Dune starter set: Agents of Dune review

Agents of Dune is Modiphius’ starter set for their Dune RPG. It has a grand ambition, which is to teach roleplaying to people who have never played or run a ttrpg before, with play starting only a few minutes after opening the box. Does it succeed? It’s hard for me to say, because I’ve been roleplaying for over 40 years. 

But I’m going to try and figure that out anyway.

Caveats

I am not particularly a fan of Dune. I read Dune in school, and it was fine. (I may have been too young.) I may have tried to read some of the sequels. I can’t remember. 

I enjoyed the recent movies, but I don’t know the detailed lore.

Anyway, I bought this in Modipheus’ Black Friday sale. I wouldn’t have bought it at full price, but I did because I picked up the Masters of Dune campaign, and apparently, this is a lead-in. (And I also thought it might be helpful to understand the rules.)

I haven’t played or run the starter set – I have only read it. (Well, and run through a few scenes as a solo player.)

I’m definitely not the target audience for two reasons: I am an experienced roleplayer, and I’m not a Dune fan.

Given that, these are my thoughts.

Contents

The sturdy box contains:

One introduction leaflet, with a letter from the head of the PC’s house setting the scene and telling them they are taking over Arrakis from the Harkonnen. (Yes, this is an “alternate universe” version of Dune where the Harkonnen aren’t quite as vile as they are in the source material, and the handover to House Nagara isn’t a trap. You might not like this. I’m fine with it.) The back page has a summary of key rules: conflicts, attack sequence and determination.

Five 4-page pregenerated characters, all from House Nagara and including a mentat and a Bene Gesserit. The back page summarises the rules for skill tests.

Some counters with mysterious symbols. These aren’t always explained.

Five d20s with worms instead of 1s. They’re quite nice, and easy to read.

Two decks of cards, representing characters, assets and more. Standees are also provided.

Dice, counters, cards.

Handouts, trackers and maps. Various bits of card that are used during the game.

Adventure booklet. The core of the boxed set is a 116-page “campaign experience” that teaches the rules through a series of three acts, each divided into scenes. There’s a lot of text for the GM to read to the players – but they don’t need to read it all at once. Play can start pretty much as soon as the box is opened.

(Incidentally, here is a post from Modiphius outlining their approach to their starter set.)

The campaign experience

The campaign starts in Act 1 with the PCs being trained by the Harkonnens on Giedi Prime. Act 2 introduces the PCs to intrigue on Giedi Prime, while Act 3 moves the action to Arrakis. Each act is broken into scenes, with new rules introduced gradually. The story itself is quite fun, with dastardly Harkonnen, an assassination and spice harvesting on Arrakis.

So the first scene of Act 1 is “Seeking Discipline”. The PC’s shuttle is under attack. They are on the bridge and must first use the control panels to identify the problem. This is done by the GM reading out text, and the players responding to it (and rolling dice). Depending on the PC's actions (or the dice roll), the GM reads another paragraph.

So it’s a little like a choose-your-own-adventure, but with a GM.

My experience

To test it out, I took three PCs through the first few scenes, rolling dice and making player decisions. While it taught me the basics of the game, I’m not sure it was a good introduction to roleplaying. The focus is definitely on rolling dice rather than roleplaying, which seemed to be a bit of a miss.

And I expected the book to do less handholding as it went on, with the last few scenes presented more as a traditional adventure. But no.

While this approach is more restrictive than experienced players might like (there’s no tactical infinity here!), it allows for some intriguing moments that are effectively cut scenes. (For example, in an early scene, they are all attacked by traitors with dartguns. Friendly NPCs deal with the attackers (the scene is there to hint that all is not well on Giedi Prime), and the PCs aren’t in real danger – but there’s nothing they can do about it. I imagine some players may object to the lack of agency, but I didn’t mind this.)

Things that really didn’t work

I have no idea how successful this approach to teaching new players has been. I presume Modiphius tested it, but I don’t have any newbies to hand to try it out on. So I can’t tell.

But as I read through the campaign booklet, I tried to think about it as if I were new to ttrpgs. And I had a lot of issues…

Teaching being a GM: I’m not sure how well the game teaches being a GM. It teaches the rules, yes, but there’s more to being a GM than just knowing the rules. Even things as simple as sketching a map isn’t covered.

