Great review. Bought this at the local store yesterday and started reading. Dune game devs: You will not generally be playing on the planet Dune. Dune intro adventure: This adventure takes place on the planet Dune. Me: Exactly what I wanted.
This is consistently the most reliably thorough and thoughtful indie TTRPG review channels out there. I literally just finished reading Dune today and picked up the rpg book yesterday
I bought the game on the weight of this review, it was thorough and delved into everything I would have wanted to know. As a GM who has been doing this for a very long time, I like the challenge implied by the layered mechanics.
Absolutely phenomenal overview! Thank you so much for compiling this. It was a huge help for someone like myself who's GMed 5e games but is completely new to the 2D20 system. Our table is full of Dune lovers and I can't wait to take them on their first adventure through the Imperium!
Thanks for this. I am that guy. Dune nerd from hell, bought the whole setup, and reading up on the pdf's and building terrain until the whole thing comes in December.
Thank you for this superb review ! I bought my copy today and hearing you talk about the game in such clear " chapters " made it much more approachable for me. Earned a sub ! And about the art, it seems to be very inspired by the new Dune movie ! The Sardaukar with their white uniforms and the stillsuits look very similar to the ones featured in Villeneuve's take on the setting.
I found the dueling rules to be overly complex or convoluted or both. Moving assets around the space of the body, etc was a bit of a confusing read. I want to say that is because of the word salad that 2d20 games are famous for. That criticism aside, I quite enjoy the 2d20 system from Conan and John Carter, and this does seem like the logical step toward simplification for the system.
Great deep dive that makes me really want to create a campaign later this year. As a massive Dune fan, I'm so excited to explore this further and see the movie in a few weeks!
Love your videos man. You're the only channel that makes TRPG reviews on a quality of this calibre. Do you plan on making a review of the Fallout RPG by Modiphius when it comes out by any chance? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
@@DaveThaumavore I can understand that feeling, I will still recommend fallout new vegas for its great world building and personal stories the player can interact with.
@@saintmuerte13 New Vegas is such a wondeful compliment to F3. Though I cleared 500+ hours in F3 in the first few years alone, if we're including the DLC I'd actually rank New Vegas higher. But they're apples and oranges, really. All the same, the fact that New Vegas is such a deep game story/script wise despite the fact that it was 3rd party developed in hust the best part of a year and a half is astounding.
I "retired" from role playing around 1991 or 92 but still like to keep a loose eye on RPG developments. This looks very interesting and I ordered the book thanks to your review, even though I have no plans at my age to RPG. I will enjoy the book and imagine campaigns in my head that will never come to pass. People, enjoy your RPG time while it lasts, cause once it's over, it's over.
Young people be aware that this is not true. Many, many people are now entering their '70s and '80s still playing rpgs. Many people are only separated from it by death. If it's a priority for you, unless you're under extraordinary circumstances, you can play - more easily than before since finding people to play with is greatly enhanced by the internet. People raising kids generally just adjust how and when they play.
Enjoyed this video. I just found out today that a Dune TTRPG was out. I've read just about all the Dune books and I'd love to give this game a shot if/when I find a group to play with.
I have been running a game or Dune for nearly six months now its one of the best 2d20 games I have run besides Star Trek Adventures. I love the depth of this game within a very rules light system. It totally does the setting just and plays very well to the political intrigue that is the Dune Universe. I wouldn't say the it's main focus is just the first novel because there is plenty of info on other era's of play but I do believe that there is more info on the first books era than the other era's but that's probably because of the fact that the movie was coming out and the art was focused on concept art from that film. My series that I am running is taking place about 10 years prior to the opening events of the first Dune novel. Thank you for the review.
I’m super glad I found this channel, in the past I had only found majority poor vids on a limited number of games. You cover a ton of the details so well #fJura
This is very interesting, one of my friends is running a campaign where each player has a stake in some land and is starting a settlement in a medieval fantasy setting. We only have one character and a few roles but the goal is to eventually become something like a noble running their part of the settlement and eventually have one of their children inherit whatever they were doing to win/continue the game. Big fan of dune and this actually looks like it has some great ideas/mechanics in it.
The Dune 2 game has the "Ordos" faction who aren't mentioned elsewhere apart from a reference amongst a list of names of other houses in what was a non-canon source book because it wasn't written by Frank or his son. Seems the book got approval at some point. So home made factions have been around for a very long time. A challenge of the RPG would be making a game fun in which the source material is working against the common fantasy of player's actions mattering on a larger scale. Might be a good book to poach ideas from.
always a big fan of games where the players get their own faction between them this game reminds me a bit of the a song of ice and fire rpg running it outside of arrakis could still be very doable and good i think, with a dm of the "just write a book man" type with a lot of dune knowledge also absolutely not intended but (keep the mech rules for if anyone gets in one) this is a way better system for playing Karrakin characters in Lancer than Lancer actually is
The homeworld of House Ito is Shikaku Prime. "Shikaku" in Japanese means "square" shaped, but planets are round. On top of that House Ito's crest is a triangle... :-p
Big fan of Dune. Have played this game a couple of times, which was great, but the combat system seemed a little clunky. Hoping to GM a session of this soon, & this video was tremendously helpful to get me back in. Much thanks.
