Frank Herbert’s DUNE Games Coming To The Tabletop
August 15, 2018 by brennon
Gale Force Nine and Modiphius announced this week that they are going to be working on a range of tabletop games for Frank Herbert's well-renowned Sci-Fi series, DUNE. This will all begin with a role-playing game helmed by Modiphius.
Modiphius will be working with Gale Force Nine on this project with a release window of 2019. Whether this game will come to fruition through Kickstarter or not just yet I don't know but it would be fascinating to see what kind of world Modiphius could bring us into.
They have already done some great work with Conan, Star Trek and Infinity and it makes sense for them to be the ones running the show for another licensed role-playing game.
Gale Force Nine will then be in charge of creating board games and miniatures games for the world of DUNE ahead of the release of the new movie which arrives in 2020. Denis Villeneuve of Blade Runner 2049 will be bringing this new take on the Sci-Fi world to the silver screen and I can't wait to see what he does!
We've talked many times about how DUNE would be the perfect candidate for a tabletop game and it seems like now is as good a time as any with the coming film release.
What game ideas do you have for the world of DUNE?
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That is interesting news. I do wonder if they go with book style, movie style (like Westwood Studios did with they Dune RTS games) or mini series style.
I would imagine that things will be focused towards the aesthetic of the new movie from 2020 although the RPG book will no doubt feature some classic art within its covers as well as the modern look.
Oh I didn’t know that they were planning new movie for 2020. Then again if it’s going to be only one movie just like David Lynch one I won’t be expecting it to be good at all unless it’s 6 hours long.
It does say as much in the news piece above that the new movie is coming out. But yes, going to be interesting to see what they do with this.
News here: https://movieweb.com/movie/dune-2019/ is that there are going to be at least two films, with the first two films supposedly being the first novel Dune, so that could encompass nigh on 6 hours, at least in the DVD extended versions a la Jackson’s ‘Lord of the Rings’.
Ok- I actually think that could work. The first and second halves of that book had some big shifts, so I could see creating an interesting arc out of it (Like Jackson did with LotR).
If it does well, I’d fully expect them to at least complete the trilogy- but there’s so much Dune after that- they could just keep going.
Lynche’s film had a lot of problems that weren’t simply due to the film’s length.
The book is divided into three main sections, but like you i think two films could work. I hope that they do something interesting with the … er … processes of memory and prediction and identity and the way in which they interact. ‘They’ being the film creators, though now i mention it i hope the game makers do too.
interesting, very interesting. mist keep an eye on this one
Could be good being a pirate getting spice out avoiding the Harkonnens & atreides force’s. (The spice must flow)
With the film coming up there was a good chance this would happen. GF9 has been doing solid work recently, Modiphius though is a company that needs to stop spreading itself too thinly and start to delver their products roughly within their schedules.
Dune coming to the table top, very cool. Modiphius to do the RPG, cool. gale force 9 to do the board games, cool. Modiphius or gale force 9 to do the sculpts? ideally I’d like to see a third party come in and do this for them but i think that’s unlikely. I’ll no doubt be tempted with the RPG and maybe a board game or two, but will go minds eye with it unless they surprise me with the miniatures. exciting stuff though.
It’s a brilliant world, would love to see a solid boardgame adaptation of it. Maybe based around spice mining operations? Not sure I’d want a full wargame or not, that might be a bit limited in material. Dune is much more about political intrigues and uprisings than pitched battles to me.
YES! YES! ALL THE YES! Dune is one of the best scifi books of all time and I have been dying for a tabletop game based on it for years.
As for what games, there are plenty that this could work with.
– A large, in-depth civ builder where you take on the role of various houses and factions, each with their own special abilities, competing for spice and political power.
– A small resource gathering game where you are each in control of a spice harvester, competing to overcome random events like sandstorms and worms.
– A dungeon crawl, where you are members of the Atreides household trying to escape the fall of the house, avoiding Sardaukars and Harkonen soldiers.
– A deck-building card game where spice can either be used to purchase new cards for your house from a common deck or be used to peer into the future and see what cards are yet to come.
How exciting. This is without doubt my favourite SciFi setting. It has easily as much potential for gaming as Middle Earth so I’ll be keeping very close tracks on this. RPGs aren’t my thing so I’m holding out for a mass combat miniatures game in a funky scale like 10mm, 12mm or 15mm which would allow suitable coverage of both troop and vehicle types where individuals are still recognisable but mass numbers are economical. Yes please 🙂
RPG, board game, tabletop minis. I don’t care just make it good. The Dune world that Herbert created needs some gaming love. If you build it I will buy.
There was a Dune board game made by Avalon Hill way back in the late 70’s. There was also a version of Twilight Imperium with a Dune theme (Rex?) from FFG.
I have the old Dune board game from Avalon Hill that I am dying to play with but never get round to, maybe I could come over and show you guys 😉
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/121/dune
Very exciting news! Means I can stop wringing myself in knots trying to come up with my own Dune miniatures game! The 2020 movie is slated to be in two parts so hopefully Denis V can do it proper justice and create a world that evokes the books (he’s said that is the plan). Then the games should have that look and feel too which would be AWESOME!!
I wonder when and where in the Dune universe they will set an RPG. Given the all encompassing importance of Paul and Leto’s actions and decisions on the entirety of humanity i think it would be difficult to give the player character’s actions any significant weight until much later in the timeline. A battle or skirmish game would fare better perhaps.
