have to have the font at over 150% zoom to read.
General query to those that struggle to read the smaller text, what size font would be the best to use? And does the background contrast have an impact on that?
Any examples of good/bad rpg books for this issue?
I’ve worn glasses since I was kid and while it has now stabilised I expect as I work through my 5th decade it probably will start to deteriorate if my family is anything to go by.
Though I am also aware that the Devs need to balance text size in regards to both legibility and also space available. The larger the text the less they can put in. But if people struggle to read it, then the text is wasted.
I’m afraid to say the preview layout is the same as the corebook so that will be the text size.
Although the book being larger than most tablets it will look bigger in physical form.
I’ve got one of those big ipads and the text is slightly larger than the forum on that one.
(having hit 50 this year my eyesight isn’t that good either but I’ve found it ok)
That’s why I pretty much always own a PDF version too. Can zoom a little bit, take the strain off my eyes, and hopefully retain quality eyesight for a few years more.
I’ve seen several notices of getting this preview pdf, but I participated in the game testing, and pre-ordered it. Where were we supposed to get this preview copy?
This is the Desertfall RPG book preview.
I got it as a link from Modiphius after I placed my pre-order.
Email from noreply@sendowl .com
The title was an order number.
Yup, the preview is ‘Desertfall’
If you’ve not had it, but have preordered anything with a corebook you should be due one.
Drop our customer service a line with your order number if you haven’t had a copy yet and they’ll sort you out.
Hello,
How can I obtain the Dune Corebook Preview Desertfall, just to discover and test the game, in preview to buy the complete Corebook ?
Is it still possible? For free?
If you are after testing the game then the Quickstart pack has the same characters as the Desertfall preview. The adventure it showcases is a bit shorter, but still gives you a solid feel of the mechanics and nature of Arrakis.
As for Desertfall itself Modiphius has said it was a pre-order bonus but it will be being released as a paid for adventure later on.