Could you please elaborate on how the combat system is clunky? I'm new to TT RPG games. But I love Dune and after playing one session of a custom RPG many years ago I really wanna give it ago.
Hi@@AdvancedSquadLeader. In our sessions the combat slowed the narrative down. It felt very stop-start-stop-start & didn't flow very well. We had one duel scene in one session, one skirmish scene in the next. It just didn't help with the narrative, I felt. The skirmish scene was the better of the both, but the duelling scene just went on & on. Maybe it was just the (un)luck of the die. Hands up, 2d20 is very new to me, my experience being 1d20 and 1d100 games (DnD; CoC).
about the novels: i highly recommend reading dune. i recommend reading it several times actually. You'll need it to fully understand everything that's going on. Dune messiah is also worth a read, mostly as it adds some extra information and context. Children is also good, but sets up a lot of stuff for the later novels. god, heretics and chapterhouse are objectively worse novels. but worse doesn't necessarily mean bad. IMO dune and messiah are thorough recommends, children and later novels are only if you love the setting and frank heberts writing style but they're not for everyone. I wont go into detail but lets just say duncan idaho overstays his welcome by a lot. That said if you love the bene gesserit you'll love heretics and chapterhouse, as they play a major role. The later novels by brian hebert and Kevin j anderson are soulless slop, or so i've been told. Basically its taking the unique dune setting and story and dumbing it down into a sword & lazer sci-fi action series. I've never read any of the books, they're probably not bad, but they're a massive departure from the tone and style of frank hebert and are widely reviled by most of the fandom. Also they appearently retcon some of the lore in ways that most fans dont like or agree with.
I think this is a game my old game crew from back in the 90s would have absolutely loved. Sadly, I don't think my current crop of players would be so into it. I've mostly got casual gamer friends, so stuff like this or Ars Magica that really require players to buy in and do the work...not really gonna happen. Alas.
The game is definitely intended for players who don’t want to “win” Dune, but rather want to talk a story in the setting. Easier asked for than done, of course.
Well this sounds like it's going to be interesting then I've never DMed a game and I threw out the idea to my group of me DMing either a one shot or short campaign of this and I think only one of them is relatively familiar with Dune and that's solely based on him being the only one to not explicitly say he doesn't know much about Dune
That's actually a good way to look at that Like sure I have to spend more time explaining the basics that I wouldn't need to do if they were familiar but I get more freedom to bend the setting to make it work for us
About 14:40 you mention a success with a focus counting as 2 successes. This isn't how it works. It only counts as 2 successes if it is less than the actual skill no the skill and drive added together. So if you have a drive of 6 and a skill of 7 with an appropriate focus you would need to roll less than 13 (6+7) to get a success, but if you have a focus and you roll of 1 to 7 counts as two successes while a role of 8 to 13 would mean only 1 success.
Great review. Love Dune. Not a fan of 2d20 systems, nor game mechanics which pigeon hole a character into how they should be RP'd (drives, motivations, beliefs etc.).
Minute and a half in, and I would love to discuss why or how you can think God Emperor of Dune isn't as creative or original as Dune was 😂 Really fantastic overview of the game system though!
The whole laser on shields triggers a nuke is weird, whats to stop any terrorists to make a laser and shot it at a capitals shields. Lasers arent hard to do nowadays so wouldnt be a problem in the future. They should have gone the other way and said that shooting lasers on a shield triggers a feedback effect in the weapon which makes it explode or malfunction.
Great review. For me, it sounds like a one trick pony, which is a problem for all games based on a specific IP. Also, I find the Modiphius game system overly complex, with the game flow often stopping while someone looks up a rule. This becomes very annoying. The basic mechanical concept is sound, but it's often badly explained and not presented in a concise way.
@@DayInDaLife OSE D&D by Necrotic Gnome do not require this. It is the most concise set of rules I have read and played in over 40 years of roleplaying.
@@DayInDaLife I am a big fan of the Modiphius system, but it could be written in a more concise form to aid learning. I have played a LOT of systems in 40 years, some great, some not so. Some which have lasted the test of time, some that haven't. Generally, in my humble opinion, the more concise the better.