Scaling: Scaling challenges for different player counts isn’t explained. With my three test PCs, I found some extended tasks almost impossible. They would have been much easier with all five PCs, but there’s nothing that suggests you should be using all five, and nothing to advise a new GM what to do should they have fewer players.

Threat: Threat is the pool of GM tokens they can use to make the PC’s lives harder. The game explains how Threat is earned, and what it can be spent on, but it never explains when or why the GM should want to use it. Yes, I have a pool of Threat. So what? When should I spend it? And more importantly, why do I want to make things harder for my players? As GM, do I want them to fail?

Extended tasks: Extended tasks aren’t explained well. It took me a couple of readings to work it out – a diagram with the difficulty and boxes to be crossed off would have gone a long way. I ended up creating these anyway, but I suspect a new GM might have struggled.

Traps for the unwary GM: At one point the PCs are expected to ask about a prisoner – but the preceding text doesn’t mention a prisoner. And there’s no guidance on which of the PCs to use, if you’re not using all five. It turns out that one of them is critical!

And there are loads of odd little points that I picked up that a newbie might not. Why is the Move skill used to install a security system? Why is Determination used to buy a warehouse? And what on earth is going on with conflicts?

Okay, that last one isn’t a little point. It’s a huge point, so let’s talk about the system.

Dune’s system

Maybe new players take to Dune’s system like a duck to water, but I found it extremely odd. 

2d20

So Dune is an iteration of Modiphius’ 2d20 system. This essentially means for every task, players roll 2d20 and try to roll under the target number. The target number depends on each character’s Drive and Skill (added together), and the difficulty of the task indicates how many successes a player needs.

Spare successes can be used to build something called Momentum, which can be spent for various things – most often, more dice to roll.

So those are the basics. So far, so good. The problem (for me) arises with Drives and Skills.

Drives and Skills

Each character has five Drives and five Skills.

The Skills are Battle, Communicate, Discipline, Move, and Understand. They’re pretty self-explanatory, apart from Discipline, which is stamina and willpower.

The Drives are Duty (what is your responsibility), Faith (what your heart says), Justice (what is right), Power (what you want), and Truth (what the facts are).

And here are some tests the campaign book asks for

• Figuring out what is wrong at a control station.
• Deactivating an alarm system.
• Install spy eyes and listening devices.
• Rescuing a spice harvester from a sandworm attack.

While it’s usually clear what Skill to use (but not always – Discipline seems to have various uses), choosing the correct Drive seems fraught with confusion. And the GM and players have precious little guidance – they’re left to their own. 

And if I struggled with choosing the right Drive (why not always pick the highest?), it’s hard to imagine that new players will find it easy.

NPCs

Maybe things are different in the core rules, but the stats for NPCs are just like the stats for PCs.

This may just be me, but I like NPCs to have a cut-down set of stats. Frankly, in Dune, all a GM needs are typical target numbers to suit different levels of NPCs.

Maybe I’d make an exception for main NPCs, but most NPCs are bit parts and only need to be a couple of lines.

Why bring this up? Well, because there is stuff hidden in a statblock that is easily missed. For example, during Act 2, the PCs meet Sabrya Zavr, a CHOAM negotiator. We are given her full stats (see above), and her focus for “Communicate” (the skill she uses in the scene we meet her) is “Negotiation.” And because that focus applies to the task at hand, she rolls a critical if she rolls below her skill (Communicate – 7) instead of just rolling a 1. So she’s a super powerful foe in the negotiations that the PCs are carrying out – but this isn’t called out in the text; it’s only apparent if the GM pays attention to her stat block.

I know I would find it easier to have cut-down stat blocks for NPCs. I’m pretty sure new GMs would too.

Conflicts

Which brings me to conflicts. These cover situations that go beyond a simple series of skill checks. Although the starter set explains what they are, it doesn’t really explain why anyone would use the conflict rules rather than just skill checks. Instead, the conflict rules are introduced when the starter set uses them.

There are several types of conflict – negotiations, duels, skirmishes, and more. All of them use the same core minigame rules, which involve moving your assets into enemy zones and preventing your enemy from doing the same to you. Some actions let you move enemy assets, which I found a bit weird.

Anyway, I have a couple of issues with conflicts. (Although this is based mainly on what I’ve read, and solo playing one of the conflicts out in the book. Maybe they are better in a full game. I guess they must be, given they are a core part of the Dune RPG.)

