The summary judgement is that Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium is a pretty
good game, but marred by some under-considered combat rules and absolutely
atrocious editing. It is quite playable, but the GM would be required to make
a few judgement calls on rules cases where due to the poor editing the game
contradicts itself. The problems with the combat system are an overly complex
"option point" iniative system that would make proceeding at a snappy pace
pretty difficult, and a less than stellar rules set for shield fighting and
Bene Gesserit martial arts.
Summary out of the way, I'll proceed with a chapter by chapter review of the
book. Since it is now only available used at auction for prices upwards of
$125 or so I intend to make this review as comprehensive as possible, so that
prospective buyers can make as informed a decision as possible as to whether
a role playing game is worth that kind of money. I hope in light of that goal
you'll be understanding if this review goes on beyond a length you would
normally consider reasonable.
THE BOOK ITSELF
The book itself is a very sturdy hardbound, 284 full color pages. I believe
the artwork is mostly taken from the Collectible Card Game Last Unicorn had
earlier developed for the setting; I personally found it to be mostly
excellent. The layout is good, with a margin pattern and color scheme chosen
to evoke the setting. At the back is a four-page index (good) and a character
sheet (not so good - it's double sided, and not very aesthetically appealing).
However, the editing, as I said earlier, is absolutely atrocious. There are
numerous rules contradictions and spelling and grammar errors that detract
from the good impression set by the aesthetic design and game mechanics.
CHAPTER I: HISTORY OF THE IMPERIUM
The first chapter presents an abbreviated history. It does a decent job of
presenting the basic social-political structure of the setting and the
historical events that are responsible for this outcome. However, there are
no dates or even any sort of coherent chronological ordering - it's pretty
much a failure at giving us any sense of the flow of these events in the
Imperium's past or their full context. Since this isn't much in the way of a
history LU would have probably been better off labeling it as the basic
introduction to the setting that it is.
CHAPTER II: HOUSES OF THE LANDSRAAD
This is both more and less than a simple list and description of the
Landsraad's Great Houses. It briefly explains the Landsraad, what a House
actually is and the role it plays in Imperial society, the basics of the caste
system, and some typical roles in Household service. It also contains the
"character creation" rules for the Household the player characters will serve.
While these rules are actually fairly good, the problem with them is the game
fails to "run with them" in the GM rules sections. This section is actually
the most rules information on House management you will see in the game.
Pretty much the central point of the chapter is the two pages of description
on six different Houses Major: the Houses Atreides, Corrino and Harkonnen from
the canon, as well as three new Houses: Moritani (reclusive and treacherous),
Tseida (introspective and scholarly), and Wallach (conservative and warlike).
The default campaign expected by the game is as a House Minor (a smaller House
in feudal service to one of the Houses Major) entourage, and each of the full
House Major descriptions includes one paragraph of description each on three
of its Minor Houses, which is good.
I'm satisifed with the depth of information given on each of the Households
(especially considering that you actually get double that amount of information
when you factor in the homeworld descriptions in the later on Planetology
chapter), but I'm disappointed at only having six Houses Major presented.
I think the game could have been well improved by presenting just a couple
more Houses Major, or giving a couple pages worth of short (one paragaph)
summaries of the various Houses Major featured on the list at the beginning
of the chapter.
CHAPTER III: CHARACTER CREATION
There are actually two character creation systems: one is a template system,
which most of the chapter is dedicated to expounding on, and the other is a
fairly simple point-buy system. The rules for the various attributes, skills,
advantages and disadvantages are in the next chapter, so for the point-buy
system the rules here can (and do) fit on a half-page sidebar.
I'm somewhat reluctant to bash the template system, since LU seems to have had
their hearts in the right place here, but it really doesn't work. It's fun to
pick out the various templates for the different stages (early life, house
culture, training, experience in service etc) and tally them up - it gives a
good sense of how your character's abilities are linked to her training and
experiences, and how the ethoi of the different Houses are reflected in their
people's abilities. But it's too rigid and inflexible to create many
reasonable character concepts, and the characters seem to come out underpowered
compared to the point-buy system.
The template system is actually a sort of bastard cross between a D&D style
race/class (House/conditioning) system and a GURPS style point-buy system.
