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In one of my sessions a character fell over the cliff and the dm said, "roll percentile dice, if you 5% you survive. Do you want high or low?". Our dm always let us choose so we don't have to roll 01-05. We could choose high so if we rolled 95-00 we did it. Well the player chose low and rolled 02. Everyone at the table started yelling and celebrating. It was a great moment.

@45:30 I would love to see how to do this in a video as well. Excellent idea but I need more information to learn how to do that in my game. Do you create videos? Sorry Shawn but I don't know what you do besides this podcast.

Bob, what headset is that? Does it have a built-in microphone? Do you recommend it? @36:12 Bob, you need to do a video about this. I mean I know I would love to see this happening, so I have better understanding of how to do it in my own game. Please tell me you are going to do this video.

I'm still waiting for someone (actually multiple people, not going to name names) to do an adventure and explain what they are thinking as they create the adventure & what they are thinking as they run the adventure. You know, putting it all together from start to finish with examples. Not just talking about what you should do or what they would do but actually showing it in detail with explanations & examples. Great show, glad you invited Bob world builder. Keep up the great work. Yes, I totally agree, the starter set must be great! I can't wait for it. They have a year to make it, so it better be amazing. @10:40 yes 10 pages front & back. So do we call that 10 papers because you use the front and back of the paper but the pages are numbered 1 on the front, 2 on the back of that same sheet, etc. exactly what is the right phrasing for that? Truth comes out @22:16. Castle with flying monkeys.... witch? (this is a joke please do not be offended. You saying that made me think of the witch in Wizard of Oz, spoilers everyone.) @24:10 don't get me started on gold cost as a wizard. It is beyond silly all the things that make being a wizard difficult compared to all the other classes. I mean game rules and restrictions. As the editions increase the difficulty has decreased some, but it is not the same as any other class. If you are attacked in your Bastion, do you get lair actions? If you attack monsters where they live they get lair actions. Seems only fair if your Bastion, aka lair, is attacked you would get a Bastion action.

Further to the discussion on Bob's take of "living world". Something I did was I recorded a monologue at a significant point in the campaign (start of a three day holy festival) that just briefly covered what the factions they'd interacted with (and one they hadn't yet) were up to at this critical point in time. I bolted this onto the end of an actual play episode, but could easily just have sent it to them. I borrowed the idea from Aabria during the first run of EXU whre we got these snippets at the end of an episode as to the impact the decisions the party had taken were having, and how it might impact them down the line.

I've also been thinking about moving bastions. Specifically ships. The desire for pirate campaign (or Firefly style airship ones) is a big one, and having a shared unified bastion that is the parties ship would be so cool.

Love seeing Bob on the show. Great stuff as always. The eldrich lorecast is number 1 in my book.

there was a metric ton about 4th ed being a WoW clone, did that shy them on doing it?

... Can Bob replace James... forever? Please. I love him so much.

More pages equal more intimidating book equals less sales

Dungeon Crawl Classics has two mascots, Shanna the Wizard and Hugh the Warrior.

WIth the discussion of what book Bastions should have been in, I think people forget about the feature that you get when using D&D Beyond that if you have a subscription to The Master Tier you can share unlocked content with the players in your campaign. So, while the subscription is an additional expense for the DM (US$5 per month), it means that most players in games with DMs that use D&D Beyond who also want to allow Bastions as an option in their game, will have access to the rules without needing to purchase the DMG.

Bob is not on the video and not hating D&D5e? No way!

No plot armor. Death is probable.

RE: Bastions. I once ran a nice, tight, little adventure series that took a group to level 5 and they decided to buy a tavern at the end. As "Heroes of the Realm", it makes a lot of sense if you play out the tiers as intended. I'd also love to run a bastion as a sort of caravan. Also regarding its location in the Dungeon Master's Guide, if my experience of downtime activities is anything to go by, players are never going to fully engage with bastions. They should have been in the PHB.

I do this several times a campaign in one shots where the players play new characters that have a goal or event happen and later see how that effects the game.

