Spotlight on Games > Variants
DUNE
Variants for the board game by Parker Brothers

Variant I: Variable Start
All player pieces begin in variable locations. For each piece, the owning player rolls two six-sided and one eight-sided die. The player adds the total and places the piece in the desert that many spaces away from the home sietch.

Variant II: Random Additional Powers
There are twelve additional powers or capabilities to be assigned to the players randomly. These are distributed as follows: After each player has been assigned a side, take all of the character cards and shuffle them, dealing three to each player. Each character corresponds to a power as listed below. After each player's additional powers have been noted, return the character cards to their rightful owners.

Emperor - Additional Spice
Sardaukar Warrior - Special Movement
Princess - Increased Investment
Dr. Kynes - Increased Harvest
Stilgar - Combat Prowess
Chani - Improved Training
The Baron - Enhanced Guile
The Beast - Card Availability
Feyd - Exchangeable Equipment
Paul Atreides - Doubled Card Play
Gurney Halleck - Free Access
Duke Leto Atreides - Ornithopter Piloting

The Powers

Additional Spice

The player begins the game with 10 spice rather than 6.
Special Movement
Instead of moving by die rolls in the normal way, the player may subtract one die from the other and move one token a number of spaces equal to the result. If the subtraction makes the number negative, the token is moved in a counterclockwise direction. Note that this allows a token to move zero spaces in the event of doubles; if the player decides to do this, the token still applies the effects of the space it is in.
Increased Investment
The player may invest in Diamonds which pay off when a "2" or a "12" is rolled. The rate of payoff is 5:1.
Increased Harvest
When collecting spice from a harvest, the payoff is equal to 1.5 times the number of harvesters owned, with fractions rounded up.
Combat Prowess
All of the player's characters always roll an extra eight-sided die in combat, even if already rolling six dice.
Improved Training
When a character lands on the Training space, strength is increased by two instead of one. Maximum strength is still six however.
Enhanced Guile
To temporarily increase guile, the owning player need only pay two spice per guile point added.
Card Availability
The player may buy four cards rather than just three.
Exchangeable Equipment
The player may exchange cards among his characters just before buying cards.
Doubled Cardplay
The player may play two cards instead of just one.
Free Access
The player's tokens may end in any Castle Space without paying any spice.
Ornithopter Piloting
The player's ornithopters are only damaged on a roll of six.

Variant III: Assigned Additional Powers

Instead of assigning additional powers randomly, give each player the powers corresponding to his own characters.
Sat Oct 3 12:57:25 PDT 1998
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