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.

 

[Lanefan]

For years my group has run "off limits" places and things with just friendly agreement... it stopped the "Everyone is an orphan" issue back in the 90s in 2e and really started in 3e... everyone has a home they can go to and family and friends, they can be as detailed as the player wants and the DM can only superficially threaten them UNLESS the PC goes out of there way to put them in danger or the player themselves say it's okay.

So it doesn't matter that there is a war with the orcs, good old grammama has a safe place to live and can bake you a pie when you come home.

Which is fine unless grammama happens to live right in the war zone, at which point her safety is by no means guaranteed. But sure, if she lives in a safe town somewhere there's no real reason to mess with that.

 

[Lanefan]

From my point of view: this gets to the meat of the fun. Build a stronghold, do cool things with it. The only thing you need to track is when you level up.

That to me is the really in-your-face gamist piece in all this: a) that your Bastion has levels and can level up and b) that those levels are directly tied to those of the character(s) who own it.

Build a stronghold, do cool things with it - great! But those cool things (expansion, power-ups, etc.) should happen as and when the character (and player) proactively makes them happen by putting resources into the place, rather than just as a simple tag-along effect of the character gaining levels. The player should also have some input as to just what those "cool things" are, for example one player might want to emphasize the ability to scry and observe from a stronghold while another might want to emphasize defense and security.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Quite the opposite, since my GM isn't a jerk, they don't seem to have any problem at all with the way the Bastion rules are presented, because they don't deny them anything they would actually want to do.

My issue here is that you are presenting this as a binary, where the DM must be kept out of the bastion because otherwise they're seemingly guaranteed to abuse the NPCs because...they enjoy messing with players? I just don't see the need to force a separation in this one area.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So is it that you wouldn't trust a player who chose a 100% loyal henchman or hireling to roleplay appropriately?

No. As I said, I don't believe a 100% loyal henchman under any and all circumstances can exist in-setting outside mind control or the equivalent.

 

[Lanefan]

I wasn't going to assume... so I asked. Does he allow a ranger with a pet to control it? How about a familiar... well if so the players are already controlling things outside their PC's... right?

Not really - a Ranger's pet and (even more so) a Wizard's familiar are pretty much direct extensions of the existing character, similar to summoned monsters or unseen servants.

A hench or field-adventuring hireling would be a better comparison.

 

[Hussar]

Which is fine unless grammama happens to live right in the war zone, at which point her safety is by no means guaranteed. But sure, if she lives in a safe town somewhere there's no real reason to mess with that.

See that’s the point. There is no unless unless the player specifically okays it. The grandma is off limits. Full stop.

I’ve played like this for years and found that it’s such a better experience because it gets the players actually excited about the setting.

Otherwise it’s just an endless parade of murder hoboes with zero ties to the setting.

Perhaps it would be different if my campaigns were decades long but they aren’t. So having tiny corners off limits to the dm makes a lot of sense.

I mean I’m running Phandelver/shattered obelisk. We started in February and we’ll finish about New Years. Why would players devote a bunch of time developing a bastion for an eleven month campaign?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why do you play with people who insist on abusing the weak and helpless who can't fight back? Seriously, what kinds of games do you play where the question of "but what if they beat their 5 year old daughter into a coma, go and get drunk, then kill the barmaid?" is a legit question?

Alfred has had his life put in danger by Bruce Wayne's crusade dozens of times just in the TV shows. He's been poisoned, shot, stabbed, and exploded on more than one occassion. And there has never been a moment of "well, this is too much, good-bye"

Sam followed Frodo across the flipping continent, fighting for his life on multiple occassions, had abuse heaped on him at the gates of Mordor, and still followed Frodo into metamorphical Hell. Sure, Frodo wasn't carving Sam up like a thanksgiving turkey most weeks, he was worthy of being loyal to, but the vast majority of Player character's I've seen are the exact same. They probably wouldn't even scream at and insult him like Frodo did towards the end.

Maybe play with people who aren't going to abuse and harm those weaker than them for giggles and the idea of loyal NPCs who won't betray them won't seem so far-fetched.

Reality allows such horrible things to happen. I want a setting that mimics reality as much as is practical, and I don't want a game where players control characters outside their PCs (sue me) so I don't want rules that force a situation, however unlikely, that doesn't make logical sense.

 

[Hussar]

That to me is the really in-your-face gamist piece in all this: a) that your Bastion has levels and can level up and b) that those levels are directly tied to those of the character(s) who own it.
.

Again great if your campaigns last decades. Not much point if campaigns last months. I’m not going to spend hours on something that’s likely only going to come up a few times throughout the campaign.

How people play is going to strongly reflect how they react to these mechanics.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That to me is the really in-your-face gamist piece in all this: a) that your Bastion has levels and can level up and b) that those levels are directly tied to those of the character(s) who own it.

Build a stronghold, do cool things with it - great! But those cool things (expansion, power-ups, etc.) should happen as and when the character (and player) proactively makes them happen by putting resources into the place, rather than just as a simple tag-along effect of the character gaining levels. The player should also have some input as to just what those "cool things" are, for example one player might want to emphasize the ability to scry and observe from a stronghold while another might want to emphasize defense and security.

This. This is really all I'm looking for.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

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.

By this logic every rpg is beyond criticsm because we can just point at the rule zero and trust GM will adjucate correctly 100% of times. Which I think we can all agree nobody actually seriously beleives.

If Batman or Frodo ever consciously decided to heap enough abuse on those characters, I could see either of them conceivably breaking loyalty, however unlikely. The rule you posit literally makes that impossible. It that wasn't what you meant by "100% loyal, would never betray", your language says otherwise.

There is at least one time in comics where Alfred quits. I recall somewhere after Knightfall, he left to find his son. He returned in the opening act of a story where Swamp Thing kidnapps Killer Croc, a story that I liked because it's only time ever Batman actually lost, sadly they retconned it into oblivion because Batman must always be omnipotent, omniscient and invincible.

Also, Sam DOES leave after Frodo msitreats him. He comes back when he realizes Gollum set him up, but still.

Well there is a difference you let the PC control the pet... they didn't control the sidekick. That said it still seems like this isn't a strict players only play their PC's and you play everything else situation. Why do you find it permissible to let the ranger control the actions of the pet unless he's chosen to abuse it, when earlier this is exactly the type of division of narrative control you called videogamey.

The players control the sidekicks and familiars for combat and utility, but it is MY JOB AS A DM to make them into convincing characters, people who think and have feelings and react to the world. I have no interest in midnless automatons that just pump numbers up for the PC unless the NPC is one in-universe. And hell, even Skeleton sidekick in my campaign has enough personality to transition, a very wholesome bit I look back on fondly.

My issue with bastion rules is that it bans me from making the hirelings into more than mindless automatons that crunch numbers for the PC. They aren't acting like people who live in the world, this is unacceptable. This rule literally bans me from doing my job as a GM. If this is the direction WotC wants to take the game, they effectively want to reduce the DM to just arbiter crunching numbers to give player that dopamine hit when big number goes brrr. And you wonder why I think WotC wants to replace us with AI.

Again you are doing it wrong.

Players cannot ever be trusted.

I trust my players well enough. You are again setting up a strawman to not deal with real arguments.