First, they don’t feel like roleplaying to me. I’m not that keen when ttrpgs turn into miniature wargames when combat breaks out, and playing out a conflict is like playing a board game.

Second, I’m not sure how well I would run them. One of the reasons I don’t like running combat is that I’m juggling so many other things that I don’t really play the enemies particularly effectively. I forget bonuses, special attacks, and the like. I don’t use cover and special rules very well – I just forget while I’m trying to manage the players, plot, NPCs, and everything else. (If you want to give players a real challenge in their combats, bring in another player to play their enemies… But that’s another topic.) So I’m pretty sure I’d be rubbish at running conflicts.

Third, I am not convinced they feel like the things they are representing. The negotiation, for example, feels nothing like a negotiation and is instead a short board game. Maybe that’s not the case for conflicts, but the negotiation didn’t feel like a negotiation for me.

CHOAM negotiations

From a new GM’s perspective, I have other issues.

• How does one set up a typical conflict? The ones in the starter set don’t seem to have any coherent pattern. The negotiation is very abstract (is it used for all negotiation conflicts?), while the skirmish uses a map. What’s the difference? It’s not explained.
• In a couple of cases, there are special rules. For example, in the negotiation conflict, Sabrya Zavr goes twice. Why? Is that a general rule or a special case for this conflict?

As is probably obvious, I haven’t got my head around conflicts. They may be the best thing about the Dune RPG, but I probably won’t find out until I try them in battle. However, for a new GM, I am not convinced that the starter set explains them well.

Spice harvesting

Harvesting spice has its own mini-game, complete with an irrelevant map. Spice appears, and the PCs decide where to place their harvesters. Sandworms may appear, and Fremen may attack. And if the harvester survives all of this, then we find out if the harvest has been successful.

Harvesting spice on an irrelevant map.

A couple of oddities.

• The spice blow token in that zone modifies the difficulty of the roll for spice production. But it’s not clear if it’s modified upwards or downwards. I think it’s supposed to be modified downwards, so a +2 spice blow represents lots of spice (with increased chance of sandworms), but that should mean it’s easier to harvest.
• The minigame does not reflect that the PCs are the leaders of House Nagara and would have teams of people to do all this for them. Instead, they are running around, making the rolls themselves. (For example, the PCs must make Move rolls to save a harvester threatened by a sandworm. Move? Eh?)
• If the harvest is successful, the PCs can invest in more harvesters. But this just means the PCs are even more stretched as nobody else is making the rolls…

Dune RPG starter set – my overall thoughts

While I like the idea of creating a starter set that lets new players start playing within minutes of opening the box, I’m not sure Agents of Dune works. I like the idea of learning the game as you go along, but I would have preferred a more traditional ttrpg scenario that an experienced GM could use straight from the book.

I’m glad it wasn’t my first ttrpg experience.

Worse, the starter set hasn’t made me want to try the Dune RPG. From what I can see, the system is unintuitive, fiddly and has systems I don’t understand. And I’m no more a fan of the setting than I was before. I could be wrong about the rules, but the starter set hasn’t inspired me to give it a go.

RPG starter sets

I find myself thinking about ttrpg starter sets.

I recently bought the Agents of Dune starter set for the Dune RPG, in their Black Friday sale. I hadn’t planned to buy it, but I noted that Masters of Dune, a campaign I’ve heard good things about, was also in the sale, and I figured that if I were to get the campaign, then I ought to know how the rules work. And it was an excellent Black Friday deal.

So I’ve been reading Agents of Dune (a “roleplaying campaign experience”), and it has made me think about starter sets and, in particular, what purpose they serve and who their target audience is. 

Target audiences

So I don’t know what goes on in the marketing departments of modern ttrpg companies, but I figure there are several different audiences, and they all want different things from a starter set.

The complete newbie: Has never played (or run) a ttrpg before. Needs the starter set to hold their hand and explain both what ttrpgs are, as well as selling this particular ttrpg. Oh, and doing so in a way that they like it so much that they pick up the core rulebook.

Existing roleplayers who are new to the game and the system: This existing GM or player likes the sound of the game, but doesn’t know the system and needs to find out what it’s about without breaking the bank.

