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]

Yet they're in the DMG, even though they are just as optional as anything else (yet simultaneously off-limits to the DM and completely divorced from the DMs worldbuilding).

So are magic items, despite the fact that no DM has a character sheet to right magical items on. And Supernatural Boons. And Marks of Prestige. A lot of things "for the player" are in the DMG.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, I find it really strange that people keep pulling this card. Like, somehow a player going around and slaughtering women and children for giggles is perfectly fine, as long as the DM can have the local militia punish and kill the character for it. But if the character can't be killed, because they refuse to leave their fortress, then the DM is utterly incapable of dealing with this behavior.

Non-narrative problems don't need narrative solutions. Because the player who decides to do that can just keep making psychopath characters and have the entire campaign revolve around them being executed again and again. The bastion rules don't make the problem suddenly appear.

Because the problem isn't that the PC built a psychopathic PC. That is in fact your problem with it, which is why I suggested your comments are colored by your assumption that PCs should be heroes. If that were the problem, kicking them out would be a reasonable solution. But the actual problem is that PCs who performs such acts could hide in their bastion and avoid all in-setting consequences for their actions, since the bastion is out of the DMs influence and thus in this context effectively out of play. We want IMO the ability to bring setting pressure to bear on PCs due to their setting actions, and the bastion rules seem to prevent that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So are magic items, despite the fact that no DM has a character sheet to right magical items on. And Supernatural Boons. And Marks of Prestige. A lot of things "for the player" are in the DMG.

None of those things explicitly say the DM has no right to exert influence on them in play.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's like ... I don't even know we're to start.
If you play with the same group for longer than ... like 6 month or so, you know what goes and what not.
Like at my table that I DM we never had a problem with any of that kind.

Life has consistently forced my groups to break up. Longest group I had was a few years, and most of that time was spent not playing, because sickness, drama on their end (most of them were roommates), children being born, and multiple moves.

But I also never had a player demanding that there are things in the game that can't be affected by anything.

The closest maybe is ... a PC had a brother, that they now met and after speaking with the players about hownI can use him the rule was not to kill him, everything else was fine.
Another PC had several half-siblings running around he didn't know about, the player of that PC first had the Idea to give me the (already created) siblings (it was a preexisting character) but then decided against that and let me create new ones, because the player thought that it would be very hard to do them correct (and they were part of the Plot).

Like ... when we put it in the game world it can be affected by the game world. I always played and DMed like that and never met a player (at my tables) who wanted it otherwise.
And there never was a problem in that regards at my table because my players trust me. And when I'm unsure about something I ask them and when I see them doing something that could have consequences they as players are maybe not aware of, I usually warn them.
Like last session they looted the pirate base they just conquered and found a lot of magic items the pirates weren't using to fight them (hint 1). Of course the wizard does, what a wizard does and spams identify and as a DM I reminded the players, that Identify doesn't tell you, if an Item is cursed or not (hint 2).

So, now, if they just put on the Items anyway, it is on them if they get cursed.

So, now, if we had an Off-Limits Rule for a Bastion I would usually warn the players in similar fashion, that the action they are taking could make the Bastion vulnerable.

But in general in session zero I would tell the players that I don't play with Offlimit Rules if WotC put some in.

Right, and largely I agree with you. I don't think this is meant to be set up as a "bastions can never affect nor be affected by anything". That isn't the impression I've been getting. I think it is a lot like your first example. Or, for me, I once had a game (non-DnD) where we were told we were going to be playing a plot similar to The Fugitive, and I had a character who had gone on a long space mining tour, and was heading home to his wife with the tools and skills to build their life together. I explicitly told the GM that I was not interested in her having been unfaithful and finding another man, and I was not interested in a story of her being dead while I was away. Neither of those were things I wanted to see come out of the story.

He turned the entire planet into a mob controlled hell-hole, but I digress.

