D&D (2024) Dungeon Master's Guide Bastion System Lets You Build A Stronghold

The Dungeon Master's Guide's brand new Bastion System has been previewed in a new video from Wizards of the Coast.

Characters can acquire a bastion at 5th-level. Each week, the bastion takes a turn, with actions including crafting, recruiting, research, trade, and more.

A bastion also contains a number of special facilties, starting with two at 5th-level up to 6 at 17th-level. These facilities include things like armories, workshops, laboratories, stables, menageries, and more. In total there are nearly thirty such facilities to choose from.

 

[M_Natas]

Hrm, I think some people misunderstood the Bastion system. Or I do ...
The Bastion hirelings are not NPCs or Player-NPCs. Nobody is really controlling them. They are a game mechanic. You need them so your rooms produce them. The player decides what the room produces. But everything else is done by rolling on random tables. Neither the DM nor the Players are in controll of anything the Hirelings are doing.

It is like playing chutes and ladders. There are no decision points. It is just "roll the die and do what the die says".

Yes, in the UA of Bastions it is written, that the Player can give names and personalities to the Hirelings, but that has no impact on the hireling at all, because ... if you roll a 19 on your Bastion event table, that hireling is now a criminal. Or if you roll a 11 or 12 you loose that hireling.

There is no control over the hirelings. It is either: You have enough hirelings so a room produces stuff or not. And new ones pop up automatically.

That is all ... no very good gameplay so far.

So, what would I want from a hireling system for my Bastion system?

There is a rooster of hirelings that the PCs can hire.
That can range from "here are 20 hireling stat blocks, pick the ones you like to hire" to having a whole interview process.

But for that to matter, the stats of the hirelings would need to matter for the Bastion rooms, or else this is all irrelevant.

And that is the big problem with the Bastion system with their hirelings (UA version) - they don't matter. They are just a number. Sometimes, when you roll a 11 or 12, the number fluctuates for one Bastion turn, but that's all. No matter what the player does to the hirelings, no matter what the world does, the hirelings are just a number "are there enough for the room to produce or not" and neither player nor DM have any impact, because the hirelings spawn automatically with the room.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Because I cannot affect Bastion, a PC is now allowed to commit all kinds of atrocities and, as long as they can flee to their Bastion. As I have said, a PC could now slaughter a whole village, piss on the king and kidnapp his daughter and, as long as they flee to their Bastion, escape consequences, because the DM is not allowed to interact with the Bastion at all.

And if you are saying that Bastion is so abstract that fleeing to it is impossible, then that's even more immersion breaking. There is a place a PC can build to live in, but it doesn't provide most basic benefit a place to live does, shelter. There is no way if a PC declared "I'm fleeing to my bastion and hiding until it's over", that I would not come looking like a railroading jackass for saying "You cannot, Bastion cannot provide you shelter". The way you are describing Bastion it becomes a video game menu with list of bonuses, that literally refuses to be a physical place in the world, it primary purpose being to just break the immersion and remind the player this is a video game, not a living, breathing world.

EDIT: And the topic of followers is the same thing. I am not allowed to have those characters react with disgust and horror to anything a PC has done, even if it's like slaughtering Village of Women And Children, Edmonton. If the PC says that his followers are all an order of righteous knights but doesn't want them to react a way righteous knights would to an act of evil, I'm supposed to roll with it because those aren't NPCs, just abstract numbers to cheer on the PC. It encourages murderhoboing by banning me from making player actions have consequences and it's a giant "IT'S JUST A GAME BRO!" sign that ruins all immersion-building efforts I've made.

So they're slaves, then?

What kind of D&D game are you playing???

 

[Sulicius]

Hrm, I think some people misunderstood the Bastion system. Or I do ...
The Bastion hirelings are not NPCs or Player-NPCs. Nobody is really controlling them. They are a game mechanic. You need them so your rooms produce them. The player decides what the room produces. But everything else is done by rolling on random tables. Neither the DM nor the Players are in controll of anything the Hirelings are doing.

It is like playing chutes and ladders. There are no decision points. It is just "roll the die and do what the die says".

Yes, in the UA of Bastions it is written, that the Player can give names and personalities to the Hirelings, but that has no impact on the hireling at all, because ... if you roll a 19 on your Bastion event table, that hireling is now a criminal. Or if you roll a 11 or 12 you loose that hireling.

There is no control over the hirelings. It is either: You have enough hirelings so a room produces stuff or not. And new ones pop up automatically.

That is all ... no very good gameplay so far.

So, what would I want from a hireling system for my Bastion system?

There is a rooster of hirelings that the PCs can hire.
That can range from "here are 20 hireling stat blocks, pick the ones you like to hire" to having a whole interview process.