Existing roleplayer, familiar with the brand, new to the game: This is someone who has played games by the company before, but not this particular line. (So think of a RuneQuest fan who wants to try Call of Cthulhu.)

Veterans familiar with the game itself: Someone who already plays the game and doesn’t need a starter set. Or do they?

The market size gets smaller as we go down the list. Complete newbies outnumber existing roleplayers, who outnumber those familiar with the company, who outnumber those familiar with the actual line.

Who are starter sets written for?

This is probably obvious, but these different audiences have different needs.

A newbie needs their hand holding. Other GMs need a set of rules and an adventure, and maybe some bling.

What should starter sets contain?

We’ve pretty much got this sorted. Rules and an adventure. Pregenerated characters. Dice. Maps and miniatures or tokens to suit.

An adventure. Maybe more than one. (The Call of Cthulhu starter set has three.) Unique adventures make a starter set appealing to existing players. The first edition ALIEN starter set had the excellent Chariot of the Gods adventure. (I think Free League have made a mistake by putting the somewhat average Hope’s Last Day in their latest starter set.)

The Dune starter set has a longer, more involved adventure (almost a mini campaign).

Rules: Enough rules to play the adventure. As pregenerated characters are usually supplied, starter set typically don’t include character generation rules. Apart from character generation, the first-edition ALIEN starter set had the complete rules (I’m not sure about the current edition) and the cinematic adventures Destroyer of Worlds and Heart of Darkness could be played with just the starter set.

The Dune starter set takes an odd approach to the rules, explaining them as the adventure progresses, but it also includes a free download of the core rules.

Dice: Dice are pretty much mandatory in a starter set. A nice set of dice might encourage existing fans to pick up a starter set.

Other bling: Starter sets can include maps, tokens, miniatures and other bling. Depending on the quality of these, they may encourage experienced GMs to pick them up.

Should a starter set be aimed at complete newbies?

Maybe. I don’t know.

I guess if you think your starter set will appeal to newbies, you might need to write for them. But I wouldn’t tell them how to roleplay – I’d point them to a short YouTube video showing the game in action. Along with rules tutorials.

But I would note that most roleplaying games are ridiculously complicated (and I’m foreshadowing my review of the Dune starter set here), and unsuited for attracting newbies. So targeting existing roleplayers seems like a safer bet – unless the game is very explicitly aimed at bringing new players into the hobby.

What would I include in a starter set?

So my aim for a starter set would be to draw in existing gamers while also giving veterans a good reason to purchase it. I wouldn’t target complete newbies for the reasons stated above.

So a starter set must include:

A good adventure. Clearly, it has to include a great (and ideally unique) adventure. The adventure has to say, “This is how good this game can be.” There’s no point in including a mediocre adventure. The Call of Cthulhu starter set may include three investigations (which is good value), but none of them are new, limiting its appeal for veterans. 

The original ALIEN starter set included the excellent (although flawed, as I've discussed before) Chariot of the Gods – in my view, an excellent adventure. And it wasn’t available anywhere else.

Enough rules: The starter set must have enough rules to run the adventure. It doesn’t need character generation rules or starship building.

Again, the ALIEN rules are good. You get the complete rules (bar character generation), and Free League explicitly say that their cinematic adventures can be run with the starter set. So buyers weren’t compelled to buy the core rules – although many did. (I did.)

To give the Dune starter set some credit, while they don’t provide a set of rules (rules are explained as you play the adventure), Modipheus give you a code to download the core rules for free.

Some bling. Custom dice, maps, handouts, maybe a small deck of cards. And make them good quality. One criticism of the ALIEN starter set is that the dice aren’t particularly great quality dice. They look and feel cheap. I still use them, but I would rather have nicer dice.

Books that aren’t going to fall apart. And of course, it’s nice to have books that aren’t going to fall apart after a few uses. I’m still waiting for that – I find that starter set books (rules and adventures) feel very cheap and aren’t very robust.

My ideal Traveller starter set

So if I were to assemble a starter set for Traveller, what would I do?

I want to create a boxed set that gives new players (and GMs) the Traveller experience. Given that Traveller has a broad scope, I’d have to narrow it down. So let’s go for a merchant game, centred around the crew of a 200-ton Far Trader.

(And, yes, I know that the Traveller Starter Pack exists. It gets bonus points for being free, but it’s only in pdf and I’m not a big fan of either of the starter scenarios as I think they are overwritten, structurally unfriendly, and don’t really sell the Traveller experience to new GM.)

