As someone who just handed out to their party a Bastion I am glad it was at level 5. One I aligned the story so that they reached level 5 and got the Bastion at the same time, so ergo no issue with the whole "middle of dungeon" but also now they have access to resources to better utilize during downtime. I am usually bad about downtime, but with this, my players can have more time to research or build things and learn proficiencies like the rules dictate, without me having to come up with rules to do it.
Ergo, playing within the constraints of the system as is.
That's why people may not like an auto-Bastion, among other changes brought up as a result of 10 years of feedback of mixed quality.
Those people will have already laid the groundwork for receiving their Bastions before level 5 then, as outlined in the rules. There is no problem except where some insist on creating one.
If you have the campaign module, "Dragon Heist", that roguish scoundrel about town, Volothamp(?), offers the players a deed on a run down town house and attached tavern, if they do him some 'small' favors.
If the party succeeds in these favors, they have a town house and the basis for a Bastion.
Be good to list those problems. None of the bastion facilities seem that over powered that forcing parties to purchase or wait to be awarded one seems so outlandish.
You see nothing wrong with their not needing to pay for retainers to maintain these strongholds? There is a word for that: slavery. You see nothing wrong with their just being given things in a world in which only the most privileged enjoy that luxury?
You admitted in a previous post you had not read the bastion rules for 2024. As a general rule, it is a good idea to actually look into something before complaining about something you have no knowledge of - had you read the rules before implying the system is promoting slavery, you would know your concern is groundless.
“Each special facility in a Bastion generates enough income to pay the salary of its hirelings.”
Sorry I'll make sure to also pack my toilet paper for our next session. So we also need to account for bathroom breaks for all the people in the bastion too when deciding how and when bastion turns happen?
This is a fantasy realm, not everyone wants to count coppers to have fun. But as stated above, they literally pay for themselves! This is a game about the PCs not about (unless the party wants to RP as them) the people back on the farm making sure the herbs are maintained until the next Bastion action.
You admitted in a previous post you had not read the bastion rules for 2024. As a general rule, it is a good idea to actually look into something before complaining about something you have no knowledge of - had you read the rules before implying the system is promoting slavery, you would know your concern is groundless.
“Each special facility in a Bastion generates enough income to pay the salary of its hirelings.”
Right there in the rules.
Then it would appear the Reddit post I read in which the complainant said characters do not pay for these things was incorrect.
My players love resource management. They will pay individual torchbearers daily wages. And I do think hand-waving this as the 'home base' generates enough gold to pay for any hirelings is still a bit off. It makes these hirelings little more than 'units of efficiency' that just keep things running. Hardly the most humane way to treat those in one's employ. Retainers should have their own personalities and histories.
Once again, I implore you to actually look into something rather than comment on something you already acknowledged you had not read. If you looked at the rules, you would find you are missing the mark here as well.
”A player can assign names and personalities to hirelings in their character’s Bastion using the same tools DMs use to create NPCs (see chapter 3).”
Now, that is a “can”; if that is not a player’s cup of tea, they do not have to engage in this kind of roleplaying and can stick to pure mechanics. But the DMG does explicitly promote giving your hurlings name and personalities.
Literally it is not. Tier 1 is meant to be the local heroes, Tier 2 (aka when you get a Bastion) is meant for those local Heroes to now become heroes of the nation or larger area surrounding where they started. This makes it extremely reasonable for them to have a home and access to resources (with out having to maintain them with their own nickel and diming) and not be "problematic." Nothing you get at a level 5 Bastion is in anyway more than what a week of downtime would earn the players. The only difference it that they typically do not need to roll or spend as much money on said thing.
Now to counter this, when the party is NOT in their Bastion, there is a small chance for things to go wrong.
Onto the fact that you refer to not naming these hirelings, not "paying for" these hirelings (love how getting help for free is slavery but "paying for them" is not?), and not roleplaying out their meal breaks, and sleep schedules as problematic is frankly not true. The DMG DOES encourage the naming of these hirelings and growing some attachement to them, but not doing that is not "problematic" it is simply a difference in play style. Not wanting to count coins is not "problematic" it is a difference in how someone enjoys the game.
For me and my players, they will most likely name them when needed, but no one jumped up and started questioning my morales and worldly concerns because I said "Do that if you want, we aren't going to do that today." Why? Because this is a RPG in a fantasy setting, I am not actually hiring people to work for me. IF a player WANTs to RP out what they and their hirelings do when in the bastion great! If the player says "I collect my 1 healing potion" when we talk about their bastion fine! But the second behavior is not "problematic" it simply means they would rather RP out the adventure than book keep.
