Dungeons & Dragons Has Done Away With the Adventuring Day

Adventuring days are no more, at least not in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. The new 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide contains a streamlined guide to combat encounter planning, with a simplified set of instructions on how to build an appropriate encounter for any set of characters. The new rules are pretty basic - the DM determines an XP budget based on the difficulty level they're aiming for (with choices of low, moderate, or high, which is a change from the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide) and the level of the characters in a party. They then spend that budget on creatures to actually craft the encounter. Missing from the 2024 encounter building is applying an encounter multiplier based on the number of creatures and the number of party members, although the book still warns that more creatures adds the potential for more complications as an encounter is playing out.

What's really interesting about the new encounter building rules in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide is that there's no longer any mention of the "adventuring day," nor is there any recommendation about how many encounters players should have in between long rests. The 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide contained a recommendation that players should have 6 to 8 medium or hard encounters per adventuring day. The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide instead opts to discuss encounter pace and how to balance player desire to take frequent Short Rests with ratcheting up tension within the adventure.

The 6-8 encounters per day guideline was always controversial and at least in my experience rarely followed even in official D&D adventures. The new 2024 encounter building guidelines are not only more streamlined, but they also seem to embrace a more common sense approach to DM prep and planning.

The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide for Dungeons & Dragons will be released on November 12th.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So Rule Zero is what allows a DM to make rulings that then, due to the precedent thus set, become house rules for that campaign.

Again, you are overlooking the critical distinction: The former is a paperjam-clearing tool that ensures smooth future operation. The latter is actually creating something new. The two are distinct things. One is not creating anything, just jiggling stuff enough to keep things moving. The other is actually declaring something new.

Using a plunger to unclog a toilet isn't changing the toilet in any way. It's just dealing with a temporary blockage. Redoing the plumbing because you want to add or remove a bidet from the toilet is a completely different thing.

Hypothetical example: Magic Missile can only target a creature, so what happens if someone casts one when there's no other creatures around? Does the caster have to shoot herself with her own missiles? Can she just fire them into the ground? If yes, do they have any effect on the ground e.g. char marks or chipped stones etc.?

Except there isn't any ambiguity here--not in the rules themselves at least. If you do not have a valid target for a spell, the rules are explicit that you can't cast it. You might decide you don't like that rule, but there is a difference between "this is genuinely unexplained/conflicting/ridiculous" and "the rules are clear, explicit, and reasonable, I would just prefer that they said something other than what they say."

That said, you (almost) always have a valid target for the magic missile spell, because it isn't friendly. You, yourself, are a creature you can see. So unless you're invisible and also lack the ability to see invisible things (e.g. truesight), there always is a target for the spell: you. Thus, if "successfully" cast while no other creatures are present, all of the darts hit yourself, because you are the only creature you can see within range. Since I sincerely doubt the player wants that, the reasonable choice is to tell them they can't cast the spell if there are no creatures they can see and would choose to target within range.

Rule Zero allows me-as-DM to rule on the fly that untargeted Magic Missiles can be fired into the ground, with each missile possibly leaving a small char mark where it hits.

As noted, this is not "Rule Zero," because you are straight-up rewriting the spell, not just adjudicating an ambiguous statement, rules lacuna, or ridiculous incongruity.

That ruling sets a precedent for the campaign - now that I've ruled one Magic Missile works this way, that's how they'll all work henceforth - and so I put it into the spell write-up as a house rule.

You were already writing a house rule before you even started: you decided you didn't like the "target" line of the magic missile spell, and wanted to rewrite it to "one creature or location of your choice that you can see within range."

Is that about right?

No, as stated.

I think it's the other way around: house rules are a subset of homebrew. With house rules, you're just tweaking what's there while leaving the root system pretty much intact. With homebrew, you're adding or removing or kitbashing or (re-)designing core elements of the root system and-or setting.

Not at all. House rules may have nothing to do with creating your own content. A casino can have house rules defining when and how a player is allowed to cash out, without touching in any way the rules of the games of chance that it offers. A DM may require that everyone roll for their stats, forbid any form of multiclassing and all feats, and mandate that players only choose human, elf, half-elf, dwarf, and halfling for races. None of that involves even the slightest creation of new content. Homebrew, by its very definition--brewing something up--is specifically the creation of new or rewritten content. Hence, homebrew is necessarily a rule specific to only those tables that use it--a rule specific to that "house" in the same way as one refers to a casino as "the house"--but a house rule need not in any way create or modify the actual content of the game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Furthermore, isn't it the players' prerogative to play their PC? I mean, seriously, where does the GM - in the structure of a typical RPG - get the authority to unilaterally tell a player how their PC acts?