So what would my starter set include?

Rules: A cut-down ruleset. Enough rules to run the game, but no more. So no starship or world building, no deckplans (except as required). And robust enough not to fall apart after a few uses.

Pregens: I’m in two minds as to whether to include pregenerated characters or not. Generating characters is such a fundamental part of playing Traveller, I think I’d include the merchant career path. But only for merchants. And I’d fix the mustering out so that the group ends up as part-owners of a Far Trader, with a mortgage.

Maps: Two obvious maps – a large subsector map (maybe two or four subsectors), and a map of the ship. Plus other maps, if required by the adventures.

Adventure material: Three adventures, half a dozen patrons, and a few casual encounters (as the detailed NPCs used to be called). Enough material for a few sessions of play, along with advice for running the ship.

Dice: Some six-sided Traveller dice.

Other bling: If possible, other bling such as cards for key NPCs, or random encounters, or equipment. (Equipment seems to be a common use for cards in starter sets, but I must confess that I’ve never used them that way.)

A starter set focusing on a different part of Traveller (the Scout service, say), would have different adventure material but otherwise might be very similar.

I think that sounds like something I would be tempted to pick up!

Prelude

Anyway, all this is a prelude as next time I will look at the Dune RPG starter set, Agents of Dune, in more detail.

Consequences 2025

It’s a cold snap in November, so I must be in a thin-walled caravan in West Sussex. Ah, yes, I’m starting this post at 2025’s “Radical” Consequences, the UK’s main freeform larp convention. (It feels very British to have our premier freeform larp convention held in a cold, rainy holiday park!)

I’ve written about Consequences before, so let’s get on with the larps. I played four, ran two and facilitated two games of Fiasco. Phew!

Thursday

Consequences started at 7 pm, so after a happily uneventful drive, I arrived ready to play my first game.

4

4 is an eight-player game set in 2013(ish) written by Graham Charles, Natalie Curd, Nick Curd and Tony Mitton.

I played Charlie, who had been committed to St Agnes’ mental health facility for his obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The game itself was structured into three acts.

• The first is a short exercise set in St Agnes’ to reinforce our names and why we are at St Agnes’. (“I am Charlie. I am here because…. This is Bobbi; they are here because…”) It was surprisingly effective.
• The second act is set a few weeks after a tragedy, with us exploring our feelings about what had happened.
• The bulk of the game is contained in the third act, which is a reunion on the site of the tragedy – where things happen, secrets are revealed, and dilemmas must be grappled with.

It’s a lovely game, and I enjoyed it a lot. (My favourite bit was arranging the wine glasses neatly and turning around to see everyone looking at me, and then someone saying “Oh, he’s just being Charlie.”)

It’s probably not for everyone as it includes mental health issues (OCD, paranoia, hallucinations and more). But if you’re up for that, I definitely recommend it.

And with 4 over, I went to bed.

Friday

Friday was cold, but dry. A lovely day with clear blue skies.

The Omega Delivery

The Omega Delivery is a 14-player science fiction game by Tony Mitton and AJ Smith. It’s part of their series of SF games inspired by Firefly, where their design premise was to write a series of episodic games with a cast of core characters (the crew of the Kestrel, in this case) and guest stars.

Last year, I played one of the core characters (Alex Orban, captain of the Kestrel); this year, I played Wye Oliver, a prisoner aboard the secure facility Omega Station, which is suffering from a huge radiation leak. Into this situation came the crew of the Kestrel…

It was nice to play a guest star this time. Last time, as Captain Orban, I was thrown into a situation without really knowing what was going on. This time, as one of the guest stars, I had a much better idea of what was going on, and that was a really nice change of pace.

Again, recommended. Particularly if you can arrange to play all of them – there are six in the series, and this was episode #3, the season 1 cliffhanger.

To Reign in Hentzau

Photo by TsiJon

To Reign in Hentzau is a 25-player game written by David Townsend and John Golden and set in Hentzau, a tiny Eastern European country in the mid-1930s. Hentzau’s Lord Protector has just been assassinated, throwing the country into disarray…

I played Prince Reinhart, heir to the assassinated Lord Protector, so of course I was never going to rule… Amid numerous scheming ministers, corrupt generals, foreign agitators, and my overbearing mother, I never stood a chance…

It was lovely to play a sprawling, complicated political freeform larp, even if I really was a puppet. I had no real leverage – what I wanted was whatever was “best for Hentzau.” But I’m not sure I ever really knew what that was…

Anyway, I had a lovely time.