Your House and your vocational conditioning both give you a set of add ons
to your attributes, skills, advantages etc which you basically add up.
Unfortunately, characters trained for the same role will have basically the
same abilities, and it doesn't allow for characters outside the roles
expected (Fremen for instance) or cross-trained in different vocations (such
as a Mentat-Swordmaster general). It could be good for giving novice players
an example of the sort of character types that are possible in the setting,
but earlier in the chapter a set of "archetypes" (basically pre-generated
characters) are included that do that job even better, so as far as I'm
concerned it's largely a waste of space.
The point-buy system works quite well. With some game groups the GM may have
to watch over the players to make sure the characters don't end up overly
specialized, and that they have all the skills appropriate to their
profession. (For example, a player creating an assasin character won't need
any encouragement to load up on Ranged Combat and Stealth skills, but GM
oversight might be needed to make sure he doesn't neglect skills like
Assasination or Infiltration, much less Law specialization in the Articles
of Kanly.) But generally, it creates well-rounded as well as competent
characters, and the skill and attribute specialization rules allow for a
kind of detail tuning that appeals on both a characterization and rules
crunching level.
For those who want to know what sort of character types are encouraged and
supported by the game, the vocational templates are: Assasin,
Bene Gesserit Adept, Master Strategist (of which Warmaster is a subgroup),
Mentat, Noble, Swordmaster and Suk Doctor. The abilities for these character
types seem to be mostly taken from the first novel. No inspiration seems to
have been taken from the Dune Encyclopedia. (A shame, I think the entries on
Bene Gesserit and Mentat training have some very good bits.)
CHAPTER IV: CHARACTERISTICS
This chapter explains all of the attributes, skills, advantages and
disadvantages in the game. If you are using the point-buy system, this (plus
one small sidebar from the previous chapter) is the actual character creation
rules.
There are four attributes: Physique, Coordination, Intellect and Charisma.
Each attributes has two "edges", which are expresed as or - modifiers
affecting the base attributes in certain situations. So a very physically
fit but small character might have a good Physique but a negative Strength
edge, or a shy but headstrong character might have a low Charisma but a
positive Willpower edge. There is a special fifth attribute, Prescience,
but for almost all characters this will be zero.
The skills list is extensive and there is a list of suggested specializations
for each skill. There seems to be quite a bit of overlap between skills -
a particular task might simultaneously fall under three different skills.
(For instance, using pressure of blackmail to coerce a political enemy into
revealing hidden information could be rolled against Statecraft (Threats),
Interrogation (Coercion) or Racketeering (Extortion).
The rules for Mentats are pretty good, better than I could have done myself.
There are three different Mentat skills you can roll against, depending on
the mental task you are attempting, and the guidelines for which to use when
are quite clear - although the definitions of the specializations for these
skills are pretty hazy. This is nice because it allows Mentat characters to have
variation in their Mentat-specific abilities beyond a simple quality scale.
There are also two Mentat-specific advantages, as well as an advantage to
simulate having only the earliest stages of Mentat training.
The rules for prescience are OK. They are not as developed as the Mentat rules,
but given how rare and undeveloped the faculty is supposed to be, they are
good enough.
The rules for Bene Gesserit abilities are oddly mixed. The four Bene Gesserit
specific skills deal with psychological reading through perceptual minutae,
truthsaying (why these two are seperate skills, I couldn't tell you),
religious manipulation using Missionara-seeded superstitions, and the infamous
Voice. Since the Bene Gesserit Way skill is basically the Observation skill,
only except that it can only be used to "read" people and it gets a bonus
against any attempt to decieve it, it probably would have made more sense to
have an advantage that gave adepts a bonus to Observation for certain uses.
Bene Gesserit martial arts are covered by the Weirding Combat advantage (more
on that when I cover the combat chapter) and the feats of personal control
are covered under the Prana-Bindu Conditioning advantage.
Prana-Bindu Conditioning is the weak point of the game's coverage of Bene
Gesserit abilities. It gives a broad description of what it covers but almost
no specific examples, and no hard rules. Many powerful Bene Gesserit abilities
(such as the ability to nullify poisons within the bloodstream) that would
fall under this advantage aren't described or even hinted at anywhere in the
game. This may have been a deliberate game balance measure (Bene Gesserit seem
to be significantly more powerful than other character types as it is already)
but to someone coming to the game from the novels the omission is notable.