Earning things is not privilege. Like don't get me wrong I think they should have spent more time on the whole how/why you get it section instead of a one sentence, hey wing it guys line. But you are adventurers, you got to level 5 by adventuring and doing great deeds.
You are putting the cart before the horse on this one. Yes they use level 5 as the point this happens, but that isn't why they got it. It can(can as they basically say wing it, including inheritance) in fact be their actions that is why they get it, 5 is just a way of representing how much they have accomplished. Now maybe your party was skeezy, then maybe the wing it part is the local thieves guild put up the land/workers for you. But assuming standard adventuring, they probably saved the town from something a couple times by this point. And if they have not accomplished much, then they probably should not be level 5, and the privilege was you handing them out levels for free.
Now I do think given the leveling system in 5e level 5 may be a bit too low to indicate that. They probably have done very little by this point, but the concept in itself is not privilege unless you make it so when you wing it and say something like your dad was super wealthy so he buys a beach house for you and your friends.
Earning things is not privilege. Like don't get me wrong I think they should have spent more time on the whole how/why you get it section instead of a one sentence, hey wing it guys line. But you are adventurers, you got to level 5 by adventuring and doing great deeds.
You are putting the cart before the horse on this one. Yes they use level 5 as the point this happens, but that isn't why they got it. It can(can as they basically say wing it, including inheritance) in fact be their actions that is why they get it, 5 is just a way of representing how much they have accomplished. Now maybe your party was skeezy, then maybe the wing it part is the local thieves guild put up the land/workers for you. But assuming standard adventuring, they probably saved the town from something a couple times by this point. And if they have not accomplished much, then they probably should not be level 5, and the privilege was you handing them out levels for free.
Now I do think given the leveling system in 5e level 5 may be a bit too low to indicate that. They probably have done very little by this point, but the concept in itself is not privilege unless you make it so when you wing it and say something like your dad was super wealthy so he buys a beach house for you and your friends.
You will notice I have made a distinction between what it means to earn something and what it means to 'earn' something.
It is getting into very problematic territory when we believe people 'deserve' to have others work for them.
You are misreading and misunderstanding my use of privilege.
I am not talking about 'in-game' privilege. Whether or not the characters have come into some inheritance. Have wealthy parents.
I am talking about how conceptually the notion that characters 'deserve' land and property and workers with them by virtue of nothing more than their having accumulated experience points is very much indicative or privilege.
You even make this point for me.
Why do players 'deserve' strongholds and followers because they have saved the town on a number of occasions?
Is the concept of saving others just because it is the right thing to do now dead?
Why do they now 'deserve' the labour of others?
You are the one using the term deserve. Do wizards deserve 3rd level spells at 3rd level or did they just accumulate enough spell casting experience to be able to do so. Why they get it is up to you, if you decide to go on a because they deserve it reasoning that is on you. Normally going back to earlier editions it wasn't they deserved it, though in some cases people can be rewarded things, but it was more the local people in charge wanted you to have the land so you'd have a reason to protect the area. They felt they would get more out of the deal than they lost by giving up some land and paying for some workers.
As I said earlier in this thread I'd prefer a more basic, this is what it usually costs to buy land/build things/hire permanent staff system instead of a poof you are level 5 system. But how it comes across thematically is 100% on the DM and players in the bastion system.
Do you have a better suggestion that doesn't require the DM and players to put a lot more effort into managing loot economy so that it remains "realistic" or whatever your ideal quality is? Gaining something like a base of operations and secondary facilities is character progression, and thus tied to the single game component that tracks such progression in 5e.
If you want to run your table differently you can, that's what Rule 0 is for. If you want an explanation for why Bastions as a potential system for every possible 5e game that might be played use levels as their initial baseline, I covered my analysis of it in some detail here.
No, tying it to XP- which it isn't even, given that milestone leveling exists and is very prevalent- is indicative of finding some way to distill the concept down into a simple user-friendly system that a new DM without any prior experience of how to to manage soft systems can pick up and run without having to do a bunch of back end work, and a bunch of players on their first characters can all enjoy without the FOMO of trying to decide if magic items or facilities would be better for them.
And consider this is all an optional system, so there is no reason you can't just can it all and run your game your way if you'd prefer. Frankly, you want to talk privilege? Perhaps you should consider that not everyone is so privileged as to have the time/experience/skill to eyeball these things, and so a system that runs all the logistics of getting a building and staff in place behind the black is more accessible than dumping half a dozen tables for buying land, having buildings constructed, hiring workers, and paying upkeep in their laps and telling them to figure something out for their table.