I made one-to-one updates of the 4e Player's Handbook to 5e in the book Player's Guide to Powers. It's on the DM's Guild. It has all 8 classes (including the Warlord), all their Powers, all the Paragon Paths, and I even found a place for all the Epic Destinies after 20th level. Plus all the Magic Items. On top of that, I made a universal Subclass for any normal class to take. It's called The Power-user, which learns a few lower leveled Powers but uses them as part of a Bonus Action or Reaction (depending on the type of Power). If there's not something for everyone, then there's something for most people.

I have been running bastions since they appeared in the playtest material. They are very much in the background unless the DM drives some narrative with them. Power wise they don't offer much problem, but eventually (especially at lvl 9) they start to be more meaningful for the players. They are great for chill sessions when you might not have prepped as much, similar to those "downtime" sessions we all occasionally have. The new tracker sheets help the players with their roleplay as well, a great addition to the DMG.

Moved to Bluesky. Much better environment. More encouraging engagement. Would love to see Bob World Builder there. Worth the effort. Also kuods to Shawn for being on the #2 and #3 podcasts.

The Blades in the Dark expansion Deep Cuts makes it so all rolls are about avoiding a Threat involved in your action. So you'll always cross the gap, but you might scuff your knees and take damage. Only when its dramatically interesting is the threat just failing itself.

Do we think WotC actually thoroughly playtested how Bastions work out in play though? Do they "work/deliver" for the expectation of "cool a home base" idea?

Me and Dale have the same braincell I swear: I, too, want to host Dragon heist in one year. best way for me was combine it with strixhaven

Twitter was blocked in Brazil for a good length of time, so a lot of people migrated to blue sky

I think it would have made less sense to have bastions in PHB instead of DMG. The guide is there to help DMs structure and have a good measure of what would be acceptable and what could be too much for the players' level and wealth. There shouldn't be an expectation that all campaigns will have bastions

Dungeon Court is the best non actualplay dnd podcast I've ever heard

I remember a few years ago, I think on Reddit, someone slapped googly eyes on the dragon ampersand from the 5E D&D logo and called it Andy the D&D Ampersand. U still like that. I think to Bob's point about the level requirement for Bastions versus having a "home base" at an earlier level, I think there's a clear distinction between *"thing that has mechanical implications"* and *"thing that has narrative implications only"*, which isn't really that hard to parse... for veteran players and DMs which brings us back to the question from earlier in the episode: Is this DMG for new DMs or experienced ones? Should it be for the new DMs or experienced ones?

Shawn has inspired me to run a Groundhog Day one-shot. The players must figure out how to not let a single villager die that day. It resets until they succeed.

D&D mascot has to be a Beholder. It would be hilarious to see the eye stalks bobbing around. Also, Bob needs to green screen a forest behind him. He just doesn't look the same indoors.

"how to run your game" vs "how to be angry at certain people" Personally the Eldritch Lorecast has been great for TTRPG news for me. But its great to hear this panel discussion on solving problems, with everyone having differing views on the matter. Please keep this up.

1:02:44 Dale, I regret to inform you that the word for "tweet" on Bsky is "skeet". But Bob and Ben are right, there's been a huge influx of TTRPG folks on Bsky recently. And it's a MUCH more pleasant experience than Twitter, generally good vibes, interesting discussions, very little ridiculous drama, and trolls get nuked instantly.

I love the journey you can see on everyone's faces when Ben tortures a segue into the next question. 😂

48:58 in one of my campaigns the players saved a little kid from a bunch of big spiders in a cave - that was their first adventure. 4 real life years later (about 8 months in-game) they were passing through that village again, and the kids were playing pretend dressed AS THE PLAYER CHARACTERS, being big damn heroes and waving stick swords. The players lost their god damn minds, it was one of our best sessions ever.

There's a little product on DMsguild called "Bastions Supplemental Rules" that gives options for getting a Bastion at 2nd level.