It’s possible that they take direction were players act in universe were they actions don’t matter at grant scheme of things. I don’t see why PCs would have to be some how important to over all setting when not all RPG settings do that. After all 40k is also setting like that were PCs don’t really matter.
Yea, that’s true, and i’m not saying it couldn’t be done, but i don’t see an obvious way to do so without essentially creating a generic setting with a Dune stamp on it. For example, could a PC be, or interact with a Fremen, or a Bene Gesserit, or a Bene Tleilax, or a Mentat, or a member of a noble house in the time of Paul and Leto without being involved in ( and railroaded along ) the paths that Paul and Leto have set out for them? What choices of action do the PCs have if they are, or interact with one of these? If they aren’t, and don’t interact with any of these then in what way are the PCs in the Dune universe? I think the designers will need to address these questions in order to make the game a good Dune RPG rather than just a good RPG, and i would think this will be a more involved process than it would or has been for something like W40K.
I think there are a few good options for this. Either set it in a non-canon version of events (risky, but can be done) or set it just a decade or so earlier and focus on a 2-3 year timeline for your campaign. The world will be recognisable as Dune and not a generic sci-fi universe, but before the events that change the world forever. Or as you say, quite a while afterwards. Might even make sense to release one or other timeframe as a sourcebook to give players both options.
The reason i suggested setting the RPG after the Dune series instead of before, which i agree has some viability, is because before, if the Brian and Kevin finales are to be taken as canon, there are players who are moving events since the Butlerian Jihad. After the Dune series the universe that the Kwisatz Haderach(s) have left behind is a freer one in terms of choice and consequence, by design. And come to think of it, this might be a way for the protagonists i mentioned before to be involved with the PCs, and also for the game designers to have some freedom with the background, because now each of those protagonists would be something that is recognisably what they were in the series but also be something that has changed in response to the events of the series.
It depends a lot on scope, a lot of the time if I’m running a game based on a big well established IP, I try and stay well away from events that are part of the core “story”. I mean, you should probably never directly meet Luke Skywalker in a Star Wars RPG (Well at least, not Luke during the original trilogy timeline). I mean you could, I just think it makes things work a lot better if you avoid that. I think the world of Dune is broad and deep enough that you could play out an entire campaign anytime pretty much up to the start of the original novel, and as long as you focus on a smaller scope than the future of humanity and the ruler of the known universe, I think it could work. Say as nobles in a minor house trying to resolve a dispute with a neighbouring house, or a rag-tag group of members from various key organisations trying to stop some spice-related plague devastating a collection of planets linked on a key shipping lane. Or any number of other campaign worthy stories.
I do see what you mean about the intent being to allow a freer world after the current “end” of the series, and it would be an interesting place to play without feeling like you are going to bump up against immovable canon (or be forced to change canon, which not everyone is going to be comfortable with). The problem I have with that personally, are some of the changes that take place I think move away from some of the core concepts I really like about Dune. Synthetic spice, compilers replacing navigators, the acceptance of thinking machines and so on. The concept of a Government based on three in theory balancing arms (The Landsraad, the Emperor and the Navigators) and the idea that this huge interstellar empire can is dependent on a product obtainable from a single planet. The idea that you can’t have robots or computers (despite having that technology) and instead have specialised humans able to take up those functions. When you look at the mechanics around those ideas, I think that drives a lot of the interesting concepts that Dune explores, and would be fun to explore in an RPG.
I guess my main point would be, in an empire with billions of humans living in it spread across the stars, I am pretty sure there are some interesting stories to tell that never go near the main characters and events of the original trilogy, but still are very obviously characters living in a world where the spice must flow 🙂
Then again, the best thing about a good RPG, is you can do what you want, and for sure, something set after the end of the current novels, I am sure would work pretty well too.
My 2 pence:
I think that a worker placement/ resource management tabletop game would work well,(super thematic). As would a deck builder, which I think would be an ideal format for gaming in the Dune Universe.
This can be either the most impressive gaming event of the year…or the ultimate bust. Avalon Hill’s DUNE is a masterpiece, a convention favorite and really a standout game.
that book cover makes paul atreides look like a wight in the snow north of the wall!
ooooh…. OOOOOH…. this is too exciting!
There was once an old Dune Boardgame in the 80s, it was an awesome game. I hope these new games will be awesome too. I love the Dune Books, in my oppinion the best Sci-Fi books ever.
If they were able to capture the intrigues and betrayals of the books, sort of like Diplomacy did way back I think it could work really well
Excited to see what they do with the RPG. It’d be neat if you had a pouch of blue dice, and each time you had to roll, you pulled out a die to use, did your roll, then discarded the die to the game master. This is your water. You have to manage your water, replenishing it at certain areas. If water is not plentiful you must regard your action economy. You could also bestow dice on other players, giving a gift of water.
Very much looking forward to this, fascinating world and well worth an RPG.
I would love to see a Dune game done somewhat like Twilight Imperium 4ed style! An epic strategy game of armies, politics and back stabbing alliance games ;P
Well, Gale Force Nine and Modiphius certainly seem to like challenge. Doing Dune justice – Frank Herbert’s original book series being widely regarded as comprising the greatest science fiction saga in literary history – is no small task. Capturing the complex interplay between politics, economics and religion in the Dune universe in a tabletop format will require great skill. Here’s hoping they are up to the task.
I wrote a post in spanish linking this as the source at http://wargarage.org/noticia/dune-de-frank-herbert-tendra-nuevos-juegos-de-mesa-de-rol-y-wargames-de-miniaturas/