There is only a problem because you make it one. You could easily say they acquire the "Bastion" at level 3 by saving someones home or whatever. Than they have to spend time and money to make it usable as more than just a place to stay and sleep, so at level 5 they have acquired enough money, and spend enough time to also have some extra benefits. In order to get these benefits they have also put down a post to ask for hirelings. Who are getting paid by what they do in that special facility.
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The notion that character class is synonymous with social class and therefore anything tied to level progression is inherently classist is probably one of the most hilarious takes I've heard in a while. "Class" can have multiple meanings and right now the wrong meaning is being applied. When talking about character class, we're not using class as a synonym for "quality" or "standing", but role.
Then there's the fact that in game you can play a character of any social standing with any class at any level. There are zero mechanics that tie a characters mechanical package of abilities based on a role associated with a cultural heroic trope [class] with their position within the strata of unequally distributed wealth and social power [class].
Bastions are awarded based on the party reaching a point in their journey as a hero where they would be encountering bastions as something they might find abandoned, retake from a villainous force, or be awarded with. Also bastions are entirely optional. So there's no entitlement based on social class, that's a nonsensical take so absurd I can but laugh. How the bastion comes into a players possession is a discussion between DM and player:
You and the players can decide together how these Bastions come into being. A character might inherit or receive a parcel of land on which to build their Bastion (see “Marks of Prestige” in chapter 3), or they might take a preexisting structure and refurbish it. It’s fair to assume that work has been going on behind the scenes of the campaign during a character’s early adventuring career, so the Bastion is ready when the character reaches level 5.
If I had one piece of advice, it would be to not comment further on bastions until you've actually read the rules on them for yourself. Oh, and maybe brush up on the concept of homophones too.
Do they expect there to be rules in place that ensure their characters will get that too by virtue of nothing more than their having reached this or that level?
I am talking about how the concept of being rewarded with the labour of others for hitting some milestone is problematic.
How isn't it?
Can you answer that question?
Instead of trying to make this about how people spend their time to again deflect from my chief concern?
The bastion rules are a fairly simple chapter, front loaded with all the information you need about creation. It would probably take five minutes for you to read it - something you have admitted to not having done. Literally every single “concern” you have raised in this thread is explicitly addressed by the guidance in the rules.
Your most recent imagined concerns can be addressed under the very clear heading of “Creating a Bastion.” The rules literally say that DMs and players should work together to figure out a sensible reason for the bastion to come into being, with the implicit goal making the bastion feel like it naturally grew out of the campaign up to that point.
Your problems with the system are imaginary and born of your self-admitted decision to remain willfully ignorant (not used in an insulting way - in the technical definition of “no knowledge of” manner). As it is, you are basically making a bunch of flavor complaints…. About a system where the rules frequently tell DMs “please work with your players to come up with flavor that works for the campaign and makes the bastions feel like a natural element of the game.”
That is not a real complaint, and the fact you keep doubling down on it despite multiple quotes of the rules and explanations from multiple people… combined with the fact you are complaining about a system you admit you have not bothered to read, leaves very little room to assume you are posting in anything other than bad faith.
But why is it an issue they gain labour of others who are getting payed just fine?
If you are gonna say those Hirelings are obliged to work for you, than sure that might be a problem. But if you say the Hirelings applied to work for you than why is that an issue? It's all about how you explain it, nothing in the rules specifies this and is in any way problematic.
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"grandpa" Salkur, Gnome Arti/Sorc: Forged in Chaos | Pepin, Human Arti/Cleric: Goblin horde | Mixtli, Volc Genasi Arti: Champions of the Citadel | Erix Vadalitis, Human Druid: Rising from the last war |Smithy, Human Arti: Night Ravens: Black orchids for Biscotti | Tamphalic Aliprax, Dragonborn Wizard: Chronicles of the Accursed | Doc, Dwarven Cleric (2024): Adventure at Hope's End | Abathax, Tiefling Illriger: Hunt for the Balowang | Gorin Mestel, Human Arti: Descend into Avernus
Characters that reach Level 5 are awarded the labour of others.
... and some here cannot see how this might be seen as problematic.
Except this isn't what happens. No more than if you get hired as a manager of a store you're being "awarded the labour of others". Nothing about the Bastion rules says the hirelings are present against their will. It is simply the case that building or starting a Bastion includes the process of finding people to work there. This is all very silly, bordering on disingenuous. It does smack of the all too common trend of trying to prop up a subjective and personal dislike of something through intellectually dishonest moralising.