Arrakis is a trap. Always. Once your adventure goes to Arrakis, you're stuck. Everything else is pointless once you get there. So this game is good, but so much of it is potential. All the setting is great, but it's unused. It's just barely scratched at this point. The Conflicts are great... except it's just such a small part of the book, and nothing in the book really reinforces Strategic-level play, so you're stuck unless you have a strong 2d20 GM who can figure out how to really structure & orchestrate the Strategic-level game. There's so much potential here, but not enough to go on, IMO. If you want House-level play, then Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2e (and its self-contained world books, like "Free from the Yoke") will give you more of a framework (along with reinforcing examples). There's just so much more to House-level play in Legacy compared to DUNE. IMO, I'd rather play DUNE through Legacy if I really wanted to play at the House level. Now, I totally agree that the House information in DUNE is awesome, but it's basically just paper descriptions in the DUNE RPG. There's not a lot there... yet. You buy the DUNE RPG for the potential. I think there's an amazing game under development here, but for me? It's just not fully here yet. (Not without a sh-t ton of work beforehand.)
I think the big limiting factor is getting from planet to planet without the Guild. If you can use the Guild for travel and yet keep hidden the fact that you're Public Enemy Number One, then you're good!
As a huge Dune fan I was so looking forward to this RPG. However, after reading the rules - three times - and spending weeks at the Modiphius Dune Forum seeking rules clarifications, and when even the game's Author can not succinctly explain one, single round of combat (in three different attempts he contradicted himself... ...twice) I am forced to conclude that the Rule Set is simply not fit for purpose. As "background info" for Dune though the book is phenomenal. The desire to have one, abstract, overly simplified, mechanic for absolutely everything means that despite repeating the rule explanation 5 times there's still no clear example of how the rules work. The idea that Players have to spend a Resource to use things that should - narratively - be in a scene anyway (the game calls them Assets) not only breaks narrative integrity but is also all but unworkable. For example if the PCs need to get through a locked door. and have just killed the Guard to that door, it makes narrative sense that the Guard has a Key to that Door; but not in Dune, the Players have to choose to spend a Resource (Momentum) to "create" that Asset; and then once used the Asset disappears at the end of the scene - for no better reason than they needed to create it out of thin air in the first place. Great Setting, Great Background Info; but probably the very worst set of game rules I have ever seen, in almost 40 years of playing RPGs.
I respect where you’re coming from. There are some clarifications and workarounds to your security guard locked door example but I don’t want to really get into it. The fact is, this game has a lot of abstraction and it could have been written with more brevity and clarity. And it requires the GM to have an unusually strong instinct for handling abstraction.
@@DaveThaumavore I've been GMing for nearly 40 years, I know how to handle abstraction. What I refuse to "handle" is lazy, badly written rules - and that is, unfortunately, exactly what The Dune RPG has.
@Paul Gauthier You are correct, that I don't like the game doesn't make it a bad game. The fact the rules are not fit for purpose make it a bad game. That there is no clear example of how the rules should work in various common RPG scenarios make it a BAD product. In nearly 35 years in the RPG hobby it is - by far - the worst "game" product I have purchased. That said, the production quality is awesome, as is the attention to detail when it comes to "Dune lore"; if even 1/10th of that attention to detail had been lavished on the rules it may well have been a good game as well.
"It can be a little odd to list people as Assets"...nope that is just the normal day to day life in capitalism basically all of us are expiriencing today
Good Review, You could place a campaign away from Arrakis, I'm planning on a game based around a minor house linked to House Atreides with a focus on Espionage (the planet may also build ornithopters and/or produce Fruit etc) The idea is that the minor house has discovered evidence of the Guild having technologies that don't require spice to fold space, (the guild secretly moves to gain and suppress such technologies from the public to maintain control of their monopoly, the emperor the guild and the bene gesserit know about this, but keep it secret even amongst themselves) What do you do with the information? Who will do what to stop you? This idea was solidly based on the real world monopoly that oil and car companies use to practice in buying up inventions then hiding them away from the public to stop competition, at the detriment the consumer (see the history of "electric cars" ) that would undermine their control, This is just a brief idea so far, but...
This idea is actually kinda confirmed in the Legends of Dune triology. In the last book they use some space folding capable ships with experimental nav computers (technology lent by the predecessor company of the Guild, in exchange for monopoly in space folding tech) to do a Hail Mary, war winnig operation against Omnius (the AI network entity of the thinking machines). It is not a well working technology they lose ships to hitting asteroids, other ships and stuff when exiting foldspace but it works. You can have a big reveal behind this like "spice is running out, it is even too scarce to feed the navigators, so the Guild dusted down some old tech". Also they use some other kind of FTL tech before space folding, but it is never explained what and how. You could also reintruduce that. The Legends triology isn't realy good but can give you some good ideas, if you wan't to run a "Secrets of the Dune Universe" campaign. Probably the same goes for Schools of Dune, but I never got around to reading those.
SUPERB explicit deep dive and analysis of the RPG!!!! It seduces you into the DUNE pantheon and makes you want to purchase the game. One of the TOP 3 presentations EVER produced.🪱🪱🪱🪬🪬🪬🧫💊🛕🗿⚔️⚔️💣💎💎💎🕌🕌⛲️💧💧🪐🌏
