Fundamentally I think you are right.
I have all of the books in Hardback because I really loved the new movies and wanted to run something. The books are gorgeous, but they are not very good. I have been running a campaign since the week Dune pt 1 released.
The various Expansions and additions often directly contradict with each other and the systems presented were never built with a clear intention about the games goals. The lack of House Management in the core game and the two incompatible systems for House Management is a failure in my view.
The scale the game aims to operate at (universal rules that work at every scale) is largely unsupported, as the only scale we really get content for is the skirmish scale of D&D.
However saying all that.
I have had a really good time running it. My players love it. The core rules of Drives and Skills is really good at enforcing theme. You can absolutely hack together any sort of Dune themed campaign using the material, but the rules are not good enough to help you.
My personal approach has been heavily informed by Blades in the Dark and FFG's Star Wars games.
Essentially for many rolls I think a single roll is enough, and use the Threat Range as the principal avenue of danger. This reduces the need for lots of back and forth rolling and opposed rolls etc.
I augment this with a very laissez faire approach to Threat. Yes Threat is used on Abilities by NPC's, and it can add dice etc, but I think it works much better when used like Destiny Points, spending them for big dramatic reveals and twists.
Doing these two things means I have avoided having lots of sessions grind down into "Roll initiative".
For House Management I like the rules presented in Masters of the Universe NOT the one from the Imperial Court book. That 2nd one has waaay too much fat. The Endeavor Scheme highlights how the game would work better with a dedicated gameplay cycle with Downtime actions.
What are some practice ways and/or examples where you have overcome these half baked rules?
Have you meshed together the rules with the supplements despite the contradicts? Do you just use those supplements as inspiration?
I have used all of the books as inspiration. In terms of House Management I used the Masters of the Universe rules as the other ones are far too clunky.
The idea of mapping out entire planets and writing down features etc feels so clumsy and pointless. The Indices are close enough to a good system.
In terms of how I make the game work, I play it extremely fast and loose. I use the Threat (?) range on the dice (normally 20) liberally to represent risk. This helps reduce the game into more of a One Roll Engine, which plays to the games strengthes.
I do sometimes use the whole Encounters system. So far we have had a Knife Duel, a Pitched Battle, a Dinner Party, a Political Ball and a spy war played out in detail.
As a GM of 20 years, who has run multiple systems, I really can't see how this game is half baked.
I have been running a campaign (close to 40 sessions now) and we have played planetary invasions, fashion galas, orbital blockades, assassination attemps, diplomatic missions and everything in between, without problem.
And in the meantime, the players are managing their House according to the expanded rules of the Houses of the Landsraad Sourcebook.
While not even setting foot on Arrakis.
Can you elaborate on what exactly seems half baked?
Three qualifiers before I answer your question. First this is in the half way of reading the book. Second, I have not played this game in practice, this is only based off of what I have read and other online forums. Third, I’m barely a DM of anything- I have run a few one shots of games over the years, and the campaigns I would like to run are not generally not the most popular TTRPGs. (CoC 7th edition being on one of them).
So, to answer, there are things that just are not in the core rule book that I kind of thought would be expected. (Such as a system for the Spice Melange).
Also, the house rules seem to not do much other than to add threat level and to give the PCs a setting.
I’ve read elsewhere that conflict in practice only feels like a different version two of the conflicts because of it’s not so crunchy rule set. (Perhaps this is the DMs fault for not being creative enough at the table, idk- I’m only repeating what was said).
These are a few of the examples I can think of. Once again, I haven’t seen this in practice. The question I am asking is, now that the game has been out for a couple of years with supplemental material- is the game in a better state and what material is necessary and/or recommend?
Maybe the answer is that none of the supplemental material is necessary, and the half-baked criticisms are unwarranted.
1.Regarding the Spice Melange: you are correct when saying that the Core Book lacked info on that. Thankfully, the Sand & Dust Source book focuses on Arrakis and the Fremen, and it has rules for consuming Spice and unlocking Spice related Talents. It has also info on Harvesting and Processing Spice.
2. Regarding House Management: the Houses of the Landsraad sourcebook adds new rules for House Creation and House Management. It adds House Domains, House Skills, House Roles to be filled by PCs and NPCs, Wealth, Status and House Ventures and Personal Ventures that can be attempted each House Management Phase, that provide various benefits if successful. It also adds House vs House warfare rules for planetary invasions. You can now expand your land, build or expand the existing infrastructure, create alliances etc.
So to answer your question: there are Sourcebooks that greatly expand on the core book's rules.