But for that to matter, the stats of the hirelings would need to matter for the Bastion rooms, or else this is all irrelevant.

And that is the big problem with the Bastion system with their hirelings (UA version) - they don't matter. They are just a number. Sometimes, when you roll a 11 or 12, the number fluctuates for one Bastion turn, but that's all. No matter what the player does to the hirelings, no matter what the world does, the hirelings are just a number "are there enough for the room to produce or not" and neither player nor DM have any impact, because the hirelings spawn automatically with the room.

That's what I actually like about the hirelings. They don't have to be anything. The play test rules do tell the player to make them with the same tools a DM makes NPC's.

Making 20 options of hirelings sounds like a total pain and a huge timesink for a DM.

I just told my players they could make their own, and decide whether or not they wanted to role play them. The opted to let me RP those hirelings, and I gave them basic stat blocks just in case.

The design goal is clear: they want to give us the most light-weight home base system that doesn't overwhelm the campaign.

But I my current campaign? We fleshed them all out and they often have little B-plot issues that need resolving. It's been a blast. It is exactly because it is so bare boned that we could change things to our whims without having to worry about the mechanics.

 

[jmartkdr2]

If they don't include anything around multi-character or whole-party (or even adventuring company) strongholds it would be a miss IMO.

There's a difference between these:

a) advising DMs not to mess with it
b) outright banning DMs from messing with it
c) giving DMs advice on how to (and how not to) mess with it in ways that constructively add to the game and-or its story.

Some are interpreting the new system as saying b) above, hence the pushback.

I'd prefer if they did c) - but I ain't holding my breath.

They’re assuming a comment in a video about the rules is the same as a rule.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

What kind of D&D game are you playing???

Don't act as if internet isn't full of horror stories of players who act like pricks and then whine when their actions have consequences. I run games where you can try anything as long as you are willing to accept the consquences. Mechanics that seem to deliberatelly remove said consequences rub me the wrong way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is not actually true. Here's a quote from the 1e DMG:
View attachment 382062
The following section discusses how the DM roleplays and controls the NPC's, including hirelings and henchman. Plus in the section specifically about henchman, there are various points where it talks about information the players might not know about the henchman. Further, there is an extensive loyalty system for said NPC's, and the DM decided how they would react to the actions of the PC's, and could even turn on or abandon them!

Now in my experience, my DM usually allowed me to control my henchman in combat, but they were capable of independent action (and frequently did things based on the DM's decisions).

That is how I handle henchmen. The player controls them in combat (mostly for convenience), and the DM does it the rest of the time.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hm. I admit, maybe this is because that's how I saw them used, but I'd always assumed followers were henchman and hirelings. The 1e books are pretty vague on this point. It wasn't until 2e that the Fighter's tables of potential followers were even in the PHB (previously they were in the DMG).

In fact, the 1e PHB has this to say:
View attachment 382064
Nothing in there really says "hey, these NPC's are exclusively under your control". Even in 2e, all it says is that these people are loyal as long as they are paid and well-treated.

If there is some carved-out exception that says followers are under player control, I can't seem to find it.

That's my point. If the bastion system works as advertised, the player control part of it is pretty much unprecedented.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They’re assuming a comment in a video about the rules is the same as a rule.

Either it's true, or the video is intentionally misleading to increase sales of the DMG to non-DMS. Neither option is great.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

You don't need those things, sure, but making it impossible for them to happen (because the player decides everything about people who aren't their PC) is simply too unrealistic for my preferences. It's stops being part of the world and becomes a game mechanic extension of the PC's personal power, which just doesn't match what it's supposed to represent.

You clearly feel the principle behind these rules is valuable in D&D, but I just don't agree, not as I understand them. Hopefully when we actually see them there'll be something I can incorporate into my own game. It's all 5e.

There is no "world". It's ALL a storytelling game that uses mechanics for action resolution! GNS is some navelgazing nonsense that has ruined far too many people's fun so now they can't ignore the man behind the curtain. Unless you're JMISBEST or whatever that dude's name is and you roll randomly for literally everything, you're the one pulling the strings so its never organic. You might say you do with the utmost v-tude, but it's not, because you can't let go of your biases, desires for drama/challenge, and need to throw a monkey wrench into things. You're the one picking personalities, motivations, plot setups. So it's NEVER going to be a real world.

And since you're already picking... just pick something else to mess with?

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Giving players control of the Bastion also helps introduce them to some basics of DM'ing. They create a place, populate it, ascribe personalities, motivations and goals. Its a safe space to test the waters. I like that. I say this as a near perma GM.

DM's treating everything as a knife is why almost every old school player I've met runs some boring ass orphan whose entire personality is "cautious and competent adventure winner". Because every pet, family member, lover, etc was turned against them, kidnapped, or fridged.