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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Every time I see an old school DM bristle at any slight eroding of their god emperor of the lunch room table authority, I do have to ask.... If you aren't going to do it, why does it matter that it's forbidden?

You control 99.9% of the world. If you can't share a sliver, that's a you problem, not a rules problem.

Well, the important thing is how charitable your position towards your fellow posters is here.

 

[beta-ray]

It seems like some people just want to feel insulted sometimes.

 

[Chaosmancer]

But saying "hey, here's this rule, consider it a black box because we don't trust anyone to tamper with it in a way that won't frustrate their players"? Well some of the responses in this very thread showcase why that's not going to help anyone. Even an explanation as to why you should think twice about interfering with a player's Bastion would be a vast improvement.

Of course, we should also be aware that... we don't have the text. We have two of the designers summarizing what the text says from memory during an interview. So, we don't have any proof that it is set up as a black box that no one is allowed to interfere with, and the actual rules text may be very mild.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah. Whether a PC stronghold gets attacked IMC depends on stuff like local threats, how well defended it is, what allies & vassals the PC or PCs have made... The Temple of Yig in my Stonehell campaign never got attacked because even the Three Eyed King could see that was impractical. The owner had created a strong network of allies & vassals, and turned it into a deathtrap. A manor house on the Damaran borderlands was attacked by an orc horde because the owners had been raiding the orcs, had done nothing to fortify it, and had even pissed off their liege and former allies. They had major Special Snowflake syndrome, were purely focused on intra-party romances ...and ragequit when they got in-game warning of the Orcs - who they could probably still have defeated. That seems to be the kind of players this system is catering to.

I don't see it as "catering" to anyone, as much as laying it out that the Bastion is the players to work with. So you as the DM shouldn't reveal mid-game "So, it turns out your walls were actually built with slave labor, your trusted advisor was a foreign assassin who killed the princess, and your pet manticore was actually a demon in disguise who was sneaking out to devour the townspeople, and so you have a royal decree declaring you an enemy of the state and the army is coming to kill you."

YEs, yes, I know. "Bad DMs will do it anyways, so rules are pointless", but turning around and saying "therefore any rules designed like this are for people who ragequit and aren't mature enough to handle consequences" is also a really bad take?

 

[Imaro]

Rules in the DMG shouldn't have a hard lock on DM involvement.

If it's still the perogative of the DM whether said rules are included in the game or not... why would it be a problem?

 

[Hussar]

You see you guys are doing it wrong.

Anything in the game must be this giant monkey’s paw Sword of Damocles hanging over the players. Then when the players are taught to never introduce anything into the game and constantly create characters with zero ties to the game world, that just proves the inferiority of players.

And of course we must never even suggest that there might be ever a hint of a problem from DMs who are all perfect straight out of the gate. After all they are always right.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

You see you guys are doing it wrong.

Anything in the game must be this giant monkey’s paw Sword of Damocles hanging over the players. Then when the players are taught to never introduce anything into the game and constantly create characters with zero ties to the game world, that just proves the inferiority of players.

And of course we must never even suggest that there might be ever a hint of a problem from DMs who are all perfect straight out of the gate. After all they are always right.

Then you complain that players only care about the super heroic anime powers on their character sheet and not the fiction!*

*(yes, the same fiction you actively prevented them to have any investment in).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't see it as "catering" to anyone, as much as laying it out that the Bastion is the players to work with. So you as the DM shouldn't reveal mid-game "So, it turns out your walls were actually built with slave labor, your trusted advisor was a foreign assassin who killed the princess, and your pet manticore was actually a demon in disguise who was sneaking out to devour the townspeople, and so you have a royal decree declaring you an enemy of the state and the army is coming to kill you."

YEs, yes, I know. "Bad DMs will do it anyways, so rules are pointless", but turning around and saying "therefore any rules designed like this are for people who ragequit and aren't mature enough to handle consequences" is also a really bad take?

As far as I know, this is the first time ever (outside of 4e maybe) that they have explicitly said something that exists in the world outside of the PC is off limits to the DM. And they out it in the DMG. You don't think that's going to raise some concerns?

 

[S'mon]

As far as I know, this is the first time ever (outside of 4e maybe) that they have explicitly said something that exists in the world outside of the PC is off limits to the DM. And they out it in the DMG. You don't think that's going to raise some concerns?

I don't recall 4e ever saying anything like that.

FWIW I'm strongly in favour of GM advice not to screw over the PCs arbitrarily, don't fridge the girlfriend, avoid bait & switch, etc. But I doubt they'll actually offer any mature advice. Making it a stop-the-bad-GM subsystem feels like a really bad approach.

Anyway I run Shadowdark now. And I know the Goddess-Emperor of the Arcane Library would never betray me - & all true Viking Hat GMs - the way those schmucks over at WotC did.

 

[MarkB]

As far as I know, this is the first time ever (outside of 4e maybe) that they have explicitly said something that exists in the world outside of the PC is off limits to the DM. And they out it in the DMG. You don't think that's going to raise some concerns?

It's not the first time ever, because it hasn't happened yet. When we see the actual text in the book, then it may or may not have happened. Until then, it's Schrödinger's DM-burn.