As an aside, class (role) and class (social position) are very much homophones, not homographs. Homophones are two words pronounced the same but with different meanings, whereas homographs are words that are spelled the same but not necessarily pronounced the same and with different meanings. Class (role) and class (social position) are homophones, lead (to guide) and lead (a toxic metal) are homographs.
You're injecting a load of preconditions that aren't grounded in the reality of the text in order to support your faux-outrage.
Your character reached Level 5? So? Maybe people don't want to work for that character.
Then those aren't the people working as hirelings in the bastion. Nothing in the rules suggest, implies, says, or supports the notion that any single hireling in the bastion is unwilling in any capacity. All the rules say is that the player gets the bastion (the structure) and it's assumed its staffed with hirelings required to run the bastion. You are the one injecting without grounds, rationale, reason, or logic the notion that those hirelings are somehow being mistreated, coerced, enslaved, or otherwise oppressed when literally nothing supports that. That's why you completed ignored my analogy of a new manager joining a store.
As for this
If they were awarded servants that performed labour of an intimate nature when they reached a certain level would that also be fine?
How would that not be problematic from a feminist perspective?
They're not being awarded that, so this point is irrelevant. If they were, that would be disgusting, but it's not the case so that's a non-issue. And the two scenarios are not comparable, so it's doubly moot.
As someone who just handed out to their party a Bastion I am glad it was at level 5. One I aligned the story so that they reached level 5 and got the Bastion at the same time, so ergo no issue with the whole "middle of dungeon" but also now they have access to resources to better utilize during downtime. I am usually bad about downtime, but with this, my players can have more time to research or build things and learn proficiencies like the rules dictate, without me having to come up with rules to do it.
Those people will have already laid the groundwork for receiving their Bastions before level 5 then, as outlined in the rules. There is no problem except where some insist on creating one.
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If you have the campaign module, "Dragon Heist", that roguish scoundrel about town, Volothamp(?), offers the players a deed on a run down town house and attached tavern, if they do him some 'small' favors.
If the party succeeds in these favors, they have a town house and the basis for a Bastion.
Actually it makes for a decent starting bastion but there is more in that adventure if you play your cards right - at least potentially.
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Be good to list those problems. None of the bastion facilities seem that over powered that forcing parties to purchase or wait to be awarded one seems so outlandish.
You admitted in a previous post you had not read the bastion rules for 2024. As a general rule, it is a good idea to actually look into something before complaining about something you have no knowledge of - had you read the rules before implying the system is promoting slavery, you would know your concern is groundless.
“Each special facility in a Bastion generates enough income to pay the salary of its hirelings.”
Right there in the rules.
Sorry I'll make sure to also pack my toilet paper for our next session. So we also need to account for bathroom breaks for all the people in the bastion too when deciding how and when bastion turns happen?
This is a fantasy realm, not everyone wants to count coppers to have fun. But as stated above, they literally pay for themselves! This is a game about the PCs not about (unless the party wants to RP as them) the people back on the farm making sure the herbs are maintained until the next Bastion action.
Once again, I implore you to actually look into something rather than comment on something you already acknowledged you had not read. If you looked at the rules, you would find you are missing the mark here as well.
”A player can assign names and personalities to hirelings in their character’s Bastion using the same tools DMs use to create NPCs (see chapter 3).”
Now, that is a “can”; if that is not a player’s cup of tea, they do not have to engage in this kind of roleplaying and can stick to pure mechanics. But the DMG does explicitly promote giving your hurlings name and personalities.
Literally it is not. Tier 1 is meant to be the local heroes, Tier 2 (aka when you get a Bastion) is meant for those local Heroes to now become heroes of the nation or larger area surrounding where they started. This makes it extremely reasonable for them to have a home and access to resources (with out having to maintain them with their own nickel and diming) and not be "problematic." Nothing you get at a level 5 Bastion is in anyway more than what a week of downtime would earn the players. The only difference it that they typically do not need to roll or spend as much money on said thing.
Now to counter this, when the party is NOT in their Bastion, there is a small chance for things to go wrong.
Onto the fact that you refer to not naming these hirelings, not "paying for" these hirelings (love how getting help for free is slavery but "paying for them" is not?), and not roleplaying out their meal breaks, and sleep schedules as problematic is frankly not true. The DMG DOES encourage the naming of these hirelings and growing some attachement to them, but not doing that is not "problematic" it is simply a difference in play style. Not wanting to count coins is not "problematic" it is a difference in how someone enjoys the game.