Well, in theory I could imagine situations where this prerogative could be abused in a way that it would become a problem, but in practice I don't see this happening. And if such were to occur, it probably would be a time for a group talk about whether all participants actually want to play the same sort of a game.

 

[AK_Ambrian]

Whose judgement as to what makes sense is pre-eminent?

If a player chooses to have their PC do <this thing>, then it turns out that <whatever this thing is> is something that is part of the game world, and an expression of the PC's character. It's the GM's job to roll with that, just as it is the player's job to roll with the stuff that the GM presents.

We should be careful about both an over-commitment to consistency and the abuse of consistency.

That is: over-commitment to consistency means characters cannot grow or change. Growth requires that you become inconsistent with your past self. Character development is necessarily the breaking of at least one pattern in order to do something else. A new pattern may or may not form thereafter.

Point being: we need to take care with "consistency." It is easy to mistake it for being an unalloyed good...which it absolutely is not. Consistency has many virtues, and in many situations, it is broadly preferable to maintain or increase consistency rather than reduce it. But it is not universally preferable to maintain or increase it.

Here is an IRL example from a session that I DMed a while back.

The party was hired by townspeople to slay some brigands that had been causing trouble and were hiding out in a nearby forest.

The party consisted of a wizard, a rogue, a life domain cleric and a circle-of-the-moon druid. These are character classes that they themselves chose, I did not give them pre-gens or force them to choose these classes.

The townspeople informed the party that they had a fragile truce with the wood elves of the forest so could they please avoid doing anything that might worsen the relationship. The players say they understand.

Party heads into the forest. The rogue tells me they are "stealthily following the tracks of the brigands so we can hopefully sneak up on them".

I describe the forest to the players "It's a fine day, sunlight shines down through the leaves as you stealthily make your way through the trees. Occasionally you see some wild animals such as birds and deer".

The wizard player tells me he wants to shoot a fire bolt at the animals of the forest. I am confused. I tell him "They are just normal wild animals of the forest. They are not a threat to you". Also, the players have provisions and proper clothing so they don't need to hunt these animals.

The wizard player insists "I shoot a fire bolt at the birds". I ask the player "Why?" he says "Why not? Ha ha ha." I look at the druid player and ask her "Is your character okay with this?". She says "Whatever, no problem". I ask the life domain cleric "Is your character okay with this?" She says "I don't care, no problem". I ask the rogue "Is your character okay with this", answer "Sure, no problem".

Wizard rolls an attack, rolls well, hits one of the birds with a fire bolt. Rolls damage. Kills it. All the other animals noisily scatter and flee into the forest. The players at the table cheer. Lots of smiles, happy faces. They are having fun. Then they say "Okay, we keep going".

Now to me, these decisions are not consistent with who the players have said their characters are and also the quest they have been given.

A druid that is okay with people killing animals for no reason? A rogue who said they want to move through the forest stealthily but is okay with a party member shooting firebolts at random animals for no reason? And a life domain cleric, according to the players handbook, "focuses on the vibrant positive energy that sustains all life, healing the sick and wounded, caring for those in need". Plus the fact that such an action as the needless killing of a harmless animal would probably anger the wood elves if they learned of it.

These players are not role playing their characters in a way that is logical considering what their in-game objective is. And their choices are not consistent with the defining traits of the classes they have chosen.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

A druid that is okay with people killing animals for no reason? A rogue who said they want to move through the forest stealthily but is okay with a party member shooting firebolts at random animals for no reason? And a life domain cleric, according to the players handbook, "focuses on the vibrant positive energy that sustains all life, healing the sick and wounded, caring for those in need". Plus the fact that such an action as the needless killing of a harmless animal would probably anger the wood elves if they learned of it.

These players are not role playing their characters in a way that is logical considering what their in-game objective is. And their choices are not consistent with the defining traits of the classes they have chosen.

It seems to me that the actual issue is that you took their class concepts as being rigidly strong definitions of a very specific personality archetype, and they took them as loosely suggestive fluff to help guide the reader if needed but which could be ignored at any time if it didn't make sense for them. Assuming they thought about such descriptions at all; they may have never paid a thought to it, instead conceiving their characters in a completely different way without reference to that descriptive text.

There is no strict problem with your interpretation, to be clear. Some folks really like seeing these things as hard, bright lines. I don't, personally, and don't tend to be particularly enthusiastic if suddenly told that that is in fact what will be expected of me. For example, I love playing Paladins, but I don't like playing idiots or people who blindly follow. My Paladins are men of caution and discernment; they do not do things blithely and they care about their theology. It is a Captain America styled approach: "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." (Actual quote due to Charles Schurz, a Prussian-American revolutionary and civil servant.)

