Dune: House Secrets

Cooperative story adventure: resolve encounters against the clock, piece the plot together and close each chapter with a report.

1–4 players
90–150 min
2.7 / 5 · Medium

Set up the game

0 of 6 steps

Tick each step as you complete it.

1Place the board in the middle within everyone's reach, with the marker on the leftmost space of the consequence track. Clear an area next to the board for the shared resource pool.
Time and consequence tracks
Board
2Each player takes a character board and chooses one for the whole story, gaining the resource it shows. Unchosen characters are flipped to their advocate side and contribute two resources each to the shared pool.
Setup on the table
Character boards
3Shuffle the encounter deck and leave it cover card up next to the board. Do the same with the asset deck: nobody reads cards they have no access to.
Decks on the table
4Mix the consequence tokens and keep them front side down as the consequence pool. Have pen and paper ready for encounter numbers, assets and resources: note-taking is part of the game.
Consequence tokens
5Keep the map of Dune and the map of Tel Gezer nearby. Open the official website, pick the chapter you are about to play and watch the intro video, then take the matching chapter introduction (P, I, II or III) and set the time marker where it says.
Chapter setup
6Read the introduction and prepare the initial encounters it names. Every encounter has a unique number; you may only read or draw the ones you have access to.
Encounter card

What it is about

Dune: House Secrets is not played with points: it is played with information. Every encounter is a scene that gives you data, opens new leads and costs time, and the chapter ends when time runs out, not when you have seen everything.

That scarcity is the engine: the group must decide which line deserves attention, which resource to spend to flip a card and when to drop a side lead. Consequences are not a moral punishment, they measure how exposed you have become.

At the end of each chapter the status report turns your conclusions into story decisions. That is why tidy notes matter: in the next chapter, what you wrote down is what you can pursue.

BGG page Official rulebook

Source note

The rulebook covers setup, encounters, time, consequences and chapter end; the story itself lives in the cards and on the official website.

Official EN rulebook (Portal Games, 2021) · Reviewed: 23 Oct 2026