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Dune: Adventures in the Imperium – Core Rulebook (Corinno Collector’s Edition)
From the back of the book:
The Dune: Adventures in the Imperium roleplaying game takes you into a far future beyond anything you have imagined where fear is the mind killer so be sure to keep your wits about you.
The Imperium is a place of deadly duels, feudal politics, and mysterious abilities, where noble Houses politic constantly for power, influence, and vengeance in a universe where a blade can change the fortunes of millions. Build your House, carve your place in the universe, or rebuild an ancient lineage and fight for the Imperial throne.
Take your characters on a journey through the storied worlds of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi masterpiece, inhabit elite agents working for noble Houses where Mentats, Swordmasters, Spies, Bene Gesserit Sisters, Devious Advisors, or even desert Fremen join together to follow your banner.
Whoever you choose to be, remember that those that control the spice control the universe.
The Dune: Adventures in the Imperium core rulebook contains:
Everything you need to create your own stories of intrigue and adventure on the sands of Arrakis as agents of a powerful noble House.
A brand new version of the 2d20 System adapted specially for the Dune Universe, including rules for creating a noble House of your own, and systems for architect play, where you become the puppet masters, moving agents to your designs to serve your House.
An extensive look at the Imperium, its society, factions, history, technology, culture, faith and more.
Guidelines for novice and experienced gamemasters on how to run Dune themed campaigns of intrigue and adventure for the elite agents of a noble House.
An introductory adventure ‘Harvesters of Dune’ designed to quickly get you and your fellow players involved in the byzantine plots
VanillaCokeMule
Man, I am not sure how Modiphius has managed to win any awards for their games. Granted, this is the only game of theirs that I've fully read the rules for, but if anything else they've put out is as fiddly and unstructured as this is, then I just don't understand how they've kept in business. Let's start with the 2d20 system. Honestly it's not too bad (it's definitely reminiscent of the much more elegant d100 system used by CoC), but I don't like that those are the ONLY dice you roll at any one point in the game. I love dice and I love getting to use as many of them as possible in a given session. I get what they're going for with this system but I feel like they could have found a way to do it without having to remove most of what brings people to this hobby to do it. Second, the stats system. Stats in this game are called Drives. The book has rules for when they're supposed to be used but mostly it's "but you can also use whatever Drive you want if you can convince the GM that it fits for this situation". Skills are much the same way: too loosely defined without rules fencing to make really concrete. I feel like this game is just begging for practically endless arguments. I don't usually review the system in a book review, but I was so frustrated after all the excitement I had for this game that I had to vent. Believe it or not I'm still going to try to get into a game and give this a proper chance, but I'm not holding my breath. The book is beautiful and decently laid out, hence where all my positive points came from.
cfarrell
So, I haven’t played yet; the Dune world is great and I think it’s got possibilities for an RPG. I’m not super-impressed with the system yet; it feels a bit inelegant and overly heavy, but I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like many RPG designers like doing system-level work, and Modiphius (as well as Free League) now seemed wedded to their workmanlike or mediocre house systems. I think they could have done better by licensing a real game system; I have my favorites (Cypher System, Gumshoe) and ones I think are terribly overrated (FATE, Powered by the Apocolypse) but people know them and know how they work, and if you’re just going to use a desultory house system, maybe you should look at them. Anyway, all that aside, the real thing that just wears me down about reading this book is the all-in commitment to the garbage prequel material of Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson. Way more time is spent on recapping material from the prequels than from the actual story we all know and love. Does anyone really want to play in the era of the Butlerian Jihad? Really? The Mentats and the Bene Gesserit and Guild and all work in the novel in part because they are shrouded in mystery from the point of view of the main characters. Well, now their inner workers are spelled out in excruciating detail. The hierarchy of the caste system, stages of Mentat training, organization of the Bene Gesserit, you name it, it’s in there, paid for by the word. Meanwhile things that are interesting - to me anyway - like themes, challenges, structure, and how to run a game in a world that is both absolutely a true SF classic, but also deeply problematic both philosophically and culturally from the perspective of the 2020s, are touched only lightly. The gamemastering tips wisely encourage you to focus, advice the game could have taken itself. Anyway, Dune is enough. The garbage prequels are both a) garbage, and b) too much.
Gorgoneion
Hardcover Book edition. Rated 9 for now because of the quality of the book: beautiful, and the fact the text appears to be well proofread and without too many typos. The system appears to be a mix between Fate and a powered by the Apocalypse type of game. It has assertions and tags that are common to both systems. It has also something that I find unique, which is the adherence to the character's principles, so that one's actions are favoured if the drivers that motivate it are close to what the character believes deeply. Interesting on paper, I'll have to see how actually it fares on the table.