D&D 5E Tasha's Group Patrons Preview

IGN has previewed the Group Patrons section of Tasha’s Guide to Everything.

Meet Some of D&D’s Fanciful New Patrons Your Adventurers Could Work For

We've got an exclusive look inside the next major rules expansion for Wizards of the Coast's beloved tabletop RPG Dungeons and Dragons, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. It covers the details of how to create powerful Group Patrons for your parties to work with.

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[Kobold Avenger]

I think it's the first we've seen of Tasha on the throne with Redcaps.

I think we've seen a bit of the Merfolk King and the Noblewoman (and a less common example of a non-human POC), but not up close.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I don't understand why WotC is so convinced that, before now, no one ever considered that the PCs might work for someone else.

I suspect they're trying to give DMs more tools to get players to follow the plot railroad. But maybe I'm just cynical today.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm not a huge fan of the Group Patron rules. This doesn't really add anything to my games. I have allowed my players to work for other people/factions since my very first campaign. IMO, this doesn't need printing as if it is a new and fancy rule. It just needs to be "Oh, hey! DMs! You can do this!"

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't understand why WotC is so convinced that, before now, no one ever considered that the PCs might work for someone else.

I suspect they're trying to give DMs more tools to get players to follow the plot railroad. But maybe I'm just cynical today.

I don't understand why you think that WoTC thinks that.

 

[Kurotowa]

I don't understand why you think that WoTC thinks that.

Seriously, I can't think of the last time they added something that was pitched as "And here's a brilliant new idea no one's had before!" and not "Here's something a lot of people are already doing, which means it's something they find useful for their games, so here's some rules to offer guidance and structure for all the people who aren't doing it and might find it a good addition."

 

[Oofta]

Like all the other rules, this is optional and I'll take a wait and see attitude. I already have patrons now and then, but I can always use a new perspective and different implementation as inspiration.

 

[Dire Bare]

I don't understand why WotC is so convinced that, before now, no one ever considered that the PCs might work for someone else.

I suspect they're trying to give DMs more tools to get players to follow the plot railroad. But maybe I'm just cynical today.

In a typical D&D game, the party goes on an adventure . . . often to a dungeon . . . and might be hired by someone or receive a "quest" from some group or individual, but having a "group patron" is not a normal part of the game.

Of course, plenty of DM's have been doing this since the 70s I'm sure. 80s at the latest. But it isn't the standard. WotC doesn't create books solely for those experienced DM's, but also to people fairly new to the game, or who simply haven't gone down certain roads yet in their own games.

It's not unlike the rules for factions in the core books. It's not like DM's haven't been using factions in their games before 5th Edition rolled around, but having a rules framework to help build them was a useful addition to the game. Same with patrons.

I liked the group patron rules in the Eberron book, and I'm excited to see them again in Tasha's even though I'm sure they won't be super different. It gives me a framework to build my own patrons around that I like, even though it won't be the first time in my games my players have worked for "the man".

 

[Krachek]

I don't understand why WotC is so convinced that, before now, no one ever considered that the PCs might work for someone else.

I suspect they're trying to give DMs more tools to get players to follow the plot railroad. But maybe I'm just cynical today.

And we will surprised by how much new DM joined DnD in the last years.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'm interested to see the actual crunch on this. Our party kind of has a patron (when we aren't off on another plane), who is a Waterdeep noble whose family runs a magical academy, and who initially roped us in via hiring our bard to be their in house bard (mostly a pretense, as they were interested in investigating weird things about our party).

So I'm going to see if there is any crunch (or structured advice) that will be worth using for this aristicrat/academy patron setup. I figure it's even odds this part of the book will be useful to me