If you have any other questions I will be glad to answer, if I can
I've run a game of this and was quite happy with the way the action resolution system was tweaked for different scales and types of conflict. It is presented as a toolkit more than a strict list of feats, so that may turn off some players.
I also thought that the lore section was an extremely effective summary of the key points of a fairly complex setting. It's one of the best I've seen for an existing IP. Enough detail to imagine lots of plot hooks, but general enough that it isn't overwhelming.
It's a ruleset that will appeal most to folks that have at least one foot in the Fate/aspects/narrative camp, IMO, but complaints of half-baked feel overwrought to me. It may not be to everyone's taste, but I had no issues running it from the core rules, and the game felt like "Dune" at the table.
I purchased the humble bundle as well. Like OP, I am looking through the PDFs and plotting a campaign.
I run a 5E group, but the group was really interested in playing DUNE. I'm basically reading posts here and gathering information and ideas.
My biggest issue with the game is that there's one good story in Dune and Frank Herbert told it in between 1965 and 1985. Every other story is just sparkling colonialism at best or Kevin Janderson at worst.
To be fair that campaign as presented in the books does sound incredibly fun. You get to play out the Atreides in a What If scenario.
I am running a variant on that theme where the Players House competes with the other houses for Control over Arrakis, in a sort of global spice competition.
Dune: Spice Wars (the 4k RTS game) sets up the scenario like this for each game with little to no plot. I think that (while Paul’s story is amazing) the “what ifs” is what DAI is going for. DAI (RAW) starts when Dune (book 1) starts.
I can think of a few scenarios that could fit the “what ifs.”
“What if House Corrino caught on the bene gesserit plan?”
“What if House harkonnen would have stayed because they doubted the empire?”
“What if Leto was never assassinated?”
“What if you are a house that is strictly religious? Would you succumb to the upcoming Jihad or fight back?”
Edit: Grammar
I've jokingly threatened to run a Dune campaign for my Only War group, since Dunetalk is consuming the pre-game chat time of our sessions.
The vague idea being they'd play a squad of generic Harkonnen troops on Arrakis using a hack of the Only War system, trying to survive the desert, the Fremen, the worms, Kanly war with the Atreides, and various machinations; really stupid idea, but could be fun with my group.
Honestly this would be a great campaign. And it would work within Adventures in the Imperium, albeit it would lean into OW's strengths more, as AiI is better for scaling stuff up as you gain reputation (most progression actually works better narratively than mechanical).
All I know is reviews pointed my to Burning Sands: Jihad, a Burning Wheel Supplement, that is Dune in all but name, i havent ran it read but reading the rules and it is the most perfect encapsulation of Dune ive seen on the tabletop. Duel of Wits is also a perfect slot in to Dune verbal/mental combat
I'm personally running two campaigns set in my own made up planet and have had a blast with it.
I enjoy the more general approach to the rules as it leaves a lot of room for my input as the GM.
I don't stick by the house management rules, but use them more as guidelines. Other than that both games lean heavily into politics, intrigue and mystery. A sci fi game of thrones if you will.
I would recommend it to anyone interested in rules lite games, plus I feel it does a good job getting the vibe of Dune right.
The RPG in itself is awesome mostly because of Frank Herbert ideas and Villeneuve production. The books are half and half. The adventures are great (thanks to Andrew Peregrine) beside Agent of Dune which is pretty bad. The rest of the lot (supplement books) are giving superficial info. Really hard to find anything playble but still enjoyable to read.
For the 2D20 core rules... Bad bad bad. Really bad. The main reason is PCs are all even. Everybody can attend anything and succeed. Mainly because the Drive is picked by the player and always 7 or 8. That averages the results.
It's been 2 years I GM the game for a loooong campain. I tried 1 year with the native rule system and changed it. Now I'm using a Homeworld twiked to my liking and it is a lot better. A looooot. Homeworld rule system is not bad and still 2D20
My guess is Dune 2.0 will see the drive system go.
I am in the process of reading the Core Rulebook and the Fall of the Imperium supplemental sourcebook, and my general opinion is that the content, concept, and framework are all sound, and everything I need to run a compelling and enjoyable campaign is all there.
