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.

 

[pemerton]

I would make it clear if you're randomly killing things or stealing for example and you get caught NPCs at the very least would react.

Do you walk down the street shooting cats, dogs, pigeons or punching people IRL?

D&D forests tend to have Elves, Druids, Fae and Treants in them.

What determines that a PC gets caught? Do you make a random "is there a Druid about" roll?

I think it's better to bring the Druid (or Elf, or whomever) onto the stage before the PC takes their shot. This creates a more interesting context for the player to settle on their action declaration, makes the stakes clear, and reduces the dynamic of GM punishment.

 

[Maxperson]

He said his character was a noble and a wizard. Didn't mention anything specific about his personality apart from he was an adventurer seeking fame and fortune.

Hmm. So nothing to go on. What I would do is ask them to give you a brief summary of their characters' personalities and motivations. Then let them know that in your game they would need to be consistent with those personalities and motivations.

You should still give them some leeway for game circumstances to change things. Even a nice, soft spoken individual can turn into a killer if a loved one is murdered for instance.

 

[Mort]

What determines that a PC gets caught? Do you make a random "is there a Druid about" roll?

I think it's better to bring the Druid (or Elf, or whomever) onto the stage before the PC takes their shot. This creates a more interesting context for the player to settle on their action declaration, makes the stakes clear, and reduces the dynamic of GM punishment.

In the original post with the example, the poster expressly states that the PCs understood they were not to anger/upset/annoy the wood elves. While the elves were not physically brought in, the stakes were set here, most players should know that blowing away an innocent bird for laughs would violate this.

Now, this might be a bit too tenuous for some groups, but it does qualify (as setting the stakes). From there it's not really DM punishment, it's a consequence from your decision knowing the stakes involved. Especially as long as the consequences are commensurate (for ex: the elves opinions of the PCs shift downward and they be less likely to offer aid if the PCs need it - or some such).

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm doing nothing of the sort. I have no idea what their character would or wouldn't do. We haven't been told anything about that. I will repeat for the third time.

"Okay, but again, class/subclass don't tell you those things. Background and personality do."

Since we don't know what the character would or would not do, I can't say whether the DM questioning it is the right thing to do or not. So far I've brought it up twice and the poster hasn't responded with any sort of clarification about how the players set up their PCs to act.

Why the player has their PC engaging in random chaosmonkey style behavior like shooting cantrips at set dressing forest creatures while the party is sneaking stealthily after some bandits* when the GM does not understand what the player is hoping to accomplish. Since the GM responsible for adjudicating the result of player actions & their effect on the world the GM is incapable of doing so when they are clueless about the goal.

Clearing up what goal a player is trying to accomplish dramatically outweighs why they are doing it UNLESS there is an effort to support "it's what my character would do"


*or whatever they were

 

[Lanefan]

I've never seen this, either. A player who is playing his PC that way is disrupting the game, though, and the solution is for the DM to have a one on one conversation with the players outside of the game. If the player continues to be disruptive, then he is one of those rare problem players and should be removed from the game.

For my part, had I been the DM here I'd have just run with it. There would have been an "Are you sure?" moment after asking the others - particularly the Druid - if they were cool with the Wizard's actions, then consequences may have followed later from the Druid's deity...if said deity was paying attention at the time.

 

[Maxperson]

For my part, had I been the DM here I'd have just run with it. There would have been an "Are you sure?" moment after asking the others - particularly the Druid - if they were cool with the Wizard's actions, then consequences may have followed later from the Druid's deity...if said deity was paying attention at the time.

I'm not talking about the individual act. I'm talking about understanding the PCs motivations so you know whether the act is consistent with the PCs personality or whether the player is being a disruptive jerk. You handle those situations differently.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not really. You can't make the players have fun playing your game any more than they can make you have fun doing what they want. No game is going to be fun if the DM doesn't want to run it.

Okay so...just so we're clear on this...

The person with all of the power...who calls all of the shots...who can end the game at any time and unilaterally eject anyone from the group they like...

They are going to have just as difficult a time having fun as the people completely dependent on their every word?

Even the very few "my way or the highway" DMs, though, have said that they don't just use that authority as a hammer to bash the players/PCs with. They just maintain that if they do decide a change is necessary, don't argue with them over it, it's happening anyway and if you don't like it there are other game out there.

That emphatically does not match my experience of speaking with people on this forum. You, in fact, are one of the specific people I would mention who have explicitly and repeatedly rejected this--that there are not and cannot be ANY limitations whatsoever upon DM power, not even social decorum or respect for others. Which....that's exactly what "use that authority as a hammer to bash the players/PCs with" enables.

 

[Zardnaar]

Okay so...just so we're clear on this...

The person with all of the power...who calls all of the shots...who can end the game at any time and unilaterally eject anyone from the group they like...

They are going to have just as difficult a time having fun as the people completely dependent on their every word?


That emphatically does not match my experience of speaking with people on this forum. You, in fact, are one of the specific people I would mention who have explicitly and repeatedly rejected this--that there are not and cannot be ANY limitations whatsoever upon DM power, not even social decorum or respect for others. Which....that's exactly what "use that authority as a hammer to bash the players/PCs with" enables.

Limitation on DM power is social contract.
If you're a tyrant you won't have any players.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay so...just so we're clear on this...

The person with all of the power...who calls all of the shots...who can end the game at any time and unilaterally eject anyone from the group they like...

They are going to have just as difficult a time having fun as the people completely dependent on their every word?

The DM may get the final say in their campaign, traditionally speaking, but I would call any DM would didn't listen to his players or care at all about what they want out of the game a bad one. That being said, they need to have fun too.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The DM may get the final say in their campaign, traditionally speaking, but I would call any DM would didn't listen to his players or care at all about what they want out of the game a bad one. That being said, they need to have fun too.

So, what exactly is the difference between this, where the DM (in order to be a good one) must listen to their players and care about what they want out of the game...and what I've spoken of over and over and over again on this forum, which is that stuff is achieved through dialogue and consensus; that it requires participants both being expected to give respect to others, and fully expecting that others will give them respect too; that everyone actually needs to be participating in good faith, which means hearing out what others have to say (regardless of who is listening), etc.?

Because this is nothing at all like the "absolute power", the "unilateral authority", and on, and on, and on that people have so stridently insisted upon every. single. time. we have this kind of discussion, never being willing to accept even the tiniest deviation therefrom. It sounds pretty much exactly like expecting that the participants will be adults who behave respectfully to one another, and that anyone who behaves disrespectfully--including the DM--is in the wrong.