Bastion/Stronghold/Gang is very fun mechanic in TTRPG which adds another dimension into the game. Especially gangs in Blades in the Dark - it's main "character" of the game, even more improtant than individual members. Bastion rules (from what I hear, I don't know, I wouldn't buy Hasbro/WotC products) more or less resemble Forbidden Lands Stronghold Fobidden Lands Stronghold is important mechanic of the game which gives cool buffs for PCs, but the rules are located in Player's Handbook. So, the only reason that I see in locating Bastions in DMG is to sell more DMG.

Nice to see @bobworldbuilder jumping in. Keeping the total hair at a constant. Also. Thanks for answering my question.!

Immediate response to the title image: YAY BOB !!! Ready to listen now

A slicy Clippy familiar would be wild.

So when do we get Grace World Destroyer on the podcast?

I don't get why there would be a level restriction for Bastions at all. Is there a real estate guild out there checking people's level before they can build additions to their house? It makes no sense. It should be gold, or on some kind of faction based track, or something that limits the resource in the fiction, not an artificial mechanic. On the world moving around you. I've used Dael's method--especially with NPC's (give them a challenge or task, and then have them accomplish it, especially with PC help and have it alter the world or grant a service that didn't previously exist) and the version where you just cut away to other stuff. Seasonal changes and things can be great too. (I ran Dragon Heist with all factions going at once, resulting in a show down between every faction in a massive 5 way brawl with over 60 characters for me to run...it was awesome, my players did incredible and when the factions tried to negotiate and said they would "spare their lives" they all somehow burst into laughter, _in character!_ It was a magical DnD moment.) I tend to go overboard and keep track of a lot of NPC minutia, but my NPC's are one of my strongest tools in my DM style, my players always buy in to the world through another person (perhaps too many, tbh, it can slow things down at times). To Ben's point about Dark fantasy, I think it shares this trait with noir storytelling. You are a protagonist, but the world has bigger players than you, and you are trying to navigate the space between them and perhaps do some good in a dark tale, without being crushed by these greater forces. What _makes_ you heroic, is your willingness to try, even though you are way out of your depth. But as Shawn says, you have to be considerate with how you do this, and make sure your tone matches the game you're running. All about failing forwards, or succeeding at a cost. You fall off the cliff, now you're not a viable target for attacks, but if no one helps you back up you are going to die! You break out of prison, and you barely succeed, or slightly fail, the plan still goes off but someone is injured, not just damaged, but has a lasting condition. Same thing with the spike trap, you survive, but your armour is ruined etc. Serious stakes, serious cost, but not to the point the story just ends, or at least not always. And _always_ keep your *players* (though not always their characters) on the same page when it comes to high stakes moments. It livens the game, and does a ton of work preventing feelings of unfairness.

The Eldritch LoreCast is #1 tabletop podcast in my apartment.

please tell me you know about the Swords webcomic

WWIJD

My fix for bastions at low level is to introduce a level 0 bastion. You have a place to stay but it doesn't offer anything more than a roof over your head.

I'm running Curse of Strahd right now, which happens in a Demi-Plane, cut off from the Prime Material, mainly populated by Soulless Husks... So instead of trying to have a "living world" where things happen around the PCs, I draw attention to the Uncanniness of the world *NOT* being "living"... Events go into hibernation for *decades* waiting for [Plot Point] to happen, and Husks will be stuck in a loop before they continue their plots... Dunno how it comes across to my players necessarily, but it amuses me, if nothing else...

Mascot for D&D? Large Luigi

lets-A_GO

Dael...I dont have an answer.

On the topic of weather something should be in the phb vs the dmg, i was really perplexed by having custom backgrounds in the DMG. Backgrounds no longer have those game breaking features, so it seemed weird to not have the straight forwars ruleset for customising not available to players. Also, infind the new backgrounds limits certain classes to backgrounds. Most monks will be sailors, because tavern brawler is very good for them.

But then which game system is The Spleen?!?

A cuddly Colville mascot