NO, it's not as trad as Genesys,
Let's point by point...
- Dice Pool
- Genesys: stat plus skill for >90% of rolls
- 2d20, including Dune: 2d20 to 5d20, by amount of metacurrency spent¹
- Traditional Dice Pools (SR, WoD, YZE, d6), henceforth TDP: stat plus skill
- Metacurrencies (durable totals only, not in-resolution)
- Genesys: Destiny. GEnerated each session, use converts ownership. Use is about 1 in 10 rolls in my experience. Some sessions, however, have had other use. Amount of use is regulatable by GM spending. If the GM spends none, the game play is trad after they all flip dark side.
- 2d20 (all): Momentum, Threat, Determination. Sometimes renamed.
- Threat, aside from some extra uses, is GM momentum.
- Dune Specific: there's a limit to extra damage purchases.
- TDP:
- WoD: Willpower. Spend for extra or automatic success. Recover by narrative tag based actions
- d6: Force Points/Hero Points, and Character Points.
- FP/HP double dice pool before rolling. Restrictions on use. very few to use.
- CP - Experience points, but can be used in play to add 1d to a roll before rolling
- SR: I don't recall anything like this in 1E nor 3E.
- YZE: the ones I have and have read don't have durable metacurrencies.
- DIfficulties
- Genesys: modifies dicepool (adds bad dice, or if too easy, adds blue dice)
- Dune: sets needed successes. (TN for each die from Drive and Skill)
- TDP: Not uniform
- d6: sets a target number; this is the only R&T I'm including
- Some YZE: Modifies number of dice upo or down
- Some YZE: sets needed successes
- Some YZE: changes the size of the dice.
- SR1e,3e: sets TN for success on each die
- Later SR: I don't know.
- WoD: adjusts needed successes
- VTM1e: sets TN for successes on each die.
- Complications
- Genesys: usually not lasting, but situation changes. See the list for despair.
- 2d20 in general: creates damage or traits
- Dune: almost always creates situation affecting traits. See Traits, below
- TDP:
- WoD: Botch. An exceptional failure, VTM1e more 1's than successes.
- d6: Failure with a 1 on the wild die. Not in early games; wild die added in SW 2e.
- SR: sufficiently poor rolls have a mechanic, don't remember it well, not going looking for the book at the moment.
- YZE: only as a result of specific to flavor mechanics.
- T2K 4e: both dice 1's
- Alien: pushed then got a 1 on a stress die
- Vaesen: pushed - take damage
- MYZ: take damage and gain a point of power for your mutant abilities.
- Feat like modifiers
- Genesys: specific conditional mods and some have custom rules
- Dune: Most are metacurrency spends
- Note that Traits are different.
- TDP: each is a custom rule.
- skill list
- Genesys: 30 some, fairly concrete, moderately well defined. Only a few have specialties, and those are also spelled out.
- Dune: 5. The specializations are very open ended lists, amd are functionally the equivalent to the skill lists of TDPs and Genesys - the list is about 30, and explicitly open to additions as it's explicitly inexhaustive.
- TDP: varies from 12 in many YZE games to 30+ in SR and WoD. Those with specializations mostly have specific lists.
- Weapons
- Genesys: specific damage by weapon type, modified by extra successes
- Dune: damage by quality of weapon and by successes. (The only difference comes from traits, which may be part of some weapons. One man's dagger may do more damage than another's BFG²
- TDP: fixed dice (SR, WoD) or value (YZE) modified by quality of success on the to hit
- Excess success
- Genesys: outside of conflict³, usually no specified effect. (Some do use it in description, tho.) Also, excess successes cannot be stored
- Generated triumph, despair, Threat, and Opportunity spends are common, but have effects that more traditional systems would require prior declaration of. They cannot be stored.
- Dune: excess successes convert into metacurrency which can be used immediately or saved for later.
- Momentum can also be used before rolling to buy extra dice, and before or after to create traits
- TDP: again, not unified
- YZE: can buy special effects which vary by skill and specific game
- SR1&3: outside combat, not specifically spelled out for most skills
- WoD: "quality of success" outside combat, bonus damage in combat.
- d6: no effect for exceeding the TN. Wild die in later editiions creates GM option for critical if open ending function not needed.
- Quantum items
- Genesys: explicit - metacurrency spend
- Find the right item: item needed appears in environment with an explanation that it wasn't readily apparent. Blackletter use.
