Hey. I am just preparing to my first session in Dune and I have one possibly dumb question:
Where does players assets for conflicts like espionage, intrigue or warfare come from? I really don’t see direct answer in a rulebook nor on forum.
The simplest answer would be that they have what is listed on character sheets but it seams to me that possessing a military unit or a bunch of spies is not really a valid option for a player’s character. It is rather asset their house have. So as a GM do I assign assets arbitrary before conflict basing on what players house may have in store? Or do they need to create / obtain assets in some other way?
I’ll be grateful for any hint here.
When your players do character creation they should choose 3 assets that they would have as standard.
These could be personal (a knife), intangible (blackmail material) or ‘House’ (a squad of Guardsman).
The player is assumed to always have access to these (where appropriate of course, a thopter in a ballroom may be stretching it)
The House assets may be seem odd, but not if you think about it as the House has assigned these to the character.
They can always generate them in play by using a D2 action to requisition them from the House, but they are temporary requests and may be refused if they fail the roll.
For military conflicts it is harder. A squad of Guardsman or even a full unit is reasonable, but a thopter squadrom and a tank division less so.
For these conflicts, where it is essentially the House acting not the individual character, then I would (and in my campaign did) provide assets to the players for them to use.
There are no dumb questions! 
There are a few gear changes in the Dune system so happy to help answer anything.
All the assets your character have are owned by them.
So the unit of soldiers is loyal to you. They may also be loyal to your House but you have command over them and if they all die the house will replace them.
There are some assets you can always be assumed to have, or be lent.
So everyone has a knife if they need one, and your characters might be given command of a troop unit for a battle. Losing those assets would mean they don’t get replaced, but in the meantime you can use them as if you owned them.
One of the keys to Dune though is your character picking the battleground for any conflict or test. It is not the GM saying 'you have to go after this guy with espionage, what asset do you have? Oh dear, sucks to be the war general."
What should happen is you tell the GM you want to get this NPC, and they say “ok, how are you going after them?” You look at your assets and reply that you have a troop of soldiers, so screw the rules of Kanly, we’re going to visit his planet and blow his apartment up.
Essentially each player should be looking at their character’s assets and skills and directing their goals and plans to gain the best advantage of their abilities.
Note that not every test needs an asset. Assets either let you make a roll when you’d not otherwise be able to, or grant a bonus.
So you don’t always have to have blackmail material as an asset to try and blackmail a noble.
You can tell the GM your plan is to make him think you have something and bluff, so you just make a test without the asset bonus.
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Hey, thanks for all hints.
I think I will go more into skill test to request asset or just assume that characters have it.
In my case players characters are middle ranged agents of their house so listing military troops or even bunch of spies in their “character sheet” assets seems a little odd. I want to give them a chance to try different conflicts as well as switch sometimes to architect mode so it seams right to give them access to what house may have.
Thanks.
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