The Other Memories of the Reverend Mothers are not covered at all. Doubtless
LU felt they were well beyond the scope of starting characters and intended
to leave them for a future supplement.
CHAPTER V: RULES OF THE GAME
Here we get the basic dice mechanics of the game. This is the Icon System
used in previous LU games. The basic idea is that you roll a number of dice
equal to your Attribute, take the highest one, and add it to your Skill,
and compare the total to the difficulty number assigned. There is one wrinkle
in the form of a "drama die", which can scale your final result up or down
if it comes up 6 or 1.
The basic roll mechanic works pretty well, but I don't like the way the
drama die works, or how the difficulty numbers seem to be inflated in
expectation of how the drama die works. With the base die mechanic, if a
difficulty number is more than 6 your skill level, you will -never-
succeed. However, if your drama die comes up 6, you get to add the second
highest die, which given the dice pool mechanic, for most characters will
probably be fairly high. The final outcome of this system is that if you are
good at something, rolls fall into only two categories: ones you can almost
always make, and ones you always have exactly 1 in 6 chance of making.
I think the system would have been greatly improved by ditching the "drama
die" and scaling the difficulty numbers down accordingly. Then again, I also
really like the Amber DRPG, so your mileage may vary.
This is the chapter that includes all of the combat rules, so here I will
explain in detail my disparaging remarks I made in the opening of the review.
The intiative system is a clunky beast, about as unwieldy as the one in
Seventh Sea. Role-playing games suffer in conveying excitement in action
scenes, when seconds of time are related over minutes of dice rolling and
rules interpretation. The best game designers have learned that the combat
rules are where you need to streamline your mechanics the most, not tack on
additional complications. See Greg Stolze's work in Unknown Armies for a
brilliant example of a truly streamlined RPG combat system.
The folks at LU responsible for Dune's "option point" system are very far
from being Greg Stolze.
The order in which characters act is determined by their Coordination
(modified by its Reaction edge). However, every character in the scene has to
declare their actions before the first action is resolved. So the GM has to
know what action each character involved is performing?
No, it's worse than that. See, each character gets a number of "option points"
equal to their Coordination (modified by Reaction). You can perform multiple
actions in a round, as long as you can pay the option point cost for each
action. However, the option point cost for subsequent actions is modified
by the number of previous actions of the same type that you have already
performed that round. This means in order to know how many option points an
action costs someone, you have to know all of the actions they have performed
so far in the round. It's not enough to simply know how many actions the
character has done so far (which is trivial to track since you down the
initiative order one character and one action at a time), because the option
point cost is only modified by actions of the same type. And to make matters
more complicated, combat-specialized characters are given abilities that allow
them to perform actions of one type but have them counted for option point
cost purposes as another type (for example, a Riposte is an attack that costs
you option point costs as if it was a reaction).
It's not unplayable, but it's definately clunky and game-slowing.
There are four types of special combat actions that are only accesible to
characters with certain advantages or skills.
The Dueling advantage (used to represent characters with advanced fencing
training such as swordmasters and some nobles) allows you to use combat
actions that modify the option point categorization (such as the Riposte), or
attempt to manuver your opponent into throwing away option points (such as
Feints). These are well balanced, and do a good job of capturing the flavor
of the training they represent, but they complicate the already slow initiative
system even further.
The Shield Fighting advantage represents characters trained in hand-to-hand
combat using Holtzman energy shields. The rules for the "shield hesitation"
that shield-trained fighters suffer from fighting non-shielded opponents are
pretty good (basically higher option point costs on your attacks), but the
benefits the advantage gives are dubious. Basically, shields significantly
raise the difficulty of attacks against you. Shield Training gives you an
attack option that ignores that difficulty increase, but it also gives you an
reaction option that brings the difficulty increase back when someone uses
the special attack option against you. In the end, Shield Training is less of
a clearcut advantage than it is a decision on whether you want to be shafted
in shielded fights or in shieldless ones.
