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]

But if the bastion allows a random table to determine whether good, bad or nothing happens to the bastion... it doesnt have plot armor...it has DM whim armor.

So neither the players nor the DM have control over it? What happens if the stronghold is in a war zone? Or the PCs put something someone else wants in the stronghold? Is it still immune to anything but random chance?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That plot armor is the exact problem some of us have.

right, and it wouldn't work for all games... I will say that if you sat at our table you would have to put up with it... and if you ran for us and broke that gentleman's agreement it would probably get you a few hurt looks in shock and then maybe a 'not cool' after the section... if you kept doing it you would find yourself not invited back.

Having said that If I sat at yours I would have to go by your groups rules... and would be WAY more likely to make the 'wandering loner with no family' type after the first time 'it made sense' to attack my characters family

But if the bastion allows a random table to determine whether good, bad or nothing happens to the bastion... it doesnt have plot armor...it has DM whim armor.

I don't know but I don't mind it either way... I assume that there will be (like most optional DMG add ons) some that like it and use it some that like it and take parts and house rule it, and some that hate it

 

[Imaro]

So neither the players nor the DM have control over it? What happens if the stronghold is in a war zone? Or the PCs put something someone else wants in the stronghold? Is it still immune to anything but random chance?

Well seeing as the DM gives the Bastion out and the rules are in the DMG...I would expect some mature discussion on the purpose of the bastion as well as limitations on what it can be used for and it's place in the campaign.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

So you don't like players playing PCs who both (i) engage in wanton murder, and (ii) purport to lead an order of righteous followers.

No, I do not have a problem with a player who wants to do both (i) and (ii). I do have a problem with a player who wants to avoid consequences of (ii) impating their (i) and roleplay opportunitties that could grow from it.

So what is stopping you putting your foot down?

The Bastion rules.

But why would a player declare actions like those you suggested:

Because the Bastion rules reassure them they will never face consequences of their actions.

Not by me.

How convenient.

I am drawing inferences about how you approach RPGing from what you post.

You are welcome to stop.

This seems to reiterate that you prefer an approach in which the GM provides "plot hooks" and the players have their PCs take on "quests".

Is this now also bad by your standards?

Why are we playing a Krynn campaign? What would the player's view be of that setting? How would they want to integrate their PC into the campaign? Do they see their explosive-obsessed Dwarf as something like a Tinker Gnome - in which case presumably the forgotten temples are to Reorx and the Greygem?

I've never had any trouble working with players to establish the backstory, setting, etc elements that will establish a coherent fiction that we can all enjoy.

So how is that different from me wanting to have elements created by player by incorproated into the setting? How is that in any way different of all the "limiting player freedom" you've been acussing people off?

I've got no view on the quality of Matt Mercer's GMing. What you describe seems pretty different from how I like to approach RPGing; it seems to rest heavily on an assumption that the GM has unilateral authority to write the fiction regardless of player contributions.

Why is it bad for DM to want to keep a number of gods limited? How would it be any different from you assigning Krynnish diety to a cult from PC's backstory, instead of just letting the player force their own new god into the setting?

My understanding is that the function of the bastion rules is not to add something to the setting so that it can be part of the ongoing action. My understanding is that their function is to give the player a little self-controlled "sandbox" of their own.

And that's the problem. It doesn't exist in the world. It's just a mechanical bonus, not an actual bastion. It exists to remind the player they're in a crappy video game and undermine GM's effort to create a coherent world.

I, quite frankly, see zero point in building anything in a campaign if it's not going to be a part of the world and therefore both interact with it and mark the impact PC has left on the setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

right, and it wouldn't work for all games... I will say that if you sat at our table you would have to put up with it... and if you ran for us and broke that gentleman's agreement it would probably get you a few hurt looks in shock and then maybe a 'not cool' after the section... if you kept doing it you would find yourself not invited back.

Having said that If I sat at yours I would have to go by your groups rules... and would be WAY more likely to make the 'wandering loner with no family' type after the first time 'it made sense' to attack my characters family

I don't know but I don't mind it either way... I assume that there will be (like most optional DMG add ons) some that like it and use it some that like it and take parts and house rule it, and some that hate it

To each their own, although I have to say I found your description of both tables very biased towards your point of view. If I were at your table I would follow your rules, and if you were at mine I doubt I would need to resort to the kind of tactics you're using here. Just because the game allows something to happen doesn't mean it's inevitable and you need to be on your guard against it so you can walk out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well seeing as the DM gives the Bastion out and the rules are in the DMG...I would expect some mature discussion on the purpose of the bastion as well as limitations on what it can be used for and it's place in the campaign.

We really just need to see the actual rules. Speculation at this point is useless for either side.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Now it seems that the natural concomitant of this is that the killing of the King also happens 2 days later, that is, still the day after the meeting. But for someone reason this is supposed to create a crisis that none of the other changes to dates did. Why? Our sense of a coherent gameworld can handle adding two days to the PCs' stay in the town with the pub, can handle changing all the dates of those other events and weather etc, but it can't handle this? Because the calculation of the date of the King's death was scientifically accurate to within 2 days, and that accuracy remains even though all these other things have been changed by 2 days?

Except there is no in-universe reason why should the assassination, which was in no way related to the PC's actions, be moved. This is not a video game where events occur when players trigger a checkpoint, we are trying to create an illusion of a living and breatihng world. It may not be an issue to you to move the dates, but it will be for some people because it implies the assassination was dependent on PCs talking to the king a day before and would not trigger if they never arrived, which in turn makes the world seem to revolve around the PCs and their whims. And that is a deal breaker for some. Some people would go even further and say the weather is also a dealbreaker, maybe even feel like they need to redo that whole part of campaign (or, more likely, just not let players hire the staff).

 

[pemerton]

I wouldn't say this was a nightmare DM at all, in fact I'd say she was a very good DM.

To this reader, then, it certainly seemed that you glossed over the good parts!

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's your choice, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'd rather have a game where such things aren't prohibited by the rules.

I don't think it particularly matters if something I see absolutely no value in accounting for is prevented by the rules or not. I don't want rules to prevent my players from abusing those weaker than them for their own amusement.. I want to play with people to whom that idea is abhorrent and they wouldn't want to do it anyways.

Also, weird you are saying you don't want the rules to prevent this, when the prevailing argument is that the rules need to allow the DM to use the game fiction to punish players for engaging in that behavior. No one is even talking about using the rules to prevent the players from doing this.

 

[pemerton]

even if the warzone WAS all around her... she had plot armor and so did her house... no touchy... unless in game a player did something to bring danger it would be all around her, she would even act scared of it, and the PC could talk about how he feared for her all alone... but out of game nothing bad would happen to her no matter the story.

That plot armor is the exact problem some of us have.

Of course your problems are what they are . . . but I just want to make a comment on "consistency"/"realism".

I think we can all agree that sometimes, in some warzones, there are people and houses that survive, even while all around them might be chaos and destruction. Likewise in natural disasters - sometimes some people just get lucky.

So in @GMforPowergamers' game, the rules of the game stipulate that the PC's grandmother is to be one of those lucky people, and the GM's narration of the war must conform to that rule.

As far as the dynamics of play are concerned, the grandmother under threat in the warzone is therefore pure colour. Her survival is not part of the stakes of play. This doesn't make the fiction unrealistic.