The designers have said it repeatedly, that they want Bastions to give the Players a chance to experience DMing. I think that is also part of why they have set this up as "the DM does not control this" because it isn't giving players that DMing space if they treat it like every other part of the game world. Will many players turn to their GM and say "Bring it!"? Sure. Will many of them tell the DM they don't care and the DM can control it? Sure. Will many of them collaborate with their DMs? Sure.

But the default stance is that the DMs involvement in this structure and the people in it is at the PCs discretion. Which I think is perfectly fine. And may even be good for the game, because figuring out how a random roll affects the NPCs in a location... that's a DMing skill. And more players feeling more confident in the skills it takes to be a DM...

 

[Chaosmancer]

None of those things explicitly say the DM has no right to exert influence on them in play.

None of them are meant to encourage players to think and act like DMs either.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Because the problem isn't that the PC built a psychopathic PC. That is in fact your problem with it, which is why I suggested your comments are colored by your assumption that PCs should be heroes. If that were the problem, kicking them out would be a reasonable solution. But the actual problem is that PCs who performs such acts could hide in their bastion and avoid all in-setting consequences for their actions, since the bastion is out of the DMs influence and thus in this context effectively out of play. We want IMO the ability to bring setting pressure to bear on PCs due to their setting actions, and the bastion rules seem to prevent that.

Why would you need to bring pressure on them if their actions are acceptable? Do you feel a need to have the rules allow you to bring full in-setting consequences for a player who helps a young man stranded on the side of the road, or who donates money to build women's shelters? Why is it that none of the examples have been "I can't reward my players for their good deeds because I can't declare that the local temple commissioned a painting of them to hang in their castle!" or "I can't allow the local Lord to send his masons to build the players a new wing to their fort as thanks for clearing his name!"

Instead, every single example has been "I can't send the guards to arrest the PC for murdering innocent people!" or "I can't send an army to raze their keep after they insulted the King and threw feces at the throne!"

Both sides are equally true if the only and single problem is that the consequences of their actions cannot affect the bastion, but it has only and exclusively been about a lack of ability to punish players who can retreat to their Bastion for safety.

 

[Imaro]

Yet they're in the DMG, even though they are just as optional as anything else (yet simultaneously off-limits to the DM and completely divorced from the DMs worldbuilding).

No they are an optional rule... not considered a standard part of the game so it's actively opting in to it vs opting out... that's why they are in the DMG.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Guys, comes a time when you have the same argument with the same poster over 3-4 threads, you may consider you're being trolled.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why would you need to bring pressure on them if their actions are acceptable? Do you feel a need to have the rules allow you to bring full in-setting consequences for a player who helps a young man stranded on the side of the road, or who donates money to build women's shelters? Why is it that none of the examples have been "I can't reward my players for their good deeds because I can't declare that the local temple commissioned a painting of them to hang in their castle!" or "I can't allow the local Lord to send his masons to build the players a new wing to their fort as thanks for clearing his name!"

Instead, every single example has been "I can't send the guards to arrest the PC for murdering innocent people!" or "I can't send an army to raze their keep after they insulted the King and threw feces at the throne!"

Both sides are equally true if the only and single problem is that the consequences of their actions cannot affect the bastion, but it has only and exclusively been about a lack of ability to punish players who can retreat to their Bastion for safety.

You can reward the player for good things in setting, of course. People bring up the bad stuff because that's you're more likely to see a conflict, in this case between a DM who wants to see what they perceive as in-setting justice at least be attempted in what they see as a logical way, and a player who understandably may not want negative consequences to fall on their PC for their actions, whether deserved via setting logic or not. In such cases, it's nice to not have a rule that says the player can always hide in their DM-immune bastion when the fuzz gets close.

Obviously a functional group is unlikely to have this kind of issue often. But then why the hard rule that flies in the face of a long-standing dynamic? Wouldn't it be better to have this be a conversation in the books? And if that is the case (since we haven't seen the book yet and don't actually know), why make a big deal about the "hands-off" thing in the marketing materials?

 

[jmartkdr2]

Guys, comes a time when you have the same argument with the same poster over 3-4 threads, you may consider you're being trolled.

Or at the very least not going to come to any sort of agreement, even about "what it's like to play DnD"