For me and my players, they will most likely name them when needed, but no one jumped up and started questioning my morales and worldly concerns because I said "Do that if you want, we aren't going to do that today." Why? Because this is a RPG in a fantasy setting, I am not actually hiring people to work for me. IF a player WANTs to RP out what they and their hirelings do when in the bastion great! If the player says "I collect my 1 healing potion" when we talk about their bastion fine! But the second behavior is not "problematic" it simply means they would rather RP out the adventure than book keep.
Earning things is not privilege. Like don't get me wrong I think they should have spent more time on the whole how/why you get it section instead of a one sentence, hey wing it guys line. But you are adventurers, you got to level 5 by adventuring and doing great deeds.
You are putting the cart before the horse on this one. Yes they use level 5 as the point this happens, but that isn't why they got it. It can(can as they basically say wing it, including inheritance) in fact be their actions that is why they get it, 5 is just a way of representing how much they have accomplished. Now maybe your party was skeezy, then maybe the wing it part is the local thieves guild put up the land/workers for you. But assuming standard adventuring, they probably saved the town from something a couple times by this point. And if they have not accomplished much, then they probably should not be level 5, and the privilege was you handing them out levels for free.
Now I do think given the leveling system in 5e level 5 may be a bit too low to indicate that. They probably have done very little by this point, but the concept in itself is not privilege unless you make it so when you wing it and say something like your dad was super wealthy so he buys a beach house for you and your friends.
You are the one using the term deserve. Do wizards deserve 3rd level spells at 3rd level or did they just accumulate enough spell casting experience to be able to do so. Why they get it is up to you, if you decide to go on a because they deserve it reasoning that is on you. Normally going back to earlier editions it wasn't they deserved it, though in some cases people can be rewarded things, but it was more the local people in charge wanted you to have the land so you'd have a reason to protect the area. They felt they would get more out of the deal than they lost by giving up some land and paying for some workers.
As I said earlier in this thread I'd prefer a more basic, this is what it usually costs to buy land/build things/hire permanent staff system instead of a poof you are level 5 system. But how it comes across thematically is 100% on the DM and players in the bastion system.
Do you have a better suggestion that doesn't require the DM and players to put a lot more effort into managing loot economy so that it remains "realistic" or whatever your ideal quality is? Gaining something like a base of operations and secondary facilities is character progression, and thus tied to the single game component that tracks such progression in 5e.
If you want to run your table differently you can, that's what Rule 0 is for. If you want an explanation for why Bastions as a potential system for every possible 5e game that might be played use levels as their initial baseline, I covered my analysis of it in some detail here.
No, tying it to XP- which it isn't even, given that milestone leveling exists and is very prevalent- is indicative of finding some way to distill the concept down into a simple user-friendly system that a new DM without any prior experience of how to to manage soft systems can pick up and run without having to do a bunch of back end work, and a bunch of players on their first characters can all enjoy without the FOMO of trying to decide if magic items or facilities would be better for them.
And consider this is all an optional system, so there is no reason you can't just can it all and run your game your way if you'd prefer. Frankly, you want to talk privilege? Perhaps you should consider that not everyone is so privileged as to have the time/experience/skill to eyeball these things, and so a system that runs all the logistics of getting a building and staff in place behind the black is more accessible than dumping half a dozen tables for buying land, having buildings constructed, hiring workers, and paying upkeep in their laps and telling them to figure something out for their table.
There is only a problem because you make it one. You could easily say they acquire the "Bastion" at level 3 by saving someones home or whatever. Than they have to spend time and money to make it usable as more than just a place to stay and sleep, so at level 5 they have acquired enough money, and spend enough time to also have some extra benefits. In order to get these benefits they have also put down a post to ask for hirelings. Who are getting paid by what they do in that special facility.
"grandpa" Salkur, Gnome Arti/Sorc: Forged in Chaos | Pepin, Human Arti/Cleric: Goblin horde | Mixtli, Volc Genasi Arti: Champions of the Citadel | Erix Vadalitis, Human Druid: Rising from the last war | Smithy, Human Arti: Night Ravens: Black orchids for Biscotti | Tamphalic Aliprax, Dragonborn Wizard: Chronicles of the Accursed | Doc, Dwarven Cleric (2024): Adventure at Hope's End | Abathax, Tiefling Illriger: Hunt for the Balowang | Gorin Mestel, Human Arti: Descend into Avernus
The notion that character class is synonymous with social class and therefore anything tied to level progression is inherently classist is probably one of the most hilarious takes I've heard in a while. "Class" can have multiple meanings and right now the wrong meaning is being applied. When talking about character class, we're not using class as a synonym for "quality" or "standing", but role.