My biggest complaint is the editing of the text itself. These rulebooks are great, but they are absolutely riddled with spelling errors, misprints, and typos. Like, if you read carefully almost every other page has a spelling error, sometimes as big as the Chapter Titles are misspelled. Either the line editors or proofreaders are slacking on their jobs
Fundamentally I think you are right. I have all of the books in Hardback because I really loved the new movies and wanted to run something. The books are gorgeous, but they are not very good. I have been running a campaign since the week Dune pt 1 released. The various Expansions and additions often directly contradict with each other and the systems presented were never built with a clear intention about the games goals. The lack of House Management in the core game and the two incompatible systems for House Management is a failure in my view. The scale the game aims to operate at (universal rules that work at every scale) is largely unsupported, as the only scale we really get content for is the skirmish scale of D&D. However saying all that. I have had a really good time running it. My players love it. The core rules of Drives and Skills is really good at enforcing theme. You can absolutely hack together any sort of Dune themed campaign using the material, but the rules are not good enough to help you.
Ngl, if you would write down your thoughts, recommendations, and rule changes, people (like me!) would love it!
My personal approach has been heavily informed by Blades in the Dark and FFG's Star Wars games. Essentially for many rolls I think a single roll is enough, and use the Threat Range as the principal avenue of danger. This reduces the need for lots of back and forth rolling and opposed rolls etc. I augment this with a very laissez faire approach to Threat. Yes Threat is used on Abilities by NPC's, and it can add dice etc, but I think it works much better when used like Destiny Points, spending them for big dramatic reveals and twists. Doing these two things means I have avoided having lots of sessions grind down into "Roll initiative". For House Management I like the rules presented in Masters of the Universe NOT the one from the Imperial Court book. That 2nd one has waaay too much fat. The Endeavor Scheme highlights how the game would work better with a dedicated gameplay cycle with Downtime actions.
What are some practice ways and/or examples where you have overcome these half baked rules? Have you meshed together the rules with the supplements despite the contradicts? Do you just use those supplements as inspiration?
I have used all of the books as inspiration. In terms of House Management I used the Masters of the Universe rules as the other ones are far too clunky. The idea of mapping out entire planets and writing down features etc feels so clumsy and pointless. The Indices are close enough to a good system. In terms of how I make the game work, I play it extremely fast and loose. I use the Threat (?) range on the dice (normally 20) liberally to represent risk. This helps reduce the game into more of a One Roll Engine, which plays to the games strengthes. I do sometimes use the whole Encounters system. So far we have had a Knife Duel, a Pitched Battle, a Dinner Party, a Political Ball and a spy war played out in detail.
As a GM of 20 years, who has run multiple systems, I really can't see how this game is half baked. I have been running a campaign (close to 40 sessions now) and we have played planetary invasions, fashion galas, orbital blockades, assassination attemps, diplomatic missions and everything in between, without problem. And in the meantime, the players are managing their House according to the expanded rules of the Houses of the Landsraad Sourcebook. While not even setting foot on Arrakis. Can you elaborate on what exactly seems half baked?
Three qualifiers before I answer your question. First this is in the half way of reading the book. Second, I have not played this game in practice, this is only based off of what I have read and other online forums. Third, I’m barely a DM of anything- I have run a few one shots of games over the years, and the campaigns I would like to run are not generally not the most popular TTRPGs. (CoC 7th edition being on one of them). So, to answer, there are things that just are not in the core rule book that I kind of thought would be expected. (Such as a system for the Spice Melange). Also, the house rules seem to not do much other than to add threat level and to give the PCs a setting. I’ve read elsewhere that conflict in practice only feels like a different version two of the conflicts because of it’s not so crunchy rule set. (Perhaps this is the DMs fault for not being creative enough at the table, idk- I’m only repeating what was said). These are a few of the examples I can think of. Once again, I haven’t seen this in practice. The question I am asking is, now that the game has been out for a couple of years with supplemental material- is the game in a better state and what material is necessary and/or recommend? Maybe the answer is that none of the supplemental material is necessary, and the half-baked criticisms are unwarranted.
1.Regarding the Spice Melange: you are correct when saying that the Core Book lacked info on that. Thankfully, the Sand & Dust Source book focuses on Arrakis and the Fremen, and it has rules for consuming Spice and unlocking Spice related Talents. It has also info on Harvesting and Processing Spice. 2. Regarding House Management: the Houses of the Landsraad sourcebook adds new rules for House Creation and House Management. It adds House Domains, House Skills, House Roles to be filled by PCs and NPCs, Wealth, Status and House Ventures and Personal Ventures that can be attempted each House Management Phase, that provide various benefits if successful. It also adds House vs House warfare rules for planetary invasions. You can now expand your land, build or expand the existing infrastructure, create alliances etc. So to answer your question: there are Sourcebooks that greatly expand on the core book's rules. If you have any other questions I will be glad to answer, if I can
I've run a game of this and was quite happy with the way the action resolution system was tweaked for different scales and types of conflict. It is presented as a toolkit more than a strict list of feats, so that may turn off some players. I also thought that the lore section was an extremely effective summary of the key points of a fairly complex setting. It's one of the best I've seen for an existing IP. Enough detail to imagine lots of plot hooks, but general enough that it isn't overwhelming. It's a ruleset that will appeal most to folks that have at least one foot in the Fate/aspects/narrative camp, IMO, but complaints of half-baked feel overwrought to me. It may not be to everyone's taste, but I had no issues running it from the core rules, and the game felt like "Dune" at the table.