- I didn't leave it behind: things from ship or base (within reason) were "always here"
- I bought it in town: spend the cash, too. I don't recall if this use is blackletter.
- Dune: Spend Momentum. They are, after all, just traits.
- TDP:
- Traits (narrative label generic modifier conditions or items created in play)
- Genesys: no equivalent
- Dune: core function of the task system to create and be affected by traits
- Defined value: each may be +1 to a difficulty, -1 to a difficulty, enable a normally impossible task, or prevent a normally doable one.
- What are represented as traits
- All assets
- All gear - tho gear can have its own traits - called qualities
- Units of troops are traits
- Most minor NPCs are just traits
- conditions that affect PC performance, such as wounds or drugs
- Components of traits
- The label: determines when they applie
- the Quality Level:
- when used for +X/-X, this sets X
- when used for May or May Not mode, determines how hard it is to cancel.
- the Keywords - which are mechanical traits as well.
- TDP: Nothing comes to mind as equivalent in any of them.
I can get why people might look at it and think it less narrativist, but in practice, much of the mechanical use in Dune is in creating and using traits - so many things are just traits (or traits with subtraits) that it's the near universal mechanic for "stuff" other than PCs and major NPCs. This frees up a huge amount of mechanical grist and requires a lot more GM thinking of "Does this really apply here/now?"
EG: a Crysknife is a trait. It's keywords are Sacred and Melee Weapon. It's required to be quality 1 or more.
Melee Weapon is a keyword trait that forbids ranged attacks and enables lethal melee attacks.
Sacred is a keyword trait that allows its use in social actions.
The Quality means that, when used for non-combat, it adds 1 for being an asset (trait), and 1 more for its quality. When used in combat, the melee use is the default for damage = 1+momentum spend, and the quality 1 increases that by 1.
So, a +1 damage melee weapon with a +2 in certain circumstances (proving oneself to Fremen, for example), -2 in others (accused of stealing it from the dead), disallows certain actions (drawing it in public - to do so is a grave offense to fremen), and allows certain others (Talking to a Naïb when unknown to him).
THe mechanical flow is all about the definitions. This makes it quite... loose. The mechanics can support the story more than in Genesys. Further, because of the limit on increased damage
DOn't get me wrong, either: I love them both. But
Dune, once players grasp the core mechanics of traits and tasks, it supports the needs by making just about any needed item a part of the mechanical framework seamlessly.
I've had players use traits to represent troops, emotions, physical augmentations, physical limitations, aides de camp, BFGs (A Lasgun of quality 4! 4-5 damage per hit), situations ("my knife is at his femoral artery"), Social situations ("His grace owes me a favor now"), treaties (from blackletter rules in playtest material)...
We even dribbled over into mapless wargame a few times; the invasion of their fief by the Tleilaxu... The Warmaster used his leadership specialty to create barriers and chokepoints - each an asset trait attached to units. Meanwhile, one of the BG was using the voice to amass peasant levies, and the Duke was busy directing defensive fire. Oh, and another BG (party had 3) ordered the Tleilaxu general to cease fire... and then eviscerated him. Was a delightfully suitable miasma of trait creation and destruction...
The tleilaxu had to remove the choke point before the troop it was attached to. The troops got to add it to the Warmaster's roll for their attacks.
It all boils down to the way assets/traits work, and how much of the mechanical cruft of traditional systems is eliminated. But the biggest part? The Quality of a trait isn't a measure of its simulation value; it's a measure of its story importance. That +4 lasgun? It was vital... it was a desperate holdout against a worker revolt on Geidi Prime...
inside the Lasgun Factory! Wiping out swathes of violent workers... and allowing the party to escape. Yeah, it cost them the full stored 6 Momentum plus the 4 generated on the "Grab the best model to hand" roll...
STA is arguable either way, but Dune's more narrative than STA, and STA moreso than Mutant Chronicles 3e, JCOM, or Conan.
Even more fun: the starter set? It uses the creation in play. Man, that was fun to test.
¹: Excepting Captain's Log, which is the only 2d20 variant I've seen where you're not supposed to buy more d20 with metacurrency, specifically momentum. In fact, it's the only one where that's not even an option.
²: Big «bleep»ing Gun
³: There are options in Star Wars for social conflict as well as personal and small unit.
