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I've started running Dune and am crashing into things that the rulebook does not explain well. Please can anyone who has run Dune or run/played other Modiphius 2d20 games help?

Movement: So when a fight starts, Player 1 has chosen to move... that's the Move An Asset option. The rulebook then bangs on about picking to Move Subtly or Move Boldly, both of which involve a dice roll at Difficulty 2 to get an extra benefit if you succeed, or a failure to move if you fail.

It says in the rulebook on page 166 (emphasis mine):

When you move you may choose to try and gain an additional benefit...

Question: Does that mean there is a vanilla move with no dice roll needed?

Sometimes my players didn't want the benefit, they just wanted to move from Here to There. Like the knife fighter wanted to get into the adjacent zone to be within stabbing range of a bad guy. The knife fighter didn't care about keeping the initiative (move subtly) and the bad guy didn't have any assets that it would make narrative sense to move (move boldly).

Because of this, the players were sulking when someone had to do a harder than average dice roll (difficulty 2) simply to move from A to B.

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Yes, the plain Move action just moves you or an asset

This is on page 166 of the rules:

Move

You move one of your assets (or your character, in some cases) from its current location to any adjacent zone. You may spend 2 points of Momentum to move your chosen asset one additional zone, or to choose a second asset to move one zone.
When you move, you may choose to try and gain an additional benefit, but there is a risk to this.

By default, the Move action just moves you or an asset from its current location to an adjacent zone. Everything else is optional, as indicated by the language that says you may spend Momentum or you may choose to try and gain an additional benefit by taking a risk. This is in no way mandatory, the character can decide to do it, or not do it. If they decide to not do it, there is no added cost, or no dice rolling and no risk.

I'm not really sure why you think the rules are not clear on this point. The dictionary defintion of the word may is

expressing possibility

so this is a possibility, it is not mandatory.

P.S. While you can move an asset, in the copy of the book I have access to (ISBN: 978-1-912743-59-9, copyright 2021) the action is just called Move, not Move an Asset.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes the section heading is Move. But the paragraph before that says "you may take a single action, to either move an asset or use an asset". And I think the rules are not clear because we're having to quibble about dictionary definitions of the word "may", rather than explicitly stating how things work. The GM shield, for instance, does NOT contain the word "may". It just says: "Moving Assets - To move an asset from one zone to the next requires a skill test (difficulty 2)." \$\endgroup\$
    – DrBob
    Jan 22 at 19:33
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    \$\begingroup\$ @DrBob Yes, I agree that the rules could have benefited from better cross-indexing, or maybe also from some more elaborate examples that show non-trivial situations. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Jan 22 at 19:44

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