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]

I'm curious. Many of us old timers spent quite the hour with the 1e DMG creating our own strongholds and keeps and such. However, I'm a bit alerted to the statement "completely off limits by the DM." The game world is the DMs. To have a world feature that the DM can't influence? Seems a bit off to me. Note; I'm not saying DMs need to be jerks, but only that typically it's a collaborative things rather than the player "I'm doing this in your world and nothing you can do about it."

Yeah, that makes me uncomfortable too. I really prefer the "players control their PCs choices, DM controls everything else" dynamic. That right there is a huge part of what makes D&D...D&D to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Thinking about the "off limits to the DM" part a bit more, I do usually do this with personal NPCs anyways, and I think I can trace that back to a specific game.

4e, Dark Sun, first campaign that lasted more than a few sessions. Brand new group. Through plot, my character ended up highly influential in the city, basically a prince. He was also an escaped slave. So, during our time skip, I told the DM that I was using my wealth and influence to buy slaves, train and take care of them, then smuggle them out of the city towards freedom. I was very invested in that idea, and had written multiple NPCs who were former slaves, and before our final battle I wrote a bunch of letters to them all so they could be prepared if things turned bad for us.

The DM revealed after the campaign, which had reached level 30 where my character was a legendary demigod, that the man who I had been using to smuggle the slaves had just been selling them back into worse slavery the entire time. Sure, sure, Dark Sun is a terrible place and trying to be a good person is a stupid decision. I got that most sessions where my character tried to be a good person, but... even now over a decade later that feels like such a betrayal from the DM. Nothing my character ever did mattered, and all the good that he had taken pride in was just a naive facade that showed how truly stupid and powerless he was.

So, I can see the designers thinking about how DMs are likely to try and work in betrayals and twists and all that, and giving the players the leeway to say "No, my trusted butler Alfred is not a secret Yuan-Ti spy sent by the cabal to poison the party and take us captive." Because it is a little too predictable how many DMs take any NPC as an excuse to hurt the players.

That sounds like the old, "Let's assume the DM is a jerk and stop them before they start" argument. Not a fan personally.

 

[Stalker0]

Beyond the reasons others have mentioned, presumably because the PHB was running out of space and the DMG had more room.

yeah considering this is an entire chapter, its probably way too chonky for the PHB which is already quite large.

 

[sevenbastard]

Maybe its meant to be off limits in the way of 'the DM cannot send in a comet to nuke the it from orbit' kind of off limits?

"Guys, what if we just summon a tidal wave and have it hit the city, we can hide in our Tavern and the DM can harm us or it. Problem solved."

 

[Scribe]

"Guys, what if we just summon a tidal wave and have it hit the city, we can hide in our Tavern and the DM can harm us or it. Problem solved."

I mean I didnt watch the video, but the quotes in this thread make it seem like they want to get the players somehow more invested in the game (which is wild...they are already the STARS of the game...but whatever) so I guess need to make sure that their special home base is immune to DM fiat.

I guess.

 

[JEB]

The DM revealed after the campaign, which had reached level 30 where my character was a legendary demigod, that the man who I had been using to smuggle the slaves had just been selling them back into worse slavery the entire time. Sure, sure, Dark Sun is a terrible place and trying to be a good person is a stupid decision. I got that most sessions where my character tried to be a good person, but... even now over a decade later that feels like such a betrayal from the DM.

I'm very sorry your DM did that to you.

 

[Xeviat]

Maybe its meant to be off limits in the way of 'the DM cannot send in a comet to nuke the it from orbit' kind of off limits?

"Did you make them meatier?"
"Yup, I sent the meteor."

 

[Xeviat]

yeah considering this is an entire chapter, its probably way too chonky for the PHB which is already quite large.

Maybe they put it in the DMG so more people would read it this time.

 

[Sulicius]

I mean I didnt watch the video, but the quotes in this thread make it seem like they want to get the players somehow more invested in the game (which is wild...they are already the STARS of the game...but whatever) so I guess need to make sure that their special home base is immune to DM fiat.

I guess.

Yeah that's odd to me too. I am currently using the Bastion playtest rules to great success, but it is a ship.

I'm taking a lot more control than is suggested by the RAI, as my players enjoyed it more that their Hirelings were played by me. I love doing little Star Trek B-stories with the crew during downtime or while the party is gone.

"The smith keeps picking the fruit from our garden! It's not even ripe yet!"

"The hireling of the sanctum is having an existential crisis after seeing the PC contact a god."

In any case, I think I understand why they try to make bastions a part of the campaign that the DM doesn't have to micromanage.

 

[Distracted DM]

Watching the video now and one thing is clear. These are optional PC rules. It is in the DMG, but bastions are a player facing system. It is only in the DMG to silo it off and make it clear it is optional.

I don't know think I like that. My approach is all rules are optional and I would rather player facing rules, optional or otherwise, be in the PHB.

Alternately, a separate book of optional and variant rules for both DMs and PCs.

The suspicious cynic in me says it's in the DMG so players will buy the book. I'd be less suspicious if the videos weren't directly pitching Bastions to players, as opposed to pitching to GMs for their games for players to engage with.