The only possible issue I can see here is the fact that they explicitly said they wanted to be stealthy, and then choosing to do something as flashy as shooting fire bolts at random birds and animals. Druids can be evil--and one would expect an evil druid to delight in cruelty. Life Clerics might only value the lives of people; after all, most of them will be omnivorous, so they're quite comfortable with butchering animals for food, and many in a medieval context would have not one care for killing animals for sport.

So, yes, I agree that they're giving you conflicting signals here--they want to be stealthy, but they also want to, shall we say, "FAAFO." But that is a conflict between an explicitly stated goal and a later explicitly stated action--it is not a conflict over whether they are "correctly" roleplaying the classes they chose to play.

My sense, from this, is that most of these characters are TN or NE in alignment (they don't care about needless death and suffering), and the Wizard may be CE. If this is a one-off, perhaps it can be written off as a peevish moment driven by some bad situation (crappy sleep, or acting out a revenge fantasy, or whatever), but if this sort of callous and reckless behavior is common, yet their alignment is stated to be in any way Lawful or Good, I would expect to have a thorough conversation with them about what they think those terms mean and whether we can continue running the game. (Of course, I don't run for Evil PCs to begin with, but I'm putting myself in a hypothetical DM's shoes rather than my own.)

 

[pemerton]

Here is an IRL example from a session that I DMed a while back.

The party was hired by townspeople to slay some brigands that had been causing trouble and were hiding out in a nearby forest.

The party consisted of a wizard, a rogue, a life domain cleric and a circle-of-the-moon druid. These are character classes that they themselves chose, I did not give them pre-gens or force them to choose these classes.

The townspeople informed the party that they had a fragile truce with the wood elves of the forest so could they please avoid doing anything that might worsen the relationship. The players say they understand.

Party heads into the forest. The rogue tells me they are "stealthily following the tracks of the brigands so we can hopefully sneak up on them".

I describe the forest to the players "It's a fine day, sunlight shines down through the leaves as you stealthily make your way through the trees. Occasionally you see some wild animals such as birds and deer".

The wizard player tells me he wants to shoot a fire bolt at the animals of the forest. I am confused. I tell him "They are just normal wild animals of the forest. They are not a threat to you". Also, the players have provisions and proper clothing so they don't need to hunt these animals.

The wizard player insists "I shoot a fire bolt at the birds". I ask the player "Why?" he says "Why not? Ha ha ha." I look at the druid player and ask her "Is your character okay with this?". She says "Whatever, no problem". I ask the life domain cleric "Is your character okay with this?" She says "I don't care, no problem". I ask the rogue "Is your character okay with this", answer "Sure, no problem".

Wizard rolls an attack, rolls well, hits one of the birds with a fire bolt. Rolls damage. Kills it. All the other animals noisily scatter and flee into the forest. The players at the table cheer. Lots of smiles, happy faces. They are having fun. Then they say "Okay, we keep going".

Now to me, these decisions are not consistent with who the players have said their characters are and also the quest they have been given.

A druid that is okay with people killing animals for no reason? A rogue who said they want to move through the forest stealthily but is okay with a party member shooting firebolts at random animals for no reason? And a life domain cleric, according to the players handbook, "focuses on the vibrant positive energy that sustains all life, healing the sick and wounded, caring for those in need". Plus the fact that such an action as the needless killing of a harmless animal would probably anger the wood elves if they learned of it.

These players are not role playing their characters in a way that is logical considering what their in-game objective is. And their choices are not consistent with the defining traits of the classes they have chosen.

Reading this example of play, it doesn't seem like an issue of playing PCs inconsistently. It seems like these players are not all that gripped by the situation as presented, and are looking for other ways to amuse themselves.

 

[OB1]

You're comparing a game of tabletop DnD to BG3? The GM really sets the pace of DnD.. BG3 doesn't have have a GM.
Say you're running Red Hand of Doom. If the party tries to rest after every encounter, they're going to fail to save... Pretty much everything. They'll probably die as soon as the army gets moving.

Even if you're not running with a doomsday clock, a world of DnD isn't a video game.. it's living around you. There are a few quests in act1 that you'll get bad results from if you rest too often, but those stop after act1 afaik (for some reason). But if the party tries to rest after every encounter in a game of DnD, there are so many tools in the GM's toolbox, including but not limited to communicating with your players, to help ensure that they're not trying to long rest after every fight.

If I misunderstood I apologize, but I'm surprised to see someone make a direct comparison like that between BG3 and an actual DnD game.

I made the comparison to highlight the fact that player decisions about risk/reward drive the decision to long rest. As you mentioned, there is rarely consequence for long resting as much as you want in BG3 (if you have the resources) and yet when I played, I constantly pushed an adventuring day until I was completely out of resources.