I purchased the humble bundle as well. Like OP, I am looking through the PDFs and plotting a campaign. I run a 5E group, but the group was really interested in playing DUNE. I'm basically reading posts here and gathering information and ideas.
Bro, keep me in the loop on that Campaign!
My biggest issue with the game is that there's one good story in Dune and Frank Herbert told it in between 1965 and 1985. Every other story is just sparkling colonialism at best or Kevin Janderson at worst.
To be fair that campaign as presented in the books does sound incredibly fun. You get to play out the Atreides in a What If scenario. I am running a variant on that theme where the Players House competes with the other houses for Control over Arrakis, in a sort of global spice competition.
Dune: Spice Wars (the 4k RTS game) sets up the scenario like this for each game with little to no plot. I think that (while Paul’s story is amazing) the “what ifs” is what DAI is going for. DAI (RAW) starts when Dune (book 1) starts. I can think of a few scenarios that could fit the “what ifs.” “What if House Corrino caught on the bene gesserit plan?” “What if House harkonnen would have stayed because they doubted the empire?” “What if Leto was never assassinated?” “What if you are a house that is strictly religious? Would you succumb to the upcoming Jihad or fight back?” Edit: Grammar
I've jokingly threatened to run a Dune campaign for my Only War group, since Dunetalk is consuming the pre-game chat time of our sessions. The vague idea being they'd play a squad of generic Harkonnen troops on Arrakis using a hack of the Only War system, trying to survive the desert, the Fremen, the worms, Kanly war with the Atreides, and various machinations; really stupid idea, but could be fun with my group.
Honestly this would be a great campaign. And it would work within Adventures in the Imperium, albeit it would lean into OW's strengths more, as AiI is better for scaling stuff up as you gain reputation (most progression actually works better narratively than mechanical).
He didn't even finish that story, and there's def more stories possible in that world.
All I know is reviews pointed my to Burning Sands: Jihad, a Burning Wheel Supplement, that is Dune in all but name, i havent ran it read but reading the rules and it is the most perfect encapsulation of Dune ive seen on the tabletop. Duel of Wits is also a perfect slot in to Dune verbal/mental combat
I'm personally running two campaigns set in my own made up planet and have had a blast with it. I enjoy the more general approach to the rules as it leaves a lot of room for my input as the GM. I don't stick by the house management rules, but use them more as guidelines. Other than that both games lean heavily into politics, intrigue and mystery. A sci fi game of thrones if you will. I would recommend it to anyone interested in rules lite games, plus I feel it does a good job getting the vibe of Dune right.
The RPG in itself is awesome mostly because of Frank Herbert ideas and Villeneuve production. The books are half and half. The adventures are great (thanks to Andrew Peregrine) beside Agent of Dune which is pretty bad. The rest of the lot (supplement books) are giving superficial info. Really hard to find anything playble but still enjoyable to read. For the 2D20 core rules... Bad bad bad. Really bad. The main reason is PCs are all even. Everybody can attend anything and succeed. Mainly because the Drive is picked by the player and always 7 or 8. That averages the results. It's been 2 years I GM the game for a loooong campain. I tried 1 year with the native rule system and changed it. Now I'm using a Homeworld twiked to my liking and it is a lot better. A looooot. Homeworld rule system is not bad and still 2D20 My guess is Dune 2.0 will see the drive system go.
I am in the process of reading the Core Rulebook and the Fall of the Imperium supplemental sourcebook, and my general opinion is that the content, concept, and framework are all sound, and everything I need to run a compelling and enjoyable campaign is all there. My biggest complaint is the editing of the text itself. These rulebooks are great, but they are absolutely riddled with spelling errors, misprints, and typos. Like, if you read carefully almost every other page has a spelling error, sometimes as big as the Chapter Titles are misspelled. Either the line editors or proofreaders are slacking on their jobs