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.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

And of course you would feel the exact same way if you were the player in charge of the Bastion, deciding all the interactions as realistically as you liked, and the DM suddenly came in and applied cartoon logic to your Bastion and your Bastion alone. Right? This is not solely based in "I don't think the players would run the Bastion in a way I would like", correct?

 

[Chaosmancer]

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).

"As the DM you are game moderator, judge, jury and supreme deity"

Heavy retching

Side note: Likely pointed out, but taking on the persona of the henchman would not invalidate a rule saying the henchman is 100% loyal and will never betray the PC.

 

[Hussar]

[QUOTE="Not a Decepticon].



Have both of you considered the idea that I don't have to be personally experiencing something to point out that a mechanic is easily abusable and encourages toxic behavior? Have either of you considered there is already too many people who struggle as DM's for this game and that this mechanic effectively makes their life harder and takes fun away from the game? Have you considered that I want the game to be good and community healthy even if something won't affect me personally?

.[/QUOTE]

I refuse to debate hypothetical situations that don’t actually have any basis in reality.

Why do you care what happens at someone else’s table? Why do you care about the health of hypothetical tables that only exist in your head?

No one has actually reported any actual problems with the mechanics. This only exists in your head.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And of course you would feel the exact same way if you were the player in charge of the Bastion, deciding all the interactions as realistically as you liked, and the DM suddenly came in and applied cartoon logic to your Bastion and your Bastion alone. Right? This is not solely based in "I don't think the players would run the Bastion in a way I would like", correct?

Correct. But I also trust my GM not to be a jerk, and to listen to me if what they want to do doesn't make logical sense to me, even if it's ultimately their call. Seems you don't feel the same.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"As the DM you are game moderator, judge, jury and supreme deity"

Heavy retching

Side note: Likely pointed out, but taking on the persona of the henchman would not invalidate a rule saying the henchman is 100% loyal and will never betray the PC.

Unless there's some form of mind control involved, there's no logical reason in-setting why a henchmen would be "100% loyal and will never betray the PC", and in-settings reasons are my priority.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Obviously. It's my job as DM to present challenges to the PCs and any avenue for doing such becomes another tool in my box, which means of course I'm looking for ways that the bastion rules (in this case) can help me generate possible challenges.

And note that I said "possible". I don't have to twist the stronghold followers, and if I don't need to I quite likely won't; but I do want that avenue left open to me.

Why? You don't need it open to you, it didn't exist two months ago, so why do you require it to be open to you? Yes, it is your job as the DM to challenge the PCs. No, it is not your job to turn every single thing into avenue of possible challenge for the PCs. Those two things are different.

It's not a matter of they can trust no-one anywhere, it's more a matter of them taking the time and effort to learn who they can trust. The game has always had divination spells. Use them. These days it also has Sense Motive and other quasi-divination character abilities. Use them.

Blindly trusting whoever you meet is going to lead to the same result as never checking for traps before opening doors in a dungeon: you'll probably get away with it for a while but sooner or later it'll bite you.

Why? First of all, there is not a single divination spell in the current game that can do this, except maybe Detect Thoughts, and most people don't get access to Detect Thoughts. So... trust no one unless you have read their mind to know they can be trusted?

And you know, the worst part about this? This is exactly why players become murder-hobos. It is a classic negative reinforcement. You won't play a character who will give out charity if your charity is usually followed by being betrayed and hurt. You won't play a character who will give someone a second-chance because most of the time they do it, they end up being made to regret it. Players can't have property and places to go home to without someone else to maintain the property. And you can't have someone to maintain the property until you can equip them with enchanted shackles, mind read them monthly for thoughts of betrayal, and have them sign magically enforceable contracts... because you know, you can't just blindly trust people.

....side-along with things like this.

I mean hell, I could even turn that sickly mother into a PC-side challenge in any number of ways. Some examples:

--- the PCs learn of a possible cure for her sickness but finding or reaching such requires some adventuring (cue a 1-adventure find-and-fetch quest)
--- whatever is making her sick is going to make a lot of other people sick if not stopped (cue the short story arc where the PCs have to find out what caused the sickness, cut off that cause before it spreads, and then cure the mother; that's good for 3 adventures)
--- she is more important than anyone realizes, and her death is going to trigger some serious event(s); she needs to be kept alive long enough for people to prepare for and-or prevent those events (cue a potentially long story arc, I could get 10 adventures out of this, easy )

Yeah, you could. But no one is going to give you that avenue of engagement, because they can't hire the local village girl. It isn't safe unless they practically enslave her to ensure that she isn't going to betray and hurt them.

Even if you don't do it "all the time" in real life it only takes a single major betrayal to wreck someone for life. IF 50% of your NPCs are just poison pills? Then the players stop trying to invest in them. Because it isn't worth it. And I can't blame the designers for wanting to have the Bastion system actually function properly, and telling these DMs to not engage in this sort of behavior.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

Yep.

And I'm not going to say this is unique to DMs of DnD. I've run into similar things with the writing community I'm a part of. So many QMs on that site have a near compulsion to ruin their reader's enjoyment for making "the wrong decision" that the community can often be filled with very toxic and cautious people, who are often a bit taken aback about how chill I can be with things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why? You don't need it open to you, it didn't exist two months ago, so why do you require it to be open to you? Yes, it is your job as the DM to challenge the PCs. No, it is not your job to turn every single thing into avenue of possible challenge for the PCs. Those two things are different.



Why? First of all, there is not a single divination spell in the current game that can do this, except maybe Detect Thoughts, and most people don't get access to Detect Thoughts. So... trust no one unless you have read their mind to know they can be trusted?

And you know, the worst part about this? This is exactly why players become murder-hobos. It is a classic negative reinforcement. You won't play a character who will give out charity if your charity is usually followed by being betrayed and hurt. You won't play a character who will give someone a second-chance because most of the time they do it, they end up being made to regret it. Players can't have property and places to go home to without someone else to maintain the property. And you can't have someone to maintain the property until you can equip them with enchanted shackles, mind read them monthly for thoughts of betrayal, and have them sign magically enforceable contracts... because you know, you can't just blindly trust people.



Yeah, you could. But no one is going to give you that avenue of engagement, because they can't hire the local village girl. It isn't safe unless they practically enslave her to ensure that she isn't going to betray and hurt them.

Even if you don't do it "all the time" in real life it only takes a single major betrayal to wreck someone for life. IF 50% of your NPCs are just poison pills? Then the players stop trying to invest in them. Because it isn't worth it. And I can't blame the designers for wanting to have the Bastion system actually function properly, and telling these DMs to not engage in this sort of behavior.

This reads like someone who wants the published game to cater to their concerns over those of others either because they had a bad experience with one or more DMs, or they feel they must champion those that have on their behalf. I see no reason to change the game to cater to you or others who seemingly hold the view that the rules must protect the players from the DM.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Unless there's some form of mind control involved, there's no logical reason in-setting why a henchmen would be "100% loyal and will never betray the PC", and in-settings reasons are my priority.

Ah, of course, who has ever heard of Alfred Pennyworth? Or Samwise Gamgee? The idea of a completely loyal character is just silly in a logical setting.

 

[Imaro]

the mechanic that explicit bans its use in a traditional way? that mechanic?

Yes but rule 0 is still a thing and so are house rules... which again makes this laughably easy to change or ignore. Certain DM's have been giving narrative control to players for years now without explicit rules support... the game didn't explode, they weren't arrested and I'm sure it can work in the opposite direction as well if that's how you and your players want to use bastions in a different way.