On the flip side of that, there are players who if they are playing Red Hand of Doom, would want to rest after every encounter regardless of the in world fiction and pacing developed by the DM.

Ultimately, because rests are a Player side decision (they are in control of their characters) it is players who decide the length of the adventuring day. DMs should remember that, know their players, and design adventures with that in mind. And that's why the DMG, IMO, got rid of the 'Adventuring Day' in favor of advice to DMs on pacing and tighter single encounter rules.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Reading this example of play, it doesn't seem like an issue of playing PCs inconsistently. It seems like these players are not all that gripped by the situation as presented, and are looking for other ways to amuse themselves.

Bored players be bored and acting up to annoy the DM would be my read.

 

[abirdcall]

Here is an IRL example from a session that I DMed a while back.

The party was hired by townspeople to slay some brigands that had been causing trouble and were hiding out in a nearby forest.

The party consisted of a wizard, a rogue, a life domain cleric and a circle-of-the-moon druid. These are character classes that they themselves chose, I did not give them pre-gens or force them to choose these classes.

The townspeople informed the party that they had a fragile truce with the wood elves of the forest so could they please avoid doing anything that might worsen the relationship. The players say they understand.

Party heads into the forest. The rogue tells me they are "stealthily following the tracks of the brigands so we can hopefully sneak up on them".

I describe the forest to the players "It's a fine day, sunlight shines down through the leaves as you stealthily make your way through the trees. Occasionally you see some wild animals such as birds and deer".

The wizard player tells me he wants to shoot a fire bolt at the animals of the forest. I am confused. I tell him "They are just normal wild animals of the forest. They are not a threat to you". Also, the players have provisions and proper clothing so they don't need to hunt these animals.

The wizard player insists "I shoot a fire bolt at the birds". I ask the player "Why?" he says "Why not? Ha ha ha." I look at the druid player and ask her "Is your character okay with this?". She says "Whatever, no problem". I ask the life domain cleric "Is your character okay with this?" She says "I don't care, no problem". I ask the rogue "Is your character okay with this", answer "Sure, no problem".

Wizard rolls an attack, rolls well, hits one of the birds with a fire bolt. Rolls damage. Kills it. All the other animals noisily scatter and flee into the forest. The players at the table cheer. Lots of smiles, happy faces. They are having fun. Then they say "Okay, we keep going".

Now to me, these decisions are not consistent with who the players have said their characters are and also the quest they have been given.

A druid that is okay with people killing animals for no reason? A rogue who said they want to move through the forest stealthily but is okay with a party member shooting firebolts at random animals for no reason? And a life domain cleric, according to the players handbook, "focuses on the vibrant positive energy that sustains all life, healing the sick and wounded, caring for those in need". Plus the fact that such an action as the needless killing of a harmless animal would probably anger the wood elves if they learned of it.

These players are not role playing their characters in a way that is logical considering what their in-game objective is. And their choices are not consistent with the defining traits of the classes they have chosen.

I'm sorry you had to deal with that.

I've learned at this point to just stop the game. I always have a session 0 so I would explain to the players that I maybe didn't communicate this well but this is the sort of game I am not interested in. If they weren't receptive to that then the game is over.

I get to have fun too.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Now to me, these decisions are not consistent with who the players have said their characters are and also the quest they have been given.

A druid that is okay with people killing animals for no reason? A rogue who said they want to move through the forest stealthily but is okay with a party member shooting firebolts at random animals for no reason? And a life domain cleric, according to the players handbook, "focuses on the vibrant positive energy that sustains all life, healing the sick and wounded, caring for those in need". Plus the fact that such an action as the needless killing of a harmless animal would probably anger the wood elves if they learned of it.

These players are not role playing their characters in a way that is logical considering what their in-game objective is. And their choices are not consistent with the defining traits of the classes they have chosen.

i would agree with your point more if it was not seemingly being based off just their class choices but rather reasonably established character traits but the way your post is written leaves this ambiguous, if say, it was well known that this rogue believes 'completing the job is the most important thing, do nothing to endanger that', or the druid or the cleric have previously done things that show they revere nature and life.

 

[abirdcall]

i would agree with your point more if it was not seemingly being based off just their class choices but rather reasonably established character traits but the way your post is written leaves this ambiguous, if say, it was well known that this rogue believes 'completing the job is the most important thing, do nothing to endanger that', or the druid or the cleric have previously done things that show they revere nature and life.

Well the wizard is chaotic evil and the rest of the party are neutral at best.

I think if they were honest with their characters the DM would have known that during character creation.