The Weirding Combat advantage represents the advanced martial arts of the
Bene Gesserit, which rely on their prana-bindu conditioning. It's not very
helpful. It gives you a dodge that costs one less option point than the normal
one (inspired by the Scifi channel miniseries perhaps?), but that's pretty
much it. The Martial Training combat options are vastly more helpful, and
they're open to anyone who buys a particular specialization of the Unarmed
Combat skill (ie, pretty much every fighting character will have them).
The damage rules contradict themselves (is your resistance based on Physique
plus Constituion or is it just straight Constitution) and the intelligent
answer (Physique Constitution) is not as well-balanced as the dumb answer.
We also get rules for various types of non-combat damage. These are OK,
except for the poison rules. The poisons are ennumerated in a set of generic
types, which are just escalating levels of lethality. (Basically like D&D;
there is "Type I" poison, "Type II" poison etc). Given a setting where
assasination by poison is such a common occurence that poison snoopers are
an unquestioned fact of daily life, some descriptive, setting-specific poisons
really should have been presented.
CHAPTER VI: VOICE FROM THE OUTER WORLD
This is the basic GM advice chapter. It's a cut above average but not
mindblowing. Short and to the point.
CHAPTER VII: PILLARS OF THE UNIVERSE
This is another GM advice chapter, and one of the greatest cases of missed
potential in the book. Besides some more generic GM advice this chapter
also includes a section on the themes of Dune and how to incorporate them into
your campaign. A beautiful, beautiful idea, but the execution could have been
better. They do a pretty good job of naming the themes, but not so good a job
of suggesting how to work them into a game. For example, they identify one
theme as "Preservation of Key Bloodlines". They don't point to Bene Gesserit
manipulations, cuckoldry and marital jealousy, or genealogical research as
ideas for plot elements, though - their idea of representing this theme in
game is "have the players defend their House against attack". Sigh.
CHAPTER VIII: A SHORTENING OF THE WAY
This contains the character advancement system. More than just the experience
point system for increasing character stats, this also includes a reputation
system (which is OK), guidelines for characters rank within the Household
(which I did not like), rules for improving the "stats" of the players'
House, and what little rules for using the House's stats that the game
contains (very little).
The rank system seems to assume the characters start fairly low ranked and
work their way up to the top of their organizations over the course of the
game. This contradicts the character creation system, which seems to imply
the characters are key figures and leaders within their House Minor. It's
also unpalatable, in that the characters are assumed to be working for a
House Minor which is in itself the "minor leagues" of the Imperium's feudal
system. So this section is basically telling the players not only are their
characters in a small pond, they're the small fish in it, too. I think it's
basically an thoughtless mistake - it bears enough structural similarity to
the rank system of LU's Star Trek games that it looks like they simply ported
it along with the rest of the Icon System without asking if it made any sense.
You can just ignore it, of course, but it's a waste of pages.
The rules for improving House stats are all right, but somewhat pointless
when you look at the rules for actually using those stats. The GM is basically
told to have players occasionally make normal skill rolls (against Statecraft,
Diplomacy, Military Operations etc skills) only using the House attributes
for their dice pool instead of their Intellect or Charisma. That's it. That's
the entire set of rules for using House stats.
CHAPTER IX: CHUSUK, THE MUSIC PLANET
This is a chapter-long description of a single planet, intended to give the
GM an idea of an example campaign setting. I like that they did this with a
planet other than Arrakis, and made up their own world for the sample
campaign. I just wish the world they made up was more imaginative and
interesting.
CHAPTER X: INSTRUMENT OF KANLY
A sample adventure using the sample campaign setting from the previous
chapter. They do a pretty good job of advising the GM on how to run it, and
reminding him of occasions when characters' special abilities can come into
play. But the plot, characters and setting are all pretty thin.
CHAPTER XI: CULTURE OF THE IMPERIUM
This is a general overview of the setting and most of its cultural
institutions. Overall, it's a very solid chapter. We get simple overviews of
the Great Convention, Articles of Kanly and the caste system. I was delighted
to recieve a mostly coherent explanation of CHOAM's organization. There's a
servicable overview of the Bene Gesserit, some notes on special languages of
the setting (Chaksoba, House battle languages, Mirabhasa), and some notes on
general aspects of Imperium culture such as family roles, art and
entertainment. The more general cultural aspects are less well developed,
probably because they are less well presented in the novels, being less
interesting than, say, the hidden secrets of the Bene Gessiert.