Then there's the fact that in game you can play a character of any social standing with any class at any level. There are zero mechanics that tie a characters mechanical package of abilities based on a role associated with a cultural heroic trope [class] with their position within the strata of unequally distributed wealth and social power [class].
Bastions are awarded based on the party reaching a point in their journey as a hero where they would be encountering bastions as something they might find abandoned, retake from a villainous force, or be awarded with. Also bastions are entirely optional. So there's no entitlement based on social class, that's a nonsensical take so absurd I can but laugh. How the bastion comes into a players possession is a discussion between DM and player:
If I had one piece of advice, it would be to not comment further on bastions until you've actually read the rules on them for yourself. Oh, and maybe brush up on the concept of homophones too.
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The bastion rules are a fairly simple chapter, front loaded with all the information you need about creation. It would probably take five minutes for you to read it - something you have admitted to not having done. Literally every single “concern” you have raised in this thread is explicitly addressed by the guidance in the rules.
Your most recent imagined concerns can be addressed under the very clear heading of “Creating a Bastion.” The rules literally say that DMs and players should work together to figure out a sensible reason for the bastion to come into being, with the implicit goal making the bastion feel like it naturally grew out of the campaign up to that point.
Your problems with the system are imaginary and born of your self-admitted decision to remain willfully ignorant (not used in an insulting way - in the technical definition of “no knowledge of” manner). As it is, you are basically making a bunch of flavor complaints…. About a system where the rules frequently tell DMs “please work with your players to come up with flavor that works for the campaign and makes the bastions feel like a natural element of the game.”
That is not a real complaint, and the fact you keep doubling down on it despite multiple quotes of the rules and explanations from multiple people… combined with the fact you are complaining about a system you admit you have not bothered to read, leaves very little room to assume you are posting in anything other than bad faith.
But why is it an issue they gain labour of others who are getting payed just fine?
If you are gonna say those Hirelings are obliged to work for you, than sure that might be a problem. But if you say the Hirelings applied to work for you than why is that an issue? It's all about how you explain it, nothing in the rules specifies this and is in any way problematic.
"grandpa" Salkur, Gnome Arti/Sorc: Forged in Chaos | Pepin, Human Arti/Cleric: Goblin horde | Mixtli, Volc Genasi Arti: Champions of the Citadel | Erix Vadalitis, Human Druid: Rising from the last war | Smithy, Human Arti: Night Ravens: Black orchids for Biscotti | Tamphalic Aliprax, Dragonborn Wizard: Chronicles of the Accursed | Doc, Dwarven Cleric (2024): Adventure at Hope's End | Abathax, Tiefling Illriger: Hunt for the Balowang | Gorin Mestel, Human Arti: Descend into Avernus
Except this isn't what happens. No more than if you get hired as a manager of a store you're being "awarded the labour of others". Nothing about the Bastion rules says the hirelings are present against their will. It is simply the case that building or starting a Bastion includes the process of finding people to work there. This is all very silly, bordering on disingenuous. It does smack of the all too common trend of trying to prop up a subjective and personal dislike of something through intellectually dishonest moralising.
As an aside, class (role) and class (social position) are very much homophones, not homographs. Homophones are two words pronounced the same but with different meanings, whereas homographs are words that are spelled the same but not necessarily pronounced the same and with different meanings. Class (role) and class (social position) are homophones, lead (to guide) and lead (a toxic metal) are homographs.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
You're injecting a load of preconditions that aren't grounded in the reality of the text in order to support your faux-outrage.
Then those aren't the people working as hirelings in the bastion. Nothing in the rules suggest, implies, says, or supports the notion that any single hireling in the bastion is unwilling in any capacity. All the rules say is that the player gets the bastion (the structure) and it's assumed its staffed with hirelings required to run the bastion. You are the one injecting without grounds, rationale, reason, or logic the notion that those hirelings are somehow being mistreated, coerced, enslaved, or otherwise oppressed when literally nothing supports that. That's why you completed ignored my analogy of a new manager joining a store.
As for this
They're not being awarded that, so this point is irrelevant. If they were, that would be disgusting, but it's not the case so that's a non-issue. And the two scenarios are not comparable, so it's doubly moot.
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