D&D (2024) I have the DMG. AMA!

[tetrasodium]

If by others, you mean YOU and a couple of others here, then yes, that's true.

Not so quick... Take the paladin, that was one example that I too "noticed very early on" needed fixes and had to houserule over much angst from paladins at my table who felt I was singling them out in fixing a thing wotc "noticed very early on"....

(And I mean that with all love, I honestly enjoy trying to figure out what you're talking about, and I think that you have something important to say, even if I miss what it is much of the time).

That might be cathartic for a forum discussion, but it's absolutely not still the case while trying to run a game & introduce a new player. You just demonstrated why wotc should have done better with an option like "see page xxx in yyy book, we are using that" or "we are using that but..." to more easily communicate the shared ruleset being used without this kind of stonewall in the middle of the session when players decide to forget or think they found a loophole in a houserule that they feel was a nerf

 

[FitzTheRuke]

So when do you roll for these? Every bastion turn? every bastion turn when there are no issued orders? And what the bastion turn even is anyway?

Bastion Turns. As time passes in the campaign, players take Bastion turns to reflect the activity occurring in their Bastions, whether or not the characters are present. On a Bastion turn, a character can issue orders to the special facilities in their Bastion or issue the Maintain order to the entire Bastion (see “Orders”).

Frequency of Bastion Turns. By default, a Bastion turn occurs every 7 days of in-game time. Here are common examples of players taking one or more Bastion turns: The characters are on a long journey away from their Bastions. After the characters have been away for 7 days, you might say, “Time for a Bastion turn. Since you’re not there, we’ll assume you issue the Maintain order for your Bastions.” Then roll for events as described in the “Bastion Events” section in this chapter. The characters spend 7 days or more in their Bastions between adventures. You might say, “You have six weeks to spend in your Bastions. Go ahead and resolve six Bastion turns.” The characters return to their Bastions in the midst of an adventure. You might say, “You have just enough time to take a Bastion turn before you leave again in the morning.”
The characters are adventuring near their Bastions and resting in their Bastions at night. You might say, “It’s been a week since your last Bastion turn, so you can take one now.” You can slow the frequency of Bastion turns to better serve the needs of your players and your campaign. For example, if the characters have months between adventures, you can call for a Bastion turn every month instead of every 7 days, so the characters aren’t issuing so many orders or reaping too many benefits at once.

Bastion Events. Immediately after a character issues the Maintain order to their Bastion, the DM rolls once on the Bastion Events table to determine what event, if any, befalls the Bastion before the next Bastion Turn. If an event occurs, the DM reads the event aloud to the player whose character controls that Bastion. (All the events are described in the sections following the table.) The event is resolved immediately, with the player and DM working together to expand story details as needed. If multiple characters issue the Maintain order on the same Bastion turn, roll once on the table for each of them, resolving each event separately even if the Bastions are combined. Bastion events occur only when a Bastion is operating under the Maintain order, which often means that the Bastion’s owner isn’t present in the Bastion at the time. That means these events can be opportunities for the player to take on the role of the Bastion’s hirelings and roleplay their reactions to these events. The DM can even turn a Bastion event into a cutscene where each player takes on the role of one of the Bastion’s hirelings (under the guidance of the player whose character owns the Bastion).

 

[pukunui]

By default, a Bastion turn occurs every 7 days of in-game time ... After the characters have been away for 7 days ... The characters spend 7 days or more in their Bastions between adventures. You might say, “You have six weeks to spend in your Bastions. Go ahead and resolve six Bastion turns.” ... You might say, “It’s been a week since your last Bastion turn ...

I wish they would either find a different way of tracking time for these things to account for settings, like the Forgotten Realms, that don't use a 7-day week, or change the FR's calendar so that it is based on a 7-day week instead of a 10-day one. Because it can be a real pain adapting these things when running games in FR (and settings like it). (At least with many of the 2014 downtime rules, they were based on 5-day increments, so you could rule that two activities could be accomplished per 10-day "week".)

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Not so quick... Take the paladin, that was one example that I too "noticed very early on" needed fixes and had to houserule over much angst from paladins at my table who felt I was singling them out in fixing a thing wotc "noticed very early on"....

Yeah, I didn't notice that one only because I don't think I have ever had someone who plays a paladin ever once attempt to spend more than one spell slot to smite in a given turn. Mostly they hold them for when they roll crits, or feel that they really need to down a Big Bad.

That might be cathartic for a forum discussion, but it's absolutely not still the case while trying to run a game & introduce a new player. You just demonstrated why wotc should have done better with an option like "see page xxx in yyy book, we are using that" or "we are using that but..." to more easily communicate the shared ruleset being used without this kind of stonewall in the middle of the session when players decide to forget or think they found a loophole in a houserule that they feel was a nerf

I've just never had anyone who can't be reasoned with by a simple discussion. It's been a LONG time since I've been in a rules argument in real life. Not since 3.5! Maybe I'm just blessed or lucky. Maybe people I deal with are just reasonable. Maybe I have built enough authority and/or trust that people just listen to what I have to say. IDK - but I have constant trouble with agreeing with you when you make players sound like entitled maniacs.

I don't disagree that WotC couldn't "do better" but I tend to feel that a lot of "complaints and concerns" here can be fixed by simply Playing Nice With Others and don't really have a lot to do with anything that WotC can do.