I notice the much greater prevalance of mind-altering drugs in the Imperium
than our world's culture isn't very well touched on. In the novels, characters
on all sides are constantly using psychoactive drugs to modify their
perceptions and stimulants on a power level equivalent to crystal meth to
stay up days in a row without sleep, with a very casual attitude as if it
were a commonplace thing in their culture. The only reference to drug use I
can find in the game is that overdoses of melange can trigger rolls against
a character's Prescience ability.
CHAPTER XII: TECHNOLOGY OF THE IMPERIUM
More than just "the equipment chapter", this chapter also expounds briefly
on the historical developments and lasting cultural impacts they caused that
shaped the nature of technology in the Imperium. Which is good - the Butlerian
Jyhad and its resulting technological eccentricities are central to one of the
series's most key themes (the development of "human" potential over "soulless"
technology).
We get a decent selection of weapons, rules for armor and energy shields,
and decent descriptions of all the personal equipment that made a showing in
the novels. That's it, though - there aren't any invented items extrapolated
from the culture and technology of the series. This may be for the best,
though - at least this way the equipment section does a great job of
preserving the flavor of the setting.
This is where we get the vehicle chase and combat rules. They are pretty
light, but in my opinion adequate to the limited role of such action in the
setting. There are also rules for caste restrictions on who can use such
equipment. A good idea in theory, but my impression from reading the novels
is that any caste a player character is going to fall in would be elevated
enough to allow access to any equipment in the game. I don't think it's
reasonable, for instance, that a House's swordmaster wouldn't be legally
permitted to wear a personal shield.
There is a brief reference to the "Forbidden Technologies" sold by Ix and
the Bene Tleilax, but it's way too brief to be useful. The GM is basically
told, "come up with your own ideas".
CHAPTER XIII: THE SPACING INDUSTRY
This chapter is all about the Spacing Guild. It contains an overview of
their politics and policies. It's mostly written to show a GM how to handle
interstellar travel within a campaign, rather than how to use the Guild in
a campaign's plot. Which is a wise decision considering the Guild's policies
of secrecy and ruthless neutrality.
The chapter is basically answers to "How long does it take to get from
planet X to planet Y?" and "What will the trip be like on the way?" It answers
them well, but probably could have been condensed a little. Stats for non
Guild, intersystem spacecraft seem pretty unimportant, for instance.
CHAPTER XIV: IMPERIAL PLANETOLOGY
Here we get descriptions of planets. About a page and a half on the homeworlds
of the six Houses Major presented way back in Chapter II, the same on Arrakis,
and about a half page each for a few other planets of interest like Ecaz,
Tleilax, and Salusa Secundus. The description of Arrakis is pretty good, but
the other planets seem pretty dull to me. The only place where the planetary
descriptions are even remotely interesting are when they are pulling stuff
from Herbert's writing.
CHAPTER XV: IMPERIAL PERSONAGES
This is a bunch of short (one paragraph) summaries of some of the most
important characters in the Imperium - two characters from each of the Houses
Major. The characters from the novels mentioned here are Shaddam IV, Count
Fenring, Duke Leto, Jessica, Baron Harkonnen, and Piter deVries. These
characters only get a paragraph each, and no stats. In the case of the non
canon characters, these little snippets are good to jumpstart ideas for
developing their Houses within one's campaign, but in the case of the canon
characters the summaries seem overly brief compared to the richness of some of
the characters from the book.
After these character summaries are stats for a wide range of generic character
types within the setting - for instance, "Imperial Planetologist", "Judge of
the Change", "Landsraad Emissary" and "Sardaukar Trooper". They are good forreminding GMs of the sort of roles NPCs fill in the campaign, but some of the
stats are somewhat off... the Sardaukar as presented are cannon fodder that a
well-designed PC swordmaster could shred like Kleenex.
FINAL JUDGEMENT
With GM clarification and perhaps some tweaking, the game is pretty good.
If you are both a roleplayer and a die-hard fan of the setting, and you have
enough spare cash for the occasional reckless extravagance, it may very well
be worth buying for you. If only LU had been able to keep the license and
produce a Second Edition with better editing and print all the supplements
they had planned....
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