Traits and Contradictions

Dune: The Roleplaying Game
1

Hello, I’m trying to make sense of the traits rules, and they seem kinda contradictory in a couple of ways, so i’m hoping someone could help me make sense of it:

My current read of the rules is is that you should end up with 2-3 personal traits (and one House Trait)
1- Your personal reputation or personality
2- Your Archetype
3- Your faction (if applicable)

HOWEVER there’s a lot of contradictions to this. For example, the Pre-made character does not have anything that would be considered an archetype trait. Instead she has “Noble” and I have no idea how she could have gotten this trait.

The rules say, " You may change or expand this if you wish, to something unique and befitting your concept, but the trait provided by your chosen archetype should serve as the basis for whatever you create." But I really don’t think a generic ‘Noble’ fits this description.

Additionally, the rules say “A character’s first trait should always mention the House to which the character belongs or serves. Examples include ‘Duke of House Atreides’, ‘House Atreides’ Master of Assassins’, or ‘Consort to Duke Leto Atreides’.” Which just doesn’t match any of the other trait descriptions or examples in the book.

Moreover! Quite a few NPCs and supporting characters in the book have the traits “Noble” or “Military” which lends me to believe that these traits should be relatively common instead of impossible to actually get (unless they count as a secret faction trait, or someone’s personality could just be ‘Military’)

2

Any trait can be phrased any way you like. As time went on we’ve tried to keep them to single words as its easier, but they don’t have to be. You could even make them a whole sentence but that would make them a little awkward in play. The longer they are the more specific, so broad is best to get the most use out of them.

Usually the starting traits break down into 1) Character position/role, 2) Character reputation, 3) Faction if applicable.
So, Kara is a noble, she is known to be Honourable and she is also a Bene Gesserit.

But the key here is that you have 2-3 traits to start with. You can pick ‘Assassin’ and ‘Spy’ if you wanted to or ‘Kind’ and ‘Wealthy’. Its just that ‘who you are’, and ‘how you are seen’ are good overall ways to get a rounded portrait of the character and what they can do.