I had nothing planned for Friday evening, so I had an early night.

So that’s three games so far, and my character has died in two of them. I’m not saying which, but I am keeping count.

Saturday

Saturday was very wet, and it rained and rained. Walking around the site in the dark became particularly tricky without wellies. (Something to consider if the forecast isn’t good.)

All Flesh is Grass and Aurora Horizon

All Flesh is Grass photo by TsiJon

On Saturday, I ran All Flesh is Grass and Aurora Horizon in quick succession. These are both parts of my long-running saga of first-contact science fiction games. All Flesh is Grass is episode 2, and Aurora Horizon is episode 6.

All Flesh is Grass is set in 1965 and involves a mysterious barrier that appears around a small Wisconsin village. Aurora Horizon is set in 2010 and involves a space mission to explore an abandoned spaceship on Callisto. Both are for 13 players.

Aurora Horizon photo by TsiJon

Both went really well. Aurora Horizon is the more ambitious of the two, and fortunately, Abi K was helping me GM – I really needed it. (Kevin J helped me GM All Flesh is Grass, but that’s easier to run, and we spent much of the game chatting.)

My favourite quotes:

• “Do you WANT to destroy the insurance industry?” (All Flesh is Grass, on the promise of tailored plant-based medicine.)
• “I am not going to change the laws of physics for you!” (Aurora Horizon – Commander Archer arguing with one of the Tau.)

I’ve got a few edits to make for both games. Luckily, they aren’t too significant. I’ll do them now while they are fresh in my mind and while I am still enthusiastic. That way, I can put the games away, knowing I can pick them up and run them later.

Next year, I plan to run Children of the Stars (episode #3) and episode #7 (currently unwritten).

Fiasco: The Ice

On Saturday evening, I facilitated a game of Fiasco with Graham, Alli, Kris Alice, and Clare. It was glorious, and I don’t think I laughed as much all weekend. 

I hadn’t planned to facilitate Fiasco twice. I originally pitched it for Sunday morning, but after a couple of people had signed up, Kris Alice asked if I could run it on Saturday evening, as we were both free.

As is usual with Fiasco, we spent the first few scenes figuring out how the game was going to go, but once we had an idea, it was pedal to the metal. 

I find Fiasco is a great way to hone my improvisational skills. Graham completely shafted my character in his second scene, and with that one call, I became a murderer. I killed my character in my epilogue, which seemed to be the right thing to do.

Sunday

Sunday was cloudy, but at least the rain held off, and the puddles started to dry out.

Fiasco: Dragon Slayers

So this was my original slot for Fiasco. I didn’t pitch Fiasco until after I’d worked out which freeforms I wanted to play. As I had a gap on Sunday morning (and I am an early bird, so mornings don’t frighten me as much as the all-night parties), I pitched Fiasco. 

Joining me were Sarah, Julie, Sophie and Kath, and they chose Dragon Slayers, the fantasy-themed set.

I was slightly anxious, as I had only known Kath for any length of time, but I needn’t have worried. Everyone embraced Fiasco’s darkness, and we had a tale of a necromancer and her apprentice, twin sisters, a bounty hunter and his henchmen. Things didn’t go well for me (again), but at least I didn’t die this time.

LDRBRD

And finally, Ldrbrd, a 12-player game set in a video arcade where we played video game characters. I played Sword Guy from a fantasy video game. 

While I enjoyed Ldrbrd (although I completely failed to save Princess – and arguably was responsible for her doom), I found the three mini-games dragged on a bit. They were a nice idea, but given the keenly competitive gamers in the group, I felt they dragged on a bit.

Ldrbrd had the best-formatted A5 booklet of the con with text large enough that my 60-year-old eyes could read it even in the dim arcade lighting. 

The after-con socials

Consequences is known for its after-game parties. They normally start late (after the evening games, which don’t finish until midnight), which isn’t great for me as I’m an early bird (as already mentioned).

Sunday, though, doesn’t have an evening game, which gave me a chance to socialise before it got too late.

Monday

And on Monday, I had an uneventful drive home.