AND I feel that 3.5 was WAY WORSE for the kind of thing that you tend to complain that 5e does poorly, when it comes to Player/DM conflicts being encouraged and enforced by the rules (see my earlier comment about not having rules fights since 3.5 - I had a lot of them back then. I didn't particularly like that edition for that reason!) So... I guess I sympathize with you, but I don't see it happening NOW and not with These Rules. So, I sometimes wonder why you do.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I wish they would either find a different way of tracking time for these things to account for settings, like the Forgotten Realms, that don't use a 7-day week, or change the FR's calendar so that it is based on a 7-day week instead of a 10-day one. Because it can be a real pain adapting these things when running games in FR (and settings like it). (At least with many of the 2014 downtime rules, they were based on 5-day increments, so you could rule that two activities could be accomplished per 10-day "week".)

I thought the exact same thing while reading it.

 

[Zaukrie]

I wish they would either find a different way of tracking time for these things to account for settings, like the Forgotten Realms, that don't use a 7-day week, or change the FR's calendar so that it is based on a 7-day week instead of a 10-day one. Because it can be a real pain adapting these things when running games in FR (and settings like it). (At least with many of the 2014 downtime rules, they were based on 5-day increments, so you could rule that two activities could be accomplished per 10-day "week".)

There is definitely an assumption about days, weeks, and months in the game.

 

[mikeburke]

That might be cathartic for a forum discussion, but it's absolutely not still the case while trying to run a game & introduce a new player. You just demonstrated why wotc should have done better with an option like "see page xxx in yyy book, we are using that" or "we are using that but..." to more easily communicate the shared ruleset being used without this kind of stonewall in the middle of the session when players decide to forget or think they found a loophole in a houserule that they feel was a nerf

Does this mean that all house rules you want to use in a game have to be "official" ones in the DMG or some other WOTC-published source that you know all your players will have? Separate house rule docs seemed pretty common back in the 2e days (though some were horrifyingly large)

 

[TiQuinn]

Bastion Turns. As time passes in the campaign, players take Bastion turns to reflect the activity occurring in their Bastions, whether or not the characters are present. On a Bastion turn, a character can issue orders to the special facilities in their Bastion or issue the Maintain order to the entire Bastion (see “Orders”).

Frequency of Bastion Turns. By default, a Bastion turn occurs every 7 days of in-game time. Here are common examples of players taking one or more Bastion turns: The characters are on a long journey away from their Bastions. After the characters have been away for 7 days, you might say, “Time for a Bastion turn. Since you’re not there, we’ll assume you issue the Maintain order for your Bastions.” Then roll for events as described in the “Bastion Events” section in this chapter. The characters spend 7 days or more in their Bastions between adventures. You might say, “You have six weeks to spend in your Bastions. Go ahead and resolve six Bastion turns.” The characters return to their Bastions in the midst of an adventure. You might say, “You have just enough time to take a Bastion turn before you leave again in the morning.”
The characters are adventuring near their Bastions and resting in their Bastions at night. You might say, “It’s been a week since your last Bastion turn, so you can take one now.” You can slow the frequency of Bastion turns to better serve the needs of your players and your campaign. For example, if the characters have months between adventures, you can call for a Bastion turn every month instead of every 7 days, so the characters aren’t issuing so many orders or reaping too many benefits at once.

Bastion Events. Immediately after a character issues the Maintain order to their Bastion, the DM rolls once on the Bastion Events table to determine what event, if any, befalls the Bastion before the next Bastion Turn. If an event occurs, the DM reads the event aloud to the player whose character controls that Bastion. (All the events are described in the sections following the table.) The event is resolved immediately, with the player and DM working together to expand story details as needed. If multiple characters issue the Maintain order on the same Bastion turn, roll once on the table for each of them, resolving each event separately even if the Bastions are combined. Bastion events occur only when a Bastion is operating under the Maintain order, which often means that the Bastion’s owner isn’t present in the Bastion at the time. That means these events can be opportunities for the player to take on the role of the Bastion’s hirelings and roleplay their reactions to these events. The DM can even turn a Bastion event into a cutscene where each player takes on the role of one of the Bastion’s hirelings (under the guidance of the player whose character owns the Bastion).

Sorry if you mentioned this already, are bastions assumed to be party controlled, individual player controlled or some way of mixing the two (the cleric controls the chapel attached to the fighter’s keep, etc)?

 

[pukunui]

There is definitely an assumption about days, weeks, and months in the game.

I'm sure most DMs will use an Earth-style calendar for simplicity's sake, but FR has long been D&D's flagship (if not "default") setting, and yet WotC continues to ignore the fact that it doesn't use a standard Earth calendar. I can't remember if it's SCAG or SKT or what, but one of their FR books even refers to "weeks" and the like. Ugh.

 

[pukunui]

Does this mean that all house rules you want to use in a game have to be "official" ones in the DMG or some other WOTC-published source that you know all your players will have? Separate house rule docs seemed pretty common back in the 2e days (though some were horrifyingly large)

For reference, here's what the new DMG says about House Rules:

House Rules​

House rules are new or modified rules you add to your game to make it your own and to enhance the style you have in mind for your game. Before you establish a house rule, ask yourself two questions:

• Will the rule or change improve the game?
• Will my players like it?

If you’re confident that the answer to both questions is yes, give the new rule a try. Present house rules as experiments, and ask your players to provide feedback on them. If you introduce a house rule that isn’t fun, remove or revise the rule.

Recording Rules Interpretations​

If a question about the interpretation of a rule comes up in your game, record how you decide to interpret it. Add that to your collection of house rules so you and the players can reference it when the rule comes up again later.

Also:

Player Die Rolling​

Players should roll their dice in full view of everyone. If a player scoops up their dice before anyone else can see what they rolled, encourage that player to be less secretive.

When a die falls on the floor, do you count it or reroll it? When it lands cocked against a book, do you pull the book away and see where it lands or reroll the die? Work with your players to answer these